Friday, January 31, 2014

CBS Elementary Season 2 Episode # 14 "Dead Clade Walking" - Review

Jonny Lee Miller as Sherlock Holmes in CBS Elementary Season 2 Episode 14 Dead Clade Walking

Sherlock Holmes (Jonny Lee Miller) gets repeatedly texted by Randy (Stephen Tyrone Williams) who is afraid of succumbing to drugs again and wants Sherlock's advice.

Sherlock is off to meet Randy. Joan Watson (Lucy Liu) has been going through the old case files of Sherlock and zeroes in on the murder of one Doug Newberg.

A dinosaur bone is excavated from Doug's backyard and proves to be a very rare one: Nanotyrannus.

Joan deduces that Doug's friend is running a pack of ice cream trucks. This business is just a pretext for a smuggling racket, that includes everything from cigars to rare fossils.

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The archeological extract is soon stolen right from the NYPD building in broad daylight by crooks.

I recommend the viewers to check out the episode to find out the resolution to the mystery.

Canonical References

1. The opening scenes show Elementary Holmes getting ready to use a drill on a human skull - Dr John Watson writes about Sherlock Holmes in The Adventure of the Dying Detective: “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.”

2. Joan refers to Sherlock's box of old case files: - Sherlock Holmes introduces Dr John Watson to the tin box of his old case files in The Adventure of the Musgrave Ritual: “Yes, my boy, these were all done prematurely before my biographer had come to glorify me...They are not all successes, Watson,....But there are some pretty little problems among them.”

3. Miller's Holmes lecturing Gay on how the acid in the coffee breaks down the stains Stamford explains about Sherlock Holmes to Dr John Watson in A Study in Scarlet: “A fellow who is working at the chemical laboratory up at the hospital.... I believe he is well up in anatomy, and he is a first-class chemist”. Dr John Watson also makes a note about Sherlock Holmes' skills and limits: “Chemistry.—Profound.”

Jonny Lee Miller as Sherlock Holmes in CBS Elementary Season 2 Episode 14 Dead Clade Walking

4. Elementary Sherlock using a fake email ID to bait the Magpie - The Canonical Sherlock Holmes places advertisements in the newspaper to capture murderers. For example, he captures Patrick Cairns by placing an advertisement for a harpooner in The Adventure of Black Peter.

This was another so-so episode. The plot and the acting is passable.

The worst part is that Elementary is back to its usual trick of introducing a supporting character who quickly vanishes and turns out to be the killer in the end.

Trivia

1. Miller's Holmes is listening to the opera song “The Marriage of Figaro” at 4 a.m. just to keep awake.

2. The song “Better Now” by The Vespers can be heard in the closing scenes when Sherlock and Randy leave the brownstone together.

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Monday, January 27, 2014

BBC Sherlock Season 3 Episode # 2 "The Sign of Three" - Canonical References

Benedict Cumberbatch as drunk Sherlock Holmes in BBC Sherlock Season 3 Episode 2 The Sign of Three

I will be posting my review of The Sign of Three soon, once readers all over the world have seen it.

Readers who have not yet seen the episode are welcome to skip the rest of the post, if they wish to avoid plot details.

Here are the references to Arthur Conan Doyle's original stories:


Sherlock Holmes enjoying music in Sidney Paget's illustration for The Adventure of the Red Headed League

1. Sherlock replies:  I was composing. I am road-testing when Mrs Hudson asks him if he was playing - Dr John Watson writes about Sherlock Holmes in The Adventure of the Red Headed League: “My friend was an enthusiastic musician, being himself not only a very capable performer but a composer of no ordinary merit.”

2. John hears violin music combined with Mrs Hudson's shrieks (of laughter) and asks her if she is dying due to Sherlock composing music - Dr John Watson writes about Sherlock Holmes playing his violin in A Study in Scarlet: “When left to himself, however, he would seldom produce any music or attempt any recognized air. Leaning back in his arm-chair of an evening, he would close his eyes and scrape carelessly at the fiddle which was thrown across his knee. Sometimes the chords were sonorous and melancholy.....I might have rebelled against these exasperating solos had it not been that he usually terminated them by playing in quick succession a whole series of my favorite airs as a slight compensation for the trial upon my patience.”

