(birds chirping)
Narrator: Sherlock. Twenty-first-century masterpiece,
Based on a 19th-century phenomenon.
And the bafta goes to...
Sherlock! Steven moffat, mark gatiss, sue vertue.
(john groans)
Narrator: This is the story of how sir arthur conan doyle's famous detective
Is once again brought back to life.
I'm very, very chuffed.
Sherlock, run!
Whoa, thank you, bafta.
We're very proud of the quality of it and it's fantastic it's being recognised here.
"it is with a heavy heart that I take up my pen,
"to write these last words,
"in which I shall ever record the singular gifts,
"by which my friend mr sherlock holmes was distinguished."
-Goodbye, john. -No!
Don't.
(phone clattering)
Sherlock!
Sher...
"'my dear watson, he said,
"I write these few lines through the courtesy of mr moriarty,
"I am pleased to think that I shall be able to free society
"from any further effects of his presence,
"though I fear that it is at a cost which will give pain to my friends.
"and especially, my dear watson, to you.
"I have already explained to you however that my career
"had in any case reached its crisis,
"and that no possible conclusion to it could be more congenial to me than this.
"very sincerely yours, sherlock holmes."
Narrator: This is how the british author
Arthur conan doyle killed off his creation,
The most famous detective in history.
Sherlock holmes.
In 1893, doyle's decision caused public outcry.
More than a hundred years later, the sensational event played out again.
Benedict cumberbatch: The unravelling there in fact is very different,
Because it's a confession of failure.
It's not a soft goodbye or a gentle note of "I'll miss you, my friend."
It's basically saying, "step away from me and who you thought I once was
"because I'm not, and this is why I have to end my life." it's very different.
Narrator: In the 21st century,
The apparent death of doyle's detective unleashed a wave of speculation
As to where the show's creators would take their hero next.
Gatiss and moffat are the brains behind sherlock, the latest adaptation of doyle's stories.
For them, the recreation of the world of sherlock holmes was a life-long labour of love.
I remember very, very clearly the first time I read sherlock holmes,
I was utterly, utterly, utterly thrilled,
And it's one of those rare occasions where it exceeded my expectations.
I read the adventures first. I've still got it.
I had this idea that I wanted to have read them all.
Narrator: The sherlock gatiss and moffat created
Is firmly rooted in the original stories of arthur conan doyle.
Conan doyle was a doctor, a soldier, a spiritualist,
All these-these like... Often says, erm,
He has this sort of healthy attitude of an amateur.
-He just goes at it. -Mmm. Yes.
-And he's a big sort of burly scotsman. -Absolutely.
But has the mind of sherlock holmes. And I think that really nails it.
Narrator: In 1887,
Arthur conan doyle published the first sherlock holmes story.
And soon, they were being serialised in britain's strand magazine.
Moffat: It's hard to state just how big a hit they were.
Those stories were massive. They were massive.
Narrator: Over the next four decades,
Conan doyle wrote 56 short stories and four novels
Featuring the famous sleuth.
Towards the end of his life, doyle gave basically a news reel interview,
And it seems very clear
That he believed this was some kind of last testament.
People ask me will I write any more sherlock holmes stories,
I certainly don't think it's at all probable.
Narrator: Since then, hundreds of thousands of theatrical performances,
Radio dramas,
Television productions and movies have featured
The most portrayed literary character of all time.
Barnes: The fascinating thing about sherlock holmes is
He was a big thing at the dawn of cinema.
And, you know, the first thing people leapt to make sherlock holmes films.
Because it was the current in thing,
So you can actually study the entire development of cinema,
By watching sherlock holmes films.
Elementary, my dear watson, there are no tarantulas...
Narrator: Continuing the tradition,
Gatiss and moffat decided to modernise sherlock holmes,
Taking him out of the victorian era and setting him firmly in 21st-century london.
As much as we adore the victorian versions
They have become museum pieces
Where people approach them like great edifices,
Which is the absolute diametric opposite of how doyle thought of them himself.
So, to blow away the victorian fog, that's what we wanted to do.
We sort of are constantly wanting to say, "have you any idea how good this is,
"how good doyle is, how good these characters are?"
You've forgotten. They're actually brilliant.
They genuinely are brilliant.
Cumberbatch: When I read those scripts
I could see that they were being done with a real fanboy reverence
And just a love, really, a love for the original stories
And the sort of rich complexities of that world.
Narrator: Creators gatiss and moffat put the success of the show
Down to their respect for the works of arthur conan doyle
And his well-drawn cast of characters.
Woman: B marker! Man: Action!
Narrator: Today, benedict cumberbatch plays sherlock holmes.
What the hell are you doing?
Bored.
-What? -Bored!
No!
Bored! Bored.
I don't know what's got in to the criminal classes.
Good job I'm not one of them.
So you take it out on the wall?
The wall had it coming.
Cumberbatch: It's insane.
It's great fun to watch,
But it would be terrifying to walk into a flat with a man
Firing live rounds into a wall just because he's bored.
But it really crystallises what he needs to feed off.
Anything in? I'm starving.
Oh...
Cumberbatch: Well, the writing of conan doyle is the blueprint for
Any actor, I think, playing sherlock,
And it is a very, er, precise and incisive blueprint.
