I Hear of Sherlock Everywhere

The 2016 BSI Weekend — Wrap Up and How You Can Help

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"Ha! our party is complete." [REDH]</h4>
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 The 2016 <a href="http://bsiweekend.com/" target="_blank">BSI Weekend</a> is over. Once again, the Yale Club was the central location of a number of events, as well as the place where many made their homes over the weekend. The Roosevelt Hotel around the corner was equally as hospitable.<br />
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With books bought, bags packed, and the last farewells spoken, Sherlockians from around the world (Japan, France, Canada, England, Switzerland, Spain and more) begin to make their way homeward. And while there is typically a sense of sadness and longing that the annual fun comes to an end, there is also great satisfaction in friendships made and rekindled, special moments that range from intimate chats in the nooks of busy rooms or between dinner companions, to grand gestures and performances that delighted the masses.<br />
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While we can easily recount the events, locales and orders of business throughout the three or four days in New York, one thing remains difficult to convey to outsiders: the <i>feel</i> of the BSI Weekend for those who choose to attend. It is a brilliant assembly of wit and literary knowledge; it is a gathering of those who enjoy food, drink and good conversation; it is a celebration of Sherlock Holmes and all he has brought us; it is the culmination of so much volunteer activity from throughout the year; it is a family reunion comprised only of family members one would want to see.<br />
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The sum of all of these parts and more equate to an annual experience like no other. And when the world intervenes — perhaps through work commitments, family issues, weather, or other inconveniences — it deeply affects us. The opportunities, the friends, the events — all of these hold a special place in our hearts.<br />
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The BSI Dinner was an homage to the fateful 1991 BSI Weekend, when women finally achieved what they had deserved long before: admission into the BSI. There were memories of the Great Dinner Picket of 1968, the seemingly honorary investiture of Lenore Glen Offord ("The Old Russian Woman") from years before, and the reception during which Tom Stix, Jr., BSI made his historic announcement.<br />
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<blockquote class="twitter-tweet tw-align-center" lang="en">
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Evy Herzog and Peter Blau recount the history of women in (and out of) the BSI. <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/BSIWeekend?src=hash">#BSIWeekend</a> <a href="https://t.co/cwkPPewPkT">pic.twitter.com/cwkPPewPkT</a></div>
— I Hear of Sherlock (@IHearofSherlock) <a href="https://twitter.com/IHearofSherlock/status/688190435949297664">January 16, 2016</a></blockquote>
<script async="" charset="utf-8" src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js"></script><br />
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So when the new class of Investitured Irregulars was welcomed to the fold on Friday evening, it was something of an open-armed and warm embrace. The new investitures included:<br />
<ul>
<li>Tim Greer — "The Ragged Shaw"
</li>
<li>Dana Cameron — "The Giant Rat of Sumatra"</li>
<li>Bert Coules — "The Whole Art of Detection"</li>
<li>Jenn Eaker — "Mary Sutherland"</li>
<li>John Durein — "Wilson, the Notorious Canary Trainer"</li>
<li>Jay Ganguly — "The Great Agra Treasure"</li>
<li>Will Walsh — "Godfrey Norton"</li>
<li>Tom Francis — The Two Shilling Award</li>
</ul>
<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/AVvXsEipwcPp3NUp9gv25aqHygXPBClDh6p-Y0FjEUBmq518RHtPwE8CVF4ahzhfZxaVUg4oizZ_awyIGqdnyP41h_07KMgMfwnkv3Wu9n0SL8jnX_9PHcMp8myt4OK-wYeFKV2FNpauAFrwaY4J/s1600/BSI+2016+Investitures.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="426" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEipwcPp3NUp9gv25aqHygXPBClDh6p-Y0FjEUBmq518RHtPwE8CVF4ahzhfZxaVUg4oizZ_awyIGqdnyP41h_07KMgMfwnkv3Wu9n0SL8jnX_9PHcMp8myt4OK-wYeFKV2FNpauAFrwaY4J/s640/BSI+2016+Investitures.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The Class of 2016 Baker Street Irregulars (L-R): John Durein, Jay Ganguly, Tim Greer, Jenn Eaker, Bert Coules, Dana Cameron, and Will Walsh.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
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<h3>
We Need Your Help</h3>
<h4>
"those scenes which are indelibly fixed in every detail upon my memory" [HOUN]</h4>
This was without question one of the most documented BSI weekends to date. The memories flowed out on Facebook, Twitter and elsewhere, with photos galore. And there were even more assets that were not shared publicly (such as videos and audio, per the BSI's policy). But rather than allowing these to be scattered to the digital wind, we thought we could collaborate.<br />
<br />
If you have assets of some sort that have been posted or that you have stored somewhere — a Facebook album or photos, a tweet that got some likes, RTs or replies, as well as video or audio you may have recorded — <a href="mailto:comment@ihearofsherlock.com" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">please email us with #BSIWeekend in the subject line</a> and let us know. We'll be compiling these assets and determining how to get some of them to the BSI Trust, as well as how to cull together those publicly available posts in a place for all to see.<br />
<br />
What another fine weekend of memories, for those present and those following along online. May we continue to make many fine memories together.<br />
<br />
--<br />
<br />

