Sherlock Holmes: The Detective That Influenced Criminology | The Real Sherlock Holmes | Timeline

[Music] this is the story of how the greatest detective who never lived changed the world Sherlock Holmes element and how he did it happened in ways few could ever imagine space science the science we're doing here at Nasa is really homes 21st century popular culture of course Sherlock Holmes has to meet Batman because Sherlock Holmes is Batman there would be no Batman without Sherlock Holmes homes haunts a lot of the popular culture of the 20th century Espionage Sherlock Holmes is the fat saint of intelligence analysis forensic science the theory should fit the data not the data fitting the theory there vs yeah we live in a universe where Sherlock Holmes has left his mark [Music] everywhere 326 take four every few years a fictional character reemerges and captures the imagination of a new generation the name Sherlock Holmes and the address is 221B Baker Street Mark gatus is co-creator of the BBC series Sherlock he has a Victorian superpower which still works in the modern day I think essentially comes down to the fact that he is the smartest man in the room he can make the connections nobody else can and that is [Music] timeless when you read his study in scarlet and uh Holmes is introduced to Watson [Music] and he says Afghanistan or [Music] Iraq and Watson's how the devil did you know that and hes said by the way you're limping I know you're an army doctor and you've been ailed home from Afghanistan quite correctly I'm afraid well of course that's insane uh there are hundreds of ways that somebody could limp but the thing that strikes you about Holmes is that he takes common sense events and finds explanations for them well anyway it must speak of a kind of need we have to be saved I think or to believe there is something slightly higher than us which is going to come and get us out of this terrible mess we're all in it seems that homes shines a little brighter for people when things aren't going very well and things are going wrong in the world Banks do not have sufficient Capital to make loans so I need somebody who can reassure me that there are people out there who can make things right and right now we're in a sort of a Renaissance of homes the Sherlock Holmes stories have never been out of print since Sir Arthur Conan Doyle created the character in 1887 Holmes first appeared in a minor Christmas Penny press magazine the story study in Scarlet at first I think they attracted very little attention but after time when I began the short Adventures people began to recognize that it was different to the old detective he wrote 60 stories four novels and 56 short stories they began to buy the magazine it uh prospered and so I may say did I American Publishers were paying cone and oil dollar a word now in the 1920s that is very very big money indeed after the Bible the home stories are the most widely circulated and translated books in the world it's often says that he's the most depicted fictional character certainly the most filmed fictional character I think it's because of the strange sort of Glamour that he possesses it's a rather uneasy sort of Glamour because he is a glacial and frightening character oh Professor Marti but he's rather like a character from from Gothic fiction how fresh Justin used to work here I knew him he was nice he's rather like a vampire dark glammer is just one aspect of hommes that has left its permanent mark on popular culture so bad day was it another is fandom nowadays millions of people live in the fantasy world of their favorite TV and film Heroes the Kling on universe is really no different than any other Universe the fictional Sherlock Holmes started it all prior to Doyle's creation there had never been a pop culture character more famous than its creator people got confused used was Sherlock Holmes a real person the Curious Thing is how many people that are in the world who have perfectly convinced that he is a living human being that idea of understanding the character as real began even as the stories were being written I'll bet you if you go down Baker Street and stop a random 10 people and ask them a question like did you know that charlock Holmes lived here I'll bet you that six or seven out of those 10 will say yes I I did I get letters addressed to him I get letters asking for his autograph get letters addressed to his other stupid friend Watson would you would you like to hear Old Uncle make a noise like a [Music] duck Sor Sherlock Holmes was the first fictional figure who inspired role playing among his fans today fan fantasy is a part of popular culture before there were all of these little niches and little pop culture tribes and little pockets of fandom there was this incredibly potent character that just reached out and shaped all of these other things the same people who watch Law and Order today are not the same people who are dressing up as Klingons at at at St Trek inventions but they all owe a debt to Holmes there are Sherlock Holmes groups in in Britain many in the United States Japan is mad for charlot Holmes Doyle sort of hit something Universal you all know it's not real I I do know that it isn't real but it made all that genre escapism legitimate and it's a nice enjoyable ual [Music] exercise when Sir Arthur Conan Doyle had enough of Holmes he decided to kill him Holmes and his arch nemesis Mori arti fell over a waterfall in the 1891 classic the final problem the public outcry was off the scale there was an outrage and people in the city of London went around wearing black armbands