HI HONEY, I'M HOLMES! (PART TWO)

There have been over a hundred alternate TV dimensions seen, thanks mostly to 'Sliders', but also due to 'Futurama', 'Star Trek', and the various science fiction anthology series.

And each of them is home to Holmes.

Currently there are a handful of "active" dimensions, thanks to the popularity of working the White House into so many different TV series. (All of the other dimensions are still out there, but they're just not being seen at present, much like so many TV characters after their shows have been canceled.)

So after the dimensions of the main Toobworld, the evil mirror version, and Earth Prime-Time Delay, home of the remakes, all of the other dimensions can be summed up pretty much by who's the POTUS for each of them. For each of them, I've assigned a Sherlock Holmes.

First off, a recap of the Big Three dimensions:

EARTH PRIME-TIME
Jeremy Brett (Sherlock Holmes)
. . . "Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, The" (1984) TV Series
. . . "Casebook of Sherlock Holmes, The" (1990) TV Series
. . . "Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes, The" (1994) TV Series
. . . "Return of Sherlock Holmes, The" (1986) TV Series
. . . Eligible Bachelor, The (1993) (TV)
. . . Hound of the Baskervilles, The (1988) (TV)
. . . Last Vampyre, The (1993) (TV)
. . . Master Blackmailer, The (1992) (TV)
. . . Sign of Four, The (1987) (TV)

EARTH PRIME-TIME (EVIL MIRROR)
Alan Wheatley (II) (Sherlock Holmes)
. . . "Sherlock Holmes" (1951) (mini) TV Series

EARTH PRIME-TIME DELAY
Ronald Howard (I) (Sherlock Holmes)
. . . "Sherlock Holmes" (1954) TV Series

And now on to the other dimensions, not only of sight but sound......

TOOBWORLD OF 'THE WEST WING'
Douglas Wilmer (Sherlock Holmes (1965)
. . . "Sherlock Holmes" (1965) TV Series
. . . Adventure of Sherlock Holmes' Smarter Brother, The (1975)

Yet another series which debuted on Television nearly twenty years before the Sherlock Holmes chosen to be the official representative for the main Toobworld. So in order to honor Mr. Wilmer's contribution to Sherlockiana, we've assigned his TV series to the dimension which houses the finest show about the ideal of Washington politics.

And don't hold the fact that he portrayed the Great Detective in the Gene Wilder comedy against him. First off, that's a different universe, let alone a dimension, and has no bearing on Toobworld. And secondly, Mr. Wilmer conducted himself with dignity in his portrayal of Holmes while all about him were operating at the same level of Mr. Wilder's manic high.

TOOBWORLD OF 'COMMANDER-IN-CHIEF'
Peter Cushing (Sherlock Holmes (1968))
. . . "Sherlock Holmes" (1965) TV Series
. . . Hound of the Baskervilles, The (1959)
. . . Masks of Death, The (1984) (TV)

For the final year of that 1960s TV series about Sherlock Holmes, the character was portrayed by noted genre actor Peter Cushing. He had earlier assayed the role in a Hammer film about the most famous of Holmes' cases, ("The Hound Of The Baskervilles"), and would return to the role in his penultimate performance ("The Masks Of Death").

In its final year, 'The West Wing' has been joined by a rival show about the White House and its occupants - ABC's 'Commander-In-Chief', starring Geena Davis as the first female President. There have been a lot of articles out there comparing the two shows, weighing their merits and debits, as there might have been when Mr. Cushing took over the role of Holmes from Mr. Wilmer. That's why I've assigned his year of the series to the same dimension as 'Commander-In-Chief'.

[By the way, that's how I got around splainin the recastaway of Holmes in that series. Rather than blather on about Quantum leaps or plastic surgery or alien abductions, the change in appearance was due to the viewpoint coming from an entirely different dimension.]

TOOBWORLD OF '24'
Matt Frewer (Sherlock Holmes)
. . . Case of the Whitechapel Vampire, The (2002) (TV)
. . . Hound of the Baskervilles, The (2000) (TV)
. . . Royal Scandal, The (2001) (TV)
. . . Sign of Four, The (2001) (TV)

This world, in which a single day is played out over an entire season, always feels a bit off to me. Even with the time constraint of having each hour show be an hour in real time, certain actions are still edited down to go faster than reality and yet the producers still found a need to include certain time-filler/killer subplots to stretch it out to a full 24 hours.

So I can think of no better portrayal of Holmes that conveyed the same sense of being... not-quite-right than Matt Frewer in these four TV movies based on the Conan Doyle novels and short stories.

