ABOMs Away! A Viewer's Guide to "The Abominable Bride"

<h4 style="text-align: center;"> "my 'Handy Guide to the Turf'" [SHOS]</h4> <div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"> <a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjmyCCe-sd7gxGPd1r2qz5JbQdJkAI7MGN0XQRalVnGcyQry3kZzRmpsEGIboXrmvmrYE1fKtuTO_SorjIuQEGyM3B5SzBvYWEC7-AYhuAfWwUMsBIbUMat_bc8TYa38MjfXL81ggRaZey_/s1600/ABOM+-+promo.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="359" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjmyCCe-sd7gxGPd1r2qz5JbQdJkAI7MGN0XQRalVnGcyQry3kZzRmpsEGIboXrmvmrYE1fKtuTO_SorjIuQEGyM3B5SzBvYWEC7-AYhuAfWwUMsBIbUMat_bc8TYa38MjfXL81ggRaZey_/s640/ABOM+-+promo.jpg" width="640" /></a></div> <br /> [<b><i>SERIOUS SPOILERS BELOW</i></b>]<br /> <br /> Now that we have that out of the way, let's postmortem "The Abominable Bride," the New Year's special episode of the BBC's<i> <a amzn-ps-bm-asin="B018WIEBWO" class="amzn_ps_bm_tl" data-amzn-link-id="0a2e0486ba003bdc8fd71df8d33f2c59" data-amzn-ps-bm-keyword="Sherlock" href="http://www.amazon.com/Sherlock-Abominable-Bride-Bonus-Features/dp/B018WIEBWO/ref=as_li_bk_tl/?tag=thebakerstree-20&linkId=0a2e0486ba003bdc8fd71df8d33f2c59&linkCode=ktl" id="amznPsBmLink_6677253" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Sherlock</a><img alt="" border="0" height="0" id="amznPsBmPixel_6677253" src="https://ir-na.amazon-adsystem.com/e/ir?source=bk&t=thebakerstree-20&bm-id=default&l=ktl&linkId=0a2e0486ba003bdc8fd71df8d33f2c59&_cb=1452769191992" style="border: none !important; height: 0px !important; margin: 0px !important; padding: 0px !important; width: 0px !important;" width="0" /></i> that takes Bandersnatch and Baggins to the milieu of the original stories by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. After a rapid-fire, greatest-hits reel of the series to date, the calendar rolls backward and it's off to the 19th century we go, to the first meeting of John H. Watson and Sherlock Holmes…<br /> <br /> …and to our first subtle indication, perhaps, that something is amiss. In a subterranean dissecting room, Watson meets Holmes, who is busily beating the dead with a stick and already wearing a gold sovereign as a watch fob. But of course, Irene Adler gives him that sovereign – he can't have it yet, not at the first meeting with Watson. The time is out of joint. (#Hamlet)<br /> <br /> We flash forward, presumably to 1895. Watson has a dapper mustache, and his stories are appearing in <i>The Strand</i> magazine. The flat at 221B is Canonically lovely, and there the duo are visited by John's wife, Mary, who is in search of her absentee adventurer of a husband. (We soon discover that Mary is an adventurer in her own right, working as an operative for Mycroft.) We get another hint of jiggery-pokery afoot from the following lines:<br /> <br /> HOLMES:<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Sometimes to solve a case one must first solve another.<br /> WATSON:<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Oh, you have a case then?<br /> HOLMES:<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>An old one. Very old. I shall have to go deep.<br /> WATSON:<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Deep into what?<br /> HOLMES:<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Myself.<br /> <br /> But then the filmmakers blind us by throwing Lestrade's mutton-chops in our eyes. In light of later developments, surely it must have been Future Holmes who was speaking.  Soon comes another red flag, when the subject of Lestrade's visit, Emelia Ricoletti, says, "You or me," then seemingly shoots herself, a reflection of Jim Moriarty's, "You're me. You're me!" just before he shoots himself (or does he?) in "The Reichenbach Fall." Mrs. Ricoletti is a spry corpse, however, and, several hours later, she drops a double load of buckshot on her husband.<br /> <br /> Off we then go to the morgue, where Anderson is as big a dolt as ever and Molly Hooper is passing for male to get a fair chance at available opportunities. Comparisons to Charley Parkhurst aside, we learn that this ruse has failed to deceive Watson, who is maintaining a most egalitarian silence about it, a silence sharply contrasted by the manner in which he vents his spleen at his house maid in the next scene, another indication that something is amiss. Though she is dead, the Abominable Bride's crimes continue; Holmes chalks the depradations up to copycats, and we move to Act Two.<br /> <br /> Our heroes visit the Diogenes Club, where a flurry of meta-clues awaits. First, the letters on the brass plaque – "THE DIOGENES CLUB" – rearrange themselves into an anagram – "ABSOLUTE SILENCE." The anagram is balderdash – one cannot derive ABSOLUTE SILENCE from THE DIOGENES CLUB. (One can, however, get SILENCE BE THOU G-D or BEN CLUE GHOST DIE.) Then, inside the club, the boys do a bit of sign lingo with Wilder, a liveried footman played by Tim Barlow (the Russian count from the Granada/Jeremy Brett Sherlock Holmes episode "<a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0506455/reviews" target="_blank">The Resident Patient</a>"), something happens about a potato and a fishmonger (#Hamlet), and, finally, we meet Mycroft Holmes in perhaps twice his Canonical glory. So much bizarrerie in so short a time must be meant to set our alarm bells jangling. Mycroft announces that he is sending a client to Baker Street, one Lady Carmichael, whose case involves "enemies who threaten our way of life" but who are right, and who must, therefore, win; more than this, he cagily refuses to say.<br /> <br /> At 221B, Lady Carmichael describes the plight of her husband, whose life is threatened by the delivery of orange pips at their Wellesian formal breakfast and the appearance of a spectral bride in their creepy backyard maze. Her patronizing, belittling husband, Sir Eustace, is played by the always-terrific Tim McInnerny, another Granada veteran (he was Vincent Spaulding/John Clay in "<a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0506454/" target="_blank">The Red-Headed League</a>"). <br /> <br /> <div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"> <a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEji9NlB3KTgQ8Jf1HBMKlNvDeFIYwTL0B_FgqeZilyMDya44WxkKYK-kAOZUol7IDSr2BOf6NdtQRWImsBxLxHEgbOi6JgBOQXFG4X2t9fdsFnzm8w89ktUMkvsoXzqVEQt7DbGxZT3bVrN/s1600/SILV+-+railway+car.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="576" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEji9NlB3KTgQ8Jf1HBMKlNvDeFIYwTL0B_FgqeZilyMDya44WxkKYK-kAOZUol7IDSr2BOf6NdtQRWImsBxLxHEgbOi6JgBOQXFG4X2t9fdsFnzm8w89ktUMkvsoXzqVEQt7DbGxZT3bVrN/s640/SILV+-+railway+car.jpg" width="640" /></a></div> <br /> <br /> Carefully reconstructing Sidney Paget, Holmes and Watson are soon on the train bound for stately Carmichael Manor. After a stakeout, and the obligatory (for BBC Sherlock) Watsonian attempt to draw Holmes into a conversation about his sexuality, a la Billy Wilder's <i><a amzn-ps-bm-asin="B001EYSCF6" class="amzn_ps_bm_tl" data-amzn-link-id="1b7e9bafc788a1958a13d7d6093aef11" data-amzn-ps-bm-keyword="The Private Life of Sherlock Holmes" href="http://www.amazon.com/The-Private-Life-Sherlock-Holmes/dp/B001EYSCF6/ref=as_li_bk_tl/?tag=thebakerstree-20&linkId=1b7e9bafc788a1958a13d7d6093aef11&linkCode=ktl" id="amznPsBmLink_2400371" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">The Private Life of Sherlock Holmes</a><img alt="" border="0" height="0" id="amznPsBmPixel_2400371" src="https://ir-na.amazon-adsystem.com/e/ir?source=bk&t=thebakerstree-20&bm-id=default&l=ktl&linkId=1b7e9bafc788a1958a13d7d6093aef11&_cb=1452769946766" style="border: none !important; height: 0px !important; margin: 0px !important; padding: 0px !important; width: 0px !important;" width="0" /></i>, a phantom veiled woman rises from the grounds and moves toward the house. The image is reminiscent of the opening scene of Hammer's <i><a amzn-ps-bm-asin="B00AWWX8YG" class="amzn_ps_bm_tl" data-amzn-link-id="b12ddeec973c8023e11fa6ff7172b4de" data-amzn-ps-bm-keyword="The Vampire Lovers" href="http://www.amazon.com/Vampire-Lovers-Blu-ray-Ingrid-Pitt/dp/B00AWWX8YG/ref=as_li_bk_tl/?tag=thebakerstree-20&linkId=b12ddeec973c8023e11fa6ff7172b4de&linkCode=ktl" id="amznPsBmLink_329875" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">The Vampire Lovers</a><img alt="" border="0" height="0" id="amznPsBmPixel_329875" src="https://ir-na.amazon-adsystem.com/e/ir?source=bk&t=thebakerstree-20&bm-id=default&l=ktl&linkId=b12ddeec973c8023e11fa6ff7172b4de&_cb=1452769957397" style="border: none !important; height: 0px !important; margin: 0px !important; padding: 0px !important; width: 0px !important;" width="0" /></i>, wherein a shrouded female vampire rises in spectral form amid the tombstones, under the watchful eye of slayer <a href="http://www.ihearofsherlock.com/2015/02/celebrating-50-years-of-douglas-wilmer.html" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Douglas Wilmer</a>, himself a great Sherlock Holmes.<br /> <br /> After a bit of the old smoke-and-mirrors, the ghost escapes and the blackguard husband is no more, an ornate dagger buried in his heart. Tied to its hilt is an especially telling clue – a note reading, "Miss me?" –  that has appeared in the brief few moments when Holmes was away from the corpse.  Curiouser and curiouser becomes the plot, and suddenly the note appears in the flipper-like hand of Mycroft back at the Diogenes Club, where another peculiar conversation transpires, this time capped by Mycroft's anachronistic reference to Moriarty as "the virus in the data." By now, we are surely aware that all is not as it seems.<br /> <br /> In Baker Street, Holmes awaits the arrival of Moriarty by mentally picking floating bits of paper out of the air while physically sitting on the floor in Jeremy Brett's meditating Buddha pose. ("If you're going to steal…", runs the old stage adage.) Never one to disappoint for long, Moriarty soon arrives, but the center cannot hold. Turning and turning in the widening gyre, the suicide of Mrs. Ricoletti becomes that other puzzle it so closely resembled: the death and stubborn persistence of Jim Moriarty in the 21st century. Right there in 221B, Moriarty blows his own brains out but goes on talking. (A metaphor for Andrew Scott's performance?) As Holmes grills Moriarty about his ability to survive, Moriarty says it's not the fall that kills you, it's <i>the landing</i>.<br /> <br /> <h3> <b>SPOILER ALERT DEFCON ONE</b></h3> A jet airplane lands and we're back at the end of series three, where it appears that the entire episode up to now has been a drug-extended sojourn in Sherlock's mind palace as he continues to puzzle over the Moriarty Question.<br /> <br /> Slender Mycroft, Clean-Shaven John, and Liberated Mary come jouncing onto the plane, giving Curly Sherlock a rude awakening in their eagerness to discuss Moriarty's posthumous invasion of British television. As Sherlock explains the parallels between the Ricoletti case and that of Moriarty,  he is upbraided for his "controlled" drug use by Mycroft and John. Modern John's rebukes morph into those of Victorian John as Sherlock conks out again and returns to 221B.  Whooosh! Back to the past we go…<br /> <br /> Vintage Watson berates Classic Holmes for using a seven-per-cent solution of cocaine and crashing on the sitting room floor, and the spat evolves into meta-commentary on Watson's "idiot stories" and people's need for Sherlock Holmes as a hero. The repartee is cut short by a telegram indicating Mary is in danger, and the duo rush off in answer to her summons.<br /> <br /> Having "made inquiries" of her own (we are never shown what sort or why they were so quickly effective), Mary has tracked the conspirators responsible for the Bride's crimes to the vaults beneath a defunct church. There, a meeting is convening for a group of robed and hooded figures, a secret gathering of pseudo-cardinals, as women symbolically usurp the garb of yet another enclave whose doors are closed against them: the priesthood. Some fans were irate upon viewing this scene, as they felt the story's radical suffragettes were being depicted as the Ku Klux Klan – not a group known to hang out openly in churches (except when fire-bombing them), much less to chant Latin masses; furthermore, the color scheme was all wrong. In any event, surely this interpretation misses the theme of cross-dressing-as-power-grab that runs throughout the episode: Dr. Hooper as male morgue chief; women as claven of priests; Mary as trousered action hero; Moriarty as unstoppable female ghost.<br /> <br /> Holmes interrupts the meeting with a sharp rap on a convenient gong, then gives the obligatory explanation of the who-how-and-why behind the Abominable Bride conspiracy: a group of radical feminists, a "League of Furies," has formed, one which will stick at nothing to avenge itself on the men who have ignored, patronized, disregarded, deceived, betrayed, and disparaged them, not even allowing them so much as the right to vote. Mary, herself a suffragette, seems quite put out by the tactics of this particular group, but – alas! – she is allowed no lines on the subject (score one more for male power). Just as Holmes prepares to unmask the brains behind the Bride – Lady Carmichael herself – we experience another fracture of the continuum: under the Bride's veil is Jim Moriarty, just in time to remind Sherlock (and us) that this whole business is not real; Sherlock is imagining it all while in the depths of a drug-induced hallucination. "Be serious," Moriarty admonishes the detective. "Costumes? The gong? Speaking as a criminal mastermind, we don't really have gongs… or special outfits." And we go back to the future…<br /> <br /> Once returned to the present day, we find Future Sherlock had passed out on the plane again, but is now awake and keen to disinter Emelia Ricoletti. Before one can say, "That seems pointless," we're off to the boneyard for a barrage of dialogue at Mach 1:<br /> <br /> JOHN: <span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>How is this relevant?<br /> SHERLOCK:<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>I need to know I was right, then I'll be sure.<br /> MARY:<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>You mean how Moriarty did it?<br /> SHERLOCK:<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Yes.<br /> JOHN:<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>But none of that really happened; it was in your head.<br /> SHERLOCK:<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>My investigation was the fantasy. The crime happened exactly as I explained.<br /> MARY:<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>The stone was erected by a group of her friends.<br /> JOHN:<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>I don't know what you think you'll find here.<br /> SHERLOCK:<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>I need to try!<br /> STONE:<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>EMELIA  RICOLETTI<br /> <span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>BELOVED SISTER<br /> <span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>FAITHFUL BEYOND DEATH<br /> <span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>DIED DECEMBER 18      89<br /> <span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>AGED 26

