It's Elementary all the way as season six begins.

Returning to CBS's Elementary for the start of season six was . . .  [Prepare for spoilers, of course. this is as much recap as review.]

It began on a coroner's autopsy table. Because where else do you go when your mother's ghost has tried setting your house on fire? It seems like MRI results take a lot longer in New York than Peoria, as tonight's returning Elementary found its hero waiting for them at the coroner's office instead of more medical facilities. But apparently he has been having a lot more tests than that.

A scene change to a sex tape and a kill room, and we're off to the credits.

Joan Watson is setting appointments to see clients in the police station conference room, which seems good enough for discussing client issues, but not her partner's medical condition. That happens back in their NYC brownstone home, where the combination of a concussion with all the boxing, drugs, etc., that this Sherlock has done to his head over the years, are apparently going to cause his mental faculties both to decline and have some other symptoms that aren't quite great for the detective business. Admitting all of this to Joan, though, gets him that sweet long hug that was seen in the preview, followed by this peach of a line:

"My personality hasn't changed, Watson."

It's really nice to see some warmth between this pair, as so much of the series has seemed about setting them on separate paths. But for those of us who might not have seen Jonny Lee Miller's character as a viable Sherlock before, brain damage certainly isn't raising his stock. As always, Gregson and Watson seem to do as much investigating as their Holmes does. And it's looking like they're going to need to, as the medical condition plotline goes on.

Jonny Lee Miller does a fine job portraying a man about to lose his life's calling due to medical issues. The frustration, the fear, the sorrow. But he pulls it together for some more sex tape hijinks that will break the case.

It's plain that Elementary has reached a certain comfort zone for its sixth season. Its Sherlock is hitting his recovery support group and being a lot less of a dick to Joan. At the end of it all, it's all about the main character starting another form of recovery -- this time from brain trauma instead of addiction. It also sets up a new arch-nemesis whom this Sherlock is unknowingly taking on as a friend, which is very reminiscent of the unknowing relationship with Moriarty that set this whole series in motion to begin with.

It's not ACD. It's not Sherlock. But it also looks like Elementary is remaining true to its fans in what may be its final season. Will there be any surprises along the next twenty-some episodes?

We have all summer to find out.

More than a fan? Whatever.

In this week's marginally Sherlockian activities was a certain film with Benedict Cumberbatch doing his American accent and gesturing a lot. I won't get into that in depth here, but one portion of the whole experience that touched most upon Sherlockian life was a gift I got from a buddy of mine for going to the movie.

The "MORE THAN A FAN" Shirt

The back of the shirt listed the ten years of movies leading up to the current one, in a design patterned after a rock concert tour shirt. But on the front? "MORE THAN A FAN."

It made me laugh, seeing that phrase coming up as a point of pride outside of our little Sherlockian world. Only a fan would wear such a shirt. And only a fan would care that they were "more than a fan." And what the hell does that even mean?

Did you create the thing that you're supposedly not a fan of? That's about the only way I could see that you'd be more than a fan. And I'm sure creators would just wear shirts that said "I CREATED THIS! ME!" if they felt the urge.

So why the need not to be see as "merely a fan?" Why the need to differentiate between terms like "Sherlockian" and "Sherlock Holmes fan?"

Pondering this question once again in looking at it happening in a much more mainstream fandom than out own, one answer became apparent. Why consider yourself more than a fan?

Simple. Because fans are the horde. The masses of humanity. The ordinary folk who merely like something a lot. They're not the unique and rare individual who has done all that [insert name of differentiating fan here] has done. We're not the zombies who just walk toward the shiny object, we're the surviving humans who are much more complex than that, right?

It would be quite a helpful thing if we could celebrate our own uniqueness without creating straw men armies of those who aren't us, just to feed our egos when their ego-bellies are a-rumbling. The "fans" that we aren't, having self-identified as "aficionados," "cognoscente," or some other title that really should be bestowed by an outside agency. And what is any expert in a given field, not born so by natural talent, but a fan of that field?