morning Armand a woman allegedly wrote to kandal saying you brute I've written a good deal more about him than I ever intended to do but my hand has been rather forced by kind friends who continually wanted to know more slowly slowly he was able to Usher him back in he killed home he killed what you there's something Christlike about home he's the man who dies and rises again he falls quite a long way but he comes back and I think that's one of the reasons why he inspires that kind of following Holmes has survived through to the 21st century in ways his creator could never have imagined he cannot be contained now he's out in the culture like a kind of disease or a germ and he'll go on infecting the culture I'm sure forever there is nothing nicer than to start a a Sherlock H story and you know the wind was blowing a storm down Baker Street and the fire was crackling in the heart and Sherlock Holmes cast aside a newspaper and took his first pipe of the day and said I'm bored with Watson and then you hear the client's foot upon the stair and you know that they're going to be off and racing and running you know I owe you an apology you come here for adventure and I have none to offer you very soon out of London's teing million some distressed person will step up to the door and knock ring Watson the knocker doesn't function you should have noticed that first stop on planet Holmes the crime [Music] lab Sherlock Holmes most critical contribution to the modern world unfolds in crime labs and morgs all over the planet when Sir Arthur Conan Doyle wrote his home stories there was no such thing as forensic [Music] science EJ West Wagner is the author of the science of Sherlock Holmes it wasn't called forensic science it was called usually medical Juris Prudence originally this was the area of Physicians who would call in various experts who knew something about shoes or Fine Wines and sort of use their knowledge there was no Organization for it at all at the metropolian police which was itself very new impertinent she call us policeman and what's wrong with being a policeman in the late Victorian era late 1800s policing in London left a lot to be desired the crime scenes in those days were simply chaotic uh crime like Jack the Ripper for instance the bodies were not sketched properly in C2 evidence disappeared evidence was never collected evidence was deliberately destroyed because they were afraid of causing riots which was very well meant but it didn't get anywhere towards solving the crime Sherlock holes says in one of the stories a greater mess could not have been made if a herd of elephants had blundered through well that is pretty much what happened they had no method one of the first principles in solving crime is never to disregard anything no matter how trivial if Sherlock holes had been running the investigation each of those bodies would have been examined very very carefully as they lay as they were found not after they were removed to the mor where things fell off dropped off evidence was lost hols made people realize that forensics and deductive reasoning these are methods that we need to use even today police forces around the world universities we teach forensic crime scene investigation use Sherlock Holmes and quote Sherlock Holmes in lessons as the model cleanly expertly sered work of a skilled surgeon treat yourself to the best gift in history this holiday season enjoy unlimited access to award-winning podcasts and thousands of hours of original history documentaries released weekly exclusively on History hit there are topics for all history lovers from pomp pay to D-Day sign up via the link in the description for an exclusive discount don't miss out on this incredible opportunity to explore the past like never before with history hit he helped lay the foundation for this kind of modern crime scene investigation it all annoyed me how in the oldfashioned detective Story the detective always seemed to get at his results by some sort of Lucky chance sh up Luke let's leave jumping to conclusions to the professional detective conand was a physician and there is a great deal in forensic science which is really based on medical procedures and I used as a student to have a old Professor his name was Bell who extraordinarly quick at deductive work Joseph Bell would very often bring before his class some unfortunate sufferer of a mysterious complex disease but he would make his diagnosis of the disease entirely by his part of observation he certainly had a tremendous influence on conand Doyle and therefore on Sherlock Holmes so naturally I thought to myself well if a scientific man like Bell was to come into the detective business he wouldn't do these things by chance he'd get the thing by building it up scientifically proof my dear fellow we must have proof [Music] the Sherlock Holmes stories caught the attention of a French doctor Edmund loard in the 1920s locard worked with police to solve crimes and developed a theory that all things leave a trace forensic science was born he wrote that Sherlock Holmes inspired his groundbreaking theories on trace evidence and he set the course for the next Century csis Sherlock Holmes taught them lard said he thought everyone studying forensic science should read Sherlock Holmes especially the sign of four in the first place it's been bleached and soaked by long immersion in salt water if you like tasted one nothing the home stories featured an array of forensic tools chemical analysis microscopic inspection foot footprint identification ballistics handwriting analysis gunpowder residue typography photographic