<br /> <br /> No one can convince Obsessed Future Sherlock that discovering a second body in Mrs. Ricoletti's grave doesn't prove or disprove his theory of how she (briefly) survived her own suicide. So it's dig, dig, dig, and – sure enough – only one moldering carcass is unearthed. When Sherlock leaps, #Hamlet-like, into the open grave and claws around for a second body (not in the coffin, but under it), the aforementioned icky corpse starts talking, then tumbles on top of him.<br /> <br /> Surprise! Modern Sherlock hasn't really been awake this time; he's in the same unconscious fantasy he entered since he conked out on the plane and found himself lying on the floor at 221B, with Watson reading him the sobriety act. "The graveyard visit of our team/ Was but a dream within a dream." (Apologies to Edgar Allan Poe.)<br /> <br /> Now we jump back to the 1800s, where Inverness Holmes is on the ledge above the Reichenbach Falls, an exceptional set, seamlessly combining foreground practical elements with background digiscapes; bravo, Arwel Wyn Jones and team! The traditional Rumble at the Reichenbach ensues, but this time Moriarty is winning, until he is interrupted by the not-so-traditional arrival of Dr. Watson and his trusty service revolver. "That's not fair; there's two of you!" Moriarty grouses, an odd utterance from one never previously concerned with fair play. Moriarty, it seems, dishes out a gang-up ("Three bullets, three riflemen") much better than he takes one. The good doctor boots the bad professor over the brink with the implication that this scene plays out over and over. ("It was my turn," he says.) Waxy Watson asks Brilliantine Holmes how he will wake up from this story, to which the other replies by preparing to dive off the falls.<br /> <br /> WATSON:<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Are you sure?<br /> HOLMES:<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Between you and me, John, I always survive a fall.<br /> WATSON:<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>But how?<br /> HOLMES:<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Elementary, my dear Watson.<br /> <br /> <div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"> <a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiPqvvdVOr9QyXPmX2rz0RdwDWDE2C9KzQCmCLenrAfJrZ-0rt45Y6zRX3BXtKjVFD7Z7A6gmC5XeiW2cGxy1G84nykw-8FnP3XNE-Q_ThSkEfOSyV6rOMssQ6TJbmo0d89_kDS3iYQZWS0/s1600/Death+Frisbee.gif" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="223" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiPqvvdVOr9QyXPmX2rz0RdwDWDE2C9KzQCmCLenrAfJrZ-0rt45Y6zRX3BXtKjVFD7Z7A6gmC5XeiW2cGxy1G84nykw-8FnP3XNE-Q_ThSkEfOSyV6rOMssQ6TJbmo0d89_kDS3iYQZWS0/s400/Death+Frisbee.gif" width="400" /></a></div> <br /> And we plunge back to the present day, where, after a touching brotherly exchange on the airplane, Mycroft puts the list of drugs Sherlock has taken into his pocket notebook, wherein we glimpse some Cryptic Notes. The next moment, we are on the tarmac, and Sherlock informs us:<br /> <br /> SHERLOCK:<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Moriarty is dead, no question. But more importantly, I know exactly what he's going to do next.<br /> <br /> The familiar theme music swells and surely this is the e—ooops, no, here we go back to 1895 again…<br /> <br /> <div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"> <a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEggAEWEwJMXPQ1ogPZKWvcjSEpiKqvR_ROvnpcbM3BZSlyNI3JU0baSTOjSEj5kRKFQ_kFgj_QYypBguDvn6TNp75trUD_wTZ9Z7Fxu5QPxLAHf55E7MQLPUIvyxbGnSqTcBREqONLVXBnY/s1600/ABOM+-+Watson+%2526+Holmes.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="360" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEggAEWEwJMXPQ1ogPZKWvcjSEpiKqvR_ROvnpcbM3BZSlyNI3JU0baSTOjSEj5kRKFQ_kFgj_QYypBguDvn6TNp75trUD_wTZ9Z7Fxu5QPxLAHf55E7MQLPUIvyxbGnSqTcBREqONLVXBnY/s640/ABOM+-+Watson+%2526+Holmes.jpg" width="640" /></a></div> <br /> Watson and Holmes discuss the case in the sitting room in Baker Street, noodling over titles and the public treatment of the story. Watson expresses skepticism at the future world Holmes imagined while under the influence of his seven-per-cent solution ("I think you may have increased the dosage"). This final scene is a treat, despite one or two flubs (the Persian slipper is never properly affixed to the mantelpiece, and Waistcoat Watson demurs at the idea of "these… 'telephones'…", despite their appearing in the Canon as early as <i>The Sign of Four</i>), but these are quibbles. The scene fulfills the classic outline of the typical Sherlock Holmes story: we return to Baker Street for the post-investigation wrap-up over pipes and glasses, and this time the discussion is one of whether the famous pair could fit into a world of the 21st century.<br /> <br /> HOLMES: <span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>I know I would be very much at home in such a world.<br /> WATSON: <span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Ha! Don't think I would be.<br /> HOLMES: <span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>I beg to differ.<br /> <br /> As Holmes looks down upon Baker Street, the camera pulls back through the window, revealing contemporary London, double-decker buses and an armada of automobiles passing the window of the Victorian sitting room, leaving us to wonder if it was, in fact, Heritage Holmes who was doing the imagining all along, and if Future Sherlock was the fantasy, one final bit of flummery for the audience to chew on.<br /> <br /> But perhaps something more, for not only has BBC <i>Sherlock</i> demonstrated to global acclaim that our heroes would indeed be very much at home in such a world, re-making them as Holmes and Watson 2.0, but it has now recognized a long-evident fact as well: Holmes and Watson 1.0 are also very much at home in the 21st century world, whose electric cars and wireless communications can hurtle past the well-remembered door without ever rendering the famous pair one iota the less entertaining, compelling, or thrilling. They belong in our world in either form and in both forms: "Re-Imagined" and "As-Imagined."<br /> <br /> Thankfully, we won't have to choose between them.<br /> <br /> --<br /> <br /> <br />

ABOMs Away! A Viewer's Guide to "The Abominable Bride"

"my 'Handy Guide to the Turf'" [SHOS] [ SERIOUS SPOILERS BELOW ] Now that we have that out of the way, let's p...

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by Tim Greer

This Irregular Waited 50 Years to Attend His First BSI Dinner

<h4 style="text-align: center;"> "In fifty years of official life I cannot recall such a case." [MAZA] </h4> <div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"> <a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh3t-Eb8PxaS1xNZo7RrMLr2tiGen5MNb6DfEnpuNyTFqPwPkQoKFrvSfQwRPG_o17tEcWNvjJDX05duhT0POgplECeekYhIiVuKH5KfF6Zupat9445nK1m9eoCgqTKFqKqB2k2wDBzhCmU/s1600/1966+BSI+Dinner.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="The 1966 BSI Dinner" border="0" height="366" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh3t-Eb8PxaS1xNZo7RrMLr2tiGen5MNb6DfEnpuNyTFqPwPkQoKFrvSfQwRPG_o17tEcWNvjJDX05duhT0POgplECeekYhIiVuKH5KfF6Zupat9445nK1m9eoCgqTKFqKqB2k2wDBzhCmU/s640/1966+BSI+Dinner.jpg" title="The 1966 Baker Street Irregulars Dinner" width="640" /></a></div> <br /> In a few days I will be attending my first-ever dinner of the Baker Street Irregulars. At the same time, this year I celebrate the 50th anniversary of my investiture into the BSI — and I am bound to think that a 50-year story of being a member, but not showing up for the annual event, is a record that, if not unique, is certainly unusual.<br /> <br /> Some day, as Dr. Watson put it, the full story may be told. I have toyed with writing a tell-all Sherlockian autobiography, touching on the Baker Street Pageboys, <a href="http://www.torontobootmakers.com/" target="_blank">the Bootmakers of Toronto</a>, the <a href="http://ash-nyc.com/" target="_blank">Adventuresses of Sherlock Holmes</a>, my writings and friendships, and so much more. Such a document will not be as inflammatory as Douglas Maberley's roman à clef in "The Three Gables," but I suspect it will have to languish unread in some archive for a good long time.<br /> <br /> I did sit down a few years ago for a conversation with the wise and considerate Bob Coghill, BSI, who has done many such "oral interviews" for <a href="http://www.bsitrust.org/2015/01/oral-history.html" target="_blank">the BSI Oral History Project</a>.<br /> <br /> But inevitably, there were many things we had no time to touch on.<br /> <br /> For the present, suffice it to say that when I received my Irregular Shilling, I was a mere teenager, living in Kansas, leagues and decades away from the fast life of New York, and for most of my subsequent life my Sherlockian attention has been focused in Canada rather than toward the BSI.<br /> <br /> <table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody> <tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiMhwyUl55yd3eqIXK4oO7U7-_pK8y9jL1BtKw8ydGstZiUQFqEc79JD0bMK2Ms6OIeUg6M_0G-s8wVSdTKDUM3R7OvcKuOmK7aMNnZdlcu5bpTtZzu0uPhI3ly3WHxhAaU7PEXo5miJOhq/s1600/CAR+investiture.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img alt="CAR's BSI investiture" border="0" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiMhwyUl55yd3eqIXK4oO7U7-_pK8y9jL1BtKw8ydGstZiUQFqEc79JD0bMK2Ms6OIeUg6M_0G-s8wVSdTKDUM3R7OvcKuOmK7aMNnZdlcu5bpTtZzu0uPhI3ly3WHxhAaU7PEXo5miJOhq/s640/CAR+investiture.jpg" title="Chris Redmond's investiture" width="444" /></a></td></tr> <tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Investiture certificate of Chris Redmond, BSI ("Billy")</td></tr> </tbody></table> <br /> These days I understand that virtually everyone who receives a BSI investiture does so at a January dinner in New York. It was not so <a href="http://www.bsitrust.org/2015/09/the-1966-bsi-dinner.html" target="_blank">in 1966</a>. My certificate (much more modest than the certificates handed out nowadays) and silver shilling arrived by mail one day in the spring of that year, as part of what the then Commissionaire of the BSI, Julian Wolff, called the Edgar W. Smith Birthday Honors List. <br /> <br /> Smith, of course, was the first and great Commissionaire, who had died in 1960. In the years that followed, his April 1 birthday was marked annually by the distribution of investitures to those whom Wolff considered worthy of the honour but who had not come to New York and, I suppose, were not expected to. I don't know how long the spring Honours List continued, but it was still in operation in 1969 when my father, <a href="http://www.ihearofsherlock.com/2014/11/remembering-donald-redmond-bsi-2s.html" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Donald A. Redmond</a>, received his investiture as "Good Old Index".<br /> <br /> My 1966 investiture certificate as "Billy", with Julian Wolff's signature, hangs on my study wall, within sight as I write these words, and I will be all the prouder of it when I can say that I have actually attended a BSI dinner. And I will think of it again come April 1, fondly — and with amazement that my Sherlockian career has now lasted more than half a century.<br /> <br /> <i>Image credit: <a href="http://www.bsitrust.org/2015/09/the-1966-bsi-dinner.html" target="_blank">The Baker Street Irregulars Trust</a></i><br /> <br /> --<br /> <br /> <br />

This Irregular Waited 50 Years to Attend His First BSI Dinner

"In fifty years of official life I cannot recall such a case." [MAZA]  In a few days I will be attending my first-ever dinner...