What it really comes down to is this. You can be a Sherlockian, a Sherlock Holmes fan, a Holmesian, a Sherloxpert, a Arthority Conascente Doyloctopus, or whatever you want to identify as, in order to deal with your personal issues. Do some identity self-care, that's cool. But it's just bad manners to insist that the rest of the world agree with the rules of your bubble, and a bit obnoxious to walk around with it in giant letters on a t-shirt. (You can certainly sleep in it though -- this is a pretty comfy shirt. I can soak in how much I am "MORE THAN A FAN" all night long, then be a civil fan in the daylight hours.)

So celebrate your own uniqueness in whatever way you see fit, while letting others do likewise. Even if they're wearing a bow-tie, which is sure a lot more freak-flag fanboy than t-shirts ever were. There's nothing wrong with bow-ties, nothing at all. They're fine.  Just fine. Bow-ties. Yep. Fine.

Just fine. No judgement. See, I own this obnoxious t-shirt, what do I know about fashion?

Or ending blog-posts while biting my tongue. Bow-ties. Huh.

The return of damaged Sherlock

With CBS's Elementary returning on Monday night for the start of a sixth season, it's a good time to step back and review what this show is about. Set that ACD Canon aside for a moment, because as any good Elementarian knows, we're heading back into deepest, darkest AU terrain.

In the alternate Sherlock universe of Elementary, you may recall, we encounter a modern day incarnation of Sherlock Holmes after what might be seen as a parallel to the "great hiatus." He's been a consulting detective working with Scotland Yard, and has run into the threads of Moriarty's criminal web. Yet in this world, Moriarty isn't a "Final Problem" and done. No. Moriarty wins.

Moriarty has killed Sherlock's lover, he has sunken into heroin addiction seriously enough to have his father send him for rehab in the United States, and when Sherlock leaves rehab, his father hires the daughter of Mary Watson, ex-surgeon Joan, to be Sherlock's companion and keep him off the drugs.

The five seasons that follow weaved a tapestry of student-teacher relationships, drug dependency issues, autism spectrum notes, male family member drama, and a little bit of Sheriarty and Joancroft. What seemed an odd departure from Sherlockian norms in its first season now has a comfortable, not-all-that-remarkable feel to it, unless you count its conservatively heterosexual bent. And going into season six, Elementary's troubled Sherlock seems to have some manner of brain damage to deal with, one of those odd TV-medical issues that makes you hallucinate people to talk to. He and Joan were fighting a lot at the end of last season, but the preview of this year's opener has a very nice hugging scene in it, so it appears all that is water under that bridge you can see from Sherlock's brownstone roof.

Elementary is very much an alternate universe for those who like weekly police procedurals with a strong dose of keeping Sherlock Holmes humbled, almost an antithesis to the more grandiose Sherlock Holmes of a certain other series. Nobody is probably going to get too riled up about season six and declare that their headcanon stopped after season two. After almost six years and a wee bit of a hiatus of its own, Elementary has found its place in this weird and wacky Sherlockian world of 2018, maybe not in the forefront of Sherlockian fandom, but a familiar pillow on the larger couch for an evening of settling in.

Who knows, an Elementary alum might even make it to the January BSI dinner one of these days . . . being the primary Sherlock of New York City, the show would seem only appropriate for a presence at the primary Sherlock Holmes club of New York. But that's for some future day. For now, it's back to a full season of Elementary on weird old CBS.

Life without Sherlock Holmes

April has been a very strange month in Sherlock Peoria land.

As much written-about here, there was a period of totally Sherlockian living for a while, days as a Sherlock Holmes fan among Sherlock Holmes fans. But as the oft-theorized karmic balance would seem to have it, those days had to be balanced with a similar period of absolutely zero Sherlocks.

Maybe one sighting of a "Baskerville Apartments" pokestop. Maybe a couple of smart-alec text messages from a co-worker with lines like "Mariah says come find us, Sherlock!" But those hardly count.

And the week is only half over, with obligations both professional and social holding back the river of Holmes that Sherlockian synapses keep bringing to the edge of output. One's audio Dorian Gray portrait, so to speak, starts to show some very strange features. (And if that statement is overly cryptic, well . . . like I said there are things being held back . . . the sort of things being held back that start turning a bit off.) When the usual things don't get to fall into their usual places, whatever remains, however improbable, must be unusual.

