Sherlock Holmes locking down his "cool" factor.

At first, it seemed like Benedict Cumberbatch was a fluke.

I mean, I started loving Sherlock Holmes at a fairly young age. But I wasn't a cool kid, and neither was Sherlock Holmes. He was the old guy on the old black-and-white Sunday afternoon movies. Yeah, he was pretty cool to me. But to the rest of the world? Sure didn't seem like he was a hip-and-happenin' sort of celeb to be a fan of.

It may be a little hard to admit, but back in the seventies and eighties Sherlockians were kind of like Trekkies who came decades too late to their chosen hobby. Most were older folks finally getting time to delve into something they always had loved. Sherlocking was definitely not the past-time of the cool kids. More of a nostalgia deal, without even the cache of steampunk. Oh, that Victorian era!

And then came the Cumberbatch revolution.

Benedict and Martin and clever scripts and young fans en masse. The coolness thermometer was starting to register levels we hadn't seen in . . . whole lifetimes. A fad? A blip? Given the rise in all of the former "nerd" culture tides, it was starting to seem like ol' Sherlock Holmes was going places he hadn't been since the original Strand Magazines.

But could he hang on to cool?

Enter Eurus Holmes, a shocking plunge into Sherlock-siblinghood, whose advent was noticeably blackened by it coming in at the seemingly-scheduled time for Johnlock's big moment. I am going to go out on a limb here and posit that Eurus, and all her plotlines, might have been better received had she been given a story removed from all the series baggage built up prior to her appearance.

Eurus, stepping back from it all a bit, is actually pretty cool.

And now we hear that Sherlock is getting a new sister, one without BBC Sherlock's series baggage, to be played by Stranger Things wunderkind Millie Bobby Brown, coolest character in one of the coolest TV series out of the near five hundred scripted shows made this year. Her name is going to be Enola Holmes, based on a young adult mystery series.

Not sure why Sherlock's sisters need "E" names . . . Elsie Patrick is suddenly looking better as a sibling than Violet Hunter . . . but if we get an Esther, an Electra, an Edwina, and an Eleanor in pastiche-land soon, we may have to dig deeper. But in any case, it's looking like Sherlock Holmes's current run of good fortune will continue.

And that's pretty cool, no matter what letter you put in front of it.