A top secret project, and other things

some games recently afoot

I’ve been doing an extraordinary amount of work lately, for a project I can’t yet talk about. When in need of a break I’ve indulged in some decidedly Sherlockian diversions.

One is the new CBS series Watson. It’s a 21st century take on Holmes’s flat-mate. Imagine Dr. John Watson as an American war vet who is also a medical geneticist.

We meet this new Watson after the events at Reichenbach Falls. (A locale from the original canon, at which Arthur Conan Doyle famously “killed off” his famous detective, in an effort to move on to writing other things. )

At the outset of this new series, Holmes is presumed dead, as is Moriarty. Watson lives in Pittsburgh, and works at a clinic funded by the Holmes estate, which allows him to function as “doc-tective”.

Watson only pursues cases that intrigue him. Think of him as Dr. House, with a group of interns who help him with the tests and research, and also serve as the “greek chorus” whose job it is to verbalize the thought process as they suss out the genetic culprit. They are also presented as students who have much to learn at the figurative feet of their mentor, which was a much over-worked trope in the House, M.D. series.

I like comparing Watson to House, because I always thought Hugh Laurie’s character was a kind of medical Sherlock, who had Dr. James Wilson as his “Watson”.

This new Dr. Watson is much kinder to his interns than House ever was, but has his own share of inner demons. He is estranged from his wife, who is the Medical Director of the Holmes Clinic. He is also recovering from a traumatic brain injury, which seems related to whatever he survived at Reichenbach Falls. He suffers disturbing flashbacks, tremors, and other symptoms, which he self-medicates with a cocktail of drugs he acquires by writing prescriptions to be filled by his butler.

The butler is Shinwell Johnson, a confidante of Sherlock and Watson, who is also linked to Moriarty, who is not nearly as dead as Watson believes.

The links to the Holmes canon are great fun. In the first three episodes there have already been references to the Irregulars, the Red-Headed League, and to Inspector Grigson. Watson calls him at Scotland Yard when he needs help getting information from American law enforcement agencies.

As I mentioned above, Watson and the Holmes Clinic are in Pittsburgh. It’s a much less gritty Pittsburgh than I expected. This may be because with the exception of some establishing exterior shots, the show is filmed in Vancouver.

Another Sherlockian diversion is the Sherlock and Co Podcast, produced in England by Goalhanger. The premise here is that Holmes and Watson live and work in contemporary London, at 221B Baker Street. Holmes is a consulting detective, who solves cases, and Watson is a podcaster who documents his work.

Sherlock and Co the podcast seems to be working its way through some of the best known Conan Doyle stories, with satisfying updates to make them work in the 21st century.

Early in the series, some of the ad spots for the podcast promoted a Sherlock themed escape room in London. This attraction offers adventures created by the writers of the BBC series, and features audio and video recordings of Bernard Cumberbatch, Martin Freeman and other actors.

This commercial tie-in activates the nascent hope that someday, in some form, the BBC version of Sherlock will return.

Speaking of possible sequels, I am happy to report that an online workshop led by Jayne Barnard and myself , which we called “Shaping Sherlock and Making Moriarty” was considered a great success by the 20+ participants. The event was sponsored by the Northwestern Ontario Writers Workshop, in association with the Sudbury Writer’s Guild.

Even before we concluded the evening, the organizers began floating the idea of us offering another session.