SHERLOCK JUMPS THE SHARK

Back when Happy Days was drawing to a close, the writers started running out of good ideas for stories. Consequently, they wrote an episode where Fonzie got on a pair of water skis and went over a ski jump ramp. The catch was that to make things interesting, a shark had been placed under the top of the ramp. If Fonzie’s jump failed, he would be eaten by the shark. Naturally, the jump was successful, but his feat became a catchword for when series writers run out of ideas and start writing incredibly bad and/or preposterous stories. When this occurs, the series has “jumped the shark.”

I contend that Sherlock, in the episode “His Last Vow,” jumped the shark. If you haven’t seen the episode and want to be surprised by what happens, stop reading now.

Mary Morstan a CIA assassin? Give me a break. If Sherlock was half as perceptive as he’s supposed to be, he would have come up with more than an assessment of “liar” when he first met Mary in “The Empty Hearse.” And I don’t see anyone with Sherlock’s personality being so forgiving after Mary shot and almost killed him. I’m not saying that Sherlock was above killing Magnusson. That was really the only solution for such a man. I am saying that Sherlock should have been sharp enough to figure out that murder was the only solution and find a safer way to kill the man than to shoot him in the head in front of a fully armed SWAT team.

I’ve noted earlier that the writers had written themselves into a corner with “The Reichenbach Fall,” by having Sherlock commit suicide under such circumstances as to make it impossible to come up with a rational explanation for how he faked it. Now, at the end of the third series they raise Moriarty from the dead. If we get to a Season Four, there is no way that they can come up with even a bonehead explanation for how Moriarty survived placing the muzzle of a pistol in his mouth, directing the muzzle toward his brain case, and pulling the trigger. And don’t try to say that the gun was firing blanks. You might want to ask John Eric Hexum what happens when you place the muzzle of a pistol loaded with blanks to your head and pull the trigger, but of course you can’t because he didn’t survive doing that. The violently expanding gas escaping the muzzle will kill quite handily even without a bullet. Arthur Conan Doyle had the good sense to leave Moriarty dead after he went over the Reichenbach Falls. The writers of Sherlock should have emulated him on this point.

Do these complaints mean I do not plan to watch Season Four if and when it comes out? Absolutely not. As flawed as Season Three was, I enjoyed it thoroughly. I just hope that they come up with more logical scripts for Season Four.

SHERLOCK HOLMES ON THE ART OF DEDUCTION--SYSTEMATIZED COMMON SENSE

When I wrote my blog post comparing Johnny Lee Miller's Elementary to Benedict Cumberbatch's Sherlock, I had no idea that it would prove to be such a popular post. It seems that the public fascination with Sherlock Holmes has lived from the 19th century into the 21st. My fascination with the character has continued unabated since I first discovered my grandmother's two volume set of Holmes stories back in the 1950's. I had not been long in my career as a prosecutor when I began to realize that the stories were more than entertaining--they had an educational element which could inform the investigation of crimes. Several times over the years I have gone through the Holmes corpus and copied down nuggets of wisdom, and each time I managed to lose my list. Finally, a few years back I got a Kindle edition of the entire Holmes corpus and went through it highlighting the great detective's aphorisms. My list is now more or less permanent. I had a thought of going through them, systematizing them, and making comments on how they informed the investigation and prosecution of some of my cases, and perhaps I'll do that some day. For now I am mired in two other book projects, and while the commentary on Holmes remains on my bucket list it will be a long time before I can get to it--if ever.

For now, I am going to simply blog the quotes without any rhyme or reason other than to place them in the order that they appear in my Kindle edition of the Holmes corpus. On the face of them, some seem to be contradictory. The contradictions however lie in Arthur Conan Doyle's haphazard choice of words and in the ambiguities of the English language. Others among the aphorisms I deem incorrect, but this list does not compile my thoughts on the art of deduction. It compiles the thoughts of the great detective Sherlock Holmes (as they were placed in his brain by his creator, Arthur Conan Doyle).

A Study in Scarlet

From a drop of water a logician could infer the possibility of an Atlantic or a Niagara without having seen or heard of one or the other.

It is a capital mistake to theorize before you have all the evidence. It biases the judgment.

There is nothing new under the sun. It has all been done before.

They say that genius is an infinite capacity for taking pains. It’s a very bad definition, but it does apply to detective work.

When a fact appears to be opposed to a long train of deductions, it invariably proves to be capable of bearing some other interpretation.

The most commonplace crime is often the most mysterious because it presents no new or special features from which deductions may be drawn.

The Sign of the Four

Eliminate all other factors, and the one which remains must be the truth.

I never guess. It is a shocking habit—destructive of the logical faculty.