enlargements all of these devices appeared in fiction before any were actually used by real csis and today many forensic scientists admit holm's love of the lab is only half of their [Music] job the other half is his love for Intrigue I love puzzles and this is a puzzle you're trying to figure out what happened my mind rebels in [Music] stagnation I grew up on mystery novels as a kid getting the answer has always been something I I love information give me the most abstruse cryptogram the most intricate analysis and I'm in my proper atmosphere I just love it when I was seven I wrote stories about people getting murdered and me solving the crimes holm's love for cuttingedge science inspires the current generation of forensic analysts who specialize in fields Doyle could never have imagined this is a typical condition that will get a cell phone in this expert retrieves data from cell phones that have been smashed by criminals trying to erase electronic evidence of their whereabouts it's the kind of data collection that Doyle invented with the fiction homes it was method he said you collect all these small facts data data data and then I will put it together and I will come out with a satisfactory conclusion all we need to do at this point is press read it's reading all of the information from the chip the word voicemail is in here so we know that there's probably some kind of voic mail broken Pipers appear darker than the rest of the paper and are therefore visible splend at home I believe Dr toel meant communicate with us by that means in 1893 Doyle wrote about the unique character of handwriting 15 years before it was ever used in a real case today that tradition continues in this CS siiz lab this is called the video spectral comparator or vssc for short and basically this just uses different wavelengths of light to distinguish between inks message was written in ink with his pen no he was this one thank you so in this case we have an individual who's found dead and a bunch of things have been obliterated in the daytim if we M the sheet in a solution of fluorescent salts the fiber has broken into the writing absorb less of the solution in other parts of the paper and so you can see here that we're seeing lunch with Sue underneath the scribble and that's because under this um infrared light the lunch was Sue Inc is absorbing the infrared Watson I'm beginning to see the plan Holmes believed that data could be proved useful no matter how obscure he collected hundreds of types of tobacco so that no matter what the criminal smoked Holmes would know how to narrow his search that premise drives 21st century forensics what Holmes was doing really was saying collect your data and don't form your theor until you have it know a lot about a lot of different things he was sort of a one person walking Prime laboratory he even beat corpses to see where the bruises would form because that's another very big problem to this day did this bruising take was this postmortem or anti-mortem how did this happen Dr Joseph Bell inspired Sir Arthur Conan Doyle to use the autopsy as a crime-solving tool Doyle popularized it in fiction long before it was put into practice and today the autopsy is the universal standard at the end of the day we are death investigators this individual who is deceased is our patient so to speak and we are the last people who are ever going to examine that individual and get as close to the truth as we possibly can modern tools make the autopsy even more powerful than Conan Doyle could ever have imagined traditionally the autopsy looks at the organs in the chest and abdominal area however when you start using a CT scan you can start seeing parts of the body such as the internal portions of the extremities the muscles the bones so having this technology really provides a huge amount of additional information and in some cases has eliminated the need to do an autopsy as long as the pertinent questions were answered by the scan but with all the advancements old school sherlockian forensics are still going strong in the adventure of The regit Squire Doyle introduced the notion of ballistics analysis to determine which gun fired a [Music] bullet that practice continues and today's forensic experts agree with Sherlock Holmes that no two weapons are the same we're constantly trying to disprove our Theory to where we are taking consecutively manufactured firearms are test firing them trying to compare them to each other trying to make the firearm that was made first match with a firearm that was made second and to this date it has still not been done so we can still prove and have been proven over and over again that we can in fact identify fired bullets and fired cartridge cases back to a firearm in 1887s a study in Scarlet Sherlock Holmes analyzed blood to determine who it came from 13 years pass before this technique is put into practice and almost a century goes by before the Advent of DNA testing the DNA profiles tests for hair color eye color uh ethnicity height weight and other physical traits it just continues to grow and grow the techniques are so robust and reliable and they just keep improving and the discriminatory power keeps improving [Music] Sherlock's influence on criminologists and their methods runs deeper than any other real historical figure that says a lot for a man who never lived Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes had an unusual Talent hiding in plain sight home was a master of disuss guys hands up gentlemen why Mr Holmes put that thing away now Watson Watson said that the stage lost an actor when