You see how mercurial his moods are.
You see these changes in temperament, but also physicality.
The way he holds himself in repose, the way he crosses his legs,
The way he steeples his hands under his chin.
There's an evolving visual impression of sherlock holmes,
From the very first time he's described in a study in scarlet,
Where he's explicitly described as very, very tall,
Freakishly thin, enormous hooter.
-Hawkish nose, yeah. -Just not an attractive man at all.
"in height he was rather over six feet,
"and so excessively lean that he seemed to be considerably taller.
"his eyes were sharp and piercing
"and his thin, hawk-like nose gave his whole expression an air of alertness, and decision."
As my mum now famously once said when I was first cast,
She went "but you haven't got the right nose".
Narrator: The look of sherlock dates back to the strand magazine
And its illustrations by the artist sydney paget.
Paget based sherlock on his brother walter
So closely that when you look at a photograph of walter paget
It is essentially a photograph of sherlock holmes.
-Yeah. -And...
Walter was a very handsome man.
Narrator: Walter paget's good looks set a template for the many sherlocks to come.
Without walter paget model,
There is no basil rathbone, or jeremy brett,
Or benedict cumberbatch playing that part 'cause,
We take it as read now that sherlock holmes has to be handsome.
Benedict auditioned and there really was no point in carrying on.
There wasn't going to be another sherlock holmes like that.
With what now seems like the hilarious proviso
That you did promise us a sexy one.
Remember that? They said, "well, you know, is benedict cumberbatch a sex symbol?"
(fans screaming wildly)
Suddenly he's whipping out a violin and playing paganini-level brilliance,
And then another moment he's, sword fighting on a rooftop.
All these sort of surprise elements always give me cause for minor heart attacks.
Narrator: Sherlock holmes was more than an action man.
He was also preternaturally intelligent.
Conan doyle based sherlock holmes, in part, on joseph bell,
Who was a professor of medicine in edinburgh.
I used, as a student,
To have a old professor, his name was bell,
Who was extraordinarily quick at deductive work.
Bell had this astonishing capacity
To be able to diagnose what was wrong with his patients
Just by watching them walk into the room.
He would look at the patient,
He would hardly allow the patient to open his mouth,
But he would make his diagnosis of the disease
Entirely by his power of observation.
I suppose doyle's genius was to think,
"well, imagine if that was extrapolated to be how a detective worked."
"he balanced the watch in his hand,
"gazed hard at the dial, opened the back and examined the works.
"subject to your correction I should judge that the watch belonged to your elder brother,
"who inherited it from your father."
-Then there's your brother. -Hmm?
Your phone, it's expensive, email enabled, mp3 player.
And you're looking for a flat share.
You wouldn't waste money on this. It's a gift then.
"right, so far, said I. Anything else?"
"he was a man of untidy habits, very untidy and careless."
Sherlock: Scratches, not one, many over time.
It's been in the same pocket as keys and coins.
The man sitting next to me wouldn't treat his one luxury item like this, so,
It's had a previous owner.
"if you observe the lower part of the watch case,
"you notice that it is not only dinted in two places,
"but it is cut and marked all over
"from the habit of keeping other hard objects such as coins or keys in the same pocket."
You're looking for cheap accommodation.
You're not going to your brother for help.
That says you've got problems with him,
Maybe you liked his wife, maybe you don't like his drinking.
How can you possibly know about the drinking?
"I ask you to look at the inner plate which contains the keyhole.
"what sober man's key could have scored those grooves?
"but you will never see a drunkard's watch without them."
Power connection. Tiny little scuff marks around the edge of it.
Every night he goes to plug it in to charge, but his hands are shaking.
You never see those marks on a sober man's phone, never see a drunk's without them.
"he winds it at night, and he leaves these traces of his unsteady hand.
"where is the mystery in all this?"
That...Was amazing.
-You think so? -Of course it was.
It was extraordinary. It was quite extraordinary.
That's not what people normally say.
What do people normally say?
Piss off.
In the original doyle stories he is a rationalist hero, he's a scientific hero.
But now there's a whole sort of emotional grammar
Which we're actually all supposed to have and understand and know.
Man: Sound speed!
So sherlock describes himself as a high functioning sociopath, doesn't he?
Because sherlock is... He's like a shark.
He's so focused, he's so one-track.
Man: Action!
I need to get some air. We're going out tonight.
-Actually I've, er, got a date. -What?
It's where two people who like each other go out and have fun?
That's what I was suggesting.
No, it wasn't. At least I hope not.
Man: Ha ha, thank you.
Like, if you met him, he's not a fully functioning human, you know?
Barnes: Sherlock is this incredibly isolated individual,
But is he actually a victim of his psychopathology,
Or is he somebody who's capable of change,
But just doesn't want it enough?
-Where are you taking her? -Cinema.
Dull, boring, predictable.
Why don't you try that? In london for one night only.
Thanks, but I don't come to you for dating advice.
Man: Cut.
Cumberbatch: I knew what it was about him that I wanted to bring into the 21st century
That would seem, erm, theatrical or different or old fashioned or eccentric,
And while it's really easy in a post-freudian way
To sort of throw labels at it and talk about things
In terms of asperger's or being sociopathic,
I think he's a man who's very high functioning
And has got there by dent of effort rather than nature.
