FANFICCER'S FRIEND: SHERLOCK HOLMES AND DOCTOR.... ZAIUS?

And here we are, 9 PM, 2100 hours, the prize position in our annual "Who's On First?" blogAthon - just as if this was considered Prime-Time, the 9 o'clock slot is the showcase of the entire line-up.

And I think I have a good one this year!

The inspiration for this post came about on February 23, when I was watching "The Seven Percent Solution" on TCM.  (Had not seen it since it first came out about forty years ago!) It was based on the Sherlock Holmes pastiche novel by Nicholas Meyer, which sparked my interest in Sherlockiana.  From that starting point I read the Canon, plenty of scholarly books on the subject of Holmes, and so many other pastiches to come along afterwards.  (I think after all of the books about television and Tolkien, the volumes dedicated to the Great Detective take up the the most room on my bookshelves.)

After "The Seven Percent Solution" and the follow-up novel "The West End Horror", I was obsessed with finding other characters with whom Holmes could team up, both fictional and historical (or in the case of Chicken George Moore, a combination of both.)

One of the tropes most associated with Dr. Watson's writings was the reference to other cases solved by Holmes but which he never got around to either writing or which he had to keep it hidden away because the world was not yet ready for such revelations.

• The Giant Rat of Sumatra
• The cutter Alicia, which never emerged from a small patch of mist
• The madness of Isadora Persano, most likely due to a remarkable worm unknown to science
• The disappearance of Mr. James Phillimore, who went back into his house to fetch his umbrella and was never seen again
• The death of Crosby the banker and the repulsive red leech [1]
• The ancient British barrow [2]

Randall Stock has compiled the complete list here.

"The Seven Percent Solution" employed its own unrecorded case.  As Holmes and Watson set off to the continent with the bloodhound Toby (something about that name I like!) in pursuit of Professor Moriarty, Dr. Watson noted the following:

“More recently, Holmes had employed Toby to trace an orangutan through the sewers of Marseilles; it was a case which, though I omitted to set down, was not without features of interest.”

Forty years ago, before I became slightly addled due to my research into the dynamics of Toobworld, I assumed this might have been a reference or a continuation to the events which took place in "The Murders Of The Rue Morgue" by Edgar Allen Poe.  But that murder investigation took place around 1841 (the year of publication), nearly fifty years earlier than the meeting Dr. Watson had with Professor Moriarty which set the events of "The Seven Percent Solution" in motion.

But now years later, my mind riddled with exposure to the possibilities of Toobworld, the first suggestion which came to me involved three famous characters who made their marks in BookWorld, the Cineverse, and in Toobworld....

• Sherlock Holmes of Arthur Conan Doyle's canon
• The Doctor, the Time Lord of 'Doctor Who'
• Dr. Zaius from "The Planet Of The Apes"

Both Holmes and Zaius began "life" in BookWorld.  (In the novel "La Planete des singes" by Pierre Boulle, the inspiration for Dr. Zaius' character came from Mi Zaius.)  The Time Lord began in the universe of television, but it didn't take long for him to cross over from one fictional universe to another.  And of course, it didn't take long for the Doctor to join them in BookWorld - the first 'Doctor Novel' novelization was published in November of 1964, basically a year after the series debuted.  And the Doctor joined Holmes and Zaius in the Cineverse with a couple of offerings featuring Peter Cushing as the Doctor.  (These have no ties to the TV series.  In fact, within the "reality" of Toobworld, the movies are considered fictionalizations of the Doctor's life - a ploy to mask his existence as being real from the general public.  And that's a trick picked up from the literary licenses sprinkled throughout the writings about Sherlock Holmes by Dr. Watson.

So when I got the mad idea that the orangutan in the sewers of Marseilles was in fact Dr. Zaius, I realized there had to be some way to get him from the 40th Century back to the 19th.  And that's why I figured we would have to bring in the services of the Doctor.

Here's how I would tackle this particular fanfic.  If you have any ideas on taking a different tack, let me know.

It wouldn't have been the Doctor who brought back Dr. Zaius from that distant future (and hopefully one which will end up being an alternate future.)  The Doctor would have known better than to let loose a bestial religious fanatic on an unsuspecting world.  Earth Prime-Time, as well as Earth Prime, would already have enough of those among humankind!

I think it would have been a scheme perpetrated by the Monk.  While visiting the 40th Century in order to spur on the development of time travel among the Daleks from behind the scenes, that meddler in Time visited Earth and saw that it was now overrun by sentient simians.  Deciding on his own that their domination of the planet might be preferable to the mess humans were already creating, the Monk figured his best bet would be to bring back their most sophisticated and intelligent specimen to wreak havoc in the Gilded Age.

