Okay, it's blasphemy time.
Today saw the release of the second part of Sherlock & Co.'s podcast adaptation of "The Gloria Scott," and I'll say it plain: This new "Gloria Scott" is better than the original. Here and now, in 2024 where we all live, Joel Emery has written a better version of the tale than Conan Doyle.
And I will argue that point with anyone who thinks straight word-for-word adaptations of tales written for the denizens of the 1800s is what we all need now.
Yes, Doyle does get credit for the frame Emery hung his version upon, and the original is worth thinking about. But Joel Emery plainly did spend some time thinking about Doyle's "Gloria Scott," and what it would mean for the people in that story to be in the situation they're in. He took that, put it into modern words and a modern frame to best given a modern listener a feeling for what those events would bring forth in a person.
In the original tale, we are told how Victor Trevor was heart-broken and left England after the case was solved, but it's a postscript we don't feel. Sherlock Holmes is telling a story long after it happened, and it doesn't hit nearly as hard. Bringing "The Gloria Scott" not only to the modern day, but letting us listen to Holmes and Watson having to deal with the Trevor family in person puts us in touch with the drama in a way the original can't. Where the original is Watson sitting cozily in Baker Street while Holmes tells him a tale of his college vacation, we now get to listen in as the events unfold.
We now get a chance to really hate Hunter (the renamed Hudson) and feel badly for Trevor up close and personal before the twist hits and we find why James Armitage became a new man and never told his son about his past life. And this time, up close and personal, you can almost start to sympathize with the tale's Hudson when the truth comes out.
I don't think I was ever affected by the original "Gloria Scott" as much as I was by Joel Emery's modern adaptation. And while a Sherlock Holmes fan is always going to have a soft spot for Holmes's original detective origin story, having listened to why people think "Veiled Lodger" is a bad story this past weekend, I suddenly realized just how much "Gloria Scott" and "Veiled Lodger" are alike: More about somebody telling a story from the past than an actual investigation. Sure, there's that code bit, but how much investigation is Holmes looking at a piece of paper and in the next paragraph, going "Oh, it's really this." The code is just the woman in the mask to dress up the tale of a tale being told.
It's impossible for any human being to experience both Conan Doyle's "Gloria Scott" and Joel Emery's version for their first "Gloria Scott" to compare reactions. And you're probably going to find either one more interesting once if you enjoyed whichever one you got to first, unless a particular detail triggers your displeasure. A fan of the podcast might find Victorian prose a bit dull. A fan of the original story might get irritated listening to John and Marianna shopping. But if you're somewhere in the middle, and can enjoy both . . . well, go, you!
But it's 2024 and we are citizens of the twenty-first century, getting further and further away from that audience that the "The Gloria Scott" was written for with each passing year. An update that makes a story of our favorite detective resonate even harder with us right here and right now is something special.
So this week, I will be celebrating that something special. You have to take such moments when you find them.
Meh.
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