Narrator: In conan doyle's original stories,
Sherlock has one significant weakness.
"sherlock holmes took his bottle from the corner of the mantelpiece,
"and his hypodermic syringe from its neat morocco case.
"which is it today, I asked, morphine or cocaine?"
You've painted me as a hopeless dope addict
Just because I occasionally take a five per cent solution of cocaine.
A seven per cent solution.
Five per cent.
Don't you think I'm aware you've been diluting it behind my back?
"it is cocaine, he said, a seven per cent solution. Would you care to try it?"
As a doctor, as well as your friend,
I strongly disapprove of this insidious habit of yours.
My dear friend, as well as my dear doctor,
I only resort to narcotics when I am suffering from acute boredom.
In those days, cocaine wasn't a lifestyle choice drug.
It was administered for depression and other ailments.
I think we didn't really want to play with it that much
Because we feel it's always been over-emphasised.
Mycroft: Just the one.
Why?
Mycroft: Merry christmas.
It's always fascinating to have an edge to a character that's seen as, erm, the hero,
But it's never seemed to me to be something that should debilitate him.
Smoking indoors, isn't that one of those, one of those law things?
We're in a morgue. There's only so much damage you can do.
If you bring him into the modern world,
You suddenly think you could know a strange young man like that.
A posh young man with an outrageous sense of entitlement,
At solving crimes with his, er, adrenaline junkie mate.
-Yeah. -There's nothing new in that.
Everything I said just there is in the original stories.
Narrator: Many early renditions of sherlock holmes
Were created while arthur conan doyle was still alive.
One of the first theatre productions starred
The debonair american actor william gillette.
He assumed the stage role more than a thousand times.
William gillette famously wrote to doyle asking for permission
To mount a stage production of sherlock holmes,
And doyle, equally famously, wrote back saying,
"by all means, dear chap.
"you may marry him, murder him, or do whatever you will with him."
Narrator: At the same time the first sherlock holmes films were being made.
In the early 1920s, one series was sanctioned by doyle himself.
He entered into a partnership with er the stoll film company
And they made an amazing sequence of
Over 40 of the short stories with the same actor,
A chap with the unlikely name of eille norwood.
Eille norwood was the first one to actually make a holmes that was faithful
To doyle's original stories.
And doyle was immensely impressed with norwood.
The amazing thing, when you see the stoll films,
Is that they are filmed in london streets,
Absolutely in the same locations that doyle
Had set his stories, in very much the same time.
You know, you see piccadilly circus as it is in 1919.
It's truly incredible to actually watch this stuff,
Because that's what it was supposed to be.
You know, in the sign of the four
You know, he's on a speed launcher on the thames.
Dashing about on a speed launcher, you know,
And it's fast and it's incredibly exciting.
Narrator: Over the coming years,
Hundreds of actors would play the fictional sleuth.
Making his first appearance in 1939,
One of the most famous was basil rathbone.
-Watson! -Coming, holmes!
Watson!
Narrator: And basil rathbone's sherlock was never seen without doctor watson.
Excellent.
Narrator: Martin freeman takes the role of sherlock's roommate doctor john watson.
Gatiss: A huge part of the process of working out what we would do
Was about making john watson a co-lead.
It's about the two of them. The whole way this show is written,
Shot, everything is about the two of them.
Sorry.
I've got the cab number!
Good for you.
Right turn. One way. Road work. Traffic light.
Bus lane. Pedestrian crossing. Left turn only. Traffic lights.
Freeman: Part of john's function is to be sardonic and...
-Oi! -Sorry!
...Look at sherlock the way that we as the audience do, you know.
And sometimes that's completely gobsmacked at his brilliance
And sometimes it's gobsmacked at his arrogance
Or his lack of awareness of whatever,
So he is us, you know, he is the audience.
Narrator: In his original books, arthur conan doyle used john watson as a narrator.
"I know, my dear watson,
"that you share my love of all that is bizarre
"and outside the conventions and humdrum routine of everyday life.
"you have shown your relish for it by the enthusiasm
"which has prompted you to chronicle,
"and if you will excuse me saying so,
"somewhat to embellish so many of my own little adventures."
When you read the stories, he is narrating them,
You're always aware of his presence,
And as soon as you dramatise it, he's a man scribbling in a book.
No, no, no. Don't mention the unsolved ones.
We were talking about what would be the modern equivalent of doctor watson's stories.
-Yes. -And I said, it a blog.
It must be a blog.
And that was that was a huge light bulb when you said that.
-Mmm, look at that. 1,895. -Sorry, what?
I reset that counter last night.
This blog has had nearly 2000 hits in the last eight hours.
This is your living, sherlock. Not 240 different types of tobacco ash.
Two hundred and forty-three.
There will call upon you tonight at a quarter to eight a gentleman...
Narrator: But doyle's narrator presented filmmakers with a significant problem.
Do you remember that letter, holmes?
Over the years a lot of the versions,
Even some of the very, very good ones, don't quite know what to do with him.
Really, the first important watson,
The first really significant watson, is nigel bruce opposite basil rathbone.
I take it the new issue of the strand magazine is out,
Containing another of your slightly lurid tales.