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by Chris Redmond

Original Holmes and Parallel Holmes

<h4 style="text-align: center;"> "running on parallel lines" [HOUN]</h4> <div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"> <a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhQkifMgcxbJbhKhMMvN5BS4UzZldB1dT9EIiNjyN7LEVtgcBiUxq1ZEmrTH1ONR00lQ4AnSUO0eR4m_tFKeq8iBF49FR8ZbijOdyoSugr0mXTXZN8AZGAiFSwiOV5EKdiYb6MIQ8IJaNKL/s1600/Twin+Sherlock.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="264" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhQkifMgcxbJbhKhMMvN5BS4UzZldB1dT9EIiNjyN7LEVtgcBiUxq1ZEmrTH1ONR00lQ4AnSUO0eR4m_tFKeq8iBF49FR8ZbijOdyoSugr0mXTXZN8AZGAiFSwiOV5EKdiYb6MIQ8IJaNKL/s640/Twin+Sherlock.png" width="640" /></a></div> <br /> Someone asked me recently what I think about <a amzn-ps-bm-asin="SEARCH" class="amzn_ps_bm_tl" data-amzn-link-id="70ae33057d1791c34cc06229a54c230d" data-amzn-ps-bm-keyword="Guy Ritchie’s Sherlock Holmes movies" href="http://amazon.com/s/ref=as_li_bk_tl/?url=search-alias%3Daps&field-keywords=Guy%20Ritchie%E2%80%99s%20Sherlock%20Holmes%20movies&tag=thebakerstree-20&linkId=70ae33057d1791c34cc06229a54c230d&linkCode=ktl" id="amznPsBmLink_3883869" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Guy Ritchie’s Sherlock Holmes movies</a><img alt="" border="0" height="0" id="amznPsBmPixel_3883869" src="https://ir-na.amazon-adsystem.com/e/ir?source=bk&t=thebakerstree-20&bm-id=default&l=ktl&linkId=70ae33057d1791c34cc06229a54c230d&_cb=1452234544849" style="border: none !important; height: 0px !important; margin: 0px !important; padding: 0px !important; width: 0px !important;" width="0" /> – do I really like them, even though their resemblance to Conan Doyle’s original is so little? My answer was not specifically about those two movies, but rather the whole genre of Sherlock Holmes adaptations.<br /> <h3> <br /> A Tale of Two Holmeses</h3> My way of seeing this is that there are two kinds of Holmes. There is the original Holmes – and there is the parallel Holmes. The parallel Holmes has existed almost since the beginning (the first parody came just a few months after the first Sherlock Holmes short story in 1891), and is a version of Holmes that other persons have formed, rather than Conan Doyle.<br /> <br /> For many people this parallel Holmes is often more true than the original version. Without parallel Holmes, the detective would lack many of his most characteristic features: the deerstalker, the curved pipe and the line "Elementary, my dear Watson." The deerstalker was of course put there by Sidney Paget – and that’s definitely connected to the original Holmes – but without William Gillette’s use of it, Holmes would have had no characteristic hat, and his easily recognizable silhouette would be less easily recognizable.<br /> <br /> When Gillette’s play toured America and all around Europe at the turn of the century, more people had seen this Sherlock Holmes on stage than had ever read a book about Conan Doyle’s detective. [<i>Is this true? Even with subscriptions of The Strand (in which Paget's drawings existed) soaring?</i> <b><i>-Ed.</i></b>] Even if Gillette’s Holmes had lines and plot taken from original Holmes, and even if Conan Doyle had said okay to the manuscript, it was nevertheless a parallel Holmes – Gillette’s own view of the detective. Gillette’s Holmes play showed generations to come what could be done with the detective (e.g. his emotions towards Alice Faulkner) and how far away from original Holmes he could be taken – while still being able to call him Sherlock Holmes.<br /> <br /> But Gillette’s Holmes wasn’t the only forefather of future parallel Holmes. The parodies of the 1890s had done as much to create that parallel Holmes. They had sped up the plots and made Holmes’s deductions faster and more impossible – and, of course, sometimes entirely wrong, since they were parodies. They had given Holmes even sharper features and more insane personality. And they had spread and further established Sherlock Holmes’s increasingly famous name among the readers.<br /> <h3> <br /> 1 + 1 = ∞ ?</h3> These two early sorts of parallel Holmes melted into one big category, and formed what was to become the popular icon Sherlock Holmes. Parallel Holmes was – and still is – the Holmes that most people know about. Much fewer have read the original stories. Original Holmes was the origin of parallel Holmes, but parallel Holmes was the origin of popular icon Holmes.<br /> <br /> Parallel Holmes can be almost anything, and it can be boring and it can be fun. The most boring examples are often the ones that painstakingly want to be original Holmes, but are made with such lack of love that they entirely miss the goal. They are mainly just constructed mystery plots with an investigating cliché duo in the middle. However, when parallel Holmes is made with love and genius, and when it comes really close to original Holmes, it’s just a pleasure to consume, e.g. some of the best episodes of <a amzn-ps-bm-asin="B000RPCJB6" class="amzn_ps_bm_tl" data-amzn-link-id="532edbb2d62a2af44f3b56afbc329aea" data-amzn-ps-bm-keyword="the Granada series" href="http://www.amazon.com/Sherlock-Holmes-Complete-Granada-Television/dp/B000RPCJB6/ref=as_li_bk_tl/?tag=thebakerstree-20&linkId=532edbb2d62a2af44f3b56afbc329aea&linkCode=ktl" id="amznPsBmLink_1954625" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">the Granada series</a><img alt="" border="0" height="0" id="amznPsBmPixel_1954625" src="https://ir-na.amazon-adsystem.com/e/ir?source=bk&t=thebakerstree-20&bm-id=default&l=ktl&linkId=532edbb2d62a2af44f3b56afbc329aea&_cb=1452236001230" style="border: none !important; height: 0px !important; margin: 0px !important; padding: 0px !important; width: 0px !important;" width="0" /> with Jeremy Brett, <a href="http://www.ihearofsherlock.com/2015/02/interview-author-lyndsay-faye-on-art-of.html" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Lyndsay Faye</a>’s novel <i><a amzn-ps-bm-asin="1416583319" class="amzn_ps_bm_tl" data-amzn-link-id="8e65af0d391af9cbf36451ef5da326a5" data-amzn-ps-bm-keyword="Dust and Shadow" href="http://www.amazon.com/Dust-Shadow-Account-Ripper-Killings/dp/1416583319/ref=as_li_bk_tl/?tag=thebakerstree-20&linkId=8e65af0d391af9cbf36451ef5da326a5&linkCode=ktl" id="amznPsBmLink_6944122" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Dust and Shadow</a><img alt="" border="0" height="0" id="amznPsBmPixel_6944122" src="https://ir-na.amazon-adsystem.com/e/ir?source=bk&t=thebakerstree-20&bm-id=default&l=ktl&linkId=8e65af0d391af9cbf36451ef5da326a5&_cb=1452235406143" style="border: none !important; height: 0px !important; margin: 0px !important; padding: 0px !important; width: 0px !important;" width="0" /></i>, or <a href="http://ihose.co/ihose85" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Nicholas Meyer</a>'s <i><a amzn-ps-bm-asin="0393311198" class="amzn_ps_bm_tl" data-amzn-link-id="fe0f0b2d2df357685fcf62102ca682d2" data-amzn-ps-bm-keyword="The Seven Percent Solution" href="http://www.amazon.com/The-Seven-Per-Cent-Solution-Reminiscences-Paperback/dp/0393311198/ref=as_li_bk_tl/?tag=thebakerstree-20&linkId=fe0f0b2d2df357685fcf62102ca682d2&linkCode=ktl" id="amznPsBmLink_5740271" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">The Seven-Per-Cent Solution</a><img alt="" border="0" height="0" id="amznPsBmPixel_5740271" src="https://ir-na.amazon-adsystem.com/e/ir?source=bk&t=thebakerstree-20&bm-id=default&l=ktl&linkId=fe0f0b2d2df357685fcf62102ca682d2&_cb=1452235398743" style="border: none !important; height: 0px !important; margin: 0px !important; padding: 0px !important; width: 0px !important;" width="0" /></i>.<i> </i><br /> <br /> Many of the most interesting parallel Holmes productions are the ones where the creators are doing something totally different. They move away from Conan Doyle, and their foundations are sometimes to be found in other genres, not necessarily crime fiction related. They want to tell something else, and they often demand more of the reader/viewer. To look upon such productions as detective stories can be risky – in their cores they often hold a vibrating packet full of emotions. <br /> <br /> These creators are not just satisfied with playing the game, but are instead constantly adding to it, evolving it. Mitch Cullin’s novel <i><a amzn-ps-bm-asin="1400078229" class="amzn_ps_bm_tl" data-amzn-link-id="e43988e5c7776901c8725e0297c7865e" data-amzn-ps-bm-keyword="A Slight Trick of the Mind" href="http://www.amazon.com/Slight-Trick-Mind-Mitch-Cullin/dp/1400078229/ref=as_li_bk_tl/?tag=thebakerstree-20&linkId=e43988e5c7776901c8725e0297c7865e&linkCode=ktl" id="amznPsBmLink_1353403" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">A Slight Trick of the Mind</a><img alt="" border="0" height="0" id="amznPsBmPixel_1353403" src="https://ir-na.amazon-adsystem.com/e/ir?source=bk&t=thebakerstree-20&bm-id=default&l=ktl&linkId=e43988e5c7776901c8725e0297c7865e&_cb=1452235633556" style="border: none !important; height: 0px !important; margin: 0px !important; padding: 0px !important; width: 0px !important;" width="0" /></i> (which became the film <i><a amzn-ps-bm-asin="B014PIQYIO" class="amzn_ps_bm_tl" data-amzn-link-id="8f6f4a31a4822c30e484288dcba94237" data-amzn-ps-bm-keyword="Mr. Holmes" href="http://www.amazon.com/Mr-Holmes-DVD-Digital-McKellen/dp/B014PIQYIO/ref=as_li_bk_tl/?tag=thebakerstree-20&linkId=8f6f4a31a4822c30e484288dcba94237&linkCode=ktl" id="amznPsBmLink_1945634" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Mr. Holmes</a><img alt="" border="0" height="0" id="amznPsBmPixel_1945634" src="https://ir-na.amazon-adsystem.com/e/ir?source=bk&t=thebakerstree-20&bm-id=default&l=ktl&linkId=8f6f4a31a4822c30e484288dcba94237&_cb=1452235643516" style="border: none !important; height: 0px !important; margin: 0px !important; padding: 0px !important; width: 0px !important;" width="0" /></i>) is one modern illustration of this. And Billy Wilder’s movie <i><a amzn-ps-bm-asin="B00K6D1R0I" class="amzn_ps_bm_tl" data-amzn-link-id="b83af11c30d4fb4f283e19b36c37fc90" data-amzn-ps-bm-keyword="The Private Life of Sherlock Holmes" href="http://www.amazon.com/Private-Life-Sherlock-Holmes-Blu-ray/dp/B00K6D1R0I/ref=as_li_bk_tl/?tag=thebakerstree-20&linkId=b83af11c30d4fb4f283e19b36c37fc90&linkCode=ktl" id="amznPsBmLink_7658103" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">The Private Life of Sherlock Holmes</a><img alt="" border="0" height="0" id="amznPsBmPixel_7658103" src="https://ir-na.amazon-adsystem.com/e/ir?source=bk&t=thebakerstree-20&bm-id=default&l=ktl&linkId=b83af11c30d4fb4f283e19b36c37fc90&_cb=1452235653371" style="border: none !important; height: 0px !important; margin: 0px !important; padding: 0px !important; width: 0px !important;" width="0" /></i> and Steven Moffat and Mark Gatiss’s TV series are other examples. They don't just play the game, they keep changing it.<br /> <br /> It is sometimes the case that when parallel Holmes gets even further away from original Holmes, great entertainment is to be extracted. I love the film <i><a amzn-ps-bm-asin="B00RYZFSJM" class="amzn_ps_bm_tl" data-amzn-link-id="6cc182abc3cb65377b8e1e0390997fac" data-amzn-ps-bm-keyword="Without a Clue" href="http://www.amazon.com/Without-Clue-Michael-Caine/dp/B00RYZFSJM/ref=as_li_bk_tl/?tag=thebakerstree-20&linkId=6cc182abc3cb65377b8e1e0390997fac&linkCode=ktl" id="amznPsBmLink_5736662" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Without a Clue</a><img alt="" border="0" height="0" id="amznPsBmPixel_5736662" src="https://ir-na.amazon-adsystem.com/e/ir?source=bk&t=thebakerstree-20&bm-id=default&l=ktl&linkId=6cc182abc3cb65377b8e1e0390997fac&_cb=1452235717367" style="border: none !important; height: 0px !important; margin: 0px !important; padding: 0px !important; width: 0px !important;" width="0" /></i> – it's definitely not original Holmes, but it's fun. I also like such a thing as <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wOj-Is2ylA0" target="_blank">the short rap version of <i>The Hound of the Baskervilles</i></a>.<br /> <br /> <center> <iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="480" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/wOj-Is2ylA0?rel=0" width="640"></iframe></center> <br /> And many other crazy things that have been made. And I like the Guy Ritchie movies – not because they are good adaptations of original Holmes, but because they are good versions of parallel Holmes. They effectively make use of the popular icon Holmes and make something new out of that and something that can attract a lot of people that prefer to watch a film with a super hero rather than a film with a serious thinker.<br /> <br /> And since Warner Bros have succeeded in making these films that people want to see, I have no trouble at all with this not being close to the original Holmes. Because I love parallel Holmes as much as I love original Holmes.<br /> <br /> --<br /> <br /> <br />

Original Holmes and Parallel Holmes

"running on parallel lines" [HOUN] Someone asked me recently what I think about Guy Ritchie’s Sherlock Holmes movies – do I ...

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by Mattias Boström

The Roylott Files — Don't Try This At Home

<h4 style="text-align: center;"> "He had trained it, probably by the use of the milk" [SPEC]</h4> <div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"> <a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgEF07N9zDerManGAyd_kiBpS4LU9YTaUEy8bW6Di6EjdgUeo0WzQY5szBVev2vigwVr7e3vAd5huLvrMpAqbh85R0wilrt1u2d08KnYx_YPRi2jHrjM-OKyDOGSe-z_I0RhF27usRtbppI/s1600/SPEC+-+snake+milk.PNG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="Jeremy Brett (in Granada's "The Speckled Band") with the saucer of milk" border="0" height="454" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgEF07N9zDerManGAyd_kiBpS4LU9YTaUEy8bW6Di6EjdgUeo0WzQY5szBVev2vigwVr7e3vAd5huLvrMpAqbh85R0wilrt1u2d08KnYx_YPRi2jHrjM-OKyDOGSe-z_I0RhF27usRtbppI/s640/SPEC+-+snake+milk.PNG" title="Jeremy Brett's Sherlock Holmes exposes the saucer of milk" width="640" /></a></div> <div> <br /></div> <div> While many of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's original Sherlock Holmes stories get picked apart for accuracy by Sherlockian scholars (see <i><a href="http://bakerstreetjournal.com/grandgamev1.html" target="_blank">The Grand Game</a></i>), the most popular tend to be more heavily scrutinized. Especially when matters of animal behavior are involved.</div> <div> <br /></div> <div> At this point, we should all be familiar with the concept behind "The Adventure of the Speckled Band." If you're not, stop reading this immediately, and <a href="http://ignisart.com/camdenhouse/canon/spec.htm" target="_blank">go read SPEC</a>. Spoilers await below.</div> <div> <br /></div> <div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"> <a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj12zAUjiIco-71Ql7HEU4pyIX6m-aAy2BjMxM3QH76D3x-su2tDan3jTybyMaigzBk4lZxzj-mDLMPtZN2iZ6HNqlcWt0mEB6bMvi5rOb-lSm3YjO2JK-EsRXAsA6TeUtw1MiqoKOJbreO/s1600/dividing+line.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="25" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj12zAUjiIco-71Ql7HEU4pyIX6m-aAy2BjMxM3QH76D3x-su2tDan3jTybyMaigzBk4lZxzj-mDLMPtZN2iZ6HNqlcWt0mEB6bMvi5rOb-lSm3YjO2JK-EsRXAsA6TeUtw1MiqoKOJbreO/s320/dividing+line.jpg" width="320" /></a></div> <div> <br /></div> <div> If you've read the story, you'll know that there are some exotic creatures that inhabit Stoke Moran. These include a cheetah and a baboon that roam the grounds at night. But Holmes finds a saucer of milk in Dr. Roylott's room when making a search.</div> <div> <br /></div> <div> As you know by now, Roylott was said to have recalled the snake through the ventilator by whistling and offering the snake a saucer of milk. As a number of Sherlockian scholars have written, snakes are deaf, so whistling would be fruitless.</div> <div> <br /></div> <div> But there is a tradition in Indian culture whereby milk is offered to snakes at Hindu temples that follow Nag Panchami, the worship of snakes or serpents. <a href="http://hinduism.stackexchange.com/questions/577/why-do-hindus-feed-milk-to-snake" target="_blank">According to one source</a>, it is based on a longstanding folk tale:</div> <blockquote class="tr_bq"> A tale of a farmer living in a village. He had two sons and one of whom killed three snakes during ploughing operations. The mother of the snake took revenge on the same night by biting the farmer, his wife and two children and they all died. Next day the farmer’s only surviving daughter, distraught and grieved by the death of her parents and brothers, pleaded before the mother snake with an offering of a bowl of milk and requested for forgiveness and to restore the life of her parents and brothers. Pleased with this offering the snake pardoned them and restored the farmer and his family to life.</blockquote> <div> However, the Times of India reminds residents not to give milk to snakes, <a href="http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/lucknow/Offering-milk-to-a-snake-Think-again/articleshow/39386630.cms" target="_blank">as it can be deadly</a>. "Animal rights activists and veterinary experts say a snake's system cannot digest milk at all."</div> <div> <br /></div> <div> Someone should have informed Grimesby Roylott. Offering milk to his snake turned out to be deadly in his case as well.</div> <div> <br /></div> <div> --</div> <div> <br /></div>

The Roylott Files — Don't Try This At Home

"He had trained it, probably by the use of the milk" [SPEC] While many of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's original Sherlock Ho...

