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The Public Life of Sherlock Holmes: Poul Anderson’s “The Archetypal Holmes”

The Public Life of Sherlock Holmes: Poul Anderson’s “The Archetypal Holmes”

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Poul's wife Karen, also a sccifi author and Sherlockian, drew these for his essay.
Poul’s wife Karen, also a scifi author and Sherlockian, drew this for his essay.

As far as Sherlockians go, I have a rather large Joseph Campbell library. I’ve even written about Holmes and the Monomyth (“The Hero’s Thousand-and-First Face”). Through Campbell, I discovered Carl Jung’s The Archetypes and the Collective Unconscious. However, all attempts to read it were abandoned rather quickly. I found it tough going. I do have a decent handle on archetypes from Role Playing Games, though.

Anywhoo…The late Poul Anderson was one of the giants in the field of science fiction: he was racking up Hugo Awards when that meant something.  He was also a devotee of Sherlock Holmes and a member of The Baker Street Irregulars. For good measure, he was also a Solar Pona fan and a Praed Street Irregular. Anderson wrote some odd Holmes pastiches and some, insightful, erudite Sherlockiana about the great detective.

In September of 1968, The Baker Street Journal included “The Archetypical Holmes,” a fine essay by Anderson and the kind of excellent Sherlockiana that is sadly all too rare these days – made obsolete by pop-centric, culture-appeasing works. Take it away, Poul!

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The Public Life of Sherlock Holmes: Back to the Television

The Public Life of Sherlock Holmes: Back to the Television

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sherlock_season4So, episode 98 of Elementary aired weekend before last. That, of course, is the modern day Sherlock Holmes show, set in New York City, featuring Johnny Lee Miller as the brilliant, socially challenged detective, and Lucy Liu as a female Doctor Watson. The show, which began in 2012, just kicked off season five.

Meanwhile, on January 1 of 2017, BBC’s Sherlock FINALLY airs season four. Set in modern day London, it has launched Benedict Cumberbatch to superstardom and also escalated Martin Freeman’s (that Bilbo guy) career. There have been nine episodes since the show began in 2010, plus one television movie, The Abominable Bride. It’s no surprise, with two year and eleven months between episodes, that rumors abound that season four will be the end.

Do you want the bad or the good first? The bad? Ok, we’ll open with Sherlock. Among my top five all-time favorite shows after season two, season three was a self-indulgent, “we can do better than Doyle” and “look how clever we are” claptrap. Somehow, The Abominable Bride won an Emmy for best television movie. The ending of it was worse than Matt Frewer’s Hound of the Baskervilles.

I think Sherlock is now a bad show and hope that it gets put to rest after these three episodes.

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The Shannara Chronicles Will Be Back (Though Amber will Not…)

The Shannara Chronicles Will Be Back (Though Amber will Not…)

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Shannara_titleBack in January, I wrote about the then-in progress Shannara Chronicles miniseries on MTV. I was less than overwhelmed. Even though Terry Brooks was involved, and while it did some things nicely, it most certainly was not the Shannara project some of us have been waiting decades for. Granted, it was decent enough that I stuck through all ten episodes.

While the main storyline got closure in the final episode, others (which had nothing to do with The Elfstones of Shannara, the book the series was based on) were left wide open.

I missed this, but back in April, MTV signed on for a second season, though I haven’t come across any kind of timeline.

“This dream team delivered a beautiful, ground breaking show with compelling stories and character journeys which brought in new viewers. I can’t wait to see what season 2 brings,” said Mina Lefevre, Executive Vice President and Head of Scripted Development at MTV.

The show did extremely well in digital format, with over 16 million streams and becoming the most downloaded single-season show ever for MTV. Since it was aimed at the teens and twenties crowd, that’s a good sign.

I liked it enough that I will watch season two, where I’m sure we’ll get more pretty people and lots of the angst, which is the hallmark of the target age group.

Terry Brooks has said that the story is leaning towards The Wishsong of Shannara (which followed Elfstones), with some of Sword of Shannara mixed in.

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The Public Life of Sherlock Holmes: Arsenic and Old Lace

The Public Life of Sherlock Holmes: Arsenic and Old Lace

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In Brooklyn during World War II, a pair of black widows were luring men to their deaths. They preyed upon older, lonely men without family or close friends. With a “Room for rent” sign hanging in the front window of their idyllic-looking home, they fed arsenic-laced wine to their victims. A male relative who lived with them buried the bodies in the basement, with no one the wiser. The women were in fact little old ladies: think Aunt Bee as a serial killer.