Holmes decided to become a detective an adorable disguise by the way fooled them completely of course he didn't fool me I never intended that it should he would immerse himself in the character he had several bolt holes around London that were equipped with makeup and costume that he could retire to and emerged as somebody else completely different identity whether it was a drunken groom or a Italian priest or a upand cominging plumber Holmes actually became the character his Mastery of that technique was really a pioneering [Music] thing Sherlock Holmes Improvement on the other makeup don't you think so Professor the tradition of going undercover lives on in police forces around the world I think some of them are slightly embarrassed to tell you the truth about how much they are influenced by what they read when they were 14 Dragon movich 52 years old a multi-disciplinary organized crime figure with massive CS a team of former undercover cops now runs a top private investigation firm in Canada the team is about to close in on a deadly drug dealer using techniques straight from the pages of Sherlock Holmes uh just so you know this guy's got a record dating back to 1983 uh assault convictions and an assault causing milanovich is 61320 lbs he's been involved in martial arts for about 40 years he's an absolute Bone Crusher he does a lot of dirty work for the hills angels and uh he's heard a lot of people I will be posing as the boss of uh mop criminal organization this afternoon to complete his risky job Fred pinck Dons a simple but effective disguise there are many occasions where deception and trickery have to be used to have people responsible for criminal acts divulge Lon held evidence or admissions my dear Watson if we're to catch our fish use to bait their bite on on the surveillance Julia you're going to be wired so I need you to let your hair down to cover that earpiece Jake you're going to ride with Len Julia you ride with me make no mistake Watson this is our Great's antagonist Professor maraki be dragon is a dangerous guy has a history of violence having said that I gained his trust over the past year uh he's aware of the deal he's you know eager to make it happen Beyond confident that he believe is legitimate General Samuel Wilson is a career spy a master of deception Sherlock Holmes was one of the early practitioners of deception deception is engaging in Acts that mislead confuse discombobulate an opponent cause him to take actions that are not in his best interest but may be in yours for not to act when he should act I'm always eager to get it going out we're just waiting for his call so that'll be calling in uh couple minutes so hello once you get your phone call from Fred that they're in place then get him in the car and drive them over [Music] there the criminal steps straight into the track holes had a way of smoking people out homes confused misled people to where they suddenly appeared and he had them in their grasp I would say you were wrong and Mr Sherlock Holmes was correct good evening Professor mariati a single slip up and the undercover agents could find themselves in a deadly situation you will meet and greet our subject before he gets in the car I want you to check him out make sure he's got nothing on him that he shouldn't have okay then let him in the car now the moment of greatest danger who do we have here how are you doing fine it's a moment that Echoes homes who's this clo he a bloodthirsty Eden but there's good money to spend for information I recognize Sherlock Holmes as we would say fine Italian hand in the business of deception of which he was a master leave it 6,000 units approximately yes mhm it will cost you $40 per unit 40 per unit yeah how how fast can this happen as soon as you get me the money within about uh I would say within 24 hours okay will has the cash right now good I think maybe at some time we will become good friends yeah good friends do good business yeah I never did think much of this dressing up business it was necessary I assure you another violent criminal is caught in the snare thanks to the art of Disguise inspired by Sherlock Holmes but his undercover influence doesn't end there others consider homes the master spy the model for the 21st Century's high stakes game of Espionage General Sam Wilson is one of the United States most decorated spies for what exactly he will never say but he will admit that it all started reading Sherlock Holmes stories as a boy I found so much that was deep and substantive meaningful and rich in homes as a figure and in the the intellectual Feats that he was able to achieve I simply found myself fascinated with it Wilson worked for 10 US presidents as a secret agent never revealing his own secret Sherlock Holmes was his silent protector I absorbed Holmes and his life and was aware of his thesis that the human mind is a most powerful tool if it is finely honed and educated and concentrated on solving problems Holmes to me was a problem solver the intricacies of his mind simply appeal to me very very greatly and I I think they were of benefit to me as I moved into intelligence as a career spies never retire they just work in the shadows and General Wilson now imagines what might have happened intelligence officials had used Sherlock Holmes as their model to catch Osama Bin Laden Sherlock Holmes would have found Osama Bin Laden for us much sooner we can't keep secrets these days one of the things that we always pre was how to avoid the spotlight at the end of the action they just fade away Holmes was good at this give the credit the publicity of someone else