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by Scott Monty

A Requiem for Sherlock Holmes

<h4 style="text-align: center;"> "Very interesting reading it might be" [STUD]</h4> <div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"> <a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhQJj2giat8hk0GeFFdSf-NzrPVnnzcK1tWnOFibgxEE9PFTNPrSGgNwnCTwCxVeTE7MDGpUaTlVYGxCD_dZqT8V3PTCzwClfVOrOOAQf5BogHhw93kER9F4an6ZDZmqPrU2aODwlHhYZy1/s1600/The+Players+theatre.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="474" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhQJj2giat8hk0GeFFdSf-NzrPVnnzcK1tWnOFibgxEE9PFTNPrSGgNwnCTwCxVeTE7MDGpUaTlVYGxCD_dZqT8V3PTCzwClfVOrOOAQf5BogHhw93kER9F4an6ZDZmqPrU2aODwlHhYZy1/s640/The+Players+theatre.jpg" width="640" /></a></div> <br /> If you happen to be in New York City on the evening of January 6, 2016, there's a unique opportunity attend a reading of a Sherlock Holmes play.<br /> <br /> "A Requiem for Sherlock Holmes" is a new play by Greg Oliver Bodine that will be read at The Players on Sherlock Holmes's birthday. If The Players sounds familiar, that's because it is one of New York's oldest and most unique clubs — one that has been the setting for BSI dinners and the Baker Street Babes' charity balls during the <a href="http://bsiweekend.com/" target="_blank">BSI Weekend</a>.<br /> <br /> <a href="http://theplayersnyc.org/" target="_blank">The Players</a> is a private social club founded in 1888 when Edwin Booth, the greatest American actor of his time, purchased a Gothic Revival-style mansion facing Gramercy Park and commissioned architect Stanford White to transform it into a certain club "for the promotion of social intercourse between the representative members of the dramatic profession and the kindred professions of literature, painting, sculpture and music, and the patrons of the arts." Members have included <a href="http://ihose.co/ihose26" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Fritz Weaver</a> (Sherlock Holmes in the musical <i>Baker Street</i>) as well as Frederic Dorr Steele.<br /> This makes it the perfect place for a reading of a play about Sherlock Holmes, set in the very era in which the club was founded. We hope you'll be able to attend this special performance.<br /> <br /> <h4 style="text-align: center;"> <span style="background-color: white; font-family: HelveticaNeue-Light, 'Helvetica Neue Light', 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, 'Lucida Grande', sans-serif; font-size: 16px;">THE PLAYERS PRESENTS</span></h4> <div style="text-align: center;"> <span style="background-color: white; font-family: HelveticaNeue-Light, 'Helvetica Neue Light', 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, 'Lucida Grande', sans-serif; font-size: 16px;">A special ensemble reading of</span></div> <h3 style="text-align: center;"> <b style="background-color: white; font-family: HelveticaNeue-Light, 'Helvetica Neue Light', 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, 'Lucida Grande', sans-serif; font-size: 16px;">A REQUIEM FOR SHERLOCK HOLMES</b></h3> <div style="text-align: center;"> <br style="background-color: white; font-family: HelveticaNeue-Light, 'Helvetica Neue Light', 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, 'Lucida Grande', sans-serif; font-size: 16px;" /></div> <div style="text-align: center;"> <span style="background-color: white; font-family: HelveticaNeue-Light, 'Helvetica Neue Light', 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, 'Lucida Grande', sans-serif; font-size: 16px;">A new play by Greg Oliver Bodine</span></div> <div style="text-align: center;"> <span style="background-color: white; font-family: HelveticaNeue-Light, 'Helvetica Neue Light', 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, 'Lucida Grande', sans-serif; font-size: 16px;">Directed by Leslie Kincaid Burby †</span></div> <div style="text-align: center;"> <span style="background-color: white; font-family: HelveticaNeue-Light, 'Helvetica Neue Light', 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, 'Lucida Grande', sans-serif; font-size: 16px;">Stage Directions read by Alyssa Van Gorder</span></div> <br style="background-color: white; font-family: HelveticaNeue-Light, 'Helvetica Neue Light', 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, 'Lucida Grande', sans-serif; font-size: 16px;" /> <div style="text-align: center;"> <span style="background-color: white; font-family: HelveticaNeue-Light, 'Helvetica Neue Light', 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, 'Lucida Grande', sans-serif; font-size: 16px;">Introductory Remarks by Burt Wolder, BSI ("The Third Pillar from the Left")</span></div> <div style="text-align: center;"> <span style="background-color: white; font-family: HelveticaNeue-Light, 'Helvetica Neue Light', 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, 'Lucida Grande', sans-serif; font-size: 16px;">Talkback moderated by James Lawson</span></div> <div style="text-align: center;"> <br style="background-color: white; font-family: HelveticaNeue-Light, 'Helvetica Neue Light', 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, 'Lucida Grande', sans-serif; font-size: 16px;" /></div> <span style="background-color: white; font-family: HelveticaNeue-Light, 'Helvetica Neue Light', 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, 'Lucida Grande', sans-serif; font-size: 16px;">Sherlock Holmes meets his match -- the criminal mastermind, Prof. Moriarty -- in a deadly struggle above the Reichenbach Falls in Switzerland, leaving a grief-stricken Dr. Watson to pick up the pieces and help solve a brutal murder nearly three years later in this new play based on "The Final Problem" and "The Adventure of the Empty House," by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle.</span><br /> <br style="background-color: white; font-family: HelveticaNeue-Light, 'Helvetica Neue Light', 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, 'Lucida Grande', sans-serif; font-size: 16px;" /> <span style="background-color: white; font-family: HelveticaNeue-Light, 'Helvetica Neue Light', 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, 'Lucida Grande', sans-serif; font-size: 16px;"><b>Cast:</b></span><br /> <br style="background-color: white; font-family: HelveticaNeue-Light, 'Helvetica Neue Light', 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, 'Lucida Grande', sans-serif; font-size: 16px;" /> <span style="background-color: white; font-family: HelveticaNeue-Light, 'Helvetica Neue Light', 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, 'Lucida Grande', sans-serif; font-size: 16px;">Andrew Sellon*</span><br /> <span style="background-color: white; font-family: HelveticaNeue-Light, 'Helvetica Neue Light', 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, 'Lucida Grande', sans-serif; font-size: 16px;">Michael Selkirk*</span><br /> <span style="background-color: white; font-family: HelveticaNeue-Light, 'Helvetica Neue Light', 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, 'Lucida Grande', sans-serif; font-size: 16px;">Annalisa Loeffler*</span><br /> <span style="background-color: white; font-family: HelveticaNeue-Light, 'Helvetica Neue Light', 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, 'Lucida Grande', sans-serif; font-size: 16px;">Joseph Thompson^</span><br /> <span style="background-color: white; font-family: HelveticaNeue-Light, 'Helvetica Neue Light', 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, 'Lucida Grande', sans-serif; font-size: 16px;">Jeffrey Hardy</span><br /> <span style="background-color: white; font-family: HelveticaNeue-Light, 'Helvetica Neue Light', 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, 'Lucida Grande', sans-serif; font-size: 16px;">Robert Blumenfeld*</span><br /> <span style="background-color: white; font-family: HelveticaNeue-Light, 'Helvetica Neue Light', 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, 'Lucida Grande', sans-serif; font-size: 16px;">Laura Darrell*</span><br /> <span style="background-color: white; font-family: HelveticaNeue-Light, 'Helvetica Neue Light', 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, 'Lucida Grande', sans-serif; font-size: 16px;">Robert Meksin*</span><br /> <span style="background-color: white; font-family: HelveticaNeue-Light, 'Helvetica Neue Light', 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, 'Lucida Grande', sans-serif; font-size: 16px;">Jonathan Hicks*</span><br /> <span style="background-color: white; font-family: HelveticaNeue-Light, 'Helvetica Neue Light', 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, 'Lucida Grande', sans-serif; font-size: 16px;">Michael Frederic*</span><br /> <span style="background-color: white; font-family: HelveticaNeue-Light, 'Helvetica Neue Light', 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, 'Lucida Grande', sans-serif; font-size: 16px;">Joseph McGranaghan*</span><br /> <span style="background-color: white; font-family: HelveticaNeue-Light, 'Helvetica Neue Light', 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, 'Lucida Grande', sans-serif; font-size: 16px;">Greg Oliver Bodine*</span><br /> <br style="background-color: white; font-family: HelveticaNeue-Light, 'Helvetica Neue Light', 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, 'Lucida Grande', sans-serif; font-size: 16px;" /> <span style="background-color: white; font-family: HelveticaNeue-Light, 'Helvetica Neue Light', 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, 'Lucida Grande', sans-serif; font-size: 16px;">(* member AEA / ^ member UK Equity / † member SDC)</span><br /> <br style="background-color: white; font-family: HelveticaNeue-Light, 'Helvetica Neue Light', 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, 'Lucida Grande', sans-serif; font-size: 16px;" /> <span style="background-color: white; font-family: HelveticaNeue-Light, 'Helvetica Neue Light', 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, 'Lucida Grande', sans-serif; font-size: 16px;">Please join us in The Dining Room for a special reading of this new play, marking the 161st birthday of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's most enduring fictional character </span>— Sherlock Holmes. With introductory remarks about the club's storied connection to the canon, and followed by a short talk-back and festive, post-reading reception downstairs in the Grill! <br /> <br style="background-color: white; font-family: HelveticaNeue-Light, 'Helvetica Neue Light', 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, 'Lucida Grande', sans-serif; font-size: 16px;" /> <span style="background-color: white; font-family: HelveticaNeue-Light, 'Helvetica Neue Light', 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, 'Lucida Grande', sans-serif; font-size: 16px;">Dress: Business casual</span><br /> <br style="background-color: white; font-family: HelveticaNeue-Light, 'Helvetica Neue Light', 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, 'Lucida Grande', sans-serif; font-size: 16px;" /> <span style="background-color: white; font-family: HelveticaNeue-Light, 'Helvetica Neue Light', 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, 'Lucida Grande', sans-serif; font-size: 16px;">This event is FREE to all Players, BSI, ASH members and their guests.</span><br /> <span style="background-color: white; font-family: HelveticaNeue-Light, 'Helvetica Neue Light', 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, 'Lucida Grande', sans-serif; font-size: 16px;"><br /></span> <b style="background-color: white; font-family: HelveticaNeue-Light, 'Helvetica Neue Light', 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, 'Lucida Grande', sans-serif; font-size: 16px;">PLEASE NOTE:</b><span style="background-color: white; font-family: HelveticaNeue-Light, 'Helvetica Neue Light', 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, 'Lucida Grande', sans-serif; font-size: 16px;"> All non-members of the club MUST sign in at the front desk. Food, beer, wine, liquor and non-alcoholic beverages are available for purchase by CREDIT CARD ONLY. That said, please also bring CASH and TIP your servers and bartender generously!</span><br /> <br /> <br /> <div style="text-align: center;"> <iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="480" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/uHYfZKmgjE0?rel=0" width="640"></iframe><br /></div> <br /> <br /> --<br /> <br />

A Requiem for Sherlock Holmes

"Very interesting reading it might be" [STUD] If you happen to be in New York City on the evening of January 6, 2016, there...