The 2016 BSI Weekend — Wrap Up and How You Can Help

"Ha! our party is complete." [REDH] The 2016 BSI Weekend is over. Once again, the Yale Club was the central location of a n...

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by Scott Monty

Episode 88: The Abominable Show

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"a malicious and abominable smile" [DYIN]</h4>
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You've likely seen the online chatter and either managed to see the episode or miss the spoilers for <i><a amzn-ps-bm-asin="B018WICR0W" class="amzn_ps_bm_tl" data-amzn-link-id="5bee82681ba2b042456130e18789c341" data-amzn-ps-bm-keyword="Sherlock: The Abominable Bride" href="http://www.amazon.com/Sherlock-Abominable-Bride-Bonus-Features/dp/B018WICR0W/ref=as_li_bk_tl/?tag=thebakerstree-20&linkId=5bee82681ba2b042456130e18789c341&linkCode=ktl" id="amznPsBmLink_5213410" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Sherlock: The Abominable Bride</a><img alt="" border="0" height="0" id="amznPsBmPixel_5213410" src="https://ir-na.amazon-adsystem.com/e/ir?source=bk&t=thebakerstree-20&bm-id=default&l=ktl&linkId=5bee82681ba2b042456130e18789c341&_cb=1452837841967" style="border: none !important; height: 0px !important; margin: 0px !important; padding: 0px !important; width: 0px !important;" width="0" /></i> to date. Before listening to this episode, we recommend watching (or even re-watching) it, for you'll have better context around some of our references.<br />
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We're pleased to bring you some of our observations and even some conjecture about the intent and direction of the show based on our viewings. We even throw in nods to Alfred Hitchcock and Orson Welles And don't be surprised if a few musical references manage to weave themselves into the narrative [don't miss Scott's favorite clip at 38:45].<br />
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We're currently at the BSI Weekend as we post this, and we talk about some of the people we'll see and have on the show soon. We also mention bringing IHOSE on the road this autumn, we read listener comments, welcome a new sponsor, and include an audio trailer to a new Dr. Who crossover.<br />
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We of course manage to squeeze in a Gas-Lamp, this time from Vol. 33, No. 1 of <i>The Baker Street Journal</i> before it's all through.<br />
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A special thank you to Mary Miller and Christian Mongaard for your continued extraordinary support!<br />
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<h3>
Sponsors</h3>
This episode includes our two longtime sponsors that deserve your attention:<br />
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The <a href="http://www.wessexpress.com/" target="_blank">Wessex Press</a>, featuring three new titles for 2016: <i>Sherlock Holmes and Conan Doyle in the Newspapers Vol. 2</i>, <i>A Curious Collection of Dates</i>, and <i>A Quick Succession of Subjects</i>, and <a href="http://www.bakerstreetjournal.com/" target="_blank"><i>The Baker Street Journal</i></a>, where you should get <a href="http://www.bakerstreetjournal.com/itemsforsale/subscriptions.html" target="_blank">your annual subscription</a> in now to secure all four issues - now accepting 2016 subscriptions. And Paula Berinstein's <a href="http://amandalester.net/" target="_blank">Amanda Lester, Detective</a> series for young adults.<br />
<br />
Would you care to become a sponsor? You can find <a href="http://www.ihearofsherlock.com/p/contact.html#.Vc1Qx7JViko" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">more information here</a>.</div>
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Notes:</h3>
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1:53 Introductory remarks<br />
5:12 Sherlock Holmes and attention deficit disorder<br />
9:45 BSI Weekend plans, interview for IHOSE #89<br />
12:32 IHOSE on the road in September!<br />
16:49 An important message about new books<br />
21:50 Abominable Bride discussion<br />
34:25 Flavors of Hitchcock and Welles in the special<br />
37:55 A study in characters, including Mycroft<br />
40:15 Some familiar faces in the special<br />