It is, indeed.
Nigel bruce does something brilliant with him, though purists are offended,
But he makes him into a comedy buffoon,
A man who would, er, clearly have difficulty doing his own shoelaces.
But it's a wonderful, lovable, hilarious performance.
(rabbit toy playing music)
Stupid thing, singing rabbit.
There's a reason that people see doctor watson, or refer to him, as bumbling, you know?
Nigel bruce cast a long shadow,
But he did it really well, and it was funny and it was charming,
But it was just a different version.
-I say, holmes? -What?
It's morning.
Allow me to congratulate you on a brilliant bit of deduction.
Moffat: And for the first time, he is on an equal footing with basil rathbone.
Basil rathbone is not sherlock holmes unless nigel bruce is next to him.
Barnes: Before nigel bruce there were plenty of films,
Where watson is not very important whatsoever.
After bruce it will be impossible to make a sherlock holmes film without him.
So what did we do?
You sort of do a bit of deducing.
What must doctor watson have really been like?
"I was duly attached to the fifth northumberland fusiliers as assistant surgeon,
"and before I could join it, the second afghan war had broken out.
"I succeeded in reaching kandahar in safety
"where I found my regiment, and at once entered upon my new duties."
Doctor watson in the very first story is invalided home from war service in afghanistan,
A war which was happening again.
Same war, really.
I spoke to a couple of army doctors.
And, of course, the thing is, when you ask people like that to talk about their job,
You know, they're so sort of perfunctory about it.
Everything that we would see as madly, er, brave and heroic,
They don't particularly see as that at all.
But I, I think it colours a lot about john,
And it certainly colours a lot about my john and my playing of him.
He's haunted by it.
The audience knows that john has seen horror.
He is symptomatic of having been traumatised by his experiences
During the war as an army doctor, so he's got a limp in one of his legs.
He's depressed. He's withdrawn.
He can't sleep, he's got insomnia.
So I suggest in that first instance that maybe he should start writing a blog.
How's your blog going?
Yeah, good. (clears throat) very good.
You haven't written a word have you?
You just wrote "still has trust issues".
And you read my writing upside down.
People do often find it very hard to come back into civilian life and
So called normal life when they've seen what they've seen
And done what they've done, and john is, he's a product of that.
We meet john watson when he's very much alone,
Back from action, and someone who is separate from the reality
That he's grown very accustomed to, and he meets this odd, unlikely partner or friend.
I think what sherlock sees in john very early on
Is that he's a man who is used to combat.
He's somebody who is used to being in the field of war,
And that immediately isn't supplied in civvy street,
But then he starts to realise he can supply that to john.
Sherlock holmes doesn't need another brain.
He needs the most reliable, competent, dependable, human being in the world,
And in the judgement of a genius that is what dr watson is.
No sooner have they met than, you know,
Sherlock's dragging john off to this case.
There is the, the cab driver murderer,
Who's actually taking revenge.
And the choice of the pills is all from the original.
"I worked this alkaloid into a small, soluble pill
"and each pill I put in a box with a similar pill made without the poison."
Moffat: The one thing doyle doesn't do,
Which surely the story is crying out for,
It should have ended with sherlock holmes being confronted with the choice of the pills.
And so we did that.
Okay, two bottles. Explain.
There's a good bottle and there's a bad bottle.
You take a pill from the good bottle, you live.
Take a pill from the bad bottle, you die.
He's hostage to the threat of a bet,
Not of a gun.
It's purely psychological, the link between him and the pill.
"choose and eat.
"there is death in one and life in the other.
"I shall take what you leave.
"let us see if there is justice upon earth."
What sort of bemuses john is,
You know, "you would have taken that pill.
"you would have done it in order just to prove a point".
This is what you're really addicted to.
You'll do anything, anything at all, to stop being bored.
John is far more practical than that.
You're not bored now, are you?
Isn't it good?
(gunshot)
I always want john to have that respect that I think he's due.
Man: Take 1, a camera.
B camera.
-We've got nothing to go on. -Oh, I wouldn't say that.
The bullet they just dug out of the wall is from a handgun.
Kill shot over that distance from that kind of a weapon,
That's a crack shot you've looking for.
But not just a marksman, a fighter.
His hand couldn't have shaken at all.
Clearly acclimatised to violence.
You're looking for a man probably with a history of military service,
And nerves of steel...
-Actually, do you know what, ignore me. -Sorry?
Ignore all of that. It's just the shock talking.
What you always have to remember about dr watson
Is of all the people sherlock holmes ever met
This is the one he chose to rely on.
Sergeant donovan's just been explaining everything.
Two pills.
Dreadful business, isn't it? Dreadful.
Good shot.
Yes, must have been. Through that window...
Well, you'd know.
The moment that he shoots him,
That is without doubt the moment that they're bonded
Because, well, he's just saved his life. It's that simple.
Watson: That's how you get your kicks, isn't it?
Risking your life to prove you're clever.
-Why would I do that? -Because you're an idiot.
I think that's why they have this schoolboy high at the end of that episode,
Where they're kind of giggling, but one's just killed a man
And the other's just toyed with death and provoked him to kill a man.
It's quite serious stuff. Sorry, it's the first time it's really sort of hit me.
