Sherlock Holmes Mystery Magazine #10. Arthur Conan Doyle
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Trainer (1993). Star Trek audiences know him an uncredited co-writer for Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan (1982), a credited co-writer for Star Trek IV: The Journey Home (1986), and the co-writer and director of Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country (1991).
The parallels between the rational Holmes and Star Trek’s logical science officer, Mr. Spock, became a running theme in Star Trek fan discussions and fan works almost from the first appearance of Trek on U.S. television in 1966. The fact that actor Leonard Nimoy, who brought Spock to life, also portrayed Sherlock Holmes in the documentary short Sherlock Holmes: Interior Motive (1975), and again in the 1975-1976 Royal Shakespeare Company’s U.S. production of William Gillette’s play Sherlock Holmes, invited further comparisons. As Nicholas Meyer told Ryan Britt (as cited in “Sherlock Holmes and the Science Fiction of Deduction”), “The link between Spock and Holmes was obvious to everyone. I just sort of made it official.”
Meyer made it official in Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country. During a scene in which Spock puts forth his own deductions, he quotes directly from Conan Doyle’s “The Adventure of the Beryl Coronet” (1892) and credits Holmes as a forefather: “As an ancestor of mine once said, ‘Once you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth.’”
Star Trek: The Next Generation paid homage to both Holmes and the Holmes-Spock (and, by implication, Spock-Data) by having the android Data develop a taste for Holmesian roleplaying. Complete with deerstalker and pipe, Data faces off against a holographic version of Professor Moriarty in the episodes “Elementary, My Dear Data” (1988) and “Ship in a Bottle” (1993).
Sherlock Holmes and Other Television
Holmes has starred in other science fiction television fare, as well. For example, the made-for-television CBS movie The Return of Sherlock Holmes (1987) features Watson’s present-day descendant Jane discovering a cryogenically frozen Holmes and reviving him. Perhaps the best example of the science fictional “updating” of the Holmes canon stories is the 1999-2001 animated series Sherlock Holmes in the 22nd Century, a co–production by DiC and Scottish Television. Each episode revisits classic adventures, with a twist: the year is 2104. Sherlock Holmes, frozen for years, has thawed and returned to his detective work, joined by a robotic Watson and a descendant of Inspector Lestrade. Professor Moriarty is represented in this future by one of his clones.
The BBC’s Sherlock
The most faithful and sophisticated reimagining of Holmes at present, and arguably one of the best adaptations of the Holmes canon at any time, the BBC’s Sherlock (2010-present) displays a keen science fiction sensibility. This is to be expected, considering that co-creator Steven Moffat is also the head writer and executive producer of Doctor Who, and co-creator Mark Gatiss has written for and guest starred in Doctor Who, adapted for television and starred in H.G. Wells’s The First Men in the Moon (2010), and performed in the live television remake of the science fiction classic The Quatermass Experiment (2005), among other genre-related accomplishments.
Although the series has displayed many science fictional characteristics since its debut (thoroughly exploring and exploiting contemporary technology, from blogs to mobile phones to government surveillance equipment), the second-series episodes “The Hounds of Baskerville” and “The Reichenbach Fall” (2012) qualify as science fiction proper. The former updates the Gothic fear of a spectral hound, recasting it in terms of conspiracy theories surrounding genetic experimentation at the Baskerville military research base to create a “luminous” super attack dog. Sherlock, John, and Lestrade uncover a conspiracy regarding “H.O.U.N.D.,” a secret government project designed to create a chemical weapon that triggers violent hallucinations in those exposed to it. The latter episode finds Jim Moriarty with a computer code capable of overriding any and all security systems, which he demonstrates by simultaneously opening the vault at the Bank of England, unlocking the cells at Pentonville Prison, and breaking into the display case containing the Crown Jewels.
The third series of the program, currently scheduled for filming in 2013, likely will continue to illustrate the affinity between the Holmes canon and science fiction.
Sherlock and Science Fiction
In Conan Doyle’s The Hound of the Baskervilles (1901-1902), Sherlock Holmes notes, “We balance probabilities and choose the most likely. It is the scientific use of the imagination.” This is an elegant description of what Conan Doyle did, and what creators today continue to do, with Holmes. It is also an excellent characterization of the endeavor of science fiction itself: “the scientific use of the imagination.” As today’s world continues to blur the lines between science fiction and science fact, the Great Detective will remain as relevant and meaningful as ever, incorporated into the genre, figuratively and sometimes literally immortal.
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Amy H. Sturgis earned her Ph.D. in intellectual history from Vanderbilt University and is scholar of science fiction/fantasy studies and Native American studies, the author of four books and editor of six others. Her official website is amyhsturgis.com. This essay is based on a live lecture presented in February 2012 and sponsored by the Hugo Award-winning podcast StarShipSofa.
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