44:30 Mary Morstan predictions<br />
47:20 A new IHOSE sponsor<br />
50:21 Listener comments<br />
56:28 News<br />
1:07:13 Sherlock Holmes Brand advertisement<br />
1:08:32 The Editor's Gas-Lamp<br />
1:13:20 Thank yous<br />
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<h4 style="text-align: center;">
<a href="http://traffic.libsyn.com/ihearofsherlock/ihearofsherlock088.mp3" target="_blank">Download</a> [Save As] | File size 35.1 MB, 1:16:12</h4>
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<h3>
Links:</h3>
<ul>
<li><i><a amzn-ps-bm-asin="B018WICR0W" class="amzn_ps_bm_tl" data-amzn-link-id="bc8ea99b016e98b64e15ee080a1d35ac" data-amzn-ps-bm-keyword="Sherlock: The Abominable Bride" href="http://www.amazon.com/Sherlock-Abominable-Bride-Bonus-Features/dp/B018WICR0W/ref=as_li_bk_tl/?tag=thebakerstree-20&linkId=bc8ea99b016e98b64e15ee080a1d35ac&linkCode=ktl" id="amznPsBmLink_6212432" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Sherlock: The Abominable Bride</a><img alt="" border="0" height="0" id="amznPsBmPixel_6212432" src="https://ir-na.amazon-adsystem.com/e/ir?source=bk&t=thebakerstree-20&bm-id=default&l=ktl&linkId=bc8ea99b016e98b64e15ee080a1d35ac&_cb=1452839283491" style="border: none !important; height: 0px !important; margin: 0px !important; padding: 0px !important; width: 0px !important;" width="0" /></i></li>
<li><a href="http://ihose.co/ABOMsummary" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">A round-up of reviews of ABOM</a></li>
<li>Sherlock: 34 Things You Might Have Missed in The Abominable Bride (<a href="http://www.denofgeek.us/tv/sherlock/251713/sherlock-34-things-you-might-have-missed-in-the-abominable-bride" target="_blank">Den of Geek</a>) </li>
<li><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jl5vi9ir49g" target="_blank">He Ain't Heavy, He's My Brother</a> (The Hollies)</li>
<li><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t2mU6USTBRE" target="_blank">Fat</a> (Weird Al)</li>
<li>Our <a href="http://ihose.co/ihose2015" target="_blank">2015 year-end summary</a> of accomplishments</li>
<li><a href="http://www.bbc.com/culture/story/20160106-how-sherlock-holmes-changed-the-world" target="_blank">How Sherlock Holmes Changed the World</a> </li>
<li><a href="http://www.ihearofsherlock.com/2016/01/original-holmes-and-parallel-holmes.html" target="_blank">The Original Holmes and the Parallel Holmes</a></li>
<li><a href="http://londonist.com/2015/12/the-many-faces-of-sherlock-holmes" target="_blank">The Many Faces of Sherlock Holmes</a></li>
<li><a href="http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3341419/Founder-Sherlock-Holmes-Museum-dies-broken-heart-amid-long-running-poisonous-feud-2m-ticket-sales-divided-family.html" target="_blank">Founder of Sherlock Holmes Museum dies of a 'broken heart'</a> </li>
<li><a href="https://www.bigfinish.com/releases/v/all-consuming-fire-1229" target="_blank">All-Consuming Fire</a> - Dr. Who and Sherlock Holmes crossover (Big Finish)</li>
<li><a href="http://ihose.co/ihose51" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Episode 51: Who Is a Sherlockian?</a></li>
<li>The <a href="http://patreon.com/ihearofsherlock" target="_blank">I Hear of Sherlock Everywhere Patreon</a> page</li>
</ul>
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Many more links, articles and images are available in our Flipboard and Scoop.it sites at <a href="http://ihose.co/flipsherlock" target="_blank">ihose.co/flipsherlock</a> and <a href="http://www.scoop.it/t/sherlock-holmes" target="_blank">ihose.co/scoopsherlock</a>, as well as on the <a href="https://plus.google.com/communities/114565123495685504221" target="_blank">The Sherlock Holmes Community</a> on Google+ (now over 2,800 members), as well as through our accounts on <a href="http://facebook.com/ihearofsherlock" target="_blank">Facebook</a>, <a href="http://twitter.com/ihearofsherlock" target="_blank">Twitter</a> and <a href="http://ihearofsherlock.tumblr.com/" target="_blank">Tumblr</a>.</div>
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Your thoughts on the show? Leave a comment below, send us an email (comment AT ihearofsherlock DOT com), call us at (774) 221-READ (7323).</div>
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Episode 88: The Abominable Show