It seems like adventurous fun in television
But in reality, that's quite dark.
Good night, dr watson.
John's intrigued by sherlock, and rightly so.
You don't meet many sherlock holmes around. He's a one-off.
Interesting, that solider fellow.
He could be the making of my brother.
Or make him worse than ever.
Either way, we'd better upgrade their surveillance status.
Grade 3 - active.
Sorry, sir, whose status?
Sherlock holmes and dr watson.
Narrator: Rupert graves plays detective inspector lestrade,
Sherlock's police contact at new scotland yard.
He's a very believable
Slightly weary, world weary, but leading man policeman.
We've been consulting with him, that's what you're telling me?
We've not used him on any proper cases though, have we?
Well, one or two.
-(mumbling) or 20 or 30. -What?
I'm not the only senior officer who did this!
Shut up!
An amateur detective given access to all sorts of classified information.
-And now he's a suspect in a case. -With all due...
You bloody idiot, lestrade. Now go and fetch him in right now.
Do it!
Scotland yard is represented, really, by detective inspector greg lestrade at the top,
Who has a team supporting and helping him,
Made up of sally donovan who's a slightly more junior police officer,
And anderson who works on the forensic science side of the police operation.
You're not seriously suggesting he is involved are you?
I think we have to entertain the possibility.
Lestrade is a very decent, good, policeman,
And he resorts, I think, early on to using sherlock
With some reluctance 'cause he's such a loose cannon,
But he brings him in 'cause he's desperate.
It's just this hang-dog, downtrodden, you know, dirty-trenchcoat cop,
But basically he does do a good job.
And he gets a bit hurt that sherlock doesn't quite realise he's an ally.
He's says, "I'm totally on your side, I'm totally with you. Don't treat me like this."
There is a sort of bond, there is a affection.
I think it goes to the point that lestrade is a good man doing a very good job,
But just not as good as sherlock and without patronising he wants to elevate that.
Again, going back to doyle,
He makes a point of saying lestrade is the best of the scotland yarders.
He doesn't have much respect for them, but he's a good copper.
"the smartest of the scotland yarders,
"lestrade is the pick of a bad lot.
"quick and energetic, but conventional, shockingly so.
"he knows that I am his superior, and acknowledges it to me,
"but he would cut his tongue out before he would own it to any third person."
Narrator: Doyle's scotland yarders ranked amongst the world's first detectives.
It's the beginning of what we now look at as the science of forensics.
I mean, you know, it was the early days of fingerprinting and stuff like that.
One of the things that is very important about sherlock
Is he's a very early forensic scientist.
You know, he's using techniques analysing tobacco ash.
Mmm.
You are certain of the identification of the tobacco.
Absolutely.
You know, he's analysing footprints, he's analysing fingerprints, he's using
Science and not just the science of deduction but actual science.
Impressions at the moment...
Barnes: Which the real police aren't using at the time.
...Are invisible.
If we immerse the sheet in a solution of fluorescent salts,
Dry it and then photograph it by ultraviolet light,
The fibres, broken by the writing,
Will absorb less of the solution than other parts of the paper.
Fingerprints are new when doyle is writing,
But they are not new now,
So what do you replace that with?
(sniffing)
Aris: Sherlock holmes in the modern day really has departed from forensic science.
He knows it all, he's absorbed it, but what's striking about him
Is where he leaves it behind and makes these incredible, deductive leaps.
Get anderson!
Aris : Whereas anderson it's all about method and process
And that can only take you so far in a certain direction.
Anderson: Not much use. Doesn't lead us to the kidnapper.
-Brilliant, anderson. -Really?
Yes. Brilliant impression of an idiot.
The floor.
Anderson: He made a trail for us!
Sherlock: The boy was made to walk ahead of them.
On, what, tiptoe?
Indicates anxiety, a gun held to his head.
The girl was pulled beside him, dragged sideways.
He had his left arm cradled about her neck.
That's the end of it. We don't know where they went from here.
Tells us nothing after all.
You're right, anderson, nothing.
Except his shoe size, his height, his gait, his walking pace.
Cumberbatch: He's so disrespectful
Of the man who's in charge of the crime scene that
It sort of takes us all by surprise.
It's sort of delightful because he targets the stupidity that's been going on,
But at the same time you think how does he have this authority,
And then you see him at work and you understand how important
And vital he is in drawing a narrative out in these disparate and often unnoticed clues,
So he's indispensable really as a crime fighting weapon.
Narrator: Co-creator mark gatiss plays sherlock's elder brother mycroft holmes.
-Who are you? -An interested party.
Interested in sherlock? Why? I'm guessing you're not friends.
You've met him.
How many friends do you imagine he has?
I'm the closest thing to a friend that sherlock holmes is capable of having.
-And what's that? -An enemy.
-An enemy? -In his mind, certainly.
If you were to ask him, he'd probably say his arch-enemy.
He does love to be dramatic.
Well, thank god you're above all that.
You're introduced to someone who says he's sherlock's arch-enemy.
(laughs) yes.
And who is very... (laughs) it's his arch-enemy.
And of course, it's mycroft.
"a moment later, the tall and portly form of mycroft holmes was ushered into the room.
"heavily built and massive,
"there was a suggestion of uncouth physical inertia in the figure.
