Playing games with Sherlock.

Sherlockians have always been a fun crowd. Sure, we have a few "oh, this is seriously scholarly business" sorts who get their heads too far up their asses to be truly fun on occasion, but over all? It's been fun, fun, fun. From Ronald Knox to John Bennett Shaw, from Stout's declaration that Watson was a woman to Holmes Peak expedition medals, there's been a lot of good fun to be had. Which is why it's grand to see the folks behind BBC Sherlock just playing with the fans.

Reading the Twitter feed this morning was like going over the messages of some wacky intelligence organization trying to stop a plot by a happy sort of terrorist. Stakeouts were being set up at key locations. Specific communication points were closely monitored for the slightest change. Pigeons and trucks of dirt were reported in as eager eyes watched for any sign of what was coming.

Eventually, as anyone with a Twitter feed knows by now, a hearse rolled up at St. Bart's with "SHERLOCK 01 01 14" spelled out in flowers. The perfect touch for a returning suitor, showing up with flowers for those whose love they enjoy. And at St. Bart's hospital . . . the one location that has been in the hearts of Sherlockians as long as there have been Sherlockians.

The crew behind BBC Sherlock's promotion do these things because they have a TV show to build excitement over, yes, but they also do it because they know they have fans out there who will get excited and play these games with them. And have fun doing it.

A few creaky old Sherlockians holdouts can harrumph and go, "Well, they're not going to show up at our meetings!" all they want, but if it walks like a Sherlockian and talks like a Sherlockian and has fun like a Sherlockian, well . . . guess what? Anyone rapturously fanatical about Sherlock Holmes to get out on a chilly London street and watch for an empty hearse is a lot more Sherlockian in my book than any Mr. Same-old-same-old who demands others do exactly what he does to be called "Sherlockian."

Congratulations and thanks to everyone involved in both sides of our latest little Sherlock event. The world needs all the fun it can get, especially when it involves our friend Mr. Sherlock Holmes.

Without understanding a word.

Happy Wepnok Xonmc to you!

Not sure, but I think those words, in approximated Western characters, say "Sherlock Holmes."

With the advent of a new Russian TV series featuring Sherlock Holmes, along with the immediacy of the internet, I'm finding myself in a very new position this week: watching foreign video without subtitles or dubbing. Long-reigning Sherlockian video queen Jennie Paton sent the link along, and it's been quite a puzzling experience. Sherlock Holmes has always been about words for us, if you think about it, and suddenly being deprived of any words at all is quite strange.

You find yourself going, "I think this is The Sign of the Four . . . but it's obviously not."

I like the look of the series, thought the Sherlock Holmes is another one of our recent "Sherlocks who don't look like Sherlock." The Watson is very good, but Watson has always been a bit easier to capture on film. His everyman qualities give him a lot more room for variation. And this new Russian Holmes brings up a very interesting point: the Russians seemed to think a Holmes set in his actual period would be worthwhile.

Current British Holmes . . . set in the modern day.
Current American Holmes . . . set in the modern day.
Current Russian Holmes . . . set in the Victorian era.

But the British had the Jeremy Brett series in living memory, so one could understand them bumping it up in time. And America really doesn't do period television on major networks unless that period is  the future, now that the Western is all but gone. But one still has to give kudos to the Russians for going for it.

As an episode of Wepnok Xonmc plays on, one starts making conclusions like, "Hey, they're talking about 'Morstan' and 'Small'  . . .  this is The Sign of the Four. Except Watson seems to have been in the Four or something." And it sure seems like something cool is happening. But words! I need words!

I'm trying to think if I've ever seen Sherlock Holmes regularly wearing glasses before. Or Mrs. Hudson with a level of frizzy hair that American TV would never allow in a sane person. And there are those old ladies who I've heard now live at Baker Street, as apparent comic relief. Without any words to frame what's going on, one finds one's self focusing on odd little details, trying to make observations like Sherlock Holmes himself . . . which adds an unintended Sherlockian element to the whole affair.