3. Sherlock tells Janine (Yasmine Akram) about his deduction that a wedding guest is wearing traces of two leading brands of deodorant, both advertised for their strength. - Sherlock Holmes states to Dr John Watson in The Hound of the Baskervilles: “There are seventy-five perfumes, which it is very necessary that a criminal expert should be able to distinguish from each other, and cases have more than once within my own experience depended upon their prompt recognition.”

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4. The character of Major James Sholto (Alistair Petrie) is a reference to the character of the same name in The Sign of the Four

5. Mycroft's comment to Sherlock over the phone about John's wedding: “John and Mary: Domestic bliss” - This is a bit tentative, but this reminded of Sherlock's observation about Dr John Watson in A Scandal in Bohemia: “Wedlock suits you.... I think, Watson, that you have put on seven and a half pounds since I saw you.”

6. Sherlock, the best man refers to a telegram from Mike Stamford (David Nellist) - In A Study in Scarlet, Stamford introduces Dr John Watson to Sherlock Holmes and the rest is history.
 
Charles Augustus Milverton as drawn by Sidney Paget


7. Sherlock, then reads a telegram from a certain CAM: “Oodles of love and heaps of wishes from CAM. Wish your family could have seen this” - The character of CAM is a possible reference to the titular character in the story, The Adventure of Charles Augustus Milverton

8. Sherlock is seen burning an eyeball, as part of an experiment - Dr John Watson writes about Sherlock Holmes in The Adventure of the Dying Detective: “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.”

9. Sherlock mistakenly drops the aforementioned eyeball in a cup of tea. Just after Sherlock takes a sip out of the cup, the eyeball resurfaces -
Dr Watson mentions in The Adventure of the Musgrave Ritual: “Our chambers were always full of chemicals and of criminal relics, which had a way of wandering into unlikely positions, and of turning up in the butter-dish, or in even less desirable places.”

Benedict Cumberbatch as Sherlock Holmes delivers the best man speech at the wedding of John Watson and Mary Morstan in BBC Sherlock Season 3 Episode 2 The Sign of Three

10. Sherlock mentions to John as part of his best man speech: “I am afraid John, I can't congratulate you. All emotions in particular love stand opposed to the pure cold reason I hold above all things..” - When Dr John Watson informs Sherlock Holmes about his decision to marry Mary Morstan in The Sign of the Four, Holmes replies: “I really cannot congratulate you....love is an emotional thing, and whatever is emotional is opposed to that true cold reason which I place above all things. I should never marry myself, lest I bias my judgment.”

11. Sherlock's comment on John's writing style: “Of course, he tends to romanticize things a bit...” - In The Sign of the Four, Sherlock Holmes expresses his opinion to Dr John Watson's account of the Jefferson Hope case (A Study in Scarlet): “Honestly, I cannot congratulate you upon it. Detection is, or ought to be, an exact science, and should be treated in the same cold and unemotional manner. You have attempted to tinge it with romanticism, which produces much the same effect as if you worked a love-story or an elopement into the fifth proposition of Euclid.”

12. Sherlock quotes the following line almost verbatim from The Adventure of the Blanched Soldier: “Speaking of my old friend and biographer, I would take this opportunity to remark that if I burden myself with a companion in my various little inquiries it is not done out of sentiment or caprice, but it is that Watson has some remarkable characteristics of his own to which in his modesty he has given small attention amid his exaggerated estimates of my own performances.”

13. Sherlock mentions the case of the Poison Giant who throws poison darts - In The Sign of the Four, Tonga is an pygmy Andaman Islander and the trusted ally of Jonathan Small. Tonga uses poison darts to kill Bartholomew Sholto and makes an unsuccessful attempt on the lives of Sherlock Holmes and Dr John Watson during the chase on River Thames.


Sherlock Holmes with his client, Mary Sutherland in Sidney Paget's illustration for A Case of Identity

14. John remarks to Sherlock about a lady walking back and forth in front of the entrance to 221 B Baker Street. Sherlock replies: “She is a client. She is boring. I have seen those symptoms before. Oscillation on the pavement always means there is a love affair.” - Sherlock Holmes states about his client, Mary Sutherland in A Case of Identity: “I have seen those symptoms before,....Oscillation upon the pavement always means an affaire de coeur. She would like advice, but is not sure that the matter is not too delicate for communication.... Here we may take it that there is a love matter, but that the maiden is not so much angry as perplexed or grieved.”

