Salem Reviews Sherlock: The Abominable Bride

Who cares about decent? The spoilers are ON!

And so, a full 20 years (or so it feels) after we learned that Moriarty had somehow returned, Sherlock's plane has finally turned around and landed, and with it the first Christmas Special of BBC's Sherlock. It is a testament to how well Moffat and Gatiss have translated the show into the modern day that when they translate it back to its original time period, the story beats and characterizations are easily recognizable both as as modern and vintage Holmes: Sherlock is still an erratic and abrasive asshole, Watson still served in Afghanistan, and Mycroft... well, poor Mycroft.

The costumes are different, the language more formal, but this is unmistakably still Moffat and Gatiss's modern Sherlock, just double-translated back into its original vintage veneer. Some things are different, such as Mary's character (at least at first, until she's revealed to still be a spy, working for no less than Mycroft himself – I'm particularly glad that survived. I like Mary as part of the team, and Amanda Abbingdon is fun to watch). Lestrade's hair... is a riot.

The Abominable Bride takes full advantage of its setting, too, with little in-jokes and references to goings-on at the time, such as Mary mentioning to Lestrade that she's part of the campaign for votes for women, and Lestrade replies with “For or against?” as many people forget that there actually was a Women's National Anti-Suffrage League that campaigned against women voting in parliamentary elections.

Also of note: Molly Hooper, in male drag, running the morgue. This is a classic character trope in Victorian-era storytelling, a woman doing a 'man's job' in a period of history where that wouldn't have otherwise been possible (or at least looked down on). Amusingly, Watson notices this when Sherlock does not. 

Jeremy Brett could not have been recast better. 

Mycroft, while traditionally overweight, crosses the line from overweight here to comically fat, even having a running joke with his little brother about the time of his death constantly shifting due to what (and what massive amount) he eats for his breakfast. 

I did like the “It's the 19^th Century” joke, though. I mean, it's 2015, right? ...right?

Sometimes I hate being me. 

Not everything works in the cross-time translation, though, as Modern Moriarty is hilariously out of place. So much so that I couldn't help but think that the previous episode's villain, the blackmailer Magnusson, would have been right at home as a vintage Moriarty. Modern Moriarty benefits so much from the modern setting, much like Elementary's Adler/Moriarty dynamic benefits from its setting as well.

Then the story twists with an earthquake during a showdown between Holmes and Moriarty in Holmes's drawing room and, as we flash forward to the plane, we realize that three series and a special into the show, Holmes does actually have a substance abuse problem. It's been hinted at, with his “on assignment' heroin usage and the nicotine patches and occasional cigarette, but this is finally him coming clean. And the aforementioned earthquake, coupled with the faithful recreation of the Victorian era, calls into question whether Vintage Holmes is a memory exercise for Modern Holmes or Modern Holmes is a delusion of Vintage Holmes.

The resolution of the episode, involving a conspiracy of female murderers coupled with the suffrage reference earlier, explains why Vox hates this episode so badly. Last week, I spoke about how holiday specials work in the great world of British television, and I think Vox spectacularly missed the point: this episode is packed to the brim with completely bonkers, not-necessarily canon moments, but only the broad strokes matter.

• Holmes was called back, and in the time it took his plane to turn around and land, he ran a simulation of a similar death in his mind to try and find out what Moriarty did. 
• Vox misses the point that it wasn't really the solution, and these women weren't really murderers; it was simply a representation of women that Sherlock and company may have overlooked over the years, as well as a throwback to Vintage Holmes, who genuinely did have a low opinion of women for the most part, typical of the time. 
• In other words, Vox literally mistook an overdose-fueled fever dream for a propaganda piece, and I can't imagine why they did that. 
• Not at all. 
• They certainly weren't projecting. 

Anyway: A great deal of fluff, but fun fluff. I look forward to the story actually continuing when Sherlock returns for series 4, in approximately 17 years.  

Dr Wholmes - The Final Chapter: The Exile.

     And now we come to the final installment of comparisons, where I take my premise and stretch it truly past the breaking point. The other three have been pretty clear parallels, but this one even I'll admit pushes it. If you're a Doctor Who fan but haven't seen the 50th anniversary special, you might tune out for fear of spoilers. Likewise if you're a House fan and haven't seen the finale.