TOOBWORLD OF ''PRISON BREAK'/'THE AGENCY'/'THE DISTRICT'
Geoffrey Whitehead (Sherlock Holmes)
. . . "Sherlock Holmes and Doctor Watson" (1980) TV Series

It's not because this series was produced in Poland, (which I couldn't resist mentioning however!), but this series wasn't very highly regarded. I'm not saying then that this is the reason it should be set in a world where Patricia Wettig is an evil Vice-President; but Mr. Whitehead's ineffectual performance might have contributed to this dimension being such an overall downer.

TOOBWORLD OF THE MOVIES OF THE WEEK
Christopher Lee (I) (Sherlock Holmes)
. . . Incident at Victoria Falls (1991) (TV)
. . . Sherlock Holmes and the Leading Lady (1992) (TV)
. . . Sherlock Holmes und das Halsband des Todes (1962)

I designated an alternate dimension for all of those TV movies in which there was a fictional President of the United States rather than the Real World Commander In Chief at the time. And surprisingly, the chronological timeline matched up pretty well - so long as they all served only one term in office. (And some of them had to die in office after the TV movie ended, to be replaced by their Vice President - that was for those TV movies that followed too quickly on the heels of the preceding POTUS.)

So of all the Holmes portrayed in more than one TV movie (my only criteria for consideration), Christopher Lee stands head and shoulders above all the others. And considering the fact that he's about six foot seven, we can take that literally!

The only other actor I seriously considered was Stewart Granger, who portrayed Holmes in a true ABC Movie Of The Week back in the mid-1970s. But the addition of a theatrical appearance as Holmes capped it for Mr. Lee, even though I will always think of him as Sherlock's brother Mycroft in the Billy Wilder film "The Private Life Of Sherlock Holmes".

Finally.....

TOOBWORLD OF 'THAT'S MY BUSH!'
John Cleese (Sherlock Holmes)
. . . Elementary My Dear Watson (1973) (TV)
John Cleese (Arthur Sherlock Holmes)
. . . Strange Case of the End of Civilization as We Know It, The (1977)

This dimension is populated by shows in which several real-world Presidents are portrayed as absolute morons: 'That's My Bush!', and 'The Secret Diary of Desmond Pfeiffer'.....(which concerned the presidency of Abraham Lincoln).

It's Cleese's turn as the grandson Arthur Sherlock Holmes that seals the fate of his performances to banishment into this realm.

So that concludes the look at Sherlock Holmes in the POTUS-driven TV dimensions. There are still other actors to consider in future articles.

BCnU!
Tele-Toby

AS SEEN ON TV: MRS. HUDSON

MRS. HUDSON

CREATED BY:

Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

PORTRAYED BY:

Rosalie Williams

AS SEEN IN:

'Sherlock Holmes'

TV STATUS:

Recastaway

TV LOCATION:

Earth Prime-Time

PORTRAYED BY:

Una Stubbs

AS SEEN IN:

'Sherlock'

TV STATUS:

Recastaway

TV LOCATION:

Limbo

From Wikipedia:

Mrs. Hudson is the landlady of the house 221B Baker Street, in which Holmes lives.

Mrs. Hudson is a woman who wants the home to be clean and tidy and often fights with Holmes for this. Watson describes her as a very good cook; in "The Naval Treaty," Holmes says "Her cuisine is a little limited, but she has as good an idea of breakfast as a Scotchwoman," which some readers have taken to mean that she is Scottish and others that she cannot possibly be. Other than one mention of her "queenly tread", she is given no physical description or first name, although she has been identified with the "Martha" in "His Last Bow".

In film and television adaptations of the stories, Mrs. Hudson is usually portrayed as an older woman; on rare occasions she is presented as a young woman.

Watson described the relationship between Holmes and Hudson in the opening of "The Adventure of the Dying Detective":

Mrs. Hudson, the landlady of Sherlock Holmes, was a long-suffering woman. Not only was her first-floor flat invaded at all hours by throngs of singular and often undesirable characters but her remarkable lodger showed an eccentricity and irregularity in his life which must have sorely tried her patience. His incredible untidiness, his addiction to music at strange hours, his occasional revolver practice within doors, his weird and often malodorous scientific experiments, and the atmosphere of violence and danger which hung around him made him the very worst tenant in London. On the other hand, his payments were princely. I have no doubt that the house might have been purchased at the price which Holmes paid for his rooms during the years that I was with him. The landlady stood in the deepest awe of him and never dared to interfere with him, however outrageous his proceedings might seem. She was fond of him, too, for he had a remarkable gentleness and courtesy in his dealings with women.