(Best option?  Finding Dr. Zaius at the moment when the Alpha-Omega bomb was detonated, so that the "Defender of the Faith" really had no other choice but to join the Meddling Monk in his TARDIS.

As I mentioned earlier, all three of the main characters in this story have an avatar in Toobworld.  With Sherlock Holmes, there have been quite a few incarnations in different TV series, movies, and even commercials.  But the official portrayal for Earth Prime-Time is Jeremy Brett.  (As for his Dr. Watson, there was David Burke and then Edward Hardwicke.  The splainin for this Recastaway?  They were both the same man, but Watson suffered injuries during "the Great Hiatus" which required plastic surgery.)

So it would be Jeremy Brett as Holmes.

And since I determined the plastic surgery happened after Holmes was presumed dead, we should imagine David Burke in the role.

Dr. Zaius has just the one actor to his credit in that alternate future of Toobworld - Booth Colman, as seen in the TV series "The Planet of the Apes".  In the Cineverse, it was Maurice Evans (and I don't even know how to splain away the test footage of Edward G. Robinson in the role.)

So we should imagine Booth Colman in the role of Zaius in 1890s Marseille.  I would imagine his part in this adventure takes place after the events of the TV show came to an end.  Although the Doctor could have transported Zaius back to that future in an alternate dimension, I have this feeling it was a one-way trip for the orangutan.

With the Doctor, there is only the one man, but many incarnations, thanks to regeneration.  We've seen thirteen incarnations of the Doctor so far, plus a human/Time Lord clone as well as the Curator and the Valeyard.  So in this case, we have the luxury of choosing any incarnation of the Doctor who strikes our fancy, as well as their companion.

I'm thinking it would be fun to use the Fourth Doctor, with Leela as his companion.  This particular adventure would occur between "The Talons of Weng Chi'ang" and "The Horror At Fang Rock".  After all, they would both be dressed for the adventure.

I mean, it must have been tough to get the warrior girl of the Sevateem into that whalebone corset; might as well take advantage of it while you can, Doc!

But that would be up to you should you write a version of this idea.

As an added bonus, I would also include an appearance by the Curator of the Under-Gallery at the National Museum.  (I get the feeling that in this incarnation, the Doctor has put the TARDIS into storage and settled down to his static but hardly sedate life at the Museum.)

It would be fun to imagine both versions of Tom Baker as the Time Lord, Doctor and Curator, meeting each other.

And as for the Meddling Monk?  He's only appeared in the series as played by the one actor, Peter Butterworth.  But that doesn't mean he hasn't regenerated in the time since them.  Let your freak flag fly in describing him; perhaps choose an actor whose description might be obvious to anyone who's reading your story.

I'm torn between the idea of Dr. Zaius appearing in this story as an antagonist or as a potential ally for both Holmes and the Doctor.  I suppose he could start out as the former and then become the latter once all three of them realized what the true threat was.  (Perhaps the Monk might be teamed up with the Great Intelligence or even Professor Moriarty?)

It would be just like one of those old Marvel Team-Up comic books!

A nice in-joke to add in would be for Holmes and Watson to realize that despite the difference in his features, the Doctor is someone that they have met before.  But he has no memory of that because it was one of his future incarnations who previously teamed up with Holmes.  (Dr. Watson would find that hard to believe, but as Holmes reminds him, "Once you eliminate the impossible, whatever remains, no matter how improbable, must be the truth.")

This would be a reference to another team-up between them in the novel and audio-drama "The All-Consuming Fire".

If Dr, Zaius does become an ally and chooses to remain in the present era (knowing the conflagration in the future which awaited him otherwise), perhaps he would choose to go back to 1890s London and there team-up with Lady Vastra the Silurian investigator, her wife Jenny, and their Sontaran "man"-servant, Strax.

But he could always remain behind as their enemy, and as such could step back into the timeline of the Doctor to pester him anew.

The more I think about it, the more I would love to have some intelligent ape appear on the show on a regular basis.  However, it would probably have to be some primate never seen before on TV.  Getting the rights to a character from "The Planet of the Apes" would be cost-prohibitive.

The same would hold true for 'Mr. Smith' and Professor Bobo ('MST3K'), and who would want either of them?

Anyhoo, that's just my idea.  You might have other scenarios in mind.  If you do write up this adventure, I would love the chance to read it!

Doctor Watson was right in "The Seven Percent Solution": such a case certainly would have features of interest.

BCnU!  

1] I think this may have been the same red leech known as Mr. Sweet in the 'Doctor Who' episode "The Crimson Horror" - or of the same species.

2] I could see this as being connected to the barrow event in "The Lord Of The Rings".