It is of the first importance not to allow your judgment to be biased by personal qualities.

When you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth.

The Hound of the Baskervilles

If … we are dealing with forces outside the ordinary laws of Nature, there is an end of our investigation. But we are bound to exhaust all other hypotheses before falling back upon this one.

The temptation to form premature theories on the basis of insufficient data is the bane of our profession.

There should be no combination of events for which the wit of man cannot conceive an explanation.

The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes

It is a capital mistake to theorize before one has data. Insensibly one begins to twist facts to suit theories, instead of theories to suit facts.

As a rule the more bizarre a thing is  the less mysterious it proves to be. It is your commonplace, featureless crimes which are really puzzling.

The bigger the crime the more obvious, as a rule is the motive.

It has long been an axiom of mine that the little things are infinitely the most important.

Singularity is almost invariably a clue. The more featureless and commonplace a crime is, the more difficult it is to bring it home.

Circumstantial evidence is a very tricky thing. It may seem to point very straight to one thing, but if you shift your own point of view a little, you may find it pointing in an equally uncompromising manner to something entirely different.

The ideal reasoned would, when he had once been shown a single fact in all its bearings, deduce from it not only all the chain of events which led up to it but also all the results which would follow from it. As Cuvier could correctly describe a whole animal by the contemplation of a single bone, so the observer who has thoroughly understood one link in a series of incidents should be able to accurately state all the other ones, both before and after.

We will take it as a working hypothesis for want of a better.

It is, of course, a trifle, but there is nothing so important as trifles.

I had come to an entirely erroneous conclusion which shows how dangerous it always is to reason from insufficient data.

Circumstantial evidence is occasionally very convincing, as when you find a trout in the milk, to quote Thoreau’s example.

Q: If his purpose were innocent, why did he not say so? A: And if it were guilty, why did he not invent a lie? His silence appears to me to cut both ways.

It is an old maxim of mine that when you have excluded the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth.

Data! Data! Data! I can’t make bricks without clay.

The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes

Nothing clears up a case so much as stating it to another person.

Improbable as it is, all other explanations are more improbable still.

See the value of imagination? … We imagined what might have happened, acted upon the supposition, and find ourselves justified.

[The theory is all surmise]. But at least it covers all the facts. When new facts come to our knowledge which cannot be covered by it, it will be time enough to reconsider it.

Any truth is better than indefinite doubt.

It is as well to test everything[, even the most obvious fact].

It is of the highest importance in the art of detection to be able to recognize, out of a number of facts, which are incidental and which are vital.

I make a point of never having any prejudices, and of following docilely wherever fact may lead me.

The most difficult crime to track is the one which is purposeless.

The principle difficulty in [the case] lay in the fact of there being too much evidence. What was vital was overlaid and hidden by what was irrelevant.

The Return of Sherlock Holmes

[In] the realms of conjecture [even] the most logical mind may be at fault.

It is not really difficult to construct a series of inferences, each dependent upon its predecessor and each simple in itself.

Before we start to investigate that, let us try to realize what we do know so as to make the most of it, and to separate the essential from the accidental.

It is impossible as I state it, and therefore I must in some respect have stated it wrong.

One should always look for a possible alternative and provide against it. It is the first rule of criminal investigation.

Q: What are we to do with that fact? A: To remember it—to docket it. We may come upon something later which will bear upon it.

It is a capital mistake to theorize in advance of the facts.

His Last Bow

[In the face of these incongruous facts we may devise] a temporary hypothesis. If the fresh facts which come to our knowledge all fit themselves into the scheme, then our hypothesis may gradually become a solution.

It is an error to argue in front of your data. You find yourself insensibly twisting them round to fit your theories.

All our reasoning seems to point that way. At any rate, we may take it as a hypothesis and see what consequences it would entail.

Each fact is suggestive in itself. Together they have cumulative force.

When all other contingencies fail, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth.

If the matter is beyond humanity it is certainly beyond me. Yet we must exhaust all natural explanations before we fall back upon such a theory as [the supernatural].

The smallest point may be the most essential.

The Case-Book of Sherlock Holmes

We must look for consistency. Where there is a want of it we must suspect deception.

One drawback of an active mind is that one can always conceive alternative explanations which would make our scent a false one.

The gravest issues may depend upon the smallest things.

My simplest art, which is but systematized common sense.

When you have eliminated all which is impossible, then whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth. It may well be that several explanations remain, in which case one tries test after test until one or other of them has a convincing amount of support.