let's Fade Away into the shadow so we can work again another day by the way they left this Cal behind it's probably of no value no value what full of sparklers you amers always Overlook the important things Sherlock Holmes set the stage for the dangerous world of modern undercover operations Master of the art of Being invisible in plain sight every day human Hunters stalk the streets looking for opportunities to commit violent crimes in the late 20th century criminologists realize that most of these Predators follow recognizable patterns police call it Behavioral Science or more simply profiling and in 1887s study in Scarlet Sir Arthur Conan Doyle anticipated profiling by almost 100 years this makes four inspector for defenseless women here in the heart of London Lee rainbow is the UK's top criminal profiler a modern Sherlock I think certainly in terms of crime scene assessment what we do is is very similar to the homes approach in gather ing data using the data to drive the theory rather than vice versa and hypothesis generation and testing to search for further data to support or refute those hypothesis and then coming up with the best fit for the known information which is essentially what homes was using one of our roles is to very much recognize that the theory should fit the data not the data fitting the theory and that's very much what we do the truth has only arrived at by the p taking process of eliminating the unw we are not able to do that in this case without further datter everything we do is driven by data everything there's a tendency to glamorize romanticize the intelligence operator the James Bond that is the exciting Arena that's where the headlines are there's a tendency to ignore faceless analysts laboring putting bits and pieces of evidence together and trying to figure out what they mean and that's Sherlock Holmes Sherlock Holmes spanned pretty much the field of reception collection operations and so on but when I stopped to think about who and what he was I would say first and foremost the world's greatest intelligence analyst one Cutting Edge technique owes its inspiration to the homesi method it's called Geographic profiling and it's proven to narrow down where a violent offender hunts and even where he lives Ian lty is one of the creators of a Geo profiling program inspired by Sherlock Homes well to start with in Geographic profiling you need a series of connected locations it's like the old pin maps that the police used to put on the wall stick little pins in the map and then they'd stare at the pattern and say hm I wonder what this means so what we do is enter the crime locations into the program and it does the very complicated calculation actually where it runs through the entire city if the criminal lived here and he traveled to all of these crime sites how long would it take and then it moves over a little bit and as you do that you're building up a probability map that shows you where the criminal more likely to live over the entire city we thought we were the hunters instead of which we're the hunted Scott filer is a profiler and private investigator in Canada people commit crimes for for a reason people think it's random it's really not a random process there are reasons that people choose to do things the way they do and that's the premise behind the software it takes all those scientific considerations into play uh when the algorithm behind the software is working these Maps allow us to priori ize the search area for the suspect Sherlock Holmes was all about applying his knowledge with a little bit of intuition and he was a very smart guy but what we have that he didn't have is a whole lot of information he had the kids that ran around the streets gathering information for him but we have the modern equivalent in the computer tools that we use and they have a whole lot more information to go on if Sherlock Holmes was around today he'd have apps like ours on his uh smartphone and he'd be using them all the time but Lee rainbow points out that despite computers the data still needs a detective like homes to make sense of it you still need that human aspect to it to identify which are the important variables those things can't be done by a computer there something in that bag she wants to show me what makes you say that bag doesn't match your dress in the beginning was picked the size rather than style to accommodate some bulky object you're am amaz behold I me my anybody can get in front of a computer and punch keys and make something come out of it what goes into that is the human factor Holmes was an expert in logic reasoning out explanations looking at the evidence that remains and putting the puzzle together so at the end of the day what comes out of it is an informed hypothesis about what you think happened between the victim and the suspect that's the critical piece it's about the analyst and the skills and knowledge that the analyst brings to the process that makes it successful sometimes when the profilers hit a dead end old school lie detection comes into play Theo Holby is one of the world's top polygraphic analysts I think that homes will probably would have appreciated an instrument like that to be very honest with you because he used the powers of observation to see if somebody was sweating or that his heart was beating faster than normal I was studying the faces of our fellow passengers fascinating Hobby and sometimes most enlightening you can actually see that his body is reacting when you ask him that certain type of question the polygraph has been a forensic tool since Conan Doyle's time and