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by Scott Monty

Help Sherlock Holmes Celebrate His 162nd Birthday

<h4 style="text-align: center;"> "your celebrated friend, Mr. Sherlock Holmes" [NAVA] </h4> <div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"> <a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgiIXZmdN_UtP49Ewd8tacjXxe2LSl_4AR60ohh_ZxDBMUimlKkuI_pb9_e0AcN74KE8ALc_mmj2uvQ1MrKIuZ1h5XiSqGD1kCf9AN6mxxBIk1FnS3-jDNdEk1GXb1W2orCvYdih8TmcHYs/s1600/Sherlock+Holmes+birthday+cake.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgiIXZmdN_UtP49Ewd8tacjXxe2LSl_4AR60ohh_ZxDBMUimlKkuI_pb9_e0AcN74KE8ALc_mmj2uvQ1MrKIuZ1h5XiSqGD1kCf9AN6mxxBIk1FnS3-jDNdEk1GXb1W2orCvYdih8TmcHYs/s640/Sherlock+Holmes+birthday+cake.jpg" width="640" /></a></div> <br /> January 6th is here and that marks the date on which we traditionally celebrate Sherlock Holmes's birthday.<br /> <br /> We say "traditionally," because there is no definitive statement of his actual date of birth in the Canon, but beginning with <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christopher_Morley" style="background-color: white; color: #006f85; font-family: Verdana, Geneva, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; font-weight: bold; line-height: 22.4px; text-decoration: none;">Christopher Morley</a><span style="background-color: white; color: #0e0e0e; font-family: Verdana, Geneva, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 22.4px;">, the date of January 6th has become the </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #0e0e0e; font-family: Verdana, Geneva, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; font-style: italic; line-height: 22.4px;">de facto</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #0e0e0e; font-family: Verdana, Geneva, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 22.4px;"> accepted date for Holmes' birthday. Why? Well, there are a couple of reasons.</span><br /> <br style="background-color: white; color: #0e0e0e; font-family: Verdana, Geneva, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 22.4px;" /> <span style="background-color: white; color: #0e0e0e; font-family: Verdana, Geneva, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 22.4px;">Of all of the quotes in the Canon, William Shakespeare was the most oft-quoted author. There is but one Shakespearean play that Holmes quotes twice: </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #0e0e0e; font-family: Verdana, Geneva, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; font-style: italic; line-height: 22.4px;"><a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0743482778?ie=UTF8&tag=thebakerstree-20&linkCode=as2&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=0743482778" rel="nofollow" style="color: #006f85; font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank">Twelfth Night</a><img alt="" border="0" height="1" src="http://www.assoc-amazon.com/e/ir?t=thebakerstree-20&l=as2&o=1&a=0743482778" style="border: medium none !important; height: auto; margin: 0px !important; max-width: 100%;" width="1" /></span><span style="background-color: white; color: #0e0e0e; font-family: Verdana, Geneva, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 22.4px;">. In </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #0e0e0e; font-family: Verdana, Geneva, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; font-style: italic; line-height: 22.4px;">The Sign of the Four</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #0e0e0e; font-family: Verdana, Geneva, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 22.4px;">, Holmes concludes, "All is well that ends well." This is from from Act IV, Scene 4. And in "The Empty House," Holmes states "'Journeys end in lovers meetings,' as the old play says," from Act II, Scene 3.</span><br /> <br style="background-color: white; color: #0e0e0e; font-family: Verdana, Geneva, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 22.4px;" /> <span style="background-color: white; color: #0e0e0e; font-family: Verdana, Geneva, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 22.4px;">The reason the date was chosen is that in Christianity, </span><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/January_6" style="background-color: white; color: #006f85; font-family: Verdana, Geneva, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; font-weight: bold; line-height: 22.4px; text-decoration: none;">January 6th</a><span style="background-color: white; color: #0e0e0e; font-family: Verdana, Geneva, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 22.4px;"> is the Feast of the Epiphany, or officially the twelfth day of Christmas. I suppose if we were being truly technical about it, the twelfth night of Christmas would fall on January 5th...</span><br /> <br style="background-color: white; color: #0e0e0e; font-family: Verdana, Geneva, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 22.4px;" /> <span style="background-color: white; color: #0e0e0e; font-family: Verdana, Geneva, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 22.4px;">In addition, William S. Baring-Gould in his </span><i style="background-color: white; color: #0e0e0e; font-family: Verdana, Geneva, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 22.4px;"><a href="http://amzn.to/14hLF8i" rel="nofollow" style="color: #006f85; font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank">The Annotated Sherlock Holmes</a></i><span style="background-color: white; color: #0e0e0e; font-family: Verdana, Geneva, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 22.4px;">, posited that because Holmes was a little cranky on the morning of January 7th - the date on which <i>The Valley of Fear</i> began - he had a hangover, induced by birthday celebrations the evening prior.</span><br /> <br /> <br style="background-color: white; color: #0e0e0e; font-family: Verdana, Geneva, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 22.4px;" /> <h3> Opportunity</h3> If you happen to be in New York City this evening, <a href="http://www.ihearofsherlock.com/2016/01/a-requiem-for-sherlock-holmes.html#.Vo1MiRUrLb0" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">there's a reading of the play "A Requiem for Sherlock Holmes" at The Players</a> which you might be interested in. Although celebrating his death on his birthday is a bit...macabre. Our own Burt Wolder will be giving remarks.<br /> <br /> <span style="color: #0e0e0e; font-family: Verdana, Geneva, sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: white; font-size: 14px; line-height: 22.4px;"><br /></span></span> <span style="color: #0e0e0e; font-family: Verdana, Geneva, sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: white; font-size: 14px; line-height: 22.4px;">So, by all means, share the news that today is Sherlock Holmes's birthday. </span></span>But whatever you do, don't try to throw him a surprise party. It's an exercise in futility.<br /> <br /> <div style="text-align: center;"> <iframe allowfullscreen="allowfullscreen" class="b-hbp-video b-uploaded" frameborder="0" height="499" id="BLOGGER-video-c36e80bff7b7d8b2-15442" mozallowfullscreen="mozallowfullscreen" src="https://www.blogger.com/video.g?token=AD6v5dz7a_GagDAghMgnsh-w9_6WKKIswWI_0s3TPvdxKaAywJ9EOiMCbZD409r4k6kH-lRkTbiEM6O_wvPiVjE7P3minaDtA9O0TdbSav8r5zYZGYzt2Py9oMHYVzCVRGKXj0CSGQrC" webkitallowfullscreen="webkitallowfullscreen" width="600"></iframe></div> <br /> <br /> Of course, next week Sherlockians from around the world will be gathering to celebrate his birthday in style during the <a href="http://www.bsiweekend.com/" target="_blank">BSI Weekend</a>. Check the official site for details and feel free to follow the activities of various attendees online via the <a href="https://twitter.com/search?q=%23BSIWeekend&src=typd" target="_blank">#BSIWeekend</a> hashtag.<br /> <br /> We hope you'll take a moment and wish Sherlock Holmes a happy birthday in your own way. If you'd like to join in here, please feel free to leave a birthday comment below.<br /> <div> <br /></div> <div> --</div> <div> <br /></div>

Help Sherlock Holmes Celebrate His 162nd Birthday

"your celebrated friend, Mr. Sherlock Holmes" [NAVA]  January 6th is here and that marks the date on which we traditionally c...

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by Scott Monty

Everything You Need to Know — A Roundup of Abominable Bride Reviews

<h4 style="text-align: center;"> "I am now about to summarize" [ENGR] </h4> <div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"> <a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjuwHP24NhL10TMJMZ4sYASA2IIqsXCawWwAAjwM0wFaf8rEQ8jALC0wzQ5aznts-WsQ5BndQ9WizNYbfB-dRbFlSehzVFOENPkMXrTiUXrAV4Lfkw0wFbuQSklPuTi6EG8tH8LkO2yDe8B/s1600/ABOM+-+Holmes+chair.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="424" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjuwHP24NhL10TMJMZ4sYASA2IIqsXCawWwAAjwM0wFaf8rEQ8jALC0wzQ5aznts-WsQ5BndQ9WizNYbfB-dRbFlSehzVFOENPkMXrTiUXrAV4Lfkw0wFbuQSklPuTi6EG8tH8LkO2yDe8B/s640/ABOM+-+Holmes+chair.jpg" width="640" /></a></div> <br /> Just as Friday, January 1 was a day like no other for <i>Sherlock</i> fans, today was a day like no other for I Hear of Sherlock Everywhere readers. With no fewer than five reviews from <a href="http://ihose.co/ihoseteam" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">our team</a>, our "correspondence certainly has the charm of variety," [NOBL] and was fairly balanced in its take on ABOM. But the thing that struck us about our reviewers is that, love it or hate it, they all found something positive about the episode or about what transpired afterward.<br /> <br /> And for our money, that means that the program was successful.<br /> <br /> <h3> I Hear of Sherlock Everywhere Reviews of <i>The Abominable Bride</i></h3> Gordon Dymowski fired the first warning shot across the bow with a scathing review, wondering "can it be that bad?" Find out just how bad in <a href="http://www.ihearofsherlock.com/2016/01/sherlock-abominable-bride-lived-up-to.html" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">The Abominable Bride Lived Up to Its Name</a>.<br /> <br /> But first-time contributor Rachel Grosch took a different tone, as she found some <a href="http://www.ihearofsherlock.com/2016/01/fun-in-challenging-past-abominable.html" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Fun in Challenging the Past</a>, looking at the friendship of Holmes and Watson and how it was portrayed in the alternative setting.<br /> <br /> Then Derrick Belanger's personality split in two and managed to come down on both sides of the argument as Purist Derrick faced off against Fan Derrick in <a href="http://www.ihearofsherlock.com/2016/01/the-abominable-bride-review-of-two-minds.html" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">A Review of Two Minds</a>. Both are formidable opponents. Who will win?<br /> <br /> And Margaret McMahon looked at the what worked well and what failed miserably, coming up with a mixed bag. The flashbacks (and flashfowards) threw her off a bit, almost like <i>The Wizard of Oz</i>, but she definitely knew <a href="http://www.ihearofsherlock.com/2016/01/the-abominable-bride-were-not-in-baker.html" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">We Weren't in Baker Street Any More</a>.<br /> <br /> Finally, Anastasia Klimchynskaya made a very deep dive into the intertwining aspects of the Victorian and modern story lines, concluding that the self-referential aspects of ABOM were not only intentional, but were required in <a href="http://www.ihearofsherlock.com/2016/01/meta-meta-meta-abominable-bride-review.html" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Meta, Meta, Meta</a>.<br /> <br /> <br /> <h3> Opinions Across the Web</h3> We'll weigh in with our own editorial opinion below, but first we wanted to bring you some nuggets of what's been happening around the Web. As you can imagine (or perhaps as you've seen yourself), emotions have been running high following this particular episode. Opinions came down strongly on one side or the other, with very few expressing no feeling at all. As with any strong design or work of art, it is meant to evoke emotion. Some may love it, others may hate it, but few express apathy.<br /> <br /> <b>The Verge</b> took issue with Sherlock's brain, claiming that <a href="http://www.theverge.com/2016/1/4/10704192/sherlock-the-abominable-bride-review" target="_blank">he is the worst kind of superhero</a>, giving us the view of everything through his eyes, "and the result is a warped  world that’s more frustrating in its unlikelihood than usual." They even went so far as to say that the "present-day Sherlock is an anti-hero...the dream Victorian Sherlock is just obnoxious." With regard to the suffragette movement, they claim that it "feels more like bait for Tumblr fans than the seeds of a lasting change," although we'd have a hard time seeing Mrs. Hudson playing a more significant role in the series, quite frankly.