Sherlock Holmes is the adaptive gift that keeps on giving.
Everywhere you look, you see some story directly taken from, or influenced by, Arthur Conan Doyle’s idiosyncratic detective.
The character is a staple in the mystery genre, and everyone is at least somewhat familiar with the dynamic Holmes and Watson duo.
In the past few years, we’ve been given a plethora of Sherlock Holmes adaptations to choose from.
There’s the Robert Downey Jr. version, which involved two sexy, action-packed movies released in 2009 and 2011.
I like those films a lot, but their Holmes and Watson bear no resemblance to the reality the books suggest. I especially doubt that an authentic Dr. Watson would be anywhere near as handsome as Jude Law.
Then there’s the hit BBC series, “Sherlock,” which shows a modern-day Sherlock Holmes as a brilliant but abrasive young man (he might fit in at Hopkins) whose stories are recounted on Watson’s popular blog.
This adaptation is especially interesting because it humorously acknowledges the homosexual undertones often associated with the Holmes-Watson relationship.
Most recently, CBS has premiered a show called “Elementary,” which takes a particularly radical departure from the original stories.
First of all, it is set in modern-day New York.
Second, Watson is a woman (played by Lucy Liu).
Third, female-Watson is introduced as Holmes’ minder, whose primary objective is to make sure he stays clean, as this Sherlock has just gotten out of rehab.
If you ask me, that’s a pretty big jump from the alluded-to drug problems in the Conan Doyle series. I’m not crazy about “Elementary” so far, but I think it has potential.
In any case, Sherlock Holmes is obviously a popular subject.
We’ve been inundated with the character our whole lives. Wikipedia lists at least 75 different actors who have portrayed the famous detective, beginning with a stage adaptation in 1899.
Our grandparents’ generation had Basil Rathbone playing Holmes from 1939-1946.
My mom says that for her, THE Sherlock Holmes is Jeremy Brett, who starred in the BBC series from 1984-1994.
Our generation has even more choices. Links to the indelible detective show up everywhere, from cartoons to police procedurals.
My first exposure to the Sherlock Holmes universe was in the form of a Disney movie called “The Great Mouse Detective.” This is not a particularly famous Disney classic, but it’s a fun, spooky little story.
It follows the darkly amusing adventures of one talented mouse detective, Basil (no doubt named after Basil Rathbone) and his associate, Dr. Dawson.
The two main characters are heavily based on Holmes and Watson, and the film creates a rodent-driven interpretation of Victorian London. Basil in fact lives on Baker Street below the actual Sherlock Holmes and sometimes teams up with Holmes’ pet dog, Toby.
“The Great Mouse Detective” was an effective introduction to an archetype that would reappear many times throughout in my life.
My mom is a Sherlock Holmes fanatic, so she liked it as well.
It inspired her to buy me a book of Conan Doyle’s stories — albeit a children’s version — which solidified the place of detective fiction in my imagination.
Much later, I read some Edgar Allen Poe short stories for a college English class. The stories starred an amateur detective named Dupin.
Poe’s character actually predates the Conan Doyle series, and it serves as a kind of Sherlock Holmes prototype.
Dupin introduces the concept of a highly-intelligent, nonconformist sleuth who rapidly solves mysteries and then enlightens the plebeians with his entertaining explanations.
This is a tradition from which Sherlock Holmes and his various descendants have clearly drawn.
We seem to have an innate fascination with this kind of eccentric detective character, whether his name is Sherlock or not.
This is most evident in the entertainment industry’s persistence in reinterpreting Conan Doyle’s work, but the trope expands beyond the direct canon.
In fact, links to the Holmes archetype can be found in various contemporary TV shows and in the public fascination with mystery plots in general.
The most obvious seem to be “The Mentalist” and “Psych.”
The stars of these shows have powers of detection beyond those of a regular person, and they use these skills to unconventionally solve mysteries, Sherlock-style.
“The Mentalist”’s Jane and “Psych”’s Shawn are also both quirky characters that don’t fit neatly into a regular police department.
Even “Bones” contains remnants of Conan Doyle’s influence.
Dr. Brennan, the Sherlock-inspired character, is brilliant and eccentric to the point of social ineptitude. She also consults with the police without being a formal detective or FBI agent.
Her partner, Booth, is somewhat Watson-like, acting as the regular person who buffers Brennan’s strange and inaccessible behavior.
Although he was first introduced over a hundred years ago, Sherlock Holmes is a character that never seems to die.
Even Arthur Conan Doyle himself tried to kill Sherlock off in the short story “The Final Problem.”
However, by then, the detective’s roots had set in so deep that even cutting down the tree didn’t do any good. Holmes’ strength and popularity have made him terribly difficult to get rid of.
Now, more than a century later, we aren’t likely to escape his influence.
However, as Sherlock Holmes has inspired some undeniably great entertainment, I doubt anyone is complaining.
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