OTHER PORTRAYALS:

Sherlock Holmes and the Case of the Silk Stocking Played by Anne Carroll

The Case of the Whitechapel Vampire, The Royal Scandal, The Sign of Four Played by Kathleen McAuliffe
Sherlock Holmes Returns Played by Tish Heaven (as Young Mrs. Hudson)

The Hound of London Played by Sophia Thornley
Incident at Victoria Falls, Sherlock Holmes and the Leading Lady Played by Margaret John
"Saturday Night Live" Played by Jan Hooks
Hands of a Murderer Played by Faith Kent
"Alfred Hitchcock Presents" Played by Bunty Webb
"Meitantei Holmes" Played by Patricia Parris / Yôko Asagami (as Marie Hudson)
Sherlock Holmes and the Masks of Death Played by Jenny Laird
"The Baker Street Boys" Played by Pat Keen
Priklyucheniya Sherloka Kholmsa i doktora Vatsona Played by Rina Zelyonaya
"Sherlock Holmes and Doctor Watson" Played by Kay Walsh
The Strange Case of the End of Civilization as We Know It Played by Connie Booth
Sherlock Holmes in New York Played by Marjorie Bennett (as Mrs. Martha Hudson)
"Les grands détectives"
- Sherlock Holmes: Le signe des quatre, Played by Gisela Hoeter (as Mme Hudson)
"Sherlock Holmes" Played by Grace Arnold
- The Disappearance of Lady Frances Carfax Played by Enid Lindsey
- The Retired Colourman Played by Enid Lindsey
"Sherlock Holmes" Played by Manja Kafka

"Detective"
- The Speckled Band Played by Mary Holdertitle
"Die Galerie der großen Detektive"
- Sherlock Holmes liegt im Sterben Played by Annemarie Schradiek
"Sherlock Holmes" Played by Iris Vandeleur

The 'Sherlock Holmes' series starring Jeremy Brett is the official version for Earth Prime-Time. All of these others can be found in alternate TV dimensions, some of which are chosen due to the primary language and country of origin for the production.

Therefore, Rosalie Williams, despite other actresses playing the role before her, is the Mrs. Hudson for the main Toobworld.

As for the landlady played by Una Stubbs in 'Sherlock', that series takes place in Limbo as did 'Life On Mars', 'Ashes To Ashes', 'Madigan', and the final season of 'Lost'. Whereas Sherlock Holmes is the soul of the Jeremy Brett version, Mrs. Hudson could be the soul of any woman with that name who may have passed away in Toobworld within the last decade or so.

That's my theory and I'm sticking to it.

BCnU!

THE HAT SQUAD - DOUGLAS WILMER AS SHERLOCK HOLMES

From BBC News:

Sherlock Holmes actor Douglas Wilmer has died at the age of 96.

He donned the famous deerstalker in the mid-1960s to play Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's character in a BBC series.

Wilmer died in hospital in Ipswich on Thursday after suffering from pneumonia, Roger Johnson, spokesman for the Sherlock Holmes Society Of London, confirmed.

"He was a great actor, he was a gentleman, he had a long and distinguished career," Mr Johnson said.

Wilmer first appeared as Sherlock Holmes in 1964, with Nigel Stock as his Watson.

After he left the show he was replaced by Peter Cushing - but he retained his affection for the character throughout his career.

Wilmer played the role of Sherlock Holmes two more times in the greater fictional multiverse.  Most obituaries will only mention his appearance in 1975's film comedy "The Adventures Of Sherlock Holmes' Smarter Brother".

But there is another......

In Roman Catholic theology, Limbo is a realm on the borders between Heaven and Hell.  There the souls of unbaptized infants and those who led good lives but who died before the coming of The Christ reside for eternity.  I'm sure it's supposed to be a very nice place... so long as you don't know about Heaven and what that place offers.....

For the Toobworld Dynamic, Limbo exists.  But there are more residents there than suggested by that description above.  For Toobworld, Limbo is the realm where souls go to be prepared for their eventual transition... elsewhere.  Could be Heaven, could be Hell, or it could lead to reincarnation.

We have seen Limbo portrayed on the small screen in several TV series.  The finale of 'Lost' could be the most recent example.  The series 'Life On Mars' (the original UK version, that is) and its sequel 'Ashes To Ashes' took place in Limbo. 

There was a TV adaptation of the movie "Madigan" with Richard Widmark reprising his role as the police detective.  Most people would consider the show to be a prequel as SPOILER ALERT!!!!!!!!!! Madigan died at the end of the movie.  But for me, it's a sequel.  The series is about the soul of Detective Daniel Madigan after he died in the movie.  (This of course means that the 1968 film has to be absorbed into the Toobworld Dynamic.)