15. Sherlock comments about the case of 3 husbands: “Solved it without leaving the flat.” - In A Study in Scarlet, Dr John Watson asks Sherlock Holmes: “But do you mean to say that without leaving your room you can unravel some knot which other men can make nothing of, although they have seen every detail for themselves?” Holmes replies: “Quite so. I have a kind of intuition that way.”

16. John explains his credentials to the superior officer of Private Stephen Bainbridge (Alfie Enoch), the bloody guardsman” in order to treat him: “I am John Watson. Fifth Northumberland Fusiliers. 3 years in Afghanistan. Veteran of Kandahar, Helmand and then Bart's bloody hospital” - Dr John Watson writes in the beginning of A Study in Scarlet: “...I was duly attached to the Fifth Northumberland Fusiliers as Assistant Surgeon. The regiment was stationed in India at the time, and before I could join it, the second Afghan war had broken out.... I followed, however, with many other officers who were in the same situation as myself, and succeeded in reaching Candahar in safety, where I found my regiment, and at once entered upon my new duties.... I recognized young Stamford, who had been a dresser under me at Barts.”

Una Stubbs, Rupert Graves and Louise Brealey as Mrs Hudson, DI Lestrade and Molly Hooper in BBC Sherlock Season 3 Episode 2 The Sign of Three

17. DI Lestrade (Rupert Graves) theorizes that a dwarf could have crawled through an air vent or a similar opening and made the attempt to murder Bainsbridge - This is the actual solution to the mystery behind the murder of Bartholomew Sholto in The Sign of the Four

18. When Sherlock asks Molly Hooper (Louise Brealey) for her help for their alcohol consumption for the stag night, she replies: “You are a graduate chemist. Why don't you just work it out?” - Stamford explains about Sherlock Holmes to Dr John Watson in A Study in Scarlet: “A fellow who is working at the chemical laboratory up at the hospital.... I believe he is well up in anatomy, and he is a first-class chemist”. Dr John Watson also makes a note about Sherlock Holmes' skills and limits: “Chemistry.—Profound.”

19. Sherlock almost picks a fight with a fellow patron at the bar and shouts at him: I know ash” - Sherlock Holmes tells Dr John Watson in The Sign of the Four: “Yes, I have been guilty of several monographs. They are all upon technical subjects. Here, for example, is one 'Upon the Distinction between the Ashes of the Various Tobaccoes.' In it I enumerate a hundred and forty forms of cigar-, cigarette-, and pipe-tobacco, with colored plates illustrating the difference in the ash.

20. A drunk Sherlock tells John: “I have an international reputation” - In The Adventure of the Lion's Mane, Harold Stackhurst implores Sherlock Holmes: “For heaven’s sake, Holmes, use all the powers you have and spare no pains to lift the curse from this place, for life is becoming unendurable. Can you, with all your world-wide reputation, do nothing for us?”

Benedict Cumberbatch and Martin Freeman as Sherlock Holmes and John Watson drunk and playing 20 questions in BBC Sherlock Season 3 Episode 2 The Sign of Three

21. While playing the game of 20 Questions, Sherlock asks John: “Am I human?” John replies: “Sometimes” - In The Sign of the Four, Dr John Watson is surprised that Sherlock Holmes did not notice the physical beauty of Mary Morstan, when she visits 221 B Baker Street as Sherlock's client. Dr Watson exclaims: “You really are an automaton,—a calculating-machine!...There is something positively inhuman in you at times.”

22. Again, while playing the game of 20 Questions, Sherlock asks: “Tall?”. John replies: “Not as tall as people think” - Dr John Watson writes about Sherlock Holmes' physicality in A Study in Scarlet: “His very person and appearance were such as to strike the attention of the most casual observer. In height he was rather over six feet, and so excessively lean that he seemed to be considerably taller.”

Alice Lowe as Tessa in BBC Sherlock Season 3 Episode 2 The Sign of Three

23. Sherlock tells John: The game is.. something”. John completes: On- Sherlock Holmes awakens Dr John Watson in The Adventure of the Abbey Grange and implores him: “Come, Watson, come! ... The game is afoot. Not a word! Into your clothes and come!”