"a malicious and abominable smile" [DYIN] You've likely seen the online chatter and either managed to see the ...

+ Read more »

by Scott Monty

Remembering Alan Rickman

<h4 style="text-align: center;">
"in his languid fashion" [NORW]</h4>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgHZBNJCw1Zdrg1mYEVBk1bvOmVZWM7DDBAQ6IACJSzF-0W_asMeShPzoxMF7rCg_JzSFraV3owgheaspc4iNsYYYybmYlf2yAX7zOB9eZ2ZC76dHdNzfmUtlcPmRICrLlovEcQyWboQoAv/s1600/Rickman.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="340" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgHZBNJCw1Zdrg1mYEVBk1bvOmVZWM7DDBAQ6IACJSzF-0W_asMeShPzoxMF7rCg_JzSFraV3owgheaspc4iNsYYYybmYlf2yAX7zOB9eZ2ZC76dHdNzfmUtlcPmRICrLlovEcQyWboQoAv/s640/Rickman.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
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Actor <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/film/2016/jan/14/alan-rickman-giant-of-british-film-and-theatre-dies-at-69" target="_blank">Alan Rickman has passed away</a> in London at the age of 69.<br />
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The Shakespearean-trained actor was best known as Severus Snape from the Harry Potter film series, after having gotten his start in film villainy as Hans Gruber in the 1988 action movie <i><a amzn-ps-bm-asin="B000SZK41M" class="amzn_ps_bm_tl" data-amzn-link-id="50f7bdde384bc4a17354048ac7cdf25f" data-amzn-ps-bm-keyword="Die Hard" href="http://www.amazon.com/Die-Hard-Bruce-Willis/dp/B000SZK41M/ref=as_li_bk_tl/?tag=thebakerstree-20&linkId=50f7bdde384bc4a17354048ac7cdf25f&linkCode=ktl" id="amznPsBmLink_180716" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Die Hard</a><img alt="" border="0" height="0" id="amznPsBmPixel_180716" src="https://ir-na.amazon-adsystem.com/e/ir?source=bk&t=thebakerstree-20&bm-id=default&l=ktl&linkId=50f7bdde384bc4a17354048ac7cdf25f&_cb=1452775515860" style="border: none !important; height: 0px !important; margin: 0px !important; padding: 0px !important; width: 0px !important;" width="0" /></i>. He went on to play other baddies, such as the Sheriff of Nottingham in <a amzn-ps-bm-asin="630460291X" class="amzn_ps_bm_tl" data-amzn-link-id="55de669b324d2323eb10440a238c0734" data-amzn-ps-bm-keyword="robin hood 1991" href="http://www.amazon.com/Robin-Hood-Prince-Thieves-Snap/dp/630460291X/ref=as_li_bk_tl/?tag=thebakerstree-20&linkId=55de669b324d2323eb10440a238c0734&linkCode=ktl" id="amznPsBmLink_9595530" rel="nofollow" style="font-style: italic;" target="_blank">Robin Hood: Prince of Theieves</a>,<i> </i>with an under-accented Kevin Costner<span style="border-color: initial !important; border-image-outset: initial !important; border-image-repeat: initial !important; border-image-slice: initial !important; border-image-source: initial !important; border-image-width: initial !important; border-width: initial !important;"><i><img alt="" border="0" height="0" id="amznPsBmPixel_9595530" src="https://ir-na.amazon-adsystem.com/e/ir?source=bk&t=thebakerstree-20&bm-id=default&l=ktl&linkId=55de669b324d2323eb10440a238c0734&_cb=1452775594733" style="border: none !important; height: 0px !important; margin: 0px !important; padding: 0px !important; width: 0px !important;" width="0" /></i></span>.<br />
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Another actor who had a part in the 1938 film version of <i>Robin Hood</i> was Basil Rathbone, who played Sir Guy of Gisbourne. Of course Rathbone had plenty of screen time playing villains in addition to his most famous role of Sherlock Holmes in the 1940s.<br />
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A little-known connection is that Rickman <a href="http://www.tor.com/2015/01/30/alan-rickman-sherlock-holmes-photo/" target="_blank">once played Sherlock Holmes on stage</a>, in the 1976 revival of William Gillette's play.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Alan Rickman as Sherlock Holmes (credit: <a href="http://www.arthur-conan-doyle.com/index.php/Sherlock_Holmes_(play_1976_with_Alan_Rickman)" target="_blank">The Conan Doyle Encyclopedia</a>)</td></tr>
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We'd be remiss if we didn't mention that Sherlock's own Benedict Cumberbatch was a fairly talented Alan Rickman impersonator, most notably demonstrated with his Rickman-off with Jimmy Fallon:<br />
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<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="360" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/CnbN3Pya_AM?rel=0" width="640"></iframe><br /></div>
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Remembering Alan Rickman