There is another TV show which I consider to be taking place in Limbo as well, and that is where we will find Douglas Wilmer's other portrayal of Sherlock Holmes.....

Currently, there are two versions of the Sherlock Holmes mythos being played out on our television screens in which the Great Detective and his companion Dr. Watson - along with many of the supporting players from the Conan Doyle version to be found in BookWorld - are to be found in the modern world: 'Sherlock' and 'Elementary'.  'Elementary' takes place in the same TV dimension as 'Sleepy Hollow'.  I have dubbed this world "Lit-Less Toobworld" - it is the TV dimension in which the original source material for their main subject matter never existed and yet the characters came to life there anyway... eventually.

But with 'Sherlock', we have something else entirely in mind for that show.  And the premise and events of 'Ashes To Ashes' play into my theory.  In that sequel to 'Life On Mars', we learned that Gene Hunt was the soul of a young constable from the 1950s who died on the job.  His soul seems to be a permanent tenant of Limbo, where he serves as a "training officer" for other British cops who died on the job; he prepares them through recreations of historical events as well as realistic simulations of crime scenarios for their eventual transition to What Lies Beyond.

And we also learned during the course of 'Ashes To Ashes' that the original Gene Hunt looked nothing like the representation of his soul in Limbo:

So....  The game's afoot!

It's my theory that the Sherlock Holmes we see in 'Sherlock' is in fact the soul of the official Sherlock Holmes of Earth Prime-Time, the one played by Jeremy Brett in several series and TV movies through the 1980s and into the 1990s.  His performance hewed the closest to the original source material and came so very close to completing the entire canon.  (If my memory serves, which it doesn't usually, I think Brett was four stories shy of completion.  But I'm too tired now to check.)

Yes, Douglas Wilmer, Peter Cushing, and Ronald Howard played Holmes on TV long before Brett came along.  But many of their cases were not based on the original stories.  Therefore I feel compelled to place them in alternate TV dimensions.  (This holds true for the many one-shot portrayals from TV movies and foreign productions - their placement in other dimensions are probably the easiest of all.)

For Toobworld purposes, Benedict Cumberbatch is playing the soul of Jeremy Brett's Holmes.  Cumberbatch looks nothing like Brett, but as I pointed out with the two Gene Hunts, there is obviously some kind of transfiguration of the body to the soul.  They may not look the same, but they are the same nevertheless.

But as for Holmes' "Boswell", Martin Freeman is NOT playing the soul of the Earth Prime-Time Watson who was portrayed in the Jeremy Brett series first by David Burke and then by Edward Hardwicke.  (No Zonk here.  The Toobworld splainin: Victorian plastic surgery.)

The Dr. John Watson of 'Sherlock' is the soul of a man by that same name who died in combat during the first Persian Gulf war.  Only he doesn't know that he's dead; he thought he was wounded in battle while serving as a medic in Afghanistan.  And so he found himself in Limbo where the soul of the actual Sherlock Holmes takes him under his wing and mentors him in a modern world setting before sending him on his way, "One Step Beyond".  

(As for other characters they meet, I think only his brother Mycroft and his parents are the souls from the originals of Earth Prime-Time.  The rest are other guardian angel souls recruited to act out these scenarios for the benefit of Dr. Watson.  For instance, the soul whom we are led to believe is that of Inspector Greg Lestrade was also the soul we knew as Danny Moore in the second episode of 'Ashes To Ashes'.  

 

As to whom he could have been in "real life"?  One likely candidate could be big game hunter John Riddell, the Lord John Roxton wannabe who knew the Time Lord known as the Doctor... as seen in the 'Doctor Who' episode "Dinosaurs On A Spaceship".  Then again, maybe Riddell is an alias - Riddell/Riddle? - and he really was Lord John Roxton.  Or rather the soul of Lord John Roxton, since the official televersion of Roxton is played by William Snow in the TV series 'The Lost World'.  And since the TARDIS can travel between dimensions, maybe it took the Doctor to Limbo in order to fetch the soul of Roxton/Riddell.  Story for another day, I suspect.)

Freeman's Dr. Watson is not the first soul of a Dr. John Watson who had been shepherded in this way through Limbo by Sherlock Holmes.  I think I might even consider Ronald Howard's Holmes to be yet another modification in the appearance of Holmes' soul, perhaps the first one after his death.  This would mean that the Watson played by Howard Marion Crawford was the embodiment of the soul of a Victorian era doctor by the same name who had passed away around the turn of the century.  