<br /> <br /> <b>Den of Geek</b> thought the story "<a href="http://www.denofgeek.us/tv/sherlock/251667/sherlock-the-abominable-bride-review" target="_blank">detonated itself </a>" so that "[b]its of story went everywhere, timelines were blown apart and the resulting smoking crater was filled with shards of meta-commentary," leading the reviewer to understand why no press previews were issued for this episode. But they concluded that "divisive does not equal failure" and that the result was grand adventure, shock, storytelling, friendship and ultimately an ambitious risk that paid off.<br /> <br /> <b>BuzzFeed </b>capitalized on how sections of the Internet got their knickers in a twist <a href="http://www.buzzfeed.com/laurasilver/people-are-pissed-off-that-sherlock-mansplained-feminism#.skblR0wRn" target="_blank">over the perceived "mansplaining" of feminism</a> in the episode. There's always a good controversy to be had with this series, and the arbiter of viral was there to capture it all.<br /> <br /> And yet, <b>The Telegraph</b> didn't think mansplaining was the worst part of ABOM. The great sin, according to them, <a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/bbc/12080545/Sherlocks-mansplaining-wasnt-the-worst-thing-about-The-Abominable-Bride.html" target="_blank">was that the show thinks it is too clever</a>, but that its dream sequence is a cop-out.<br /> <br /> <b>Girl Meets Sherlock</b> reminds us that the episode really wasn't about plot, <a href="https://girlmeetssherlock.wordpress.com/2016/01/02/review-the-abominable-bride/" target="_blank">but about advancing the series</a>. She makes a most excellent observation: "Much as "The Sign of Three" explored the relationship between Holmes and Watson, <i>The Abominable Bride</i> explores Sherlock’s relationship to himself." Despite what we were told about this being a standalone episode, it is very much a part of the overall story arc being formed by the creative team.<br /> <br /> <b>Lyndsay Faye</b> never disappoints with her insights and her delightfully descriptive writing. In this case, it is no exception, as she ensures we know who the two main actors are: "Benedict 'High-Octane Hamlet' Cumberbatch and Martin 'My Face Does Pony Tricks Ponies Never Dreamed Of' Freeman." But she also reminds us of how we've been consistently plot-duped by Mofftiss, yet we keep coming back for more. More importantly, Faye makes sure that Sir Arthur gets credit for creating strong women as she rattles off a number of Canonical examples that would be fine modern-day heroines, before reminding us that this episode is about one thing that no one else touched on: Sherlockians. Yes, that's right — it's a tribute to the audience. We can't do justice to her entire argument; <a href="http://www.lyndsayfaye.com/blog/2016/1/3/no-ghosts-need-apply-bbc-sherlocks-the-abominable-bride" target="_blank">go and read the entire thing yourself</a>. It's okay, we'll wait.<br /> <br /> <br /> <h3> Facebook Posts — "the endless procession of faces" [SIGN]</h3> We thought it might be useful to catch a glimpse of some of the things being said on Facebook that passed our way.<br /> <br /> <b>David Marcum</b> had a rather <a href="https://www.facebook.com/groups/sherlockstreet/permalink/1030480073675275/" target="_blank">long post the Sherlock Street Irregulars</a> group (why it's Sherlock Street, we have no idea), in which he called the production "an abomination" and "a mess" written by "liars" who ended up "messing up original material that has millions of loyal followers for a reason." It may sound harsh, but David has plenty of valid points in his essay.<br /> <br /> <b>Sherlock Holmes for Dummies</b> also <a href="https://www.facebook.com/permalink.php?story_fbid=951648828204024&id=129581877077394" target="_blank">wrote of the mess</a>: "So much potential, so much pandering, a few moments of brilliance, so many more moments of self-conscious B.S. I was really rooting for this trainwreck." What's interesting here is the discussion that ensued in the comments to this short post.<br /> <br /> <b>Andy Solberg</b> acknowledged the disparity of opinion among the community, noting the entertainment value and helpfully reminding everyone that it's more than just this episode — "<a href="https://www.facebook.com/asolberg/posts/10100922563921355" target="_blank">the whole series is a fantasy</a>."<br /> <br /> <b>Bonnie MacBird</b> wrote that Gatiss and Moffat <a href="https://www.facebook.com/bmacbird/posts/10153345263207914" target="_blank">never said they were going for Canonical</a>, nor should we have expected it. The link to her Facebook post isn't public, so here it is in its entirety:<br /> <blockquote class="tr_bq"> Here's what I wonder. Moffatt and Gatiss have never professed to be doing Doylean Holmes. That wasn't their promise, was never their art form, and people who have liked their show (myself included) like it for various ways that it did....and did not... match the originals which inspired it. I'm not sure why so many people are rabidly angry at not getting what was never promised. Like many of you, I would love to see these two fine actors, and excellent writers attempt a Doylean Sherlock. That's not what they did with the Christmas episode, but I for one wasn't expecting it. The humor of the trailers was a big clue, come on folks. Didn't this tip you off? This is a jazz riff on Sherlock. Don't like the sevenths and ninths in your harmonies? Then don't listen to jazz. I for one love baroque music, opera, jazz, musicals, blues, dixieland, Beatles and many more types. I also love Shakespearean sonnets and TS Eliot. But I don't confuse one form for another and hate the Beatles because there is no fugue part. Movies are an art form, BBC Sherlock never promised you a Doylean ride, not even for a second, and pouting about it not matching what YOU would have done isn't a review, it's a rant. I understand disllke. I understand preferences. I understand longing for writers and actors you like to do stuff you kind of have in your head. But... I don't understand,,, petulance. No, it wouldn't have been what I would have written, either. But I enjoyed it. It's what they did. They gave me a very fun ride.</blockquote> <br /> This is probably the most apt analogy and succinct review we've yet read.<br /> <br /> <br /> <h3> What's Left For Us to Add?</h3> After everything you've read above (assuming you got this far), you might think there's nothing left to be said about ABOM. Don't be silly. People are still writing about Sherlock Holmes nearly 130 years after his first appearance in print; what makes you think we'd refrain from offering a bit more about a show from Friday evening?<br /> <br /> Our experience live-tweeting the event was like none we've had before. As you'll recall, Series 3 ended two years ago (!) and the online space, although it was active then, is even more crazy now. Keeping up with tweets and the show simultaneously — without a press preview — was quite a challenge.<br /> <br /> We kept most of our observations to what we could tie in Canonically, from quotes to references and more. But we also noted a few things that we'd like to share here:<br /> <br /> <ul> <li>You probably already figured out that Sir Eustace Carmichael was played by Tim McInnerny, who also played John Clay in the Granada production of "The Red-Headed League."</li> <li>But Granada tie-ins didn't end there; Tim Barlow played the Diogenes Club attendant "Wilder," who communicated via sign language in the public area. Barlow played the Russian Count in the Granada version of "The Resident Patient."</li> </ul> <br /> In mid-December, the official Twitter handle of the show, @Sherlock221B, ran a promotion in which a tweet to them with the hashtag #Telegram221B would result in the text of your tweet being overlaid onto a video of Dr. Watson opening a telegram and subsequently getting up to rush off. Knowing the Canon as we do, we suggested the following:<br /> <blockquote class="twitter-tweet" lang="en" tw-align-center=""> <div dir="ltr" lang="en"> <a href="https://twitter.com/IHearofSherlock">@IHearofSherlock</a> Greetings. We can confirm that your telegram has arrived... <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/Telegram221B?src=hash">#Telegram221B</a> <a href="https://t.co/fjT8tZUJNA">pic.twitter.com/fjT8tZUJNA</a></div> — Sherlock (@Sherlock221B) <a href="https://twitter.com/Sherlock221B/status/677137663372169218">December 16, 2015</a></blockquote> <script async="" charset="utf-8" src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js"></script>Imagine our satisfaction when the episode aired and that's exactly what appeared on the screen.<br /> <br /> <br /> But something else appeared on the screen — something that others have mentioned in passing — that we'd like to address. Yes, the view of everything Victorian is the view in Sherlock's mind; but the morbidly obese Mycroft went a bit too far. It was distracting, comical and, as some have said, even fat-shaming. We were hoping for an authentic Mycroft more akin to Paget's original:<br /> <br /> <div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"> <a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhOhMsPcPH712RBxzMxh9lqrKxkZ3whfOo9jzS0m4-Wx3KGe2XxTNk76e_Bz73C55ANaQHpj4rSqh3c9KeaTfDcLT8a_R2M8uC2ZwRXnJcBw3FzrnSfZFfgoSLT9XX_HHgjYtYJ278EXnfn/s1600/IHOSE_caption8+-GREE.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhOhMsPcPH712RBxzMxh9lqrKxkZ3whfOo9jzS0m4-Wx3KGe2XxTNk76e_Bz73C55ANaQHpj4rSqh3c9KeaTfDcLT8a_R2M8uC2ZwRXnJcBw3FzrnSfZFfgoSLT9XX_HHgjYtYJ278EXnfn/s640/IHOSE_caption8+-GREE.jpg" width="372" /></a></div> <br /> <br /> And yet, Mycroft of ABOM was given to us as this caricature:<br /> <br /> <div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"> <a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjNi-eM_redlWNrInrHWUtrOyfxmBL4U8KsOTvhe2u1milljeyc68d3VdGvWPsMNGcTHpTISx9i9RIwp5sSUHEsF0qFF5-D-3NMJZoyqHoA9EvNXdu6uRkAWU9ycjdPjBGLrO0cLhJClGSA/s1600/ABOM+-+fat+Mycroft.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="360" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjNi-eM_redlWNrInrHWUtrOyfxmBL4U8KsOTvhe2u1milljeyc68d3VdGvWPsMNGcTHpTISx9i9RIwp5sSUHEsF0qFF5-D-3NMJZoyqHoA9EvNXdu6uRkAWU9ycjdPjBGLrO0cLhJClGSA/s640/ABOM+-+fat+Mycroft.png" width="640" /></a></div> <br /> <br /> The "broad, fat hand, like the flipper of a seal was certainly in evidence, but surrounding Gatiss-in-a-fat-suit with carts and trays of food was a bit over the top. In fact, it reminded us of another similar parody:<br /> <br /> <div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"> <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t2mU6USTBRE" target="_blank"><img alt=" 'Weird Al' - Fat" border="0" height="470" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjcPInBF7ZHs4vCio4C4r0rt49gPvqTs28b_tXfyx_1bC5JtqHzfp_T5YnREV38K4skG7X7igNXBqnCrXgLW1CfjtUv-VVyn_-eHaA_R-_NPZdZwm3g-xtesrKo9U4I6iiHJkyFwVNP06Fw/s640/ABOM+-+Weird+Al.PNG" width="640" /></a></div> <br /> <br /> While we're on the subject of visuals, we did want to share something that we weren't able to comment on during the flurry of tweets. Again, this is acknowledging Lyndsay's point that the show was really about the fans. After Series 1, the Internet (particularly Tumblr) blew up about the "<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y0NgBtsoHe8" target="_blank">death frisbee</a>" (aka the deerstalker cap). The final scene in ABOM on Reichenbach Falls — the place where Sherlock Holmes traditionally was thought to have gone to his death — involves Holmes standing on the edge and basically playing frisbee with his hat, making it literally a death frisbee:<br /> <br /> <div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"> <a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjLI8kMwmfua5vjIbgN5l1Dws0y3GLnzOi2wBfrjKuxhfu_4_64j4F7F9N9sHVBXAgKKIqOEFPGh5SQnJTm0UH_N_NVapgGJmU0Kp5amMXwZ77dXLniQknioz4VoFPSf1NnaCxqukpfygFs/s1600/Death+Frisbee.gif" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="179" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjLI8kMwmfua5vjIbgN5l1Dws0y3GLnzOi2wBfrjKuxhfu_4_64j4F7F9N9sHVBXAgKKIqOEFPGh5SQnJTm0UH_N_NVapgGJmU0Kp5amMXwZ77dXLniQknioz4VoFPSf1NnaCxqukpfygFs/s320/Death+Frisbee.gif" width="320" /></a></div> <br /> <br /> And finally, we'd like to close with one final point about this episode that also includes others. Andrew Scott, while he may be a fine actor overall, tends to overdo his part when it comes to Moriarty. Yes, we get that the character is a psychopath who has no regard for humanity (especially for our sensibilities), but to us, he seems like he's trying too hard. We'd go so far as to call Andrew Scott the Jim Carrey of the <i>Sherlock</i> series.<br /> <br /> <div style="text-align: center;"> <iframe allowfullscreen="" class="giphy-embed" frameborder="0" height="261" src="//giphy.com/embed/a7ZvDb2NfbQvS" width="480"></iframe><br /> <br /> <br /> <iframe allowfullscreen="" class="giphy-embed" frameborder="0" height="269" src="//giphy.com/embed/P12bvrj00Hrb2" width="480"></iframe><br /> <br /></div> <br /> What did we miss? And what did you think of the special? Feel free to let us know in a comment below.<br /> <br /> --<br /> <br />

