All language subtitles for Sherlock Holmes- The Detective That Influenced Criminology - The Real Sherlock Holmes - Timeline

This is the story of how the greatest
detective who never lived changed the

world. Sherlock Holmes.

Elementary, my dear Barton. Elementary.

And how he did it happened in ways few
could ever imagine.

Science.

The science we're doing here at NASA is
really Holmes' 21st century popular

culture. Of course, Sherlock Holmes has
to meet Batman.

Because Sherlock Holmes is Batman.

There would be no Batman without
Sherlock Holmes.

Sherlock Holmes is the preaching saint
of intelligence analysis.

The theory should fit the data, not the
data fitting the theory.

We live in a universe where Sherlock
Holmes has

left his mark everywhere.

Every few years, a fictional character
re -emerges and captures the imagination

of a new generation.

The name Sherlock Holmes and the address
is 221B Baker Street.

Mark Gatiss is co -creator of the BBC
series Sherlock.

He has a Victorian superpower.

which still works in the modern day. I
think essentially it comes down to the

fact that he is the smartest man in the
room.

He can make the connections nobody else
can, and that is timeless.

When you read his study in Scarlet, and
Holmes is introduced to Watson,

and he says... Afghanistan or Iraq.

And Watson's, how the devil did you know
that?

And Holmes said, by the way, you're
limping. I know you're an army doctor

you've been invalided home from
Afghanistan.

Incorrectly, I'm afraid.

Well, of course, that's insane.

There are hundreds of ways that somebody
could limp.

But the thing that strikes you about
Holmes is that he takes common sense

and finds explanations for them.

Well, anyway... It must speak of a kind
of need we have to be saved, I think, or

to believe there is something slightly
higher than us which is going to come

get us out of this terrible mess we're
all in.

It seems that home shines a little
brighter for people when things aren't

very well.

And things are going wrong in the world.

Banks do not have sufficient capital to
make loans.

So I need somebody who can reassure me
that there are people out there who can

make things right.

And right now we're in a sort of a
renaissance of Holmes.

The Sherlock Holmes stories have never
been out of print since Sir Arthur Conan

Doyle created the character in 1887.

Holmes first appeared in a minor
Christmas penny press magazine.

The story?

Study in Scarlet.

At first, I think they attracted very
little attention.

But after time, when I began the short
adventures, people began to recognize

that it was different to the old
detective.

He wrote 60 stories, four novels, and 56
short stories.

They began to buy the magazine.

It prospered.

So I may say, did I?

American publishers were paying Conan
Doyle a dollar a word.

Now, in the 1920s, that is very, very
big money indeed.

After the Bible, the Holmes stories are
the most widely circulated and

translated books in the world.

It's often said that he's the most
depicted fictional character, certainly

most filmed fictional character.

I think it's because of the strange sort
of glamour that he possesses.

It's a rather uneasy sort of glamour
because he is