(I don't always hold to the theory that a TV character who dies "off-screen" probably died in the same manner as did the actor who played him.  However, it is tempting in this case, as Crawford passed away from an overdose of sleeping pills.  Perhaps this Dr. Watson was involved in the treatment of the Queen Victoria of Earth Prime-Time?  And when she died on January 22, 1901, he felt responsible, no matter that she was an old woman.  And so he took his own life out of a misplaced sense of guilt, which led him to be taken under the mentorship of Sherlock Holmes' soul in its first incarnation.  But that's just a theory.  I'm not sure either that Dr. Watson or Mr. Crawford would like it.....)

There are many incarnations of Toobworld.  Among those TV dimensions are the heavy-hitters like Skitlandia, Evil Toobworld, ToobStage, the Tooniverse, and the Land O' Remakes.  And then there are the others, like Zombie Toobworld, Fem Toobworld, Black Toobworld, Doofus Toobworld, and the many Toobworlds in which one country or another held sway over the planet to the point where everybody spoke their language, even if they were known to be originally English speakers in the main Toobworld.  (With Sherlock Holmes, he exists in French Toobworld, Spanish Toobworld, and most notably in Russian Toobworld.  Still English, but in a world where the United Kingdom has been under the domination of those other countries.)

But there is only the one Limbo for all of those dimensions.  That would mean various recastaways of certain characters could meet up with each other.  (And characters from vastly different Toobworlds - say Earth Prime-Time and the Tooniverse? - who meet up are probably doing so in Limbo.  If that is the case, when Drew Carey met Daffy Duck in the opening of 'The Drew Carey Show' for only one episode, what we were seeing could have been a vision of Drew Carey's after-life, hopefully far into the Future.  The Drew Carey of Earth Prime-Time would be the comedian, the game-show host, the improvisational impresario.  But after he dies?  You have to admit, working in a soul-crushing job like that office at Winfred-Louder - with a demon like Mimi sitting behind you - would be the perfect embodiment of what awaits him when he exits Limbo.)

And so, after all of that tele-babble, we come to the other appearance by Douglas Wilmer as Sherlock Holmes.  In the 'Sherlock' episode "The Reichenbach Fall", the soul of Dr. Watson goes to the Limbo version of the Diogenes Club to meet with the soul of Mycroft Holmes.  And there he encounters a rather irritable old club member who shushes him for daring to speak in the common room of the Club.

Douglas Wilmer played that old duffer.  Looking at it from the perspective of a Trueniverse outsider, it was a very nice in-joke, a gesture of affection for the history of Sherlock Holmes as seen on TV.  A tip of the hat to what came before and an acknowledgement of the character's heritage.

But within the reality of the greater Toobworld Dynamic?  Once again, Wilmer was playing Sherlock Holmes.

His portrayal of the Great Detective was to be found in the alternate dimension of Prequel Toobworld.  Although not the first to play the role on the small screen, he did come before Jeremy Brett.   But for the reasons mentioned above, Brett holds sway in Earth Prime-Time, and so Wilmer had to be relegated to Prequel Toobworld. 

As stated above, Ronald Howard's Holmes also can be found in Limbo as a variation of the soul of Jeremy Brett's Holmes.  That left Prequel Toobworld open for Wilmer's televersion.  But he only played the role for thirteen episodes of 'Sherlock Holmes' over two years (1964-65).  With the same actors playing Dr. Watson (Nigel Stock) and Inspector Lestrade (Peter Madden), Peter Cushing assumed the role in 1968.  Now I suppose I could posit the theory that these are two different TV dimensions, perhaps the one housing Cushing's Holmes would be the same in which Roger Davis is Hannibal Heyes/Joshua Smith instead of Pete Duel in 'Alias Smith & Jones'.  But I think I can keep both incarnatisons in the same TV dimension.

SHERLOCK HOLMES
AT HOME IN SUSSEX DOWNS

In Prequel Toobworld, Sherlock Holmes retired early from his consulting detective business and retired to Sussex Downs.  There he kept bees and performed experiments in human longevity using the queen bee's royal jelly.  But England was in dire need of a Sherlock Holmes to at least preserve the illusion that the Empire was safe so long as Holmes was around to solve even the most baffling problem.  So an early incarnation of "UNReality" came up with the idea of substituting another man for Holmes, having him take over the persona of the consulting detective.  The actual Sherlock Holmes probably came up with this plot himself and approved of its undertaking.  He probably even conducted the exams in which a suitable replacement could be found - ideally a man with similar features but more importantly, a man of high intellect.  Holmes participation would probably be the only reason why Watson and Lestrade went along with the scheme.

(As to who that other Sherlock Holmes might have been?  I'm sure there must be a Victorian era TV character played by Peter Cushing who could fit the bill.  But that investigation must wait for another day.  Today we are tipping our deerstalker to Douglas Wilmer.)