"but above this unwieldy frame,
"there was perched a head so masterful in its brow
"and so subtle in its play of expression
"that after the first glance one forgot the gross body,
"and remembered only the dominant mind."
Narrator: In the late 1960s, hollywood film director
Billy wilder shot the private life of sherlock holmes.
Christopher lee plays mycroft.
The other huge influence on our version is the billy wilder film,
The private life of sherlock holmes.
Billy wilder sorts out the character of mycroft.
He turns him into this much slimmer, much more powerful,
Much more dangerous character that sherlock doesn't get on very well with.
To your very good health.
Why are you wasting this precious stuff on us.
I see you so rarely. How long has it been?
Not since the case of the greek interpreter.
Isn't it ridiculous? Two brothers living in the same town.
In the same town perhaps but not in the same world.
Their relationship between the brothers is much more abrasive
And there are weird hints
Of some badness in the past, in the family relationship.
But also the diogenes club is essentially the british secret service,
And we just ran with that because it's gorgeous. Why would you not?
Narrator: Mycroft's diogenes club lay at the heart of the british establishment.
The diogenes club is part of the original doyle stories,
And it's where mycroft and other gentlemen go to, erm,
Rid themselves of the ghastly modern world.
In private life, it's actually quite interesting
Because there is a suggestion that the diogenes club itself
Is actually a secret cabal,
And that is very much picked up on in the modern sherlock, when you do have...
Mycroft is up to some terrible things, really.
Excuse me, I'm looking for mycroft holmes.
Would you happen to know if he's around at all?
Can you not hear me?
Yes, all right. Anyone?
Anyone at all? No.
"occasionally he is the british government.
"he has the tidiest and most orderly brain
"with the greatest capacity for storing facts, of any man living.
"his specialism is omniscience."
Tradition, john. Our traditions define us.
So total silence is traditional, is it?
You can't even say, "pass the sugar"?
Three quarters of the diplomatic service
And half of the government front bench all sharing one tea trolley?
It's for the best, believe me.
They don't want a repeat of 1972.
The fascinating thing about the christopher lee mycroft and er, mark gatiss' mycroft
Is that they are deeply, deeply untrustworthy figures.
But equally, they do appear to actually care for sherlock quite deeply.
What are we doing here, sherlock?
-Seriously, what? -I don't know.
Here to see the queen?
Oh, apparently, yes.
(both laughing loudly)
Cumberbatch: John and sherlock's irreverence and just their sense of humour
About how peculiar the whole situation is is really good,
And also that john allows sherlock to realise how ridiculous it is.
We are in buckingham palace. The very heart of the british nation.
-Sherlock holmes, put your trousers on. -What for?
Vertue: It is that kind of sibling rivalry thing.
Mycroft always says he's cleverer than sherlock.
But then mycroft is incredibly caring about him and yet
Sherlock's never very nice to him, really.
Cumberbatch: The scenes in buckingham palace are fantastic
Because they just shine a light on the domestic life of these brothers that grew up together.
This idea that they did have a family beginning and a home and a background,
And weren't just these freshly-hatched super brains,
And extraordinary but very weird and difficult characters in mycroft and sherlock.
Mycroft, I don't do anonymous clients.
I'm used to mystery at one end of my cases.
Both ends is too much work. Good morning.
This is a matter of national importance. Grow up.
-Get off my sheet! -Or what?
-Or I'll just walk away. -I'll let you.
Boys, please. Not here.
Who. Is. My. Client?
Take a look at where you're standing and make a deduction.
You are to be engaged by the highest in the land.
Now for god's sake,
Put your clothes on!
(sighs deeply)
I'll be mother.
And there is a whole childhood in a nutshell.
Narrator: Sherlock's nemesis is james moriarty.
Andrew scott brings doyle's supercriminal into the 21st century.
Andrew scott's moriarty, you sort of root for him a bit because he's so awful
But yet so funny. My kids adore moriarty.
Moriarty's self-consciously a villain.
He knows what he's doing. He's a nut-case.
Man: Three, two, one. Action!
The most essential thing about moriarty, for me,
Is that you don't know what you're going to get on the day,
That he has to be completely surprising.
It incorporates london, which is a big character in sherlock as well.
You know, you got big ben...
(blowing rasberry)
Well, from the end of series one, we knew we were going to have to do the final problem,
Which is a very exciting, very short story,
Where sherlock holmes explains who moriarty is for the very first time.
"you have probably never heard of professor moriarty," said he.
"never."
"ay, there's the genius and the wonder of the thing," he cried.
"the man pervades london, and no one has heard of him.
"he is the napoleon of crime, watson.
"he is the organiser of half that is evil
"and of nearly all that is undetected in this great city."
That picture of moriarty, you know,
The really famous one with this slightly stooped hunched figure,
He looks dangerous and actually quite predatory and scary.
Narrator: The original illustrations from doyle's books
Gave rise to a century of moriartys
And some classic movie moments.
The woman in green,
One of the basil rathbone films, has a moment of, I think, cinematic genius in it,
Which is when moriarty arrives to talk to sherlock holmes.
And how this is done is a figure slips from the shadows
And upstairs we can hear sherlock holmes playing the violin.