But a nephew came over and found a body in window seat – the thirteenth victim. He slowly realized that his two loveable old aunts were killers. Then, his brother, a murderer on the lam from the police, showed up with his lackey in tow. It’s a hardboiled, true crime story that curiously, is largely forgotten today.

Just kidding! It’s actually Arsenic and Old Lace, a smash stage play that became a popular movie starring Cary Grant, Raymond Massey and Peter Lorre. The play ran on Broadway for 1,444 performances and is still in wide use today.

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The Public Life of Sherlock Holmes: A Century of John D. MacDonald

The Public Life of Sherlock Holmes: A Century of John D. MacDonald

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MacDonald_WSJIt’s no surprise, given the title of this column, that I’ve written more Sherlock Holmes-related posts than about any other topic. What is surprising to me, given that I know myself fairly well, is that I’ve only done one post about John D. MacDonald. You can read some stuff I’ve written about him over on my own blog, Almost Holmes, here and here and here. But perhaps because I haven’t been able to delve deeply enough into re-reading and analysis, I’ve not come back to him at Black Gate. Until today.

Yesterday marked the one hundredth anniversary of John MacD’s birth. When MacDonald died in December of 1986 of heart-related problems, he was one of the most influential and popular authors in America. Thirty years later, while he is still respected and cited by many writers, including John Jakes, Randy Wayne White and others, he’s somewhat forgotten. Which is both sad, and something that I would like to ponder on for a future post as well.

A quote from Stephen King:

“John D. MacDonald has written a novel called The End of the Night which I would argue is one of the greatest American novels of the twentieth century. It ranks with Death of a Salesman, it ranks with An American Tragedy,”

A quote from me, Bob Byrne (I admit, I don’t quite have the cachet of that King fellow):

“John D. MacDonald is one of the greatest writers of the twentieth century: In any genre. He was a skillful storyteller and a first-rate social commentator.”

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The Public Life of Sherlock Holmes: Don’t Panic!

The Public Life of Sherlock Holmes: Don’t Panic!

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BG_AdamsDontPAnicTo those who ascribe to Dirk Gently’s belief in the fundamental interconnectedness of everything (the working premise that made him the holistic detective that he was), you might be able to tie together today’s rambling post. If you do, feel free to explain it to me. My Sherlockian approach failed miserably in the attempt. I got to the point where, once I had eliminated the impossible, whatever remained, however improbable, must be the truth. Except what remained was still impossible.

(I wrote about the Gently books here and the television miniseries here. Go ahead and read them. You know you want to.)

And since I’m talking about a mega-successful series, that has sold/rated well in almost every medium short of Mime, you don’t get a Spoiler Alert. If you’re not familiar with Adams’ works, I don’t know why you’re reading this post anyways. Go read/watch/play/listen to some incarnation of this stuff.

Dirk Gently’s Holistic Detective Agency is my favorite Douglas Adams book (many folks would like me to explain how that could be!). But I first came to Adams’ just like everybody else: through The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. Note I use the unhyphenated spelling.

I wouldn’t tackle that controversy without downing at least two Pan Galactic Gargleblasters first. And since I would lose consciousness two swallows into the first one, we can put that issue to bed right now. And I don’t mean on one of the follopping mattresses from the swamps of Sqornshellous Zeta, either. There.

Now we can move along. Though if you want to delve deeper into the issue on your own, see Don’t Panic: The Official Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy Companion by Neil Gaiman – pages 50-51.

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The Public Life of Sherlock Holmes: Lt. Columbo

The Public Life of Sherlock Holmes: Lt. Columbo

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Columbo_HandsUpThe mystery field is full of great detectives and private eyes, both amateur and professional, created by authors. Hercule Poirot, Nero Wolfe, Father Brown, Inspector Morse, Sam Spade, Philip Marlowe, Mike Hammer, The Continental Op: and of course, Sherlock Holmes. The list goes on and on.

There have also been quite a few detectives created for television. McCloud, Matt Houston, Magnum PI and Jim Rockford to name a few. The germaphobic Adrian Monk was immensely popular. But perhaps the supreme television detective is Inspector Columbo.

A prototype Columbo, if you will (heck – even if you won’t), appeared in Enough Rope: a 1960 episode of The Chevy Mystery Hour, played by Bert Freed. It was then turned into a play, Prescription Murder, starring Thomas Mitchell, who died of cancer during its run.