Eventually, despite his successful work in extending his own life through royal jelly, the real Sherlock Holmes of Prequel Toobworld eventually died.  (I'd like to think he made it well past the age of 100, perhaps twenty years more - making it sometime in the 1970s when he died.  And it's pozz'ble, just pozz'ble, that he made appearances in other TV shows - but ones which should be found in Prequel Tooboworld - until his death.  One such appearance would be as "The Old Man" in "The Public Duck", an episode of the British anthology series 'Love Story'.)

After death, this Sherlock Holmes found himself in the æthereal dimension of Limbo which, as I mentioned earlier, would be common to all dimensions of greater Toobworld.  And I don't think he was happy about it, as seen by his reaction to this new Dr. Watson.

By the way, I would not be surprised to find that the souls of the many other incarnations of Sherlock Holmes were all members of the Diogenes Club in Limbo.  Some might have passed on to their final rewards; others might have reincarnated in their home dimension or elsewhere as new geniuses.  But Wilmer's televersion of Holmes didn't seem inclined to go anywhere else.

Well then.  That post certainly grabbed hold and wouldn't let go until it ran its course.  I hope you enjoyed my tribute to the role for which Douglas Wilmer was best known in the TV Universe... and elsewhere.  In fact, I think his Sherlock Holmes just might be a good candidate for a Birthday Honors list induction next year in the Television Crossover Hall of Fame!

Good night and may God bless, Douglas Wilmer.......

SHERLOCK HOLMES, THE LIVING FICTIONAL

'THE FATHER DOWLING MYSTERIES'

"THE CONSULTING DETECTIVE MYSTERY"

SHERLOCK HOLMES:

I am in fact precisely whom I appear to be - Sherlock Holmes.

FATHER DOWLING:

But Sherlock Holmes is a fictional character!  

You can't be him! You can't be here!

SHERLOCK HOLMES:

Yet I am here.

FATHER DOWLING:

How is that impossible?

SHERLOCK HOLMES:

You summoned me.

FATHER DOWLING:

I did?

SHERLOCK HOLMES:

Not perhaps by conscious thought; 

yet you sought my counsel as you have so many times before.  

But this time there was a difference.

FATHER DOWLING:

What difference?

SHERLOCK HOLMES:

You must have heard it said that certain... 

fictional characters are so real to their readers that they come alive.

FATHER DOWLING:

Yes.

SHERLOCK HOLMES:

Your belief in my deductive methods - and me - made me real.  

But yesterday your faith in my methods was shaken.

FATHER DOWLING:

More than that.... Wait a minute! 

Are you saying that if I stop believing in you, you'll cease to exist?

SHERLOCK HOLMES:

Precisely.  And that is why I am here: 

to help restore your belief in my methods... and me.

From the wiki for "The Librarians":

Fictionals are a race of magical beings summoned from stories encountered in the second season of the Librarians.

According to Jenkins there are two main types of Fictionals; those that can be summoned by powerful magic and those that come into being of their own accord. The second type are iconic characters whose stories are both well written and well known.

Though rare in the modern day, Jenkins believed there was most likely a small group of Fictionals living in the modern world; their magical existence sustained by the fame and acclaim of their stories. Also, and thankfully, most of them don't cause too much trouble; the Library has also struggled to keep track of them. Flynn commented he had always heard about them but had never actually met one.

Generally, Fictionals do not adapt well to the world outside their stories; Jenkins explained that their minds are only as complex has what their creator wrote meaning they may not be able to understand little if anything outside their stories. Fictionals from older or well written stories tend to have a better time adapting.

Fictionals are bound by their stories, but also empowered by them.

Outside of defeating them in the way their story dictates a Fictional can be destroyed if the specific book they appeared from is destroyed.

This incarnation of Holmes was a fictional, summoned by Father Dowling.  And the priest was the only person who could see him... at first.  But he was fully realized at least as far as Frank Dowling was concerned - to the point that Holmes drove a car with the priest riding shotgun.

This Holmes was summoned out of a specific book - Father Dowling's copy of "The Adventures Of Sherlock Holmes".

And it's that book as seen in this episode which helps buttress the claim that in Toobworld, Dr. John H. Watson actually did chronicle the cases which Holmes investigated.

Here's how the title page looked in the episode:

There is no mention of Dr. Watson as the author, true.  But then again, the name of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle isn't seen either.  Doyle wasn't mentioned at all during the case.  If it weren't for the fact that Fictional Holmes' existence was dictated by the boundaries established in the book, I'd say he made a convincing case for Watson to be the true author:

SHERLOCK HOLMES:

Dr. Watson rarely chose to chronicle my failures.