     After spending who knows how long avoiding the Time War, the 8th Doctor was mortally wounded attempting to rescue a brave pilot from a crashing starship. That would have been the end of the Doctor due to the severity of his injuries, but he was recovered and aided by associates of the Time Lords. His regenerative cycle was kick-started and, for once, he was given a choice of what his next regeneration would bring.

     A warrior was then born, in fire and pain and conflict. When next we see this warrior, the War Doctor, he's been fighting so long that even his unnaturally long-lived body has worn old and worn down. He's gotten old all over again, bitter and irascible and with very little patience for anyone else, including himself. He'd reached the end of his rope, and was ready to blow it all away to destroy the world he knew in order to make a better world for everyone else. His only connection, his one longest companion, the TARDIS, the only thing to survive.

     Gregory House's life was one much of travel and study, much a background in medicine, physics, archaeology, and assorted other skills. His own personal war started with his father, an abusive military man who House never believed to be his real father. That personal war culminated in an infarction in his leg that left him crippled and in pain. When we meet him, he's very much the same bitter and irascible man, completely incapable of regular social interaction without biting sarcasm and nearly blatant attacks on anyone who engages him.

     By the time his end comes, his war has spiraled so out of control that he's alienated nearly everyone in his life, ruined his professional career, and ended up in jail, rehab, and worse. House's way out of his war, his way to make the world better for those around him, was to destroy himself, or at least fake it. Again, leaving his only connection, his one longest companion, Wilson, the only thing to survive with him.

     Because of his actions to end the Time War, the War Doctor was an exile in his own mind. Because of his actions leading up to faking his death, House was an exile to anyone in his life beyond Wilson. House was Sherlock Holmes on the day it was impossible to be Sherlock Holmes, much as the War Doctor was The Doctor on the day it was impossible to do the right thing, and perhaps they were both wearing a bit thin.

Now, I'd better leave off before I dig up another Doctor that I can connect to Batman, since I seem to be out of recent Sherlock Holmeses.

Doctor Wholmes Part the Third: The Alien

     You reach a certain point in your life where you find that you just can't relate to people anymore. At least, you do if your mind works like the subjects we've been taking a look at over the past weeks. This manifests in the most alien of incarnations that we've looked at so far: The Eleventh Doctor and Benedict Cumberbatch's Sherlock. On the surface, these two are nothing alike, but deep down, the similarities are striking.

     The Eleventh Doctor is a wild-man. From his manic first moments of crashing into the garden of a seven year old and demanding wide and varied foodstuff to standing down an array of assorted alien warships with a (questionably silly) shouty speech, he's non-stop movement. All gangly limbs running and jumping and licking things like a gazelle on meth marking its territory against things much bigger and meaner than him.

     Cumberlock, on the other hand, is quiet and reserved, unless he's giving a (sometimes deserved) withering tongue-lashing. He's dignified and poised (except when he's a homeless junkie). He's sane and rational (except when he's throwing a man out of a window four times for threatening a friend). He's calm and collected (except when she's concerned). Maybe those differences weren't so broad after all.

     But the main crux of my argument here is that despite all their differences, these two are the most similar of the comparisons we've looked at so far because they are so different from baseline normality. They come across as different and alien. Their minds work in a way that is utterly unfathomable to most, and they express themselves in such a way that they would stand out in nearly any crowd. They say inappropriate things not to get a rise out of people but because that seems like the logical thing to say at that particular point.

     And, while the Doctor has let people think he was dead before, Eleven is the first to fake his death on such a scale that the Universe forgot who he was (resulting in that incredibly cheesy Dalek chant of "DOCTOR WHO? DOCTOR WHO?"). Considering the Sherlocks we've looked at before, Cumberlock definitely has the more spectacular death scene, especially considering I barely remembered RDJ's at the tail end of A Game of Shadows. And finally, the Doctor gets a proper mystery in Clara Oswald. The type of mystery that Holmes would tear his hair out at.

Next time..?

Doctor Wholmes, Interdimensional Detective [part the second: The Rock Star]

     Loud, flashy, larger than life. Impossible to ignore. A surfeit of style. A brilliant mind and a self-awareness of that fact. In this second installment of comparisons, we look at Robert Downey Jr's Sherlock Holmes and David Tennant's Tenth Doctor.