(violin playing)
And moriarty ascends the stairs and the violin just stops.
And you realise, of course, that sherlock holmes has already worked out who's coming.
And moriarty stops
Because he realises, "sherlock holmes knows I'm coming", and there's a moment of impasse,
And the violin just starts playing again, 'cause sherlock holmes is that cool.
Brilliant. If that was in a hitchcock film,
Everyone would be giving lectures on it.
-So, we nicked it. -So, we nicked it. We stole it.
(violin playing)
(stair creaking)
(violin stops)
(violin resumes)
Most people knock.
But then you're not most people, I suppose.
Going back to the baker street confrontation scene, the famous one,
Which in the end is quite different to doyle's,
But it's that wonderful thing of these two titans sitting opposite each other.
"I was sitting in my room, thinking the matter over,
"when the door opened and professor moriarty stood before me."
"you have less frontal development than I should have expected," said he.
"it's a dangerous habit to finger loaded firearms in the pocket of one's dressing gown."
"pray take a chair. I can spare you five minutes if you have anything to say."
"all that I have to say has already crossed your mind," said he.
"then possibly my answer has crossed yours," I replied.
-That's final? -What do you think?
I shall not rest until you are hanged for the finger murders.
You've no proof, you know.
In the woman in green, there's a fascinating confrontation in baker street,
In a darkened baker street room, between moriarty,
Played by henry daniel, and holmes, played by basil rathbone.
Moriarty, shot at this bizarre oblique angle, actually says,
"if you don't stop, if you don't get out of my face, you'll never see watson again."
I could turn you over to the police here and now.
You could, but if you did, you would never see dr watson again.
Let me give you a little extra incentive.
Your friends will die if you don't.
-John? -Not just john. Everyone.
-Mrs hudson. -Everyone.
Lestrade.
Three bullets. Three gunmen. Three victims.
There's no stopping them now.
Scott: In a way, sherlock and moriarty love each other.
There is something else other than hatred there. There is respect.
Every fairy tale needs a good old-fashioned villain.
You need me, or you're nothing.
Because we are just alike, you and I.
Except you're boring.
The idea of the duality of of holmes and moriarty
Is very much established in a lot of quite interesting confrontations.
Scott: Benedict and I worked out a sort of choreography,
I would look face and he'd sort of know.
You need to love the villain as much as the hero, if you're going to have a great story.
Narrator: And there's only one villain who tried to steal sherlock's heart.
Mycroft: Irene adler, professionally known as the woman.
John: Professionally?
Mycroft: There are many names for what she does. She prefers "dominatrix".
Irene adler in this particular version of sherlock,
Is a modern-day dominatrix.
She's a strong, powerful woman. Instinctive. She's educated.
She's a lot of fun.
Kate, we're going to have a visitor.
I'll need a bit of time to get ready.
A long time?
Ages.
Moffat: Of course, you've got to think irene adler fun,'cause she's horrible.
If you analyse what she does in the show, she's absolutely horrific.
She's a terrible person.
So you have to be charmed by her,
And you're always charmed by people who are fun.
Pulver: Even though she uses her femininity
To seduce and get exactly what she wants, it's all knowingly.
Brealy: She's a bit of a male fantasy as well.
You know she's a slash of red lips, absolutely perfect,
Flawless skin, wonderful cat eyes.
Cumberbatch: Irene adler is the woman
Because she has everything that sherlock has in abundance
And she hoodwinks him and I think he does fall for her to a degree
In the game of love that they play.
"to sherlock holmes she is always the woman.
"in his eyes she eclipses and predominates the whole of her sex.
"it was not that he felt any emotion akin to love for irene adler.
"all emotions, and that one particularly,
"were abhorrent to his cold, precise but admirably balanced mind."
A scandal in bohemia is one of the best known of doyle's short stories.
And it concerns this fascinating woman called irene adler
Who keeps incriminating documents in a safe
And is involved in a royal scandal of some, some description.
And what do you call this one?
I call it a scandal in bohemia. Not a bad title, eh?
I do hope you've given, er, the woman a soul.
She had one, you know.
By "the woman" I suppose you mean irene adler.
Yes.
I shall always remember her
As the woman.
A scandal in bohemia isn't quite the story everyone wants it to be,
Of sherlock holmes developing a crush.
It isn't really like that at all.
In fact he only ever meets her dressed, er, as a comedy vicar.
"he returned in a few minutes in the character
"of an amiable and simple-minded, non-conformist clergyman."
So sherlock arrives at irene adler's home dressed up as a vicar.
And, erm, she decides to call his bluff.
"he gave a cry and dropped to the ground
"with the blood running freely down his face."
I'm so sorry, I... I'm...
"irene adler had hurried up the steps,
"but she stood at the top with her superb figure outlined against the lights of the hall."
The first time he meets her, it's very clear.
Not least because he scans her
And can't find anything that's readable in her naked form.
Beyond that, he sees her as someone who is vulnerable.
She's a victim to playing this game and getting in too deep.
Barnes: There's a sequence in the original story where, erm,
Holmes has watson throw a smoke bomb, basically, through her window.
"at the signal I tossed my rocket into the room with a cry of 'fire!'"