But I'll settle for there being no Zonk in this episode.  Small victories.....

BCnU!

O'BSERVATIONS:

• This is my annual celebration of Sherlock Holmes, one of the greatest and most recognizable literary characters in all of history, and by extension, his best portrayal in the greater TV Universe - that by Jeremy Brett.  

• And why today?  Because it is generally accepted by Sherlockians that the birthday of Sherlock Holmes was January 6 and he was born in 1854.
    
• This post was written In April of 2017.  Hey, when you only honor the Great Detective one day of the year, those stories tend to pile up......

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, SHERLOCK HOLMES

Today is Sherlock Holmes' birthday.  Had he still been alive in Toobworld, the Great Detective would have been 164 years old.

Back when Holmes was at the height of his career, everyone in England thought they knew him.  Some actually dealt with him, but even they were influenced by the way his Boswell, John Hamish Watson, M.D., portrayed him in the Strand.  (That was the beginning of a more detailed program to convince the general public that the real people of Toobworld who needed to operate in the shadows without fame or interference were fictional.)

Toobworld Central accepts that Sherlock Holmes existed in the TV Universe, in several alternate dimensions as well.  And that's how the Time Lord known as the Doctor got several of his outfits - from his friendship with Holmes.  

(Read "The All-Consuming Fire" by Andy Lane for the story of how Holmes and Watson met the Seventh Incarnation and Ace.  Just remember -  "In the epilogue, Benny pronounces that Conan Doyle changed "a lot of the facts", meaning that Conan Doyle (or, possibly "Watson") is an unreliable narrator." [TARDIS Data Core Wiki]  Holmes must have met at least the Fourth Incarnation if not several others before.)

For Earth Prime-Time, the main Toobworld, there is only one Sherlock Holmes - that played by Jeremy Brett in a run of series which adapted all but four of the original canon of stories. 

However......

There are a lot of people out there, mostly "Millennials" I should think, whose memories don't extend past 2005.  For them there is only the Doctor whose incarnations begin with Christopher Eccleston.  And even worse, for them Sherlock Holmes is the modernized incarnation played by Bernard Cumberbatch.

Don't get me wrong.  I love the series 'Sherlock'.  I consider "The Sign Of Three" to be one of my top ten favorite TV show episodes.  But it is not Sherlock Holmes.  Holmes and Watson exist in a world of horse-drawn carriages clattering along fog-enshrouded cobblestone streets.  

Like I said, I love 'Sherlock'.  And I wanted to find some way to keep it tied to Earth Prime-Time rather than send it scurrying off to some alternate TV dimension as happened to those Sherlocks played by Peter Cushing, Douglas Wilmer, Leslie Howard, and another contemporary Holmes played by Johnny Lee Miller (not to mention all of those Sherlock Holmes to be found so many TV movies.)

And so, playing off the concept of 'Life On Mars' and 'Ashes To Ashes' (and solely for the purposes of the Toobworld Dynamic), I have set 'Sherlock' in the land of Limbo, the after-life between Heaven and Hell.  Acting as the Gene Hunt of the piece is the soul of the original Sherlock Holmes; and like that other metaphysical mentor, Sherlock no longer looks like his earthly form.  Instead of moving on to the next plane of existence, Holmes remains in Limbo to shepherd other souls, specifically any who were once known in Life as Dr. John Watson.  And that's who we see in the series - not THE Watson, but another medical man/soldier by the same name who died in Afghanistan during the war against the Taliban.  However, he still believes he is alive and so Sherlock has to prepare him for that next eventual stage of his journey.

Hey, it works for me and my TV playground!

But still there are those out there who think 'Sherlock' is THE Sherlock.  And perhaps because Steven Moffat worked on both series, they would LOVE to see Cumberbatch's Holmes team up with the fDoctor - no matter which incarnation, but apparently only since 'Doctor Who' was rebooted in 2005.

It's a premise I just can't use.  As I said, for me Sherlock Holmes is time-locked into the Victorian and Edwardian eras and this iteration is the soul of a dead man.  The Doctor hd as been near death many times, but when it got too close to ringing down the final curtain, he regenerated into a new body.  (And now finally into a woman!)  Those other incarnations of the Doctor are not dead; they are part of the new incarnation's mind and soul.  And so I don't think he could ever employ the power of the TARDIS to cross the dimensional barriers into that world of Limbo.

Even if they knew that's my take on the subject, why should they care about my opinion? I have no delusions about my word as law.  And so some of them have taken matters into their own hands to create mash-up videos in which "Nu-Who" Doctors meet up with this revamped practitioner of rational thought.

And I must admit some of these are pretty good......

Happy birthday, Mr. Holmes....  Wherever and whenever you are.