     RDJ's portrayal was (at least prior to the BBC's modern day version) arguably the most famous, with an international film release and (for the first time in over two decades) a theatrical release in the US. The films are loud, flashy, over-the-top, but still with all of the elements necessary to be recognizable as Holmes. In much the same way, David Tennant's run was where Doctor Who reached, and possibly surpassed, it's previous heights of popularity with an audience as wide and as fervent as any you'd see in Tom Baker's day.

     Having gotten over his Time War PTSD, this Doctor knows how to have fun, how to be cocky, and how to get peoples' attention. He moves through the universe leaving a large wake behind him like a geek-chic tornado of cool. Much in the same vein that RDJ's Holmes is an amplified version of the character, Tennant is The Doctor turned up to 11 (I'm sorry, I'm so sorry for that pun). He brings a physicality to the role that had been lacking for a while. The Tenth Doctor is no passive chess-player or wounded soldier. He's out dueling intergalactic cultists within minutes of his first conscious moments, and building a reputation that would scatter armies at the mention of his name, culminating in that moment where he defies the laws of time and is brought down from being "The Time Lord Victorious."

     Much like Tennant's amped up Doctor, RDJ's Holmes is also an amplification, borderlining on exaggeration, of everything that Sherlock Holmes is, was, and could have been. He's brilliant, there's no doubt, but there's a practical application of that brilliance. When combining the way his mind works with the physicality that previous portrayals have lacked, this is a man that steps into a bare-knuckle boxing ring and has won the match before it even starts. And unlike some portrayals, this version (despite having only two films under his belt) is shown traveling a great deal more than some, much like his Time Lord equivalent.

     Tennant's Doctor is also the only one of the relaunch Doctors to square off against his Moriarty, the Master. Contrary to previous appearances, the relationship is also deeper and more contextual. This is not just the hero squaring off against a dangerous enemy. Ten and the Master (as portrayed by John Simm) could believably have been brothers, best of friends, comrades in another life. They are truly equals, one on the side of the angels and the other clearly not, much like Holmes and Moriarty. Much more so than previous incarnations.

Next time: An East wind blows to Trenzalore.

Doctor Wholmes, Inter-dimensional Detective {part the first}

The Soldier

     So if there are two great institutions of British storytelling, it's Sherlock Holmes and Doctor Who. Two formative memories were my mother's leather-bound, bible-paper paged copy of The Complete Sherlock Holmes and my father tuning into Doctor Who, and later pulling out the VHS copies of the black and white episodes of the first and second Doctors. I don't have a clue where he got them. My dad was well-connected, and kept up with modern tech.

     As I've grown through the years, I've noticed connections that, while I'm sure they aren't completely intentional, were at least parallel between the two. Doctor Who is hardly the only, and probably not the first, to be influenced by Doyle's works, but since 2005, since the relaunch series, I've seen more and more parallels emerging. I'd like to take a look at a few of them. As much as there's been Relaunch Doctors, there's been "Relaunch Holmeses," so to speak. Of course, the order's not the same, as you'd expect when dealing with time travelers and sociopathic detectives..

     The 9th Doctor is a lonely man, fresh out of a war. War comes in many forms, and can have many different meanings to different people. Johnnie Lee Miller's Holmes, of Elementary, is a man fresh out of a war as well. His own personal war with heroin, that was born out of going to war against a criminal mastermind. He used the drugs as tools in his war, until they dulled him, broke him, and the war was over. The Doctor, just prior to regenerating into the 9th, had used tools that proved detrimental to him as well in his war, and they had broken him as well.

     Both men were desperately alone. 9 met Rose, and Holmes met Joan Watson, and after initially trying to chase them off, relented, and had a moment where you could see the honesty and pain in their eyes, where they reached out for a true connection. Angry, broken men putting themselves back together after a war.

     Both men are out of their element, with the Doctor having spent centuries under the shadow of the Time Lords and then suddenly, brutally gone, and Holmes out of London and in New York.

     Both men, when confronted with a soldier of their arch-nemeses, were prepared to go through with inhumane torture to accomplish a goal. 9 with the lone Dalek in Utah, and Holmes with "M."

     Both men have initially acerbic personalities, relying heavily on sarcasm and dry humor, sending snappy remarks over the heads of people that don't register as worth their time, but treating those who they value with the utmost respect. Once they've taken someone, say Rose or Joan Watson, under their wing, they're the greatest ally you could hope for. Both strong, both soldiers for their cause, but both tired and in a great deal of personal pain.

Next week: The Rock Star