"in his languid fashion" [NORW] Actor Alan Rickman has passed away in London at the age of 69. The Shakespearean-trained a...

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by Scott Monty

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 />
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<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 />
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<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>
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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 />
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<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...

+ Read more »

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>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh3t-Eb8PxaS1xNZo7RrMLr2tiGen5MNb6DfEnpuNyTFqPwPkQoKFrvSfQwRPG_o17tEcWNvjJDX05duhT0POgplECeekYhIiVuKH5KfF6Zupat9445nK1m9eoCgqTKFqKqB2k2wDBzhCmU/s1600/1966+BSI+Dinner.jpg" 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://www.ashsherlockian.org/" 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" 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...

+ Read more »

by Chris Redmond

Original Holmes and Parallel Holmes

<h4 style="text-align: center;">
"running on parallel lines" [HOUN]</h4>
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<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 ...

+ Read more »

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>
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<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>
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<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...

+ Read more »

by Scott Monty

A Requiem for Sherlock Holmes

<h4 style="text-align: center;">
"Very interesting reading it might be" [STUD]</h4>
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<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 />
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<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 />
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<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>
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<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>
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<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>
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<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>
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<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>
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<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>
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<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>
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<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>
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<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 />
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<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 />
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<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 />
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<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 />
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<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 />
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<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 />
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<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 />
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<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 />
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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

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"your celebrated friend, Mr. Sherlock Holmes" [NAVA] </h4>
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<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>
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January 6th is here and that marks the date on which we traditionally celebrate Sherlock Holmes's birthday.<br />
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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 />
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<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 />
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<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 />
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<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 />
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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 />
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<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 />
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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 />
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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 />
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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

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"I am now about to summarize" [ENGR] </h4>
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<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>
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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 />
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And for our money, that means that the program was successful.<br />
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<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 />
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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 />
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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 />
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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 />
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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 />
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<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 />
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<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 />
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<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 />
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<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 />
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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 />
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<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 />
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<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 />
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<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 />
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<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 />
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<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 />
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<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 />
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<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>
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This is probably the most apt analogy and succinct review we've yet read.<br />
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<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 />
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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 />
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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 />
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<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>
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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 />
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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 />
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<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>
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And yet, Mycroft of ABOM was given to us as this caricature:<br />
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<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>
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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 />
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<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>
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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 />
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<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>
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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 />
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What did we miss? And what did you think of the special? Feel free to let us know in a comment below.<br />
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