Everything You Need to Know — A Roundup of Abominable Bride Reviews

"I am now about to summarize" [ENGR]  Just as Friday, January 1 was a day like no other for Sherlock fans, today was a day l...

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by Scott Monty

Meta, Meta, Meta — An Abominable Bride Review

<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"> <div class="MsoNormal"> <h4 style="text-align: center;"> "'Data! data! data!' he cried impatiently. I can't make bricks without clay." [COPP] </h4> <div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"> <a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh3KS8d6_qp7E0U7SUt-Mo67PKDamo4TbHG2FrxBF0m2dUnA_pO0gIiOjg-davRzEjpIpN6bAhN6oTbdGjnUE3JQlVWlY_lXUwmWprk2SZdBn0bd7GIkqhgF3Tg95C1u_gLGbTS8wA2wLtz/s1600/ABOM+-+promo.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="358" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh3KS8d6_qp7E0U7SUt-Mo67PKDamo4TbHG2FrxBF0m2dUnA_pO0gIiOjg-davRzEjpIpN6bAhN6oTbdGjnUE3JQlVWlY_lXUwmWprk2SZdBn0bd7GIkqhgF3Tg95C1u_gLGbTS8wA2wLtz/s640/ABOM+-+promo.jpg" width="640" /></a></div> <br /> Perhaps that quote should be updated to read: "I can't make bricks without self-referentiality!"<br /> <br /> On Friday, the BBC’s / MASTERPIECE's <i><a amzn-ps-bm-asin="B004132HZS" class="amzn_ps_bm_tl" data-amzn-link-id="1e039301753b84f9ca2d5c52c905f204" data-amzn-ps-bm-keyword="Sherlock" href="http://www.amazon.com/Sherlock-Season-1-Benedict-Cumberbatch/dp/B004132HZS/ref=as_li_bk_tl/?tag=thebakerstree-20&linkId=1e039301753b84f9ca2d5c52c905f204&linkCode=ktl" id="amznPsBmLink_3742266" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Sherlock</a><img alt="" border="0" height="0" id="amznPsBmPixel_3742266" src="https://ir-na.amazon-adsystem.com/e/ir?source=bk&t=thebakerstree-20&bm-id=default&l=ktl&linkId=1e039301753b84f9ca2d5c52c905f204&_cb=1451976613995" style="border: none !important; height: 0px !important; margin: 0px !important; padding: 0px !important; width: 0px !important;" width="0" /> </i>brought to our screens something that it had never done before: Sherlock Holmes set in the Victorian period. <i><a amzn-ps-bm-asin="B013JBJ7EG" class="amzn_ps_bm_tl" data-amzn-link-id="884b33b85179792c9e83da3e0996b7f3" data-amzn-ps-bm-keyword="The Abominable Bride" href="http://www.amazon.com/Sherlock-Abominable-Bride-Benedict-Cumberbatch/dp/B013JBJ7EG/ref=as_li_bk_tl/?tag=thebakerstree-20&linkId=884b33b85179792c9e83da3e0996b7f3&linkCode=ktl" id="amznPsBmLink_2975311" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">The Abominable Bride</a><img alt="" border="0" height="0" id="amznPsBmPixel_2975311" src="https://ir-na.amazon-adsystem.com/e/ir?source=bk&t=thebakerstree-20&bm-id=default&l=ktl&linkId=884b33b85179792c9e83da3e0996b7f3&_cb=1451976606799" style="border: none !important; height: 0px !important; margin: 0px !important; padding: 0px !important; width: 0px !important;" width="0" /></i>, which eschews <i>Sherlock</i>’s usual modern day setting to create a period, produced, as far as I can tell, a spectrum of responses as widely varied as Holmes's mood. On the one hand, it garnered praise for its atmospheric depiction of fin-de-siecle London, its phenomenal acting and cinematography, and its intriguing meta-commentary; on the other, it drew criticism for its complex (or, as some claimed, convoluted) plot, its “self-indulgent” self-referentiality, and its seeming historical inaccuracies. <o:p></o:p></div> <div class="MsoNormal"> <br /></div> <div class="MsoNormal"> On this spectrum of responses, I fall much closer to the former than the latter. In fact, I think <i>The Abominable Bride</i> is one of the best episodes <i>Sherlock </i>has ever produced, and yes, I have observations, facts, and deductions to prove it. In fact, it seems to me that much of the disappointment surrounding the episode has to do with the fact that it is not a faithful-enough recreation of the Canon now that the show is <i>finally </i>set in a Canonically accurate period. To which I say: that was never the promise, the premise, or the idea. <o:p></o:p></div> <div class="MsoNormal"> <br /></div> <div class="MsoNormal"> <i>The Abominable Bride</i> might be might be set among the fog and gas lamps of London, but it never makes a claim to being Victorian. It is not about the armchair detective with a curved pipe, but the man behind the myth; it may be set in 1895, but it makes no claim to being a rendition of Doyle’s – or, if one prefers, Watson’s – writings. Instead, it is a look at the penning of those writings, and the assumptions that we have gathered around both the text and its time period. <i>The Abominable Bride</i> does not claim to be Canonical, but rather a look behind the scenes at the creation of the Canon.<br /> <o:p></o:p><br /> <br /></div> <div class="MsoNormal"> This, to me, is made obvious by the many wonderful and giddily funny arguments between Watson and Sherlock about his real and fictional selves – and the difference between them. “Emotion is the crack in the lens, the grit in the instrument,” Holmes recites, alluding to the famous opening lines of “A Scandal in Bohemia,” only to have Watson throw back at him: “I wrote that! Don’t quote me at me!”<br /> <br /> In the beginning, Watson encounters a newspaper vendor selling the latest issue of <i>The Strand </i>and inquires how well “The Blue Carbuncle” is doing. Allusions are numerous to Sidney Paget’s illustrations, and the way they have created an image of Sherlock Holmes in the public eye - much like Paget’s illustrations have solidified the deerstalker-wearing detective in our cultural imagination (“You’re the detective. Wear the damn hat,” Watson says). Sherlock Holmes, as we deduce, is a clever literary construction of Watson, who loyally and patiently immortalizes his friend. What we’re watching, therefore, is not the Canon, but the “reality” behind it. <o:p></o:p></div> <div class="MsoNormal"> <br /></div> <div class="MsoNormal"> Which is not an entirely inaccurate way to approach the Canon: how many times has John Watson stumped readers with the chronology of the adventures? How many hours have we spent unraveling the mysteries behind his inaccurate records? How many times has Holmes accused Watson of “romanticizing” the science of detection? The Canon is a certain version of Sherlock Holmes, one largely tinged with a sense of historical nostalgia, creating an atmospheric illusion. <i>The Abominable Bride</i> does not claim to be that illusion. It may be atmospheric in its gorgeous depictions of historical London, but as a narrative, it draws away the veil and shows how that illusion is constructed. <o:p></o:p></div> <div class="MsoNormal"> <br /></div> <div class="MsoNormal"> Speaking of illusions, this episode is full of them. It beings with a quick flashback over the key events of the past three seasons, after which the date rolls back to 1895 with a tantalizing “Alternatively…” At first, it seems like just another case, that of Emilia Ricoletti, who apparently commits suicide by blowing her brains out, then returns from the dead to commit a murder.<br /> <br /> About halfway through the episode, however, it becomes intriguingly obvious that Emilia Ricoletti’s case bears a striking resemblance to that of Moriarty, who, last we checked, was apparently back from the dead…And just as the import of that resemblance surfaces, Sherlock wakes up on the plane on which he’d left at the end of <a amzn-ps-bm-asin="B00E3UN44W" class="amzn_ps_bm_tl" data-amzn-link-id="f12958e3ea8b38b2ca203c86198830ba" data-amzn-ps-bm-keyword="sherlock season 3" href="http://www.amazon.com/Sherlock-Season-Original-UK-Version/dp/B00E3UN44W/ref=as_li_bk_tl/?tag=thebakerstree-20&linkId=f12958e3ea8b38b2ca203c86198830ba&linkCode=ktl" id="amznPsBmLink_5928527" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Series 3</a><img alt="" border="0" height="0" id="amznPsBmPixel_5928527" src="https://ir-na.amazon-adsystem.com/e/ir?source=bk&t=thebakerstree-20&bm-id=default&l=ktl&linkId=f12958e3ea8b38b2ca203c86198830ba&_cb=1451976593988" style="border: none !important; height: 0px !important; margin: 0px !important; padding: 0px !important; width: 0px !important;" width="0" />, and it turns out that the entire escapade into the Victorian period had been an elaborate trip into his mind palace in order to solve the mystery of Moriarty. <o:p></o:p><br /> <br /></div> <div class="MsoNormal"> The two cases thus intertwine, as the similarity of their <i>modus operandi </i>sheds light on the cliffhanger season three left us with: could Moriarty be alive? Mycroft seems to think so, but Sherlock leaves us with a pretty definite “No.” But <i>Sherlock </i>is also adept at misdirection, so that “no” could very well be a cleverly disguised “yes.” Who knows? <o:p></o:p></div> <div class="MsoNormal"> <br /></div> <div class="MsoNormal"> But what’s more interesting about the intertwining of Victoriana with the modern day is that they’re both a reflection upon the myth of Sherlock Holmes. Thus, the investigation of Emilia Ricoletti’s murder-suicide slowly transforms into something more meaningful: a look at the role of women in both the Victorian era and the Canon, and therefore the premises upon which our illusions of Victoriana rest.<br /> <br /> Suddenly, as Holmes and Watson discover that the murders under investigation were attempts by women to escape from abusive husbands, all the other seemingly one-off, irreverent interactions with women earlier in the episode fall into place as a poignant sort of commentary. Mrs. Hudson does nothing but make tea, the giddy maid who makes Watson breakfast is late because she was reading the latest story, and it’s funny until you realize how true it is that their existence is reduced to a “function” of the plot. In the meantime, Mary gets to stay at home and do nothing while Watson and Holmes have adventures, and Molly Hooper is forced to dress as a man in order to pursue a career, a striking contrast to the no-nonsense lives we’ve gotten used to seeing these women lead. <o:p></o:p></div> <div class="MsoNormal"> <br /> <br /></div> <div class="MsoNormal"> It has always been the story of Holmes and Watson, but their story could not be told without the women who surround them. And as Holmes and Watson discover the underground hideaway of the suffragettes (though one does wonder how exactly they’re supposed to win the vote for women by standing around underground and chanting), Holmes makes an impassioned speech about the invisible half of society, hiding in plain sight, one that must be made visible. In reality, that means giving them the vote and the power of speech – and questioning our romanticizing of 1895, that era of fog and gas lamps and no votes for women. In fiction, that means recognizing, and including, the richly developed female characters that have always been part of the Holmes and Watson story.<br /> <br /> <o:p></o:p></div> <div class="MsoNormal"> At the same time, in the midst of that impassioned speech, Moriarty returns, disguised as the Bride. The last time Moriarty appeared in the flesh, he was on a mission to destroy the very idea of Sherlock Holmes with a dastardly plot to make everyone believe that Sherlock was a fake. When he returns this time, therefore, he is once again a challenge to the myth of Sherlock Holmes that we’ve fallen in love with, and another reminder of the nature of that myth. Thus, the episode ends with a confrontation between Holmes and Moriarty at the Reichenbach Falls that looks like it’s taken directly from a Paget illustration. It’s a moment that made me catch my breath – this might be Sherlock’s mind palace, but Moriarty is the “virus in the code,” the crack in the lens, the one ultimate threat to Sherlock as a person and as a myth. <o:p></o:p></div> <div class="MsoNormal"> <br /></div> <div class="MsoNormal"> And yet, just at the moment when it appears that Holmes is about to fall into those perilous waters at Moriarty’s hand, good old Watson uncanonically appears. But this isn’t the Canon, or “The Final Problem,” it’s <i>Sherlock. </i>If this episode has been about the creation of the myth of Sherlock Holmes by Watson, then in this ultimate moment – the one where Moriarty is about to destroy Holmes – it is fitting that Watson is the one that appears to rescue his friend. Just as Watson immortalized Holmes for posterity through his writings, including “The Final Problem,” where he once again rescues his name from vile rumors, here he appears to metaphorically save Holmes from his arch nemesis: not a professor of mathematics, but madness and obscurity. <o:p></o:p></div> <div class="MsoNormal"> <br /></div> <div class="MsoNormal"> And so, when Watson and Holmes work side by side to throw Moriarty off that cliff, they are also working side by side to save the myth of Sherlock Holmes. “I always return from the fall,” Sherlock says before jumping off that fateful cliff – because Watson is always there to pen another from the innumerable cases in his tin dispatch box, but also because series like <i>Sherlock </i>will always retell that myth. Holmes and Watson work side by side to construct a legend, and they do it so aptly that we must continually retell and ponder it. <o:p></o:p></div> <div class="MsoNormal"> <br /></div> <div class="MsoNormal"> Two men who never lived and so can never die, indeed. How very near they seem.<o:p></o:p></div> <br /> --<br /> <br /> <div class="MsoNormal"> <br /></div> </div>

Meta, Meta, Meta — An Abominable Bride Review

"'Data! data! data!' he cried impatiently. I can't make bricks without clay." [COPP]  Perhaps that quote should...

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by Anastasia Klimchynskaya

The Abominable Bride — We're Not in Baker Street Any More

<h4 style="text-align: center;"> "the actor in some strange drama" [YELL]</h4> <div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"> <a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEihymRKTqcaX5XzDJekz7dDhrHOM0sjGgQCLxXLeap1KVP5irbiMYyL7fsab1t3sMw59aOzHS2KCkp9ttIB9_yZ_LEQjnmTewy3QqoSLWukvErUo-aMKOWyTu8GddmWRX9u4QBglwycggeD/s1600/sherlock-holmes-and-the-scarecrow.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="Sherlock Holmes Wizard of Oz" border="0" height="568" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEihymRKTqcaX5XzDJekz7dDhrHOM0sjGgQCLxXLeap1KVP5irbiMYyL7fsab1t3sMw59aOzHS2KCkp9ttIB9_yZ_LEQjnmTewy3QqoSLWukvErUo-aMKOWyTu8GddmWRX9u4QBglwycggeD/s640/sherlock-holmes-and-the-scarecrow.jpg" title="Sherlock Holmes and the Scarecrow" width="640" /></a></div> <br /> We had been promised a period piece, with Holmes and Watson in the time and place of the Canon. When I saw the photos released from the effort, the program looked like a gift. But the scenes tying into the current times made it feel like the unwrapping of a long-awaited gift that turns out to be not quite the size, color or quality for which we had hoped. <br /> <br /> I certainly appreciate aspects of the series. Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson have been updated successfully to modern times, and the inclusion of so many details of the Canon are thoughtful. Their companionship and partnership have been well represented. Martin Freeman's portrayal of Dr. John Watson as a war veteran and man of action has been amazing. Benedict Cumberbatch has given a sophisticated and thoughtful portrayal of the internal Sherlock Holmes, and is able to exude the charm that we know from the Canon was able to put women at their ease. The other performers in the series have added a depth that was not always in present in the Canon. However, the stories have been odd and in some ways, unsatisfying. That said, I watch the programs religiously. <br /> <br /> When the <i><a amzn-ps-bm-asin="B013JBJ7EG" class="amzn_ps_bm_tl" data-amzn-link-id="6bfe1b7082a4cc110941b14e4ecddf46" data-amzn-ps-bm-keyword="Sherlock: The Abominable Bride" href="http://www.amazon.com/Sherlock-Abominable-Bride-Benedict-Cumberbatch/dp/B013JBJ7EG/ref=as_li_bk_tl/?tag=thebakerstree-20&linkId=6bfe1b7082a4cc110941b14e4ecddf46&linkCode=ktl" id="amznPsBmLink_473193" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Sherlock: The Abominable Bride</a><img alt="" border="0" height="0" id="amznPsBmPixel_473193" src="https://ir-na.amazon-adsystem.com/e/ir?source=bk&t=thebakerstree-20&bm-id=default&l=ktl&linkId=6bfe1b7082a4cc110941b14e4ecddf46&_cb=1451965101112" style="border: none !important; height: 0px !important; margin: 0px !important; padding: 0px !important; width: 0px !important;" width="0" /></i> was good, it was flawless. When it was not good, it was more than disappointing. <br /> <br /> The scenery and the ambiance were fabulous. The tailoring was exquisite. Seeing Holmes and Watson in their digs was a gift. The smallest details were loving created. The injection of their current humor and banter bore the characteristic enjoyable stamp of the series. When it was in context, those scenes did feel like the gift we long awaited. <br /> <br /> But, as the gift continued to be unwrapped, the story seemed so outre that it felt like a psychological drama reminiscent of the 1960's drama <i><a amzn-ps-bm-asin="B002C68WOG" class="amzn_ps_bm_tl" data-amzn-link-id="209857cd84c5b3a53284f48876748cd0" data-amzn-ps-bm-keyword="The Prisoner" href="http://www.amazon.com/The-Prisoner-Complete-Series-Blu-ray/dp/B002C68WOG/ref=as_li_bk_tl/?tag=thebakerstree-20&linkId=209857cd84c5b3a53284f48876748cd0&linkCode=ktl" id="amznPsBmLink_6472087" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">The Prisoner</a><img alt="" border="0" height="0" id="amznPsBmPixel_6472087" src="https://ir-na.amazon-adsystem.com/e/ir?source=bk&t=thebakerstree-20&bm-id=default&l=ktl&linkId=209857cd84c5b3a53284f48876748cd0&_cb=1451965163626" style="border: none !important; height: 0px !important; margin: 0px !important; padding: 0px !important; width: 0px !important;" width="0" /></i> with an ending as bizarre as <i><a amzn-ps-bm-asin="B000ERVJKO" class="amzn_ps_bm_tl" data-amzn-link-id="826c84dede8b6895875e622641510302" data-amzn-ps-bm-keyword="The Wild Wild West" href="http://www.amazon.com/The-Wild-West-Complete-Season/dp/B000ERVJKO/ref=as_li_bk_tl/?tag=thebakerstree-20&linkId=826c84dede8b6895875e622641510302&linkCode=ktl" id="amznPsBmLink_1591083" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">The Wild Wild West</a><img alt="" border="0" height="0" id="amznPsBmPixel_1591083" src="https://ir-na.amazon-adsystem.com/e/ir?source=bk&t=thebakerstree-20&bm-id=default&l=ktl&linkId=826c84dede8b6895875e622641510302&_cb=1451965145233" style="border: none !important; height: 0px !important; margin: 0px !important; padding: 0px !important; width: 0px !important;" width="0" /></i>. Perhaps the juxtaposition of some characters in the past was some kind of personal joke to the producers. For example, it seems unlikely that Mycroft would have eaten himself to death; that should strike him as inefficient. There also seemed to be a race to see how many episodes could be referenced. The addition of fantasy sequences from within the fantasy broke whatever was left of the illusion. <br /> <br /> Finally, since it was all a drug-induced dream, I wondered if, in fact, I should have been returned to <a amzn-ps-bm-asin="B00CNW9ZI6" class="amzn_ps_bm_tl" data-amzn-link-id="c07e9e75040312e78310787731666245" data-amzn-ps-bm-keyword="wizard of oz dvd" href="http://www.amazon.com/The-Wizard-Oz-Anniversary-Edition/dp/B00CNW9ZI6/ref=as_li_bk_tl/?tag=thebakerstree-20&linkId=c07e9e75040312e78310787731666245&linkCode=ktl" id="amznPsBmLink_874996" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Kansas</a><img alt="" border="0" height="0" id="amznPsBmPixel_874996" src="https://ir-na.amazon-adsystem.com/e/ir?source=bk&t=thebakerstree-20&bm-id=default&l=ktl&linkId=c07e9e75040312e78310787731666245&_cb=1451965210860" style="border: none !important; height: 0px !important; margin: 0px !important; padding: 0px !important; width: 0px !important;" width="0" /> rather than England.<br /> <div> <br /></div> <div> <div style="text-align: center;"> <iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="360" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/LDRzqNyi8hU?rel=0" width="640"></iframe><br /></div> <div> <br /> <br /> <i>Image credit: <a href="https://vovatia.wordpress.com/2011/04/26/the-case-of-the-ozian-detectives/">The Case of the Ozian Detectives</a></i></div> <div> <br /> --</div> <div> <br /></div> </div>

The Abominable Bride — We're Not in Baker Street Any More

"the actor in some strange drama" [YELL] We had been promised a period piece, with Holmes and Watson in the time and place of...