Still, I can't really see myself following the whole series until someone releases it with English subtitles or dubbing. (Pity Cumberbatch and Freeman are so booked-up these days -- having them dub it would be kind of fun. Having Miller and Liu dub it would be even more fun, but poor Watson doesn't need to be made more of a laughingstock than Nigel Bruce ever was with a girlish voice.)

So for now, I'll just say Happy Wepnok Xonmc to you in my clueless American fashion, and go back to anticipating the return of the B.C. period of Sherlockian video and the M.F. that accompanies it. Because even though those initials aren't words, at least I understand what they mean.

A little holiday crooning.

With turkey day a'coming, I've had Bing Crosby running through my head all day. The good Carter's annual tradition of watching Holiday Inn just has turned me into a Pavlovian jukebox around this time, and Bing's rendition of "I've Got Plenty to Be Thankful for" plays on and on. But, as usual, I find myself changing the words as the day progresses. This year, a particular theme quickly became apparent, and so, I wrote out what follows for your Thanksgiving entertainment.

Maybe someday I'll turn into a YouTube performer and do such things live . . . but for now, I'll just let the Bingle do the job in your imagination.

Maestro, if you please  . . .

*******************************

I've got Sherlock to be thankful for!
I haven't got . . . a son named Wat
To run with on the moor . . .
Still, I've got Sherlock to be thankful for.

I've got Sherlock to be thankful for!
No rare Beeton's, no grand meetin's,
No local fine bookstore . . .
Still, I've got Sherlock to be thankful for.

I've got eyes to watch with . . . breath to gasp with . . .
Ducts to tear with, voice to cheer with . . .
Telly to adore.

Why is Elementary such a bore?
On PBS, says in the press,
We'll soon get some more.
Oh, I've got Sherlock to be thankful for!

(And I do.)

The Day of the Watson.

Suppose there was this doctor who went on all these adventures with his companion. And suppose that sometimes, because those adventures were very dangerous, which all of the most exciting adventures are, that doctor became mortally wounded. And then our doctor went on having adventures anyway, but he was just a little different from what he was before.

That story might be familiar to you, especially if you're celebrating the very special holiday that is today. How long has Sherlock Holmes been around now? One hundred and twenty-six years? Well, today, for many folks, it's what 1937 was to Sherlock Holmes fans. And in honor of that holiday, I'm going to propose a little theory . . . a theory about our doctor.

The very first book in which we hear of Sherlock Holmes begins thusly: "Part 1, BEING A REPRINT FROM THE REMINISCENCES OF JOHN H. WATSON, M.D., LATE OF THE ARMY MEDICAL DEPARTMENT." (This was, of course, long before we would see those all-caps words as being yelled at us.) In the page and a half that follows, we get as much clear biographical data about Dr. John H. Watson as we will ever get about him, as he quickly turns his attention to Mr. Sherlock Holmes and just quits writing about himself as the center of his biography.

The last time we see Watson, decades later in "His Last Bow," he is a thickset chauffeur who doesn't seem to be writing up the case as he once did. He speaks of feeling as though it were twenty years before, which would be 1897, when Holmes asks how the years have used him. And Holmes comments that he hears Watson will be joining them with his old service, with no specific reference to who "them" is, or what that service is. We make patriotic assumptions, of course, but do we know anything for certain about Watson from that account? Is his first name even mentioned?

No. Our Watson becomes more and more vague to us during his time with Sherlock Holmes. He starts with mention of a specific military service. He soon after becomes engaged to a very specific woman. But past that? We are more and more left to speculate on if he was still married, who he was married to, and what even his physical limitations are. Does he have a limp? Or can he run as fast as anyone?

Their was a movie comedy back in 1988 that proposed a very interesting theory: that Dr. Watson actually solved all the crimes and that Sherlock Holmes was just an actor hired to fill a role Watson had already created with his semi-autobiographical accounts. Today, just because of what day it is, I'd like to turn that theory on its head.

What if Sherlock Holmes didn't just write a couple of the sixty stories we have of him, but almost all of them after the first Watson died? Or more plausible still, what if Holmes took what handwritten reminiscences he had from that first Watson to a struggling young writer named Doyle and commissioned him to make them publishable as a memorial to his friend the Afghan veteran. And then they worked out an arrangement wherein Doyle just kept writing up Holmes's cases, no matter who was serving as Sherlock Holmes's Watson du jour. 