 

SHERLOCK versus ELEMENTARY

As a child, I found some of my grandmother's furniture to be fascinating. She had a number of barrister book cases filled with books. I spent many hours examining and reading the books in my grandmother's library. I actually wore some of her books out by reading and re-reading them. One set of books that I almost demolished was a two volume collection of Arthur Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes stories. Thus began a lifelong fascination with Doyle's great detective. I have read and re-read all of Doyle's stories multiple times; I have watched many (but not all) of the Sherlock Holmes movies and television shows; and I have listened to every Sherlock Holmes radio play I could get my hands on.

Although I found some of the television and movie portrayals of the great detective to be unwatchable, I thoroughly enjoyed the Basil Rathbone/Nigel Bruce movies. Rathbone became the cinematic Holmes against whom all subsequent Holmeses are measured. The latest movie series with Robert Downey, Jr., is quite good, although not quite what Conan Doyle had in mind. The television series with Jeremy Brett was good, but I found Brett to be a little too heavy to be a convincing Sherlock Holmes. Many have played Holmes on radio, but none better than Clive Merrison in the BBC series.

Now we have two competing television series about the great detective--Elementary on CBS and Sherlock on BBC. Although they both bring Holmes to the twenty first century, they give very different portrayals. Elementary's Holmes (Johnny Lee Miller) is a recovering drug addict who lives and works in New York City, while Sherlock's Holmes (Benedict Cumberbatch) is a self-proclaimed "high functioning sociopath" living at the venerable address of 221B Baker Street in London.

Cumberbatch's Holmes seems to me to be closer to the original than Miller's. For example, Cumberbatch's Holmes is ridiculed by his enemies as a virgin, while Miller's Holmes seems to be quite promiscuous. Cumberbatch may be a little too close to the original Holmes; he sometimes comes off as a caricature of the original. I like both Cumberbatch and Miller as Holmes.

While both Cumberbatch and Miller are reasonable facsmiles of the original Holmes, Elementary's Watson is nothing like the original. First, he's a she (Lucy Liu). Second, Elementary's Watson is not a disabled veteran with PTSD. She's a surgeon who lost her nerve when she lost a patient on the operating table. Despite the fact that she's nothing like the original Watson, Liu carries off the part of Watson quite well. She's no dunce, and she becomes an indispensable colleague of Holmes. Sherlock's Watson (Martin Freeman) appears to me to be the second coming of the original Watson. He's a combat wounded veteran of the war in Afghanistan, and he's quite capable of handling himself in a scuffle. He's nothing like the bumbling Watson created by Nigel Bruce. Although I liked Bruce as Watson, I prefer the more capable Watsons portrayed by Liu and Freeman.

When we come to Irene Adler, we stray far afield from the original character. Sherlock's Irene (Lara Pulver) is a thoroughgoing scoundrel, somewhat on the same plane as the Irene Adler from Robert Downey's Holmes movies. The original Irene was a resourceful woman who lived somewhat outside the law, but she was not a villain. Elementary's Irene (Natalie Dormer) is a far more complex  character than either the original Irene or Sherlock's Irene. As with the Irene Adler from Robert Downey's Holmes movies, both Sherlock's and Elementary's Irene Adlers have a connection to Holmes's archnemesis, Moriarty. I think I prefer Sherlock's Irene Adler to Elementary's.

The original Moriarty was a professor of mathematics and the Napoleon of crime. Neither of the new Moriarties are professors, and aside from the fact that they are both brilliant the sole resemblance they have to the original Moriarty is their thoroughgoing criminality. Sherlock's Moriarty is as nutty as a fruitcake, while Elementary's Moriarty seems to be a more interesting, complex character. I was glad to see the original Moriarty go over the Reichenbach Falls, and I impatiently awaited the demise of Sherlock's Moriarty. I didn't like the character in the original stories, and I haven't liked him in any of his subsequent reincarnations--until Elementary. When offstage Elementary's Moriarty was the embodiment of evil, but when onstage was someone for whom you could feel sympathy. I didn't want to see Elementary's Moriarty die.

Both Elementary and Sherlock thoroughly reworked Mycroft Holmes, Sherlock's older and smarter (and heavier) brother. In Elementary, he is a skinny restaurant owner. Sherlock's Mycroft, although he is also thin, is much closer to the original. I liked Sherlock's Mycroft.

Both series abound with sly allusions to the original stories by Doyle, and it is fun picking them out. I do believe, though that Elementary far surpasses Sherlock in the area of plotting. The story line for the first two seasons of Sherlock veered into the surreal, with some of the characters, Moriarty in particular, engaging in irrational behavior. I'm not going to say that Elementary's plots were more realistic, but they did seem to be less unrealistic and the characters behaved rationally for the bizarre situations they found themselves in.

In the final analysis, both shows are entertaining and very watchable. As the saying goes, "Though he might be more humble, there's no police like Holmes."