Influence of Sherlock Holmes

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Sherlock Holmes, a name most people would know if they were to hear it, has come to greatly influence the modern world of mysteries. Sir Arthur Conan Doyle had no idea a character he started to write about for the first time in 1887 would still be carried alive by other TV and movie producers in 2014. Doyle also never new that Holmes would become such a popular character or result in a name mostly everybody would know. Even if there was a person who did not know who or what Sherlock Holmes was, they are certain to have at least heard his name before. “Doyle turned his principal character into a household word” (Haining 7). Doyle started a legacy that lives on forever. Sherlock Holmes personality and looks may change with every generation he is in, but his main characteristics remain the same. Sherlock Holmes’ style of deduction, great sense of observation and strange personality in Arthur Doyle’s stories influenced how TV and movie producers would portray Holmes in their version of Doyle’s mysteries in shows such as Elementary and Sherlock.
Holmes was a haughty intellectual with a bumbling sidekick (Weinman). One thing Sherlock Holmes is greatly known for is his style. Not just what he would wear, more than that. Holmes had a certain style to the process of solving crimes. He had a way of using his smarts rather than physical strength to fight his battles (Weinman). Holmes says in A Study in Scarlet, “The science of deduction and analysis is one which can only be acquired by long and patient study” (Doyle 16). His skills were second nature to him just like how to make a peanut butter and jelly sandwich is second nature to anyone (Doyle 18). Holmes is able to come to a deduction within seconds. When he first met h...

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..., Holmes will travel to the United States to star in Elementary and will be living in 21st-century Manhattan. With Holmes starring in so many different shows and movies and all of the directors doing their own thing with it some people may be worried that he could started to get “stretched out” and potentially people could get tired of seeing him on their television screen. “Some are better than others, but nobody has managed to ruin the franchise” (Memmott). Elementary is the first Sherlock Holmes show that portrayed some aspects a little differently. For instance Watson is now a woman on the show. This could have been a good or bad decision on the producer’s part. It adds a bit of romance to the story line now. Aidan Quinn plays the role of Captain Gregson on Elementary and said that the new take on Holmes’ character is displacing the old one (Weinman).

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