Tuesday, January 10, 2012

AS SEEN ON TV: DOCTOR WATSON

JOHN H. WATSON, M.D.

 AS SEEN IN:
'SHERLOCK HOLMES: THE COMPLETE GRANADA TV SERIES'

 AS PLAYED BY:

DAVID BURKE

 "The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes" (13 episodes )
A Scandal in Bohemia (24 April 1984)
The Dancing Men (1 May 1984)
The Naval Treaty (8 May 1984)
The Solitary Cyclist (15 May 1984)
The Crooked Man (22 May 1984)
The Speckled Band (29 May 1984)
The Blue Carbuncle (5 June 1984)
The Copper Beeches (25 August 1985)
The Greek Interpreter (1 September 1985)
The Norwood Builder (8 September 1985)
The Resident Patient (15 September 1985)
The Red Headed League (22 September 1985)
The Final Problem (29 September 1985)

EDWARD HARDWICKE

"The Return of Sherlock Holmes" (11 episodes )
The Empty House (9 July 1986)
The Abbey Grange (16 July 1986)
The Musgrave Ritual (23 July 1986)
The Second Stain (30 July 1986)
The Man with the Twisted Lip (6 August 1986)
The Priory School (13 August 1986)
The Six Napoleons (20 August 1986)
The Devil's Foot (6 April 1988)
Silver Blaze (13 April 1988)
Wisteria Lodge (20 April 1988)
The Bruce-Partington Plans (27 April 1988)

"The Case-Book of Sherlock Holmes" (9 episodes )
The Disappearance of Lady Frances Carfax (21 February 1991)
The Problem of Thor Bridge (28 February 1991)
Shoscombe Old Place (7 March 1991)
The Boscombe Valley Mystery (14 March 1991)
The Illustrious Client (21 March 1991)
The Creeping Man (28 March 1991)
The Master Blackmailer (2 January 1992)
The Last Vampyre (27 January 1993)
The Eligible Bachelor (3 February 1993)

"The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes" (5 episodes )
The Three Gables (7 March 1994)
The Dying Detective (14 March 1994)
The Red Circle (28 March 1994)
The Mazarin Stone (4 April 1994)
The Cardboard Box (11 April 1994)

TV DIMENSION:
Earth Prime-Time

STATUS:
Recastaway
(Due to plastic surgery)

 SOURCE MATERIAL:
"THE COMPLETE SHERLOCK HOLMES"

 WRITTEN BY:
Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
(Actually, Conan Doyle served only as the editor and literary agent.  Dr. Watson wrote the stories.)

From Wikipedia:
John H. Watson, M.D. (born 7 July 1852), known as Dr. Watson, is a character in the Sherlock Holmes stories by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. Watson is Sherlock Holmes's friend, assistant and sometime flatmate, and is the first person narrator of all but four stories in the Sherlock Holmes canon.

 In "A Study in Scarlet", Watson, as the narrator, recounts his earlier life before meeting Holmes. It is established that Watson received his medical degree from the University of London in 1878, and had subsequently gone on to train as a surgeon in the British Army. He joined British forces in India, saw service in the Second Anglo-Afghan War, was wounded at the Battle of Maiwand, and was sent back to England on the troopship HMS Orontes following his recovery.

 In 1881, Watson runs into an old friend of his named Stanford, who tells him that an acquaintance of his, Sherlock Holmes, is looking for someone to split the rent at a flat in 221B Baker Street. Watson meets Holmes for the first time at a local hospital, where Holmes is conducting a scientific experiment. Holmes and Watson list their faults to each other to determine whether they can live together, concluding that they are compatible; they subsequently move into the flat. When Watson notices the multiple guests which frequently visit the flat, Holmes reveals that he is a "consulting detective" and that the guests are his clients.

 When John Watson first returns from Afghanistan, he is "as thin as a lath and as brown as a nut." He is usually described as strongly built, of a stature either average or slightly above average, with a thick, strong neck and a small moustache. Watson used to be an athlete, as it is mentioned in "The Adventure of the Sussex Vampire" that he once played rugby for Blackheath, but he fears his physical condition has declined since that point.

 Watson is described as a crack shot and an excellent doctor and surgeon. Intelligent, if lacking in Holmes's insight, he serves as a perfect foil for Holmes: the ordinary man against the brilliant, emotionally-detached analytical machine. Conan Doyle paired two characters, different in their function and yet each useful for his purposes.


 From the source material:
Holmes was a man of habits... and I had become one of them... a comrade... upon whose nerve he could place some reliance... a whetstone for his mind. I stimulated him... If I irritated him by a certain methodical slowness in my mentality, that irritation served only to make his own flame-like intuitions and impressions flash up the more vividly and swiftly. Such was my humble role in our alliance. – "The Adventure of the Creeping Man"

 BCnU!

2 comments:

Arun said...

Have you seen the Russian adaptation with Vasily Livanov as Sherlock Holmes.

Vitaly Solomin makes a great Watson.

Cheers!

Toby O'B said...

I've read about it. That Livanov was so good in the role, he was honored by the British government for his performance.....