it's still going strong at the moment it is still the best tool to use in any investigation according to me there's a lot of other scientific ways to investigate statement analysis or the reading of the body but with a polygraph you can actually put something on paper you can say the body reacted to a certain question at that time and this is what the body did did you steal that watch no many profilers admit their model was Sherlock Holmes a fictional character who used deduction to close in on criminals that were too elusive for standard police [Music] methods it's very Hess I make it akin to doing a crossword puzzle you know you get one piece of data that starts giving you a clue for the next you slowly build up this picture which is very intellectually challenging like a crossword but the completion of that crossword is you catch a bad guy and for me it's a perfect role perfect job I love it I really think yeah what are you thinking of I'm thinking of all the women who can come and go in safety in the Streets of London tonight Sherlock Holmes is known all over the planet but his influence also reaches into space inspiring NASA scientist Dr James Garvin science operates in a lot of different ways but perhaps at the most visceral level it's very forensic all of us who are fans of that 221B Baker Street idea recognized in Reading those stories of more than 100 plus years ago that this is science applied to understanding Garvin was an intern when NASA first put a camera on Mars in 1975 he's now the agency's top scientist he's defined NASA's direction for space exploration and owes it all to reading Sherlock Holmes as a little boy Sherlock Holmes I might have known I really came into science by being curious as all young people probably are they may not realize it but they are I mean I like rocks and bugs but other kids like beating up their neighborhood kid or sister whatever it is it's that Curiosity but once you read Sherlock Holmes stories and you see the interplay between thinking evidence solving something that matters you know death of people kind of does you realize that's what science is we are crime solvers but the crimes are the problem you're solving ocean heat flow climate stories on Earth why Venus is so weird WEA life exists on mars or the bigger Universe are we alone I read Holmes before I became a scientist what Garbin learned from the Sherlock Holmes stories is that data comes first theories follow nothing but an ordinary match folder where does that lead this I imagine to something very important Gregson and with that a generation of scientists regard space as a homesan mystery that needs to be solved how do we figure these things out how do we make it into that puzzle solving forensic science that Sherlock Holmes demonstrated in these great stories and we do so with data with information and we increase that information in ways that is like increasing the pool of evidence you would have in a in a mystery in a crime story what's the puzzle of water on Mars well we went to Mars we saw a dry alien apparently sterile desert we landed we sat there for years nothing really much happened and then Revolution the the forensic puzzle changed we got a little more information as Holmes did in the stories by siron and Doyle and you put the extra piece of information in and even though it might seem small Kaboom we now have the wet warm Mars the Mars where following the water makes sense today following the carbon it's so homesan and I think that's what is attractive to some of us scientists we kind of operate like Sherlock Holmes did you know 14050 years ago but with new pieces of data NASA's role has evolved the agency now studies scientific mysteries on Earth as much as the stars but Garbin says Sherlock Holmes methods still rule his vision listen to the [Music] facts then make your analysis the 19th key of the keyboard is the 19th letter of the alphabet Garvin and his team went back to the Moon missions and found new evidence in old data seemingly a dead World We visited with astronauts 40 years ago been there done that in fact that's not the case the Moon is actually a repository of information about the whole solar system we've just come to realize that from the New Evidence we're getting from New Missions so it's all about the information we get it from every perspective we can that's very homesan those pieces of evidence give us the story where we can play the homesan game and that's what's so beautiful we're discovering our own future and our future question from the moon to the Stars Sherlock Holmes influence stretches deep into space exploration but back on Earth it's driven popular culture in ways that cannot be [Music] measured Sherlock Holmes has been imitated and adapted more than any other fictional character in history Mr Holmes Mr Sherlock Holmes good morning Mr Holmes Mr holes good night Mr Sherlock Holmes Sir Arthur Conan Doyle created a character who exploded onto the world of fiction and has left his mark on three [Music] centuries we are living in Sherlock holes World there are just so many creators of fictional universes who are inspired by Holmes you could go back and say that Holmes was the model te of all modern science fiction of mystery fiction of genre fiction all right KO we're going to introduce Mr Grant and the world to the Green Hornet the marks of it are on every mystery novel every detective figure and every conflict between the the rational and irrational from the X Files the lost to the police [Music] procedurals I want to report a murder who was murdered I was it all comes back to homes it's hard