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by M. M. M.

The Abominable Bride — A Review of Two Minds

<h4 style="text-align: center;"> "the dual nature alternatively asserted itself" [REDH]</h4> <div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"> <a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjGkv3ItF_f7rQ9FlfuY7yFOs-BHkFy1zwvnywbu7E2TOzhtmnxQJlGvqmTjrfV79EqJCosaedW6yEp5WTf9F-6VD4DM7iE2R9g692sqfpx-A5Lm8TgGptCAeXxn2VvKkPAW5SYRJModwKL/s1600/ABOM+-+of+two+minds.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="238" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjGkv3ItF_f7rQ9FlfuY7yFOs-BHkFy1zwvnywbu7E2TOzhtmnxQJlGvqmTjrfV79EqJCosaedW6yEp5WTf9F-6VD4DM7iE2R9g692sqfpx-A5Lm8TgGptCAeXxn2VvKkPAW5SYRJModwKL/s640/ABOM+-+of+two+minds.png" width="640" /></a></div> <br /> The episode has aired but the dust has far from settled.  The <i>Sherlock</i> special titled <i><a amzn-ps-bm-asin="B013JBJ7EG" class="amzn_ps_bm_tl" data-amzn-link-id="0b022f481fb6be2c17fd794c27276d28" data-amzn-ps-bm-keyword="The Abominable Bride" href="http://www.amazon.com/Sherlock-Abominable-Bride-Benedict-Cumberbatch/dp/B013JBJ7EG/ref=as_li_bk_tl/?tag=thebakerstree-20&linkId=0b022f481fb6be2c17fd794c27276d28&linkCode=ktl" id="amznPsBmLink_5699732" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">The Abominable Bride</a><img alt="" border="0" height="0" id="amznPsBmPixel_5699732" src="https://ir-na.amazon-adsystem.com/e/ir?source=bk&t=thebakerstree-20&bm-id=default&l=ktl&linkId=0b022f481fb6be2c17fd794c27276d28&_cb=1451972546885" style="border: none !important; height: 0px !important; margin: 0px !important; padding: 0px !important; width: 0px !important;" width="0" /></i> left many fans of the show elated and just as many deflated. As an author of traditional Sherlock Holmes pastiches myself, I found myself torn in two after watching the episode, and it is the both versions of myself which I believe need to write this review. <br /> <br /> So, if you'll allow me to enter my own mind palace for a minute, I will write this review from two perspectives of my personality.  On one side of my palace is the <b><i>Sherlock</i> Fan</b>, the lover of the new series and an advocate for Benedict Cumberbatch representing this generation's Sherlock Holmes. on the other side is the stalwart <b>Holmes Purist</b>, the believer in upholding the Canon and the traditional Holmes.  I asked both versions of myself for their opinions on the episode.<br /> <br /> <br /> <b>Holmes Purist:</b> The keyword for <i>The Abominable Bride</i> was <u>abominable</u>. What fans were led to believe they were getting was a self contained Victorian episode of the show <i>Sherlock </i>taking place in 1895 yet connecting to the ending of <a amzn-ps-bm-asin="B00E3UN44W" class="amzn_ps_bm_tl" data-amzn-link-id="e4a2149844b714c1571dd21203e87128" data-amzn-ps-bm-keyword="sherlock series 3" href="http://www.amazon.com/Sherlock-Season-Original-UK-Version/dp/B00E3UN44W/ref=as_li_bk_tl/?tag=thebakerstree-20&linkId=e4a2149844b714c1571dd21203e87128&linkCode=ktl" id="amznPsBmLink_5675084" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Series 3</a><img alt="" border="0" height="0" id="amznPsBmPixel_5675084" src="https://ir-na.amazon-adsystem.com/e/ir?source=bk&t=thebakerstree-20&bm-id=default&l=ktl&linkId=e4a2149844b714c1571dd21203e87128&_cb=1451972756426" style="border: none !important; height: 0px !important; margin: 0px !important; padding: 0px !important; width: 0px !important;" width="0" />. At first, I thought that they were going to pull this off.  They had the wonderful introduction with Holmes meeting Watson which was straight from <i>A Study in Scarlet</i>, the exceptional Victorian London set full of horse-drawn carriages and cobblestone streets, and the case of the bride which appeared to mirror the death of Moriarty at the end of <a amzn-ps-bm-asin="B004QOB8SO" class="amzn_ps_bm_tl" data-amzn-link-id="e90f2e1175220d4ef4b8b93fb9c64618" data-amzn-ps-bm-keyword="sherlock series 2" href="http://www.amazon.com/Sherlock-Season-2-Benedict-Cumberbatch/dp/B004QOB8SO/ref=as_li_bk_tl/?tag=thebakerstree-20&linkId=e90f2e1175220d4ef4b8b93fb9c64618&linkCode=ktl" id="amznPsBmLink_2698499" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Series 2</a><img alt="" border="0" height="0" id="amznPsBmPixel_2698499" src="https://ir-na.amazon-adsystem.com/e/ir?source=bk&t=thebakerstree-20&bm-id=default&l=ktl&linkId=e90f2e1175220d4ef4b8b93fb9c64618&_cb=1451972779024" style="border: none !important; height: 0px !important; margin: 0px !important; padding: 0px !important; width: 0px !important;" width="0" />.  what a wonderful set up! I believed we would learn from the case of ABOM how Moriarty was able to fake his own death even though he blew a hole in the back of his head. But then Victorian Holmes references modern day Moriarty and it is all downhill from there.<br /> <br /> <b><i>Sherlock </i>Fan:</b> Nonsense! You can't judge the episode on your expectations for what it was supposed to be, only for what it is, and this was an excellent episode of the show <i>Sherlock</i> with the added bonus of the Victorian segments. The episode finally put Moriarty to rest. He is dead and there will be a new villain challenging Holmes in Series 4. It also had some of the wittiest dialogue yet for the show.  As you said HP, the opening scene of Holmes meeting Watson was perfectly executed and the air date of January 1st, 135 years after the duo met was spot on brilliant. The complaining of Mrs. Hudson that she's not in the Canon enough and Watson's maid that she's not even mentioned in the Canon was hilarious, as was the banter between Holmes and the corpulent Mycroft over the elder's life expectancy. The case itself was a well written Holmesian case with Holmes acting as Holmes and Watson acting as Watson.  What is there to complain about?<br /> <br /> <b>HP:</b> Plenty! First off, Holmes and Watson were not Holmes and Watson. Watson would never talk with Holmes about his romantic aspirations while on a stake out. Second, the obese Mycroft was just a poor special effect which was so distracting as to make it hard to pay attention to the character's dialogue. Third, and most offensive, was the case. It was far too easy to solve. After Mycroft explained that their side had to lose this one, it was fairly obvious that since he was talking to men, he was referencing women, and not just any women, but the suffragists mentioned by Mary Watson earlier in the episode. After that, the story pretty much wrote itself and there were no more surprises in the Victorian parts of the episode.  Let's not even get into the rip off of <i><a amzn-ps-bm-asin="B0047WJ12K" class="amzn_ps_bm_tl" data-amzn-link-id="234aa4a24cb9903aa2c501e89eecdc42" data-amzn-ps-bm-keyword="Inception" href="http://www.amazon.com/Inception-Leonardo-DiCaprio/dp/B0047WJ12K/ref=as_li_bk_tl/?tag=thebakerstree-20&linkId=234aa4a24cb9903aa2c501e89eecdc42&linkCode=ktl" id="amznPsBmLink_3068900" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Inception</a><img alt="" border="0" height="0" id="amznPsBmPixel_3068900" src="https://ir-na.amazon-adsystem.com/e/ir?source=bk&t=thebakerstree-20&bm-id=default&l=ktl&linkId=234aa4a24cb9903aa2c501e89eecdc42&_cb=1451973042480" style="border: none !important; height: 0px !important; margin: 0px !important; padding: 0px !important; width: 0px !important;" width="0" /></i> which was the concluding third in the present.<br /> <br /> <b>SF:</b> So what if the mystery was obvious? We don't read Holmes stories and watch <i>Sherlock</i> for the mystery, but rather for the characters. As I said earlier, Holmes and Watson were wonderful in this and the humor was perfect. Watson's 'potato' line in the Diogenes Club was classic. And I found the suffragists in this episode refreshing. One of the largest complaints about the show <i>Sherlock</i> is its sexism particularly in their depiction of Irene Adler in "<a amzn-ps-bm-asin="B008133DO8" class="amzn_ps_bm_tl" data-amzn-link-id="f2fac2e60a03de40420de11d8e98fa77" data-amzn-ps-bm-keyword="A Scandal in Belgravia" href="http://www.amazon.com/A-Scandal-in-Belgravia/dp/B008133DO8/ref=as_li_bk_tl/?tag=thebakerstree-20&linkId=f2fac2e60a03de40420de11d8e98fa77&linkCode=ktl" id="amznPsBmLink_2065720" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">A Scandal in Belgravia</a><img alt="" border="0" height="0" id="amznPsBmPixel_2065720" src="https://ir-na.amazon-adsystem.com/e/ir?source=bk&t=thebakerstree-20&bm-id=default&l=ktl&linkId=f2fac2e60a03de40420de11d8e98fa77&_cb=1451973111389" style="border: none !important; height: 0px !important; margin: 0px !important; padding: 0px !important; width: 0px !important;" width="0" />." I think this was their way of making up for that one and having the women win one.<br /> <br /> <b>HP:</b> I don't think making the suffragists into purple klansmen does anything to help with the sexism complaints. Come now, does this really make up for Irene Adler not only losing to Holmes because he feels her pulse (Can we get anymore sexist than that?), but also that he has to save her life?<br /> <br /> <b>SF:</b> Okay, I concede that you are correct about Adler, but that is a different story line. This one was an excellent addition to the show <i>Sherlock</i>. I enjoyed the conclusion, and I like how Watson kicks Moriarty over the falls and out of Holmes's mind.  I don't think this could have been any better.  I give the episode five stars.<br /> <br /> <b>HP:</b> This was a travesty, an affront to Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, and it does nothing to keep the spirit of Holmes alive. I give the episode one star only.<br /> <br /> <br /> I think both of my personalities have valid points.  To be fair, I added the two reviews together and divided by two giving my final opinion of three stars, not a glowing review, but enough to say at least a part of me enjoyed it.<br /> <br /> <br /> <br /> Derrick Belanger is the author of the #1 bestselling book in its category <i><a amzn-ps-bm-asin="1519511957" class="amzn_ps_bm_tl" data-amzn-link-id="9e2003200f68f2fe44eb4bcdd1a73f6d" data-amzn-ps-bm-keyword="Sherlock Holmes: The Adventure of the Peculiar Provenance" href="http://www.amazon.com/Sherlock-Holmes-Adventure-Peculiar-Provenance/dp/1519511957/ref=as_li_bk_tl/?tag=thebakerstree-20&linkId=9e2003200f68f2fe44eb4bcdd1a73f6d&linkCode=ktl" id="amznPsBmLink_3292728" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Sherlock Holmes: The Adventure of the Peculiar Provenance</a><img alt="" border="0" height="0" id="amznPsBmPixel_3292728" src="https://ir-na.amazon-adsystem.com/e/ir?source=bk&t=thebakerstree-20&bm-id=default&l=ktl&linkId=9e2003200f68f2fe44eb4bcdd1a73f6d&_cb=1451973203084" style="border: none !important; height: 0px !important; margin: 0px !important; padding: 0px !important; width: 0px !important;" width="0" />,</i> which was in the top 200 bestselling books on Amazon. He also is the author of the MacDougall Twins with Sherlock Holmes books, the latest of which is <i><a amzn-ps-bm-asin="B017862MVS" class="amzn_ps_bm_tl" data-amzn-link-id="5293cce6e7483fecbc2d08a80a6fd7fa" data-amzn-ps-bm-keyword="Curse of the Deadly Dinosaur" href="http://www.amazon.com/Deadly-Dinosaur-MacDougall-Sherlock-Holmes-ebook/dp/B017862MVS/ref=as_li_bk_tl/?tag=thebakerstree-20&linkId=5293cce6e7483fecbc2d08a80a6fd7fa&linkCode=ktl" id="amznPsBmLink_7842789" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Curse of the Deadly Dinosaur</a><img alt="" border="0" height="0" id="amznPsBmPixel_7842789" src="https://ir-na.amazon-adsystem.com/e/ir?source=bk&t=thebakerstree-20&bm-id=default&l=ktl&linkId=5293cce6e7483fecbc2d08a80a6fd7fa&_cb=1451973247482" style="border: none !important; height: 0px !important; margin: 0px !important; padding: 0px !important; width: 0px !important;" width="0" /></i>, and he edited the Sir Arthur Conan Doyle horror anthology <i><a amzn-ps-bm-asin="B00P4E8AVI" class="amzn_ps_bm_tl" data-amzn-link-id="a71c0c4edf6b4a9c56848bf35d8b468a" data-amzn-ps-bm-keyword="A Study in Terror: Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's Revolutionary Stories of Fear and the Supernatural" href="http://www.amazon.com/Study-Terror-Revolutionary-Stories-Supernatural-ebook/dp/B00P4E8AVI/ref=as_li_bk_tl/?tag=thebakerstree-20&linkId=a71c0c4edf6b4a9c56848bf35d8b468a&linkCode=ktl" id="amznPsBmLink_5010397" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">A Study in Terror: Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's Revolutionary Stories of Fear and the Supernatural</a><img alt="" border="0" height="0" id="amznPsBmPixel_5010397" src="https://ir-na.amazon-adsystem.com/e/ir?source=bk&t=thebakerstree-20&bm-id=default&l=ktl&linkId=a71c0c4edf6b4a9c56848bf35d8b468a&_cb=1451973259426" style="border: none !important; height: 0px !important; margin: 0px !important; padding: 0px !important; width: 0px !important;" width="0" /></i>. Mr. Belanger also is a frequent contributor to I Hear of Sherlock Everywhere. He resides in Colorado and continues compiling unpublished works by Dr. John H. Watson.<br /> <br /> --<br /> <br />

The Abominable Bride — A Review of Two Minds

"the dual nature alternatively asserted itself" [REDH] The episode has aired but the dust has far from settled.  The Sherlock...

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by Belanger Books