CREATORS: STEVEN MOFFAT, MARK GATISS
Wednesday, September 6, 2018, my first day in London. I just realized I lost my little bag while getting off the Tube. Some random nice guy showed me the nearest police station so I went there to a to make a statement but again, they told me the right service was the Lost Property Office, located back then at 200 Baker Street. I did not expect to get any result so I didn’t even bother. However, I filled an online form on their website, enjoyed my four day-stay, went back home and waited. A month later, I received a letter saying that my bag was found so there I was, surprised to find the bag intact: credit card, £200 and coins, mobile phone, etc. Of course, I left them a feedback to express my gratitude to the staff and all, also to the kind soul who brought my stuff back to Baker Street. In a parralel world though, I couldn’t help thinking of it as a mystery submitted to the great detective Sherlock Holmes and his loyal friend, Dr John Watson.
I always pictured the 19th century Sherlock Holmes as an anachronism but in reality, he just could be anywhere at anytime. In the episode The Abominable Bride, Mr Holmes (Benedict Cumberbatch) made a projection about how he and Dr Watson (Martin Freeman) get to investigate crimes in the future but this is only happening in 21th century-Sherlock’s intricate mind palace.
WHO ARE THEY?
John, former Captain Watson, now Dr Watson, 5th Northumberland fusilier, retired from the war in Afghanistan.
Sherlock Holmes who comes from a family of great intellectuals defines himself as a consulting detective. When Scotland Yard fails to find a lead, Sherlock is the man of the situation.
The two men met through Stamford, a mutual acquaintance and got along at once.
A newfangled work environment
This BBC version is more visual about how Arthur Conan Doyle would picture Holmes and Watson’s investigations in an era of fast-moving digital advancement. Telegrams become phone calls and emails, the Strand and diaries are replaced by blogs. Bohemia is Belgravia, Baskerville is a military base and Mycroft Holmes plays literally Big Brother.
There are two blogs here
Sherlock owns a website where he puts his theories like he can tell a software designer by his tie or an airline pilot by his thumb or enumerate types of tobacco ash: interesting but too show-off and not accessible to the layman. Luckily, John records mostly their cases with a more approachable style, which the readers appreciate. Yes, beside his medical role, John Watson uses digital communication as a commercial to bring clients in and make a living. Study in Pink, the Geek Interpreter, the Woman, this blog is a real Net phenomenon. John has common sense, humanity and the intelligence Sherlock lacks.
Modus Operandi
A case is brought to the guys by emails or visits then Sherlock decides unilateraly whether it is taken or not. Motivation is not money but the complexity of the case so it also depends on the way the client makes it interesting, see, the Hounds of Baskerville matter was almost rejected.
The multiangle shots dispay well Sherlock’s observation: quick, concise, flawless. Manucure, fragrance, price of suits, does the client own pets, all that spotted in few seconds; when he comes to a deduction, don’t ask why and how, just take his word for it. Unlike ourselves, Sherlock filters the nature of the information he accesses to, which makes his ignorance as incredible as his knowledge. If the Earth goes round the sun, what difference does it make? These are just distractions, he says. He was drunk once and watched TV, he must have criticized the plotholes, spoiled the ending or judged the superfluous.
There also comes the famous mind palace, an imaginary mental computer full of data. Leave the place quiet and let the sleuth retrieve information he thinks might be relevant to run his investigation, the same way we browse online using specific keywords and assess the quality of the results. The visual portrayal of an Internet forum on the website Idatedaghost.com resembles a mental palace where exchanges between the victims of a serial dater are consulted, then narrowed to few targets selected before the beginning of the chats.
Sherlock’s theories may have flaws though, especially when it comes to very smart people such as Irene ‘the woman’ Adler (Lara Pulver) and Jim Moriarty (Andrew Scott) who flew under his radar for a time. An episode was dedicated to Irene and how strong she was but Jim, Jim is the real deal. “The greatest trick the devil ever pulled was convincing the world he didn’t exist“. Sherlock’s outstanding abilities raised suspicion among Scotland Yard officers who accused him for making up these crimes to get credits by solving them easily, but as we move forward, who pulls the strings? The mechanisms of deduction eventually are not false but tampered with via hacking, mind games and information manipulation from the adversaries.
Anyway, beside technology being omnipresent, I think what’s great in the series is the way the detective’s observation is illustrated, leading to a conclusive deduction. We literally get a visual on what he has in mind with the complexity of it.
Screensociety 
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