What if Sherlock Holmes did have a "Watson of the day" as his companion? Some leaving Holmes's side tragically, via poison dart, bullet, or fumes of burnt radix pedis diaboli. Some leaving voluntarily, and perhaps rejoining Holmes later, as with the "His Last Bow" Watson. They all retained the title "Watson," whether their first name was John, James, or Henry, as a tribute to that very first Watson, who took lodgings with Sherlock Holmes after the ravages of war had left him a physical wreck.

So, for today, just suppose with me a bit.

Suppose there was this doctor who went on all these adventures with his companion. And suppose that sometimes, because those adventures were very dangerous, which all of the most exciting adventures are, that doctor became mortally wounded. And then our doctor went on having adventures anyway, but he was just a little different from what he was before.

Except they didn't call him "doctor." They called him "Watson."

Living in the big, big world.

The Sherlockian world is bigger today than it has ever been. A new Russian Sherlock Holmes TV show. A leading online retailer listing 23,940 separate items having to do with Sherlock Holmes, with 14,000 being books (as opposed to 916 in movies and television, and 139 in video games). The ability to set up a personal Sherlock Holmes news feed that pulls up dozens of stories at an average of two a day. There is so much to see, so much that the idea of one man cataloging all existing Sherlockiana like Ronald B. DeWaal did back in the 1970s is ludicrous.

Yes, in the early seventies, one man armed with index cards and a typewriter, could make a fair attempt at cataloguing everything that had to do with Sherlock Holmes in the world. He didn't get it all, sure. There were a lot of foreign editions nobody in the English-speaking world even knew about back then, and other odds and ends that got missed. But I'd wager DeWaal got most of it.

These days, though? Like I said, none of us is even going to attempt to collect it all, much less document it all. The world has changed, no one would dispute that. And it's big. So very, very big. And where does it leave us?

Well, here's the challenge we're still faced with: interpreting our view of that giant mass of Sherlockiana.

It's kind of like a Rorschach test, really. There is so much Sherlockiana out there that you can pretty much justify a lot of different interpretations of the world as we know it. Based on the few facts I began this blog with, one could say that more people are reading Sherlock Holmes than experiencing him in any other medium . . . which would, of course, be a faulty interpretation, ignoring box office and TV ratings. One might surmise that Sherlock Holmes is as popular in Russia as he is in England or America, two other countries with current TV series running. Again, probably not the most solid deduction. Or that, if news feeds exist, we are better informed of Sherlockian happenings than ever before. (I'd say Peter Blau's Scuttlebutt from the Spermaceti Press still has Google beat there.) But one could still try to justify any of those slightly faulty conclusions.

When faced with as much data as the current Sherlockian is every day, it's tempting to limit the range of our view just to make it easier to process. But in doing so, we do make it easy to theorize without having all the facts.

Add to that the real temptation, as one grows older, to start seeing the end of life as we know it in everything, and one can really get into trouble. It's not a wrong perception -- life as any one human knew it is always ending. The content of each of our lives is a unique and time-sensitive thing. But future generations somehow keep the world going on, not only surviving, but thriving, and enjoying things previous men and women didn't have a chance at . . . things that more than make up for the past things that went away.

The Sherlockians of today have opportunities we didn't even dream of just twenty years ago. And it's already altering their interactions with Sherlock Holmes and Sherlockian culture. In twenty more years, who knows what it will all look like? (Well, probably with a brand new actor playing Sherlock Holmes with their elders going, "He's no Benedict Cumberbatch!" That's been going on since William Gillette, and will keep going on as long as there are successful Holmes interpretations.) The Sherlockian world is undoubtedly going to be bigger that ever, as it snowballs on, adding new bits to the old with each passing year.

And to see it all, we have to just keep looking, and looking with eyes open to the far and the wide -- an activity at which we can never stop, and why would we want to?

It's a big, big Sherlockian world out there. And getting bigger all the time. Yay.

Is Watson obsolete?

I like John H. Watson. I really do.