Next, the play evolved into a two-hour television movie. The under-appreciated Lee J. Cobb was approached but unavailable and Bing Crosby turned down the part (imagine that). Though he was considered too young at the time, Peter Falk was given the part and the movie aired in 1968.

The network ordered another TV movie to see if a series was feasible. Ransom For a Dead Man did well and Columbo became part of a rotating series of shows, including Dennis Weaver’s McCloud and McMillan and Wife, with Rock Hudson.

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The Public Life of Sherlock Holmes: Stephen Mangan’s Dirk Gently

The Public Life of Sherlock Holmes: Stephen Mangan’s Dirk Gently

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Gently_TVbothLast week, I was writing my post for today. It was about the Houdini and Doyle miniseries, in which Stephen Mangan plays Arthur Conan Doyle, who was, of course, the creator of Sherlock Holmes. But, the principle of Zen Writing Navigation took me elsewhere.

There is a school of thought that says you should use a map when you are lost. Dirk Gently’s strategy is to find someone who looks like they know where they are going and follow them. He rarely ends up where he was intending to go, but often ends up somewhere that he needed to be. Back in 2010, Mangan played Gently in a pilot episode that was followed by three more episodes in 2012.

I followed Magnan and ended up writing this post, not one on Houdini and Doyle. And through this, once again proving the fundamental interconnectedness of everything.

Just as Sherlock Holmes was the world’s first (and greatest) private consulting detective, Gently was the world’s first, greatest and only holistic detective, created by the late Douglas Adams. I wrote about Gently here at Black Gate and if you haven’t read Adams’ two novels about him, you’re missing out on some terrific humor.

You might be familiar with the phrase, “Almost, but not quite, entirely unlike tea.” If you’re not, as soon as you finish reading this post, you need to read The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. Not watch the movie (which is better than people give it credit for), but read the book. Fortunately, this miniseries is closer to Gently than that phrase implies.

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The Public Life of Sherlock Holmes: Mysteries at Hallmark

The Public Life of Sherlock Holmes: Mysteries at Hallmark

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My wife and I enjoy watching murder mystery movies on Hallmark. More accurately, the Hallmark Movies and Mystery Channel (HMMC). Many of them had previously run on the Hallmark Channel that most folks are more familiar with. My previous cable provider didn’t provide HMMC at the tier I purchased, and many of my friends don’t have it either. It’s out there, but it’s not a low-tier feature in many systems.

Which is a shame, because there’s a lot of viewing for mystery fans. They air reruns of shows such as Hart to Hart, Matlock, Diagnosis Murder, Murder She Wrote and Perry Mason. And a staple of the schedule is Columbo. I haven’t seen every episode, but I’ve seen many of them several times and I never get tired of watching Peter Falk do his thing. “Uh, say, just one more thing…”

I also like a couple of old Hallmark franchises that have come to rest at HMMC.

Most folks knew Kellie Martin first as cute little Beckie (Becca) Thatcher in Life Goes On (a poignant, well done series) and later on as nurse Lucy Knight in ER. But from 2003 through 2007, she made eleven Mystery Woman movies for Hallmark. She played bookstore owner Samantha Kinsey, who constantly found herself involved in murders (that’s going to be a common theme in this post).

HMMC_KEllieMartin

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The Public Life of Sherlock Holmes: John Cleese as Holmes – Take One

The Public Life of Sherlock Holmes: John Cleese as Holmes – Take One

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Cleese_ElementaryJohn Cleese is best known, of course, as the sardonic Q opposite Pierce Brosnan’s James Bond in Die Another Day. Though not as well remembered, he also played a key role in the British comedy troupe, Monty Python.

I’m kidding!

On January 18, 1973, the final episode of Python’s third season aired. It was Cleese’s last episode with the group, which would continue on for one more season. That very same same day, Cleese’s next project aired – Comedy Playhouse Presents: Elementary, My Dear Watson. It was produced by Barry Took, who had brought the Python members together.

I’m going to tackle the Achilles heel (really, it’s more like the entire torso) of this show, the plot: or rather, the lack of one. It’s barely a story. Try to stick with me, and no, I’m not leaving things out: it really goes like this…

The show opens in a room full of dead lawyers, slumped over their desks, each with a knife in the back.  Some would say that’s a pretty good start, but let’s stay focused. Thus the show’s subtitle, The Strange Case of the Dead Solicitors. A policeman and a secretary exchange what are intended to be witty comments, which immediately brings the lame laugh track to the viewer’s attention. This is not the most robust laugh track you’ll come across.

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