Sherlockathon - The Blind Banker

The Blind Banker was the second story from the BBC's Sherlock, and was broadcast back in August 2010. The plot involves a series of murders and at each scene a mysterious cipher is left behind. This baffles police but it doesn't stop them concluding that the first murder was suicide.

However Holmes eventually discovers that the ciphers are based on an ancient Chinese numeral system.  Several stories from the original canon as by Conan Doyle are used for this locked room mystery - the ciphers are coded messages which are a similar plot device as used by Doyle  in both The Valley of Fear and The Adventure of the Dancing Men, and the fact that a victim is found in a locked room which is only accessible by climbing is an allusion to The Sign of Four. There are other nods to the original canon in the story and a great blog for detailing all of these references can be found HERE - the author knows the canon far better than I and regularly list the references to the original Holmes canon which makes his blog essential reading for Holmes fans both old and new.

Towards the last quarter of the episode there is a scene where Holmes and Watson visit a Chinese circus and it is then that a familiar face pops up - yep that's me! I had a day's work on this episode, helping to make up the audience at the circus. However I may have only been an extra but I've got a knack of getting myself in the right place and as the camera swung around I found myself standing next to Holmes and Watson as can be seen in the picture to the left.

If I remember correctly the scenes inside the Chinese theater were actually filmed deep in the Cynon Valleys - the Abercynon Institute I think it was -  a disused cinema. The thing that sticks in my mind about the day is looking around the old cinema and reading the  posters on the walls, some of these went back to the early days of cinema. It was an enjoyable day and although I only appear on screen for just under a minute the scene took most of the day to film. Of course at that time I didn't realize that Sherlock would become such an iconic series. I think at that time I was still smarting at the show depicting our beloved Holmes without the famous pipe and as far as I was concerned it was just another job, in just another show that would be quickly forgotten. How wrong I was.

Now that the basic characters have been set up this second story is propelled totally by the mystery to be solved, and whilst I don't think the episode was quite as good as A Study in Pink it is still damn good television.

Sherlockathon - A Study in Pink

The BBC's Sherlock was originally commissioned as a series of six sixty minute episodes, and indeed this opening story was actually filmed as a sixty minute pilot but when the powers that be saw the pilot they were delighted and suggested a series of three ninety minute TV movies. This was to be a prestige series and the BBC were throwing their weight behind it.

Writers and creators Steven Moffat and Mark Gatiss were delighted with the change in format. They knew the relationship between Holmes and Watson was as important as the mystery itself, and this larger canvas would allow them to explore both without having to neglect either aspect.

The original sixty minute pilot is included on the season one box set and watching it alongside the broadcast TV movie is becomes apparent that this was the right decision to make the series as a collection of ninty minute TV movies. It gave the writers more space to concentrate on characters and this version is as concerned with character as it is with the mystery aspect. Indeed in later episodes the mystery would often be pushed into the background, while the story concentrated on the character relationships.

This was to be an undated Sherlock Holmes for the 21st century, but the writers were concerned to keep the feel of the original Doyle stories. When I first heard of this series I wasn't expecting much, I don't think anyone was, and the one thing that troubled me more than anything else was the lack of a pipe - the modern

day setting didn't bother me at all (after all most of the Rathbone movies, which I love, were actually set in the modern day), nor did the fact that this Holmes would use computers and smart phones, but the one thing that I felt was sacrilege was that Holmes would no longer smoke a pipe.

How the hell can you do Holmes without his beloved pipe? After all the silhouette (Holmes and pipe) is one of the most recognizable images in all pop culture. That pipe is iconic! Holmes without a pipe - why that's like Superman without his cape, Starskey without Hutch or Batman with Ben Affleck.

I don't even think doing away with the pipe was an artistic decision but rather came from the wave of political correctness which is still blighting our lives. Smoking was very much frowned upon by the time Sherlock was filmed, and this seemed like yet another attempt to sanitize classic literature.

I guess you could say that I was determined to hate this new Sherlock series - however as soon as the episode started and I saw the chemistry between Watson and Holmes I was won over. Out first scene of this new manic Holmes saw him beating a corpse with a riding whip in order to determine the extent of bruising after death (a scene that was actually referenced in the original canon) and Cumberbatch is immediately Sherlock Holmes. The writers explained away the lack of a pipe in a great scene in which Holmes is wearing three nicotine patches.

'It's a three patch problem,' he tells Watson which again comes from the original canon because when Holmes was involved in a particularly baffling case he would often chain smoke pipes, calling the case a, 'three pipe problem.' That scene brought a smile to my face.

After that the pipe didn't seem to bother me that much...mind you I would still love to see Holmes puffing on the briar.

Much is made of the bromance between Holmes and Watson, but this is handled with great humour and skill.  A Study in Pink uses the fact that people confuse Holmes and Watson for a couple to great effect. This aspect of the story is pitched just right and provides several great comedic scenes.


Overall A Study in Pink was an excellent first episode - quite brilliant in fact and I've no doubt that for many people the pairing of Martin Freemen and Benedict Cumberbatch as Holmes and Watson will become definitive. It's odd but these modern day Holmes feel more like Doyle than the Guy Ritchie/Downey Jnr Holmes movies which were set in the correct Victorian timeline. And whilst the series is not as authentic as say the excellent Jeremy Brett series, it is very much a Holmes for our time.

The final scene in which our demented genius killer of the week tells Holmes that the man behind it all was

The bloke next door - Lestrade

Moriarty is incredibly effective if you know the Holmes canon - it's strange but Moriarty was only used in two of the original Holmes stories but due to subsequent works the character's become a much bigger presence in the Holmes universe than he originally was.  I would also like to give a shout out to Rupert Graves who gives us a wonderfully downbeat portrayal of Inspector Lestrade. This blokey version of the policeman really sparks alongside our modern Sherlock Holmes.

It's no wonder the series has become such a huge hit for the BBC - right from the first story the characters are immediately recognizable and the relationships whilst modernized are pure Conan Doyle.