24. A drunken Sherlock telling Tessa (Alice Lowe) while working on clues in the apartment to solve the case of the Mayfly Man: “Don't compromise the integrity of the...” John again completes: crime scene” - This reminded me of the famous line spoken by Sherlock Holmes to Inspector Tobias Gregson about the pathway Number 3, Lauriston Gardens in A Study in Scarlet: “If a herd of buffaloes had passed along there could not be a greater mess. No doubt, however, you had drawn your owdn conclusions, Gregson, before you permitted this.”



25. Sherlock is seen stashing cigarettes inside his slippers – Dr John Watson writes about Sherlock Holmes in The Adventure of the Musgrave Ritual: “...when I find a man who keeps his cigars in the coal-scuttle, his tobacco in the toe end of a Persian slipper, and his unanswered correspondence transfixed by a jack-knife into the very centre of his wooden mantelpiece, then I begin to give myself virtuous airs.”

26. Mycroft and Sherlock's exchange about the world being too lazy for this coincidence: Tessa, one of the Mayfly Man's victims knows John's middle name Hamish” - This reminded me of following exchange between Mrs Laura Lyons and Sherlock Holmes about the reason for presence at the place and hour of Sir Charles Baskerville in The Hound of the Baskervilles: Mrs Lyons: “There is no connection.” Sherlock Holmes: “In that case the coincidence must indeed be an extraordinary one. But I think that we shall succeed in establishing a connection, after all.”

27. Sherlock indirectly hints to John about the dangerous situation at his wedding by proclaiming: “Vatican Cameos” - Sherlock Holmes tells Dr Mortimer in The Hound of the Baskervilles: “I had observed some newspaper comment at the time, but I was exceedingly preoccupied by that little affair of the Vatican cameos, and in my anxiety to oblige the Pope I lost touch with several interesting English cases.” 

Benedict Cumberbatch and Martin Freeman as Sherlock Holmes and John Watson in BBC Sherlock Season 3 Episode 2 The Sign of Three

28. Sherlock tells John: “You. It is always you, John Watson. You keep me right.” - Sherlock Holmes remarks to Dr John Watson in The Adventure of the Creeping Man: “Good, Watson! You always keep us flat-footed on the ground.”

29. John questions Sherlock: “How can you not remember which room? You remember everything!” - Sherlock Holmes states in The Adventure of the Lion's Mane: “I am an omnivorous reader with a strangely retentive memory for trifles.”


30. Sherlock's reply to John's aforementioned question: “I had to delete something!” - Sherlock Holmes lectures about the human brain to Dr John Watson in A Study in Scarlet: “I consider that a man's brain originally is like a little empty attic, and you have to stock it with such furniture as you choose. Now the skilful workman is very careful indeed as to what he takes into his brain-attic. He will have nothing but the tools which may help him in doing his work, but of these he has a large assortment, and all in the most perfect order. It is of the highest importance, therefore, not to have useless facts elbowing out the useful ones.”

Benedict Cumberbatch as Sherlock Holmes in BBC Sherlock Season 3 Episode 2 The Sign of Three

31. John's comment about Sherlock: “You are not a puzzle solver. You never have been. You are a drama queen!” -
Sherlock Holmes explains to Percy Phelps in The Adventure of the Naval Treaty: “.... but Watson here will tell you that I never can resist a touch of the dramatic.”
Sherlock Holmes remarks to Lord Cantlemere at 221 B Baker Street in The Adventure of the Mazarin Stone: “My old friend here will tell you that I have an impish habit of practical joking. Also that I can never resist a dramatic situation.”


32. John commands Sherlock: “The game is on. Now solve it!” - Sherlock Holmes awakens Dr John Watson in The Adventure of the Abbey Grange and implores him: “Come, Watson, come! ... The game is afoot. Not a word! Into your clothes and come!”
 
Sherlock Holmes and Inspector Lestrade capturing Jefferson Hope in A Study in Scarlet

33. Sherlock asks DI Lestrade to summon Jonathan Small, the substitute photographer to have his picture taken. When Small appears, Sherlock quickly puts the handcuffs on him, even before Small realizes it – In A Study in Scarlet, Sherlock Holmes apprehends Jefferson Hope, the cab driver by handcuffing him swiftly, after tricking him to come to 221 B Baker Street by hiring his services.

I welcome the readers to add any other references that might have been missed.

Click here to read the review of the episode. Click here to read all my posts about BBC Sherlock.