(smoke alarm beeping)
So he will know by what she dashes to where she's hidden the documents
Because she wants to keep them safe.
Sherlock: Thank you.
"when a woman thinks that her house is on fire
"her instinct is at once to rush to the thing which she values most."
Amazing how fire exposes our priorities.
Really hope you don't have a baby in here.
But that's pretty much the only part of scandal in bohemia
That's, that's absolutely intact in a scandal in belgravia.
Pulver: To irene, sherlock is just someone that she is totally intrigued by.
And a challenge, and someone that she
Feels that she can and will outwit.
I guess that's really the grounds
For the kind of battle to commence between the two of them.
Man: Turnover. Man 2: Sound speeding.
Any moment now something's going to happen. What?
The hiker's going to die.
No, that's the result. What's going to happen?
Cumberbatch: She's brilliant. She's the same as him.
She has a capacity for very calculated use of
Love, affection, sexuality, charm and intellect.
-Marker? -A-camera marker.
Irene: I don't understand. Sherlock: Try to.
Why?
Because you cater to the whims of the pathetic
And take your clothes off to make an impression.
Stop boring me and think. It's the new sexy.
She knows how to persuade people, she knows how to manipulate a situation.
She knows how to play the world to her, and a woman's strengths in it.
Man: And action!
So the car's about to backfire, and the hiker...
He's staring at the sky.
Now you said he could be watching birds but he wasn't, was he?
He was watching another kind of flying thing.
So the car backfires, and the hiker turns to look.
And you know, she's nominally a baddie,
But she's a lovable personality, and you kind of root for her.
Action!
Irene: Which was his big mistake.
You got that from one look? Definitely the new sexy.
Man: Okay, let's have a look at that, guys, cut it!
Gatiss: You root for the pair of them and their strange not-quite romance.
So to the end when, when sherlock finally cracks the code
And delivers that devastating speech about the chemistry of love being terribly simple,
And you realise that all that time you thought he was falling,
He was taking a pulse.
And it's so cold.
And he just drops her.
I imagine john watson thinks love is a mystery to me
But the chemistry is incredibly simple and very destructive.
When we first met you told me that disguise is always a self-portrait.
How true of you. The combination to your safe, your measurements.
But this, this is far more intimate.
This is your heart, and you should never let it rule your head.
She is unattainable.
They can't have a relationship. It can never actually be real.
Everything I said, it's not real.
I was just playing the game.
I know,
And this is just losing.
John, you know, can't give sherlock the truth about her being dead.
He has to say she's just gone away and gone into witness protection.
It's about irene adler.
-Oh? -'cause he can't bear to hurt his friend like that.
Something happened? Has she come back?
No, no. She's... I just bumped into mycroft downstairs. He had to take a call.
-Is she back in london? -No.
She's, er...
She's in america.
-America? -Mm-hmm.
Got herself on a witness protection scheme, apparently.
"and when he speaks of irene adler,
"or when he refers to her photograph,
"it is always under the honourable title,
"the woman."
Narrator: When sherlock holmes went over the edge
At the end of the second series of sherlock...
I'm a doctor. Let me come through. Let me come through, please.
...It wasn't only the show's enormous fan base who looked on in horror.
Cumberbatch: I mean, I watch it and kind of wince every time.
The impact made and people crowd round him
And john comes over in that horrible sort of shock.
But the point is sherlock's doing it to save three other people.
There's a morality. But john doesn't know that.
Freeman: After series two, you know, sherlock going off the building,
It's good that people care that much.
And people really did care, and do still care.
I mean everyone has been asking me since it aired, how did you survive? You know.
Narrator: But it wasn't the first time
That the detective had plunged to his apparent death.
A hundred and twenty years ago, arthur conan doyle had also tried to kill off his hero.
"an examination by experts
"leaves little doubt that a personal contest between the two men ended
"in their reeling over, locked in each other's arms.
"any attempt at recovering the bodies was absolutely hopeless,
"and there, deep down in that dreadful cauldron of swirling water and seething foam,
"will lie for all time the most dangerous criminal
"and the foremost champion of the law of their generation."
Doyle does declare repeatedly,
Throughout interviews and so on, that he killed him off definitively
And there was no chance of bringing him back and all that.
I don't believe a word he says,
Because he kills him off stage.
So he knew perfectly well that he was leaving the door open to sherlock holmes' return.
Narrator: After 10 years doyle relented to public pressure
And brought sherlock holmes back to life.
(john sighing)
Gatiss and moffat didn't want to keep their fan base waiting that long.
Unlike doyle we would kill sherlock holmes on screen,
In front of everybody, have him die in watson's arms.
And then inexplicably have him in the last shot.
-We did not quite know what that... -Was going to mean.
...Was going to do the british and american viewing public.
Gatiss: I mean, the response had been astonishing, I mean, breath-taking
That people's theories, people's reactions,
They're kind of parallel to when doyle killed him off.
No one could have predicted in a million years that it would turn out like this.
Cumberbatch: It's modern and it's got something that speaks to tech-savvy youth,
And hence there's a massive internet
And multi-media platform kind of following of it.
The fact that people have picked up on it the way it is,
I think, far exceeded anything we could have hoped for.
Narrator: More than a century after his first appearance,
Conan doyle's hero lives on.