After going to 221bcon and the Midwest BSI Canonical Conclave is April, I thought I would have a ton of material in my brain to do a blog post. Of course, that didn’t work out for me at all. I wracked my brain for things and then it kind of occurred to me that there is SO MUCH Sherlock everywhere right now!
First, the Sherlock & Co podcast that has become quite the rage among Sherlockians and has created a fandom all its own as well. I have recommended it to several people outside the Sherlock world who have told me they loved it. This year at 221bcon, there was a panel for where we all got to meet the creators via Zoom and ask questions. It was really cool to get to hear them answer questions from everyone; AND, we got big news. I guess this isn’t a spoiler by now. They announced a spin-off podcast about Raffles! I’m really looking forward to hearing those adventures as well. Sherlock and Daughter on CW premiered as well. I haven’t had a chance to see this one, but I’ve heard promising things from other Sherlockians.
There so many shows, podcasts, comics, music with Sherlock references. Heck there are so many books with just lists of this stuff, but I’m thinking now about all the little things we might just miss, unless we weren’t as keyed in to hearing Sherlock’s name. There are so many references to that use Sherlock phrases are just everyday vernacular. We all know, and some hate, the phrase “no sh*t Sherlock”. And of course, we hear phrases like “elementary my dear Watson” despite how non-canonical it is. The name Sherlock has come to mean anyone that is extremely smart, and that uses logic and deduction to solve problems. Sherlock is even, in fact, in the Oxford English Dictionary as both a noun and a verb *https://www.oed.com/search/dictionary/?scope=Entries&q=Sherlock.
Then there are all Sherlock references that I see randomly everywhere, even when I least expect it. Walking back to the train station in Tokyo after the Sherlockian dinner, I just happened to find the 40th Anniversary edition of the Railway Detective, with a very nice likeness of our venerated Holmes.
The video games, the comics, the podcasts, endlessly putting in cute little nods to our favorite detective or someone that played him or a favorite line from Watson. Like in Dr. Strange when Benedict Cumberbatch flips up the collar of his cloak, *wink* we Sherlock fans know what you did and yes, Benedict, you do look cool. I watched The Residence recently and I loved that they named all the episodes for detective stories. Including titled “The Adventures of the Engineer’s Thumb”, which (NO SPOILERS), is actually about an engineer. There was no hydraulic press, rather a pressure issue that he solved and no murder attempt on his life in which he lost a thumb, but I loved the reference all the same.
And then, while watching a Japanese show about a team of forensics pathologists who solves murders, I saw a more twisty reference that ended up tying the entire episode together. A young student had been murdered at his school and a classmate challenged one of the pathologists, Mikoto, to determine his cause of death through only video while and the clues he would give her, while live-streaming the entire interaction. She is under pressure to solve the mystery because he has threatened to kill another student once his stream reaches 100,000 viewers. Whew, what a challenge! The final clue is a reading from a novel (pictured below) where he obscured the character’s names by using only their initials. Just as Mikoto and team were gathering what seems to be the most confusing evidence ever and she attempts to put things together, the name of the story the live streamer is reading is revealed to be “Thor Bridge”. Mikoto immediately goes to the library, as one does, gets a copy of Sherlock Holmes and reads “The Problem of Thor Bridge” and with that figures out how the events unfolded. Yes, dear readers, it was indeed a suicide cleverly hidden by a block pulling the murder weapon into a hiding place to seem as though his death was caused by a student who had been relentlessly bullying him. No river, no bridge, no affair, but a very updated version of the same sad tale.
I submit, dear readers, that based upon the evidence presented if you are looking for more Sherlock or just some mysteries to solve in Sherlockian style, dig around. You might be surprised by what you find. So, I invite you to play I Spy Sherlock edition and post all the Sherlock references you have found today in the comments.
PS. I will be back in the fall to share more statue hunting adventures!
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