And perhaps in that realm of Sherlockiana where few really care to go.

But that's what happens when one gets pulled from the normal paths for a time. Eventually things get back to normal, but when they do, a little of the abnormal comes back with them.

So lets see what comes. Something to do with Sherlock Holmes, I suspect.

An open door to the outside world

Listening to the "Back Row Super Show" podcast this morning, as the topic was last weekend's 221B Con. It's not a Sherlock Holmes based podcast, and that's what makes it a really fascinating listen: Non-Sherlockians getting to brush up against the Sherlockian world.

The first critique that most Sherlockians of a traditional bent have of 221B Con is that the con is not 100% Sherlock Holmes, or that the part that is 100% Sherlock Holmes is not 100% Conan Doyle. And the guys from Back Row Super Show, not being Sherlockians, picked the "Stephen Universe" panel for their first official hour of the con. (It's a cartoon about a boy who lives with magical beings, if you're wondering.) So they make excellent "test subjects" for looking at non-Sherlockians wandering into my favorite Sherlockian event. And a lot of non-Sherlockians wander into 221B Con, as Atlanta is a great place to sample cons.

As a person who has sampled cons for fandoms I'm not a part of, I recommend the practice. You discover that it isn't just Sherlockians who are at their best when they're in their element, and there's always something fun and fascinating to learn from taking such a plunge with an open mind.

The second panel the Back Row Super Show boys wandered into was the mysterious "ABO" panel, which they wander into blind, as I have in the past, and they actually find out what "Johnlock" is for the first time. Their reaction is kind of wonderful, as they are definitely not the demographic that ABO tends to go for. (In other words, they're boys.) But just as I did, they recognize a warm and welcoming group who enjoys explaining their Sherlockian specialty to others.

The 221B Con experiences of the Back Row Super Show guys provides a nice "alternate universe of attendance" for me, for as I've previously written, no single human can experience all of 221B Con's "five tracks at a time" programming. I wouldn't recommend their chat it to a hardcore Doyle Sherlockian, as they do like to pick the non-Sherlockian options in the schedule to discuss along with the Sherlockian, but they do really capture the feeling of the con.

A "Wakanda Forever" panel one hour, then a "Sherlock Holmes in Anime" panel next, and you get to hear how two non-Sherlockians enjoy Sherlockian content that intersects with their own interests.

One of them wanders into the "Drug Use During The Victorian Era" panel, as I did, and gets very into the topic on the podcast, talking about what he learned listening to Lyndsay Faye and Chris Zordan talk about Sherlock Holmes and drug use. It winds up being his favorite panel of the con, and the mix of education and entertainment that Lyndsay and Chris put together gets great reviews.

Playing the game "Sherlock Holmes and Moriarty's Web," eating out by the food truck and falling into conversation with strangers, "Watsons Through Time," the costume exhibition, Potterlock, Flavortown, karaoke with con familiars . . . it's a long podcast, but they cover a goodly chunk of the con.

As I listened to Back Row Super Show's episode on 221B Con, I couldn't help but think of that silly little argument on "who is a Sherlockian" that hit social media just before the con weekend. Trying to define who is a Sherlockian is a very selfish game if you think about it -- "Does this person know enough about Sherlock to be of interest to me?" It's a very defensive, gate-keeper position to me, one that says we have to keep the non-Sherlockians out lest they spoil our Sherlockian paradise. Here is definitely proof of the opposite happening.

The guys from Back Row Super Show might not have come to a strictly "all Doyle's Sherlock all day long" symposium day, as a lot of 221B Con attendees might not. But they didn't ruin 221B Con for anyone, not having read the full Canon, and their enthusiasm at hearing some Sherlockian subjects for the first time is indicative of one of the energizing aspects of the con for me. It's not only open to everyone, it allows attendees to help fill the program with subjects they love, even if it's not always Sherlock Holmes. Creating that atmosphere of enthusiasm actually adds energy to the panels that are about Sherlock Holmes, which are most of them, of course. And getting to listen in on a couple of non-Sherlockians in that atmosphere definitely proves the point.

There is a joy in seeing a non-Sherlockian become a Sherlockian, if even for an only hour or two.

