MY BIRTHDAY POST FOR SHERLOCK HOLMES

'THE TWILIGHT ZONE'

"A WORLD OF HIS OWN"

&
'SHERLOCK'
"THE SIGN OF THREE"

From Sherlock's "Best Man Speech": 

SHERLOCK: We’ve had some frustrating cases ...
SHERLOCK  ... ‘touching’ cases ...
SHERLOCK: ... and of course I have to mention the elephant in the room.

FLASHBACK -
Holmes & Watson stand in the doorway of what looks like a fairly ordinary room somewhere. They stare up wide-eyed at what they can see inside. Offscreen, an elephant trumpets loudly.
-----------
And suddenly I wondered if they had become involved with Gregory West.....

Although the online blog for Dr. Watson is a tie-in to 'Sherlock', I tend to ignore it.  I'm generally concerned only with what I can see on the screen.  However, I don't think the entry for the "Elephant In The Room" has any impact on Earth Prime-Time, nor does it conflict with what I have in mind for Mr. West.

Here are a few lines from that blog entry:

Sherlock's had some mad cases over the last couple of years and I wouldn't say I've ever got entirely used to them but nothing, and I mean nothing, could have prepared me for what we found at 29 Ryder Lane in Brockley.

It was a typical suburban house in a typical suburban street. But inside that typical suburban house were two bodies. And an elephant. An actual elephant. Standing there in the middle of the room looking, well a bit bored, to be honest.

If the name is not familiar to you, Gregory West was a playwright in "A World Of His Own", the final episode for the first season of 'The Twilight Zone'.  He had a gift for the descriptive, a command over the power of the Word - anything he described into his tape recorder would become Reality.  And so long as he didn't erase that tape or burn it, then his creation would remain a reality.  (At one point he summoned an elephant to prevent his wife Victoria from escaping the house.)

It's the Toobworld belief that West was descended from Evander, the demi-god from the Age of Legend, who was able to summon anything from his imagination and make it real.  Other TV characters who share his bloodline would be Anthony Fremont, also of 'The Twilight Zone', a comic book artist played by Harry Anderson in an episode of 'Tales From The Crypt', a gunner trapped on a disabled bomber during World War II (as seen in 'Amazing Stories') and a cartoonist whose comic strip could come to life in 'The People Next Door'.

For Gregory West, his life achieved harmonic bliss once he created his vision of a perfect wife and after both his first wife and Rod Serling himself were banished back into the aether from which they were created.  To my mind, it is one of the most perfect season-ending cliff-hangers ever (Would the show come back and would Rod?), a category for which it's not often considered.  

But what happened to West and his new wife Mary after the episode ended?

The universe of Television, like any world which was based on plot, would have demanded a dramatic situation to arise from that ending.  The neighbors - and surely there would have been a Gladys Kravitz type next door?* - would most likely have brought it to the attention of the police that Victoria West had disappeared, only to be replaced by Mary.

Eventually I think the Wests would have had to move away from such prying eyes.  And with his powers to create his own Realiy, Greg West might have teleported them anywhere to live.  And when the mood struck them, perhaps they would spend the theatre season in the suburbs of London so that he could keep an eye on any productions of his plays.

So it could have been the home of Gregory and Mary West at 29 Ryder Lane in Brockley.  And falling back on old habits, he had summoned the elephant again.  Perhaps it was meant to "run interference' for them as they made their escape from those two dead bodies - when they were still alive, of course.

And who were they?  Who can say?  Agents of THRUSH or KAOS?  Gatherers from "The Village"?  At any rate, they represented some shadowy organization who knew of the "magical" powers of Gregory West.  And as to whether they saw West as a threat to the world in general or as an asset to be used for their own purposes, I don't have the answer.

It's just a theory, one which I could never state categorically to be true.  For you see, I believe 'Sherlock' takes place in Limbo.  That character we see as a modern day consulting detective is actually the soul of the real Sherlock Holmes.  

Dr. John Watson, however, is the soul of a different man by the same name, one actually from the modern era who perished during active duty in Afghanistan.  Holmes is probably acting as this Watson's mentor in the afterlife, just as Gene Hunt did for Sam Tyler and Alex Drake in 'Life On Mars' and 'Ashes To Ashes' respectively.

As was the case with Gene Hunt, the soul of Sherlock Holmes looked nothing like he did in real life.....

And this means that more than likely Gregory West was dead as well.  (Had to be - I doubt he dictated such a scenario to live in!)  

I'm afraid Mary would have been left behind in Earth Prime-Time, immortal so long as her snippet of recording tape survived.  Even if she had "died" at some point, she would have simply vanished back into starstuff.  I don't think she would have had an actual soul.

So there's my post celebrating Sherlock Holmes on what may have been his birthday.....

BCnU!

* And now I have an idea for a new entry about Gregory West!