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Image Sources: BBC Wales, Hartswood Films, Masterpiece Theatre

Tuesday, January 21, 2014

BBC Sherlock Season 3 Episode # 1 "The Empty Hearse" - Canonical References

Benedict Cumberbatch as Sherlock Holmes in BBC Sherlock Season 3 Episode 1 The Empty Hearse

Dear Readers,

The third season of BBC Sherlock has premiered in the US.

As has been the case with the previous seasons, Mark Gatiss' script is packed with nods to the Sherlock Holmes Canon.

Readers who have not yet seen the episode are welcome to skip the rest of the post, if they wish to avoid plot details.  

Click here to read the review of “The Empty Hearse”.

Here are the references to Arthur Conan Doyle's original stories:

1. Sherlock deducing that his captor had worked in the navy and had an unhappy love affair. Sherlock also informs him that his wife is having an affair with the next door neighbor and that if the captor were to go home right then, he would catch them red-handed - Reference to the plots of The Adventure of the Abbey Grange and The Adventure of the Cardboard box

2. Sherlock also deduces that electricity is not working in his captor's bathroom - Sherlock Holmes makes a similar deduction about Dr John Watson's bedroom not getting enough sunlight in The Boscombe Valley Mystery

3. Mycroft's comment that Sherlock has been “quite the busy little bee” - In His Last Bow, Sherlock Holmes mentions he is writing a book on bee keeping titled “Practical Handbook of Bee Culture, with some Observations upon the Segregation of the Queen”

Mark Gatiss as Mycroft Holmes in BBC Sherlock Season 3 Episode 1 The Empty Hearse

4. Mycroft comments about Sherlock having quite a scheme in relation to Baron Maupertius and dismantling of Moriarty's criminal network. Sherlock replies: Colossal” - Dr John Watson writes in The Reigate Puzzle: “The whole question of the Netherland-Sumatra Company and of the colossal schemes of Baron Maupertuis are too recent in the minds of the public, and are too intimately concerned with politics and finance to be fitting subjects for this series of sketches.”

5. Mycroft's remark: “..field work is not my natural milieu” - Sherlock Holmes states about Mycroft in The Adventure of the Greek Interpreter: “If the art of the detective began and ended in reasoning from an armchair, my brother would be the greatest criminal agent that ever lived. But he has no ambition and no energy. He will not even go out of his way to verify his own solutions,..”

6. Mycroft complaining about “the noise, the people” when discussing about his efforts to go undercover - Sherlock Holmes remarks about Mycroft Holmes in The Adventure of the Greek Interpreter: “There are many men in London, you know, who, some from shyness, some from misanthropy, have no wish for the company of their fellows. It is for the convenience of these that the Diogenes Club was started, and it now contains the most unsociable and unclubable men in town. My brother was one of the founders,..”

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7. When Mycroft tells Sherlock that he does not know about John's plans for the evening, the latter replies: “You always know...” - Sherlock Holmes explains to Dr John Watson about Mycroft Holmes in The Adventure of the Bruce-Partington Plans: “He has the tidiest and most orderly brain, with the greatest capacity for storing facts, of any man living... In that great brain of his everything is pigeon-holed and can be handed out in an instant. Again and again his word has decided the national policy. He lives in it.”

8. Sherlock informs the man in “The Landmark” restaurant: Your wife just texted you.. - Sherlock Holmes mentions in The Adventure of the Blanched Soldier: “I have, as my friend Watson may have remarked, an abnormally acute set of senses,..

9. Sherlock using a French accent when disguised as the waiter in “The Landmark” restaurant - Sherlock Holmes explains about his ancestry in The Adventure of the Greek Interpreter: “But, none the less, my turn that way is in my veins, and may have come with my grandmother, who was the sister of Vernet, the French artist.”

Sherlock Holmes, Dr John Watson and client Percy Phelps in Sidney Paget's illustration for The Naval Treaty


10. Sherlock's line to John in “The Landmark” restaurant: “Bit mean springing it on you like that, I know. Could have given you a heart attack...” - In The Adventure of the Naval Treaty, Sherlock Holmes performs a very similar trick on his client, Percy Phelps at the dining table in 221 B Baker Street. On that occasion, Sherlock explains to Percy: “It was too bad to spring it on you like this, but Watson here will tell you that I never can resist a touch of the dramatic.”