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!

THE DOCTOR MAKES A HOLMES CALL

There is no guarantee that the TV characters of Earth Prime-Time will have doppelgangers in alternate dimensions. A case in point, and keeping it within the 'Doctor Who' framework, is that of the Rose Tyler from the Earth where John Lumic built his own version of Cybermen. On that world, Rose was never even born. For Pete and Jackie Tyler, the only Rose in their life was not a daughter but a dog.

In some TV dimensions, there would be characters who may have been born into the alternate worlds, but who died before they had the chance to live out their destinies as counterparts or variants to the originals. And the same would be true of those literary characters who were adapted for television, including Sherlock Holmes.

There have been many adaptations of the Great Detective on TV - several in full series, but most in one-off TV movies, and not all of them adapted from the official canon. There are plenty of Sherlocks to go around - from Jeremy Brett (the Holmes of Earth Prime-Time) to John Cleese and Peter Cushing to Roger Moore and Douglas Wilmer, to Leslie Howard's son and a 22nd century cyborg to be found in the Tooniverse. And now we're about to be graced with the second season of 'Sherlock' with Benedict Cumberbatch as the spirit of the original Holmes now existing in that 'Life On Mars' Limbo. (That's the Toobworld Central splainin, folks.)

But what if Holmes died off in one of those alternate TV dimensions before he ever teamed up with Dr. Watson? Not much is known about the early life of Sherlock Holmes. There are theories that his parents died tragically in a fire or that they abandoned young Sherlock and his brother Mycroft. And "The Seven Percent Solution" put forth the claim that Professor Moriarty was involved in the fates of his parents.

So what if tragedy befell young Sherlock and he died as well?

Any world without Sherlock Holmes would be a poorer place, but it would also be a dangerous one if Professor James Moriarty was allowed to run unchecked. As the author of "The Dynamics Of An Asteroid", could the Napoleon of Crime eventually have brought an aline invasion to Earth sooner than it could be prepared for that eventuality?

This being a 'Doctor Who' marathon, it's about time we brought the Time Lord into this discussion.

In an alternate TV dimension in which there was no Sherlock Holmes, that version of the Doctor would have no clue that something was amiss, that the Game could never be afoot. It would take the Doctor visiting from another dimension to notice Holmes' absence, having read Dr. Watson's transcripts of their adventures, perhaps even having met him while in the Victorian past.

(This is one of those times when I wish the Toobworld Dynamic could be more like shared-universe associates the WNU and the TVCNU which also incorporate stories and characters from printed source materials. There's a fine novel entitled "The All-Consuming Fire" which teamed Holmes and Watson with the Seventh Incarnation of the Doctor. It would have made for an interesting two-parter episode for the TV series.)

So let's say the Doctor of Earth Prime-Time visited an alternate TV dimension in which Sherlock Holmes didn't exist. This would be during that time when the other Time Lords were still around, when travel between dimensions was still easily achieved.

Realizing how much danger the Earth of that dimension would be in without a Sherlock Holmes, the Doctor would probably undertake the only logical option - he would stay in that dimension and become its Sherlock Holmes.

(To my way of thinking, this would have to occur after the Fourth Doctor's return from Gallifrey but before he picked up Leela as his companion.)

For whatever reason, the Doctor would have arrived on that Holmes-less Earth around 1881, just in time to take part in that first contact with Dr. Watson. Being a Time Lord, there would have been no problem if he stayed several years in that other dimension. With the TARDIS he could return to his home dimension within moments after his departure.

I think the Doctor would have happily settled into the life that Sherlock Holmes never got the chance to live, with all the trappings - the Persian slipper full of tobacco, the deerstalker cap and the Inverness cape, the initials "V.R." made in the wall with gun shots. (For the Doctor, "V.R." might have meant something other than "Victoria Regina".)

And with his foreknowledge of the cases recorded by his "Boswell", the Doctor would have been able to solve every case in record time, perhaps sometimes before the client ever came to call on him at 221 B Baker Street.

I could see the Doctor staying long enough to play out the rivalry with Professor Moriarty to its pre-ordained conclusion at the Reichenbach Falls. (And maybe with an alien sub-plot to sweeten the mix?) Afterwords, he would have departed back to Earth Prime-Time, leaving those other cases - from "The Empty House" to "His Last Bow" - to be solved by those detectives and other investigative agents who were considered 'The Rivals Of Sherlock Holmes'.

When the Doctor returned to Earth Prime-Time, he took the whole wardrobe he had assembled for his Holmes persona. It would later come in handy when he and Leela investigated the case which would be known as "The Talons Of Weng Chiang".

BCnU!