But I started watching Dexter, finally. You know, the show about the serial killer who kills serial killers? Kind of like a detective's detective, in a way. Dexter Morgan, the unusual anti-hero of the show, narrates the show himself. He's a psychopath, sure. He's isolated from humanity, unable to connect with other people, and yet he make an engaging storyteller for an hour of TV drama.

He reminds me of Michael Westen from Burn Notice, another master of his trade -- the spy game, who narrates his own televised story as well.

And if those two very disparate personalities can narrate their own television shows without a Watson, well, why couldn't Sherlock Holmes? He's a consummate professional, like Westen. And you certainly can't claim his personality is too far from normal to do it if the psychopathic Dexter is doing it.

And if Sherlock Holmes was narrating his own television show, the writers would have to actually be smart enough to write smart. The great thing about Sherlock Holmes when Conan Doyle first wrote him up was that his methods did not seem like something he was getting away with simply because he was a storybook character. He did things that were very possible, if you could just think of them yourself. Having him explain his tricks to the viewer would put the viewer in the place of Dr. Watson, a position that most of us would love to be in.

Yes, we might miss the friendship between Sherlock Holmes and John H. Watson, but I'm sure there would be someone in the show for him to interact with. Scotland Yard is always there. Or Mycroft . . . the real, smarter-than-Sherlock Mycroft . . . has been a character we've wanted more of for a very long time.

I actually think an excellent television show could be made these days without Dr. Watson's chronicler and room-mate accompaniment. A truly daring and innovative show might try that one of these days, when faced with the possibility of being just-another-modern-day-Holmes.

And when things get slow in the second or third season . . . then you bring in a wounded warrior kicker of ass named John H. Watson, M.D. Which would just be all the more fun!

Because even the best Sherlock Holmes creators ever couldn't ignore Watson forever . . . .

Girls and guns.

Elementary's odd choice of head-thwacking singlestick has been on my mind of late. The impractical side of martial arts in an age of handguns comes on strong with that one, especially when the Holmes-imitator captaining Elementary seems to insist his Watson needs to know it above all other self-defense measures. Because when one thinks of Dr. Watson and self-defense, one usually thinks guns.

Dr. Watson has packed heat since the start.

"I have my old service revolver and a few cartridges," Watson offers in A Study in Scarlet when Holmes lets him know a killer might be coming to their place. He doesn't get to use it in that tale, but when BBC's Sherlock updated it as "A Study in Pink," the good doctor definitely showed he was more than able with a gun.

When CBS created Elementary, much ado was made about their shiny, new female Watson, and as much as I've criticized their Holmes for not being Sherlock Holmes, I've always left Joan Watson alone. The sexism charges were flying fast and furious back at the show's start at even a hint of displeasure from critics regarding Joan Watson. And I do like Lucy Liu a lot. Just the chance to see a favorite actor at work like that will always get a few free passes. 

But this goofy singlestick thing just makes Joan Watson's lack of a gun stick out all the more. And one has to wonder if she doesn't get to use a gun just because she's a girl.

While the choice of a female Watson might be all non-sexist, putting her in short skirts and not letting her be armed in a role that puts her in constant contact with murderers is sexism in the extreme. And if one is going to have a female Watson, for Doyle's sake, let her be freakin' Watson.

Watson is the solid friend at Holmes's back. He or she is everything a consulting detective needs in a partner. Including someone who can deal with dangerous men in a way other than smashing some porcelain over their head, in that stereotypically girly self-defense ploy. And Watson gets to use a gun.

Now, I'm not talking pro-gun or anti-gun here for society as a whole. Just Dr. Watson. A classic character who's been around for a very long time. What's a little amusing is that our modern British Watson is a gun guy in a country with gun control, while the modern American Watson is non-gun in what seems a pretty gun-loving country. One would think it would be the other way around . . . except for that girl thing.

Is this American Watson not getting to shoot people just because she's a girl?  Adding that factor to her complete failure as a medical professional, her total income dependence on the Holmes family, and the possibly-too-short-for-her-age skirts (though I may just be an old fuddy-duddy on that one, if the use of the term "fuddy-duddy" hasn't already closed that case), it would seem like changing Watson so much along with the sex change is the most sexist route of all.