Every Sherlockian event can't be 221B Con. It's a special weekend in a town that knows its fan cons. But it definitely shows the value of opening a Sherlockian door to the rest of the world, and loosening up our boundaries now and then.

Back Row Super Show rated 221B Con as an excellent con, and called out a lot of the joyous supportive nature and warm, inclusive, positive atmosphere of the con . . . and as with so many other first-time 221B Con attendees, they're coming back next year.

Throwing Sherlock out of my basement

Okay, a few words of preface.

I love Sherlock Holmes. A few days at that con I am trying to ease up on the mentions of (BUT IT WAS SO MUCH FUN!!) definitely did not dull my fervor.

But some days, you just need to get it all down to basics and try to bring a little order to the chaos that you call your home. So after sleepily doing a writing treadmill for an hour before breakfast, I charged up and charged down into my basement, that warehouse of wonders, that pit of despair, to do battle with the demons of accumulation and events past that live there.

It started simple enough, organizing gift bags, condensing shipping boxes, but at some point, I wandered down that alley in the back where The Big Display Items are stored.

I like big display items. They're especially fun at big events, so everyone can see your big point in a big manner. Unrolled movie posters live there, along with those fold-out display boards that seemingly came into existence with office supply store chains. And, boy did I go through a phase where I like to use those.

One giant panel seemed to exist just to show the Paget drawing of Holmes and Watson seeing John Clayton's cab on the street, with arrows pointing to John Clayton and Sherlock Holmes Number One and Sherlock Holmes Number Two. (It will be remembered that Stapleton passed himself off as Sherlock when riding in Clayton's cab.)

One great panel charted the number of times Holmes called Watson by name on a year-by-year basis, which is one of those things where I went, "Man, I spent a lot more time on research back in the day!"

There was one incredibly large poster of a very specific film Sherlock whom no one is excited enough about to hang an incredibly large poster of on their wall. There were other charters, graphs, a hereditary line drawn out . . . over-sized, pre-Powerpoint renderings for presentations that will never be done again. (Where do old presentations go to die? Maybe they got published somewhere.)

But at some point, practical purposes have to enter into the equation and you have to go, "Am I just keeping this here so someone else will have to throw it out when I can't?" So, sadly, one plays "taps" on an imaginary trumpet, condenses these monsters, and delivers them into the recycling, where perhaps their spirits will be passed on to some Sherlock Holmes pastiche printed on recycled paper.

Don't think I've gone too purge-happy yet. This guy below? He's still with me. He may retire to 221B Con or some other happier place one day, when he finds a big enough vehicle to ride in, but until then, I kind of like having him around.

Baker Elementary versus Baker Street Elementary

It's long past time that I mentioned Baker Street Elementary here, but as it's been getting some circulation on I Hear of Sherlock Everywhere, it probably hasn't needed the "Sherlock Peoria bump." On the road back from the oft-mentioned 221B Con, however, I discovered that our favorite "Sherlock and Watson as kids" comic now has some competition. Sort of.

Kid Sherlock, published by Action Lab, is written by Justin Philips and drawn by Sean Gregory Miller, and looks to be intended for younger audiences. Baker Street Elementary, written and drawn by Rusty Mason, written, edited, and created by Steve Mason, and also created by Joe Fay, is definitely intended for Sherlockian adult (or children with good vocabularies) audiences.

Kid Sherlock features a fairly small cast of characters compared to the long list of familiar names attending Baker Street Elementary. "Baker Elementary" is the school Kid Sherlock attends, in a class taught by Mrs. Hudson, who works for Principal Lestrade. Kid Sherlock's arch-nemesis is named "Kyle."

Things never get too intense in either comic, both being about school children, of course. (Although there is a one-page tale where Kid Sherlock seems to fall in love with Mrs. Hudson that had me going, "Wait . . . what?" for a second.) But Baker Street Elementary goes down some much more familiar paths and is particularly wry in moments, with 2017's "A Scandal in Casserole" being a good example of same.

Having spent the evening in grade school, however, I think I'm going to now have to wander off to a late-night spot of fanfic to get back to a proper adult age. Being a kid is great when you're a kid, but after that . . . give me adulthood any day. Comics, however, can go down an AU young Sherlock path anytime they like.