11. Sherlock further continues: But in my defense, it was very funny” - Sherlock Holmes explains to an astonished Lord Cantlemere at 221 B Baker Street in The Adventure of the Mazarin Stone: “My old friend here will tell you that I have an impish habit of practical joking. Also that I can never resist a dramatic situation.”


Sherlock Holmes and Professor Moriarty engaging in Baritsu, japanese martial arts at the Reichenbach Falls in The Final Problem


12. Sherlock refers to a system of Japanese wrestling” when explaining his escape from the predicament at St Bart's - Sherlock Holmes explains about his encounter with Professor Moriarty at the Reichenbach Falls in The Adventure of the Empty House: “I have some knowledge, however, of baritsu, or the Japanese system of wrestling, which has more than once been very useful to me.”

13. In response to Mary's question about his knowledge of human nature, Sherlock replies: Hmm, Nature? No” - Sherlock Holmes showed his ignorance of the Copernican Theory and of the composition of the Solar System in A Study in Scarlet.

14. Mrs Hudson's reaction to Sherlock's entrance at 221 B Baker Street - Sherlock Holmes tells Dr John Watson in The Adventure of the Empty House: “I came over at once to London, called in my own person at Baker Street, threw Mrs. Hudson into violent hysterics,..”

Amanda Abbington as Mary Morstan in BBC Sherlock Season 3 Episode 1 The Empty Hearse

15. From The Personal Blog of Dr John H. Watson, Mary Morstan reads aloud a few lines. These lines are taken almost verbatim from The Sign of the Four: “So swift, silent, and furtive were his movements, like those of a trained blood-hound picking out a scent, that I could not but think what a terrible criminal he would have made had he turned his energy and sagacity against the law, instead of exerting them in its defense.”

16. While working on the case of the underground terror cells, Sherlock thinks out aloud: London. It's like a great cesspool into which all kinds of criminals, agents and drifters are irresistibly drained. - Dr John Watson writes in A Study in Scarlet: “Under such circumstances, I naturally gravitated to London, that great cesspool into which all the loungers and idlers of the Empire are irresistibly drained.”
 
17. Sherlock assuring Mycroft that he will find the answer and convey it via a misplaced lonely hearts ad - Sherlock Holmes mentions to Dr John Watson in The Adventure of the Three Garridebs: “There have been no advertisements in the agony columns. You know that I miss nothing there. They are my favorite covert for putting up a bird, and I would never have overlooked such a cock pheasant as that.”

18. Sherlock recalling Mycroft's statement to him in their childhood: Don't be smart, Sherlock. I'm the smart one.”. Mycroft replies back: I am the smart one... Both of us thought you were an idiot, Sherlock” and further states that he always wins in a game of deduction with Sherlock. Sherlock acknowledges his brother's superiority by saying that is the reason why Mycroft cannot resist the urge to play - Sherlock Holmes says about his brother to Dr John Watson in The Adventure of the Greek Interpreter: I said that he was my superior in observation and deduction.” and “When I say, therefore, that Mycroft has better powers of observation than I, you may take it that I am speaking the exact and literal truth.”
 
19. Mycroft making the deduction that the hat owner is male due to a strong balance of probability” about the size of the head. - Sherlock Holmes makes the following statement, when makding deductions from Henry Baker's hat in The Adventure of the Blue Carbuncle: “...and yet there are a few inferences which are very distinct, and a few others which represent at least a strong balance of probability.” 

Sidney Paget's illustration of Sherlock Holmes and Dr John Watson deducing from Henry Baker's hat in The Adventure of the Blue Carbuncle

20. Mycroft also makes deductions that the owner had a hair cut and is out of condition (due to the perspiration stains). Sherlock deduces that the owner has done five repairs to the hat - Sherlock Holmes makes the following deductions about Henry Baker from the hat he left behind at 221 B Baker Street in The Adventure of the Blue Carbuncle: “He is a man who leads a sedentary life, goes out little, is out of training entirely, is middle-aged, has grizzled hair which he has had cut within the last few days, and which he anoints with lime-cream.”

21. Sherlock remarks about writing a blog entry on the varying tensile strengths of different natural fibers - Sherlock Holmes has written monographs on cigar ashes (A Study in Scarlet) and tracing of footsteps (The Sign of the Four).