to find something in modern entertainment that Sherlock Holmes did not touch in one way or another holes is a character who conjured something so powerful and so vital that that character just escaped and went running through the culture and it had a power that Doyle couldn't tame a lot of people have written pasti Sherlock Holmes Stories the new Sherlock Holmes series at the BBC was a startling success but why has Sherlock Holmes remained so popular the great Sherlock Holmes himself no many believe it's all about his relationship with Dr Watson Watson Watson never who me I think the real AO is the duo of Sherlock Holmes and Dr Watson their relationship the Mia that they inhabit how are you boy I haven't seen you for years I want you to meet my old friend charot holes Holmes is the stinky shock Holmes had become so much about the trappings about the fog about the top hats about the handsome cabs that at a stroke by modernizing it it becomes about them again which is the friendship between these two men the Buddy film genre began with Sherlock Holmes and Dr Watson Waton coming buddy films owe a tremendous amount to Sherlock Holmes obviously uh and you'll notice that these Duos tend to kind of have the same sort of interplay that Holmes and Watson had I think the idea of a pairing of two men one of whom is rather distant and unknowable and one of whom is much more like us I think this is terribly important you don't mind breaking the law not in a good cause well the cause is excellent well then I am your man Splendid it's like he's crazy but he's crazy because he sees everything as it is that's what makes him crazy that's also what makes him great that's pure holes you can see it in with the weapon you can see it in Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid you can see it in Star Trek Captain Kirk and Mr spot before all of them though there was shlock Holmes and Dr Watson that's that's the [Music] Prototype AC in the 21st century the homes Watson relationship has taken on a new dimension the homoerotic Buddy C combination as we know it today owes just about everything to Holmes Watson Holmes himself was extremely ambiguous didn't show a whole lot of interest in women Irene Adler was the only woman who fascinated him what the relationship between Holmes and Watson captures is a kind of intimate male relationship that in a way predates those categories of sexuality that we're all stuck with now hes I think your visitor will want me out of the way not a bit doctor stay where you are I am lost without my buzell there was a very definite homerotic vibe to the relationship depicted in the Granada TV series largely thanks to Jeremy Brett's performance I think and it's now a running gag in the new BBC Sherlock series because all all the people they meet of course assume that they're rather more than flatmates there's another bedroom upstairs if you've been needing two bedrooms of course we'll be needing two Sir Arthur Conan Doyle would have denied the implication male relationships in his era were different but there is one thing in the stories that was not ambiguous Sherlock Holmes was a cocaine addict his favorite method injecting what he called the 7% solution the fact that he was a drug addict fact that he's a bit of a sociopat that's an incredibly potent thing in fiction the hero who is also potentially a demon or has something demonic inside that both gives him his power and makes him a liability that's incredibly powerful addicted super heroic sociopathic scientific genius Sherlock Holmes anticipated the future a complex flawed character so worshiped some people forget that he never existed we're going to be having a gathering of charlock Holmes people in the city where I live in Oxford there is a pub there where charlock HS undoubtedly stayed because of internal evidence in the stories and you know I've just been writing the chronology of what guest are going to do and they were you know I'm going to say just think when you actually go in there Char holes really did stay here explanation mark we're talking about him like he's real we can't help ourselves can we I it's we're not saying Dr Conan Doyle did it are we we're saying that Sherlock Holmes did it I mean I I do know that he isn't real Sir Arthur Conan Doyle dropped a fictional character on our planet and he hit like a bomb the ripple effect of Sherlock Holmes shows no no sign of stopping over a century later in a world that doesn't often make sense cold calculated reason gives people a feeling of safety and strength Holmes appears in the strangest of places because we need him good work Mr Holmes perhaps I underestimated you I've written a good deal more about him than I ever intended to do but my hand has been rather forced by kind friends who continually want to know more and so it is that this monstrous growth has come out I what is really a comparatively small [Music] seed oh [Music] goodbye [Music] [Applause] a [Applause] a

Channel: Timeline - World History Documentaries

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Keywords: British detective, Crime fiction, Crime novels, Crime scene investigation, Crime-solving skills, Dan Snow, Exclusive podcasts, Front-line detectives, Hidden side, Holmesian investigations, Investigative techniques, Literature, Literature analysis, Pop culture experts, Sherlock Holmes adaptations, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, Solving puzzles, Timeline - World History Documentaries, Victorian detective, Whodunit, World renowned historians

Id: 3Eo-Cp9u4ME

Length: 52min 4sec (3124 seconds)

Published: Tue Nov 28 2023