22. Mycroft referring to one of his deductions as being Elementary” while Sherlock sarcastically calls it Brilliant - In The Adventure of the Crooked Man: Sherlock says Elementary when Dr John Watson proclaims one of Sherlock's deductions to be “Excellent”.

23. Sherlock tells his client, Harcourt: “Monkey glands, but enough about Professor Presbury” - Reference to the plot of The Adventure of the Creeping Man, in which the aged Professor Presbury starts developing ape like abilities, after regularly consuming a potion that is supposed to help him regain his youth.


Sherlock Holmes confronts James Windibank at 221 B Baker Street in Sidney Paget's illustration for A Case of Identity

24. Sherlock solves the case for his female client, whose stepfather Mr Windibank has been posing as her online boyfriend. He then breaks off the relationship to ensure she stays single and he can keep her wages - Direct reference to the plot of A Case of Identity

25. John ask his patient, the old man: Dr. Verner is your usual GP, yes?” - Dr John Watson writes in The Adventure of the Norwood Builder: At the time of which I speak, Holmes had been back for some months, and I at his request had sold my practice and returned to share the old quarters in Baker Street. A young doctor, named Verner, had purchased my small Kensington practice, and given with astonishingly little demur the highest price that I ventured to ask–an incident which only explained itself some years later, when I found that Verner was a distant relation of Holmes, and that it was my friend who had really found the money.

26. John mistakes an old man selling DVDs and sleazy magazines (British Birds”) to be Sherlock Holmes in disguise. The old man informs John that he runs a little shop just on the corner of Church Street. He also brings along DVDs of Tree Worshippers”( a very saucy corker) and The Holy War - In The Adventure of the Empty House, Sherlock Holmes appears disguised an an old bookseller to meet Dr John Watson at 221 B Baker Street and tells him: “Well, sir, if it isn't too great a liberty, I am a neighbour of yours, for you'll find my little bookshop at the corner of Church Street, and very happy to see you, I am sure. Maybe you collect yourself, sir. Here's BRITISH BIRDS, and CATULLUS, and THE HOLY WAR - a bargain, every one of them.”

27. John commenting on Sherlock's old man accent not being as good as his French - Reference to Sherlock Holmes' French ancestry.

28. While taking Sherlock to the location of the human skeleton, DI Lestrade comments to Sherlock: This one got us baffled. Sherlock's reply: I do not doubt it.

And after working on the skeleton, the exchange continues - Sherlock: I won't insult your intelligence. Lestrade: Please insult away. - Sherlock Holmes is known for making fun of the Scotland Yard in the Canon. He remarks to Dr John Watson in A Study in Scarlet: “I have chaffed them so much...”


Benedict Cumberbatch as Sherlock Holmes in a tuxedo in BBC Sherlock Season 3 Episode 1 The Empty Hearse

29. Sherlock deducing about pine, spruce and cedar and then about fire damage based on his sense of smell - Sherlock Holmes mentions in The Adventure of the Blanched Soldier: “I have, as my friend Watson may have remarked, an abnormally acute set of senses, and a faint but incisive scent was apparent.”

30. Sherlock missing John's presence while working on the case of the human skeleton - Sherlock's line to Dr John Watson just as he is about to receive his client, the King of Bohemia in A Scandal in Bohemia: Stay where you are. I am lost without my Boswell.

31. Sherlock commenting on the skeleton wearing a shoddy Victorian outfit from the museum and that it has been on a dummy for the recent years - An indirect reference to the Victorian times during which the original stories were written by Arthur Conan Doyle and the modern flavor of the BBC adaptation.

32. Sherlock knowing about St James the Less being a church and taking a number of detours to reach the place - Sherlock Holmes has intimate knowledge of London.

33. The cryptic message from John's captors reads: John or James Watson?” - Reference to the fact that Dr John Watson is once referred to as James by his wife in The Man with the Twisted Lip.

34. Sherlock solving the cryptic message sent by John's kidnapper(s) - Sherlock Holmes mentions to Dr John Watson in The Sign of the Four: “My mind rebels at stagnation. Give me problems, give me work, give me the most abstruse cryptogram or the most intricate analysis, and I am in my own proper atmosphere.” 

Louise Brealey as Molly Hooper in BBC Sherlock Season 3 Episode 1 The Empty Hearse

35. Mycroft taking his parents to Les Miserables - Another reference to the French Ancestry of the Holmes family.

36. Sherlock's line: “Once you eliminate all the factors, the remaining must be the truth - Sherlock tells Dr John Watson in The Sign of the Four: “Eliminate all other factors, and the one which remains must be the truth”.

37. The character of Lord Moran, Peer of the Realm and Minister for Overseas Development - Possible reference to Colonel Sebastian Moran, Professor Moriarty's sharpshooter and according to Sherlock Holmes, the second most dangerous man in London

38. Howard Shilcott explains about Sumatra Road as being a station that got caught in legal disputes and was closed before it was ever opened - Sherlock Holmes explains to Dr John Watson in The Adventure of the Sussex Vampire: “Matilda Briggs was not the name of a young woman, Watson.. It was a ship which is associated with the giant rat of Sumatra, a story for which the world is not yet prepared.


Benedict Cumberbatch as Sherlock Holmes in BBC Sherlock Season 3 Episode 1 The Empty Hearse


39. Sherlock jimmies the lock in the train station to the underground - In The Adventure of Charles Augustus Milverton, Sherlock Holmes displays Dr John Watson his burgling kit, complete with keys, glass-cutter and a jimmy.

40. John advises Sherlock to use his mind palace to stop the bomb from exploding. Sherlock rebukes John for thinking that he has got how to defuse a bombtucked away in their somewhere - Sherlock Holmes lectures about the human brain to Dr John Watson in A Study in Scarlet: “I consider that a man's brain originally is like a little empty attic, and you have to stock it with such furniture as you choose... Now the skilful workman is very careful indeed as to what he takes into his brain-attic. He will have nothing but the tools which may help him in doing his work, but of these he has a large assortment, and all in the most perfect order.”

41. Sherlock playing tricks on John in the train - Another reference to Sherlock Holmes' habit of practical joking.

42. John tells Sherlock: “You were the best and the wisest man I have ever known” - In The Final Problem, Dr John Watson refers to Sherlock Holmes as “the best and the wisest man whom I have ever known”.

43. Sherlock reveals that he used a squash ball under the armpit, to momentarily cut off the pulse - Sherlock Holmes faked a life threatening illness to fool Culverton Smith into making a confession in The Adventure of the Dying Detective. Sherlock also mentions to Dr John Watson: “Malingering is a subject upon which I have sometimes thought of writing a monograph.”

44. Phillip Anderson's question about Sherlock's homeless network - Reference to the Baker Street Irregulars, affectionately termed the unofficial force by Sherlock Holmes


Benedict Cumberbatch and Martin Freeman as Sherlock Holmes and John Watson in BBC Sherlock Season 3 Episode 1 The Empty Hearse

45. Sherlock's line about his lack of knowledge of the person(s) who abducted John: I don't know. I don't like not knowing - Sherlock Holmes tells James Ryder in The Adventure of the Blue Carbuncle: “My name is Sherlock Holmes. It is my business to know what other people don't know.”

46. Sherlock remarks to John: Unlike the nicely embellished fictions on your blog, John, real life is rarely so neat - This is a double reference.
  • Sherlock Holmes often complains about John adding unnecessary touch of romanticism to his accounts of their cases. For example, he states in The Adventure of the Blanched Soldier: “..since I have often had occasion to point out to him how superficial are his own accounts and to accuse him of pandering to popular taste instead of confining himself rigidly to facts and figures.”
  • The second reference is to these lines spoken by Sherlock Holmes to Dr John Watson in A Case of Identity: “My dear fellow, life is infinitely stranger than anything which the mind of man can invent. We would not dare to conceive the things which are really mere commonplaces of existence. If we could fly out of that window hand in hand, hover over this great city, gently remove the roofs, and peep in at the queer things which are going on, the strange coincidences, the plannings, the cross-purposes, the wonderful chains of events, working through generations, and leading to the most outre results, it would make all fiction, with its conventionalities and foreseen conclusions, most stale and unprofitable”

47. Sherlock's statement to John: You know my methods, John. I am known to be indestructible. - Sherlock Holmes tells Dr John Watson in The Adventure of the Blue Carbuncle: “You know my methods.”

I welcome the readers to add any other references that might have been missed.

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Image Sources: BBC Wales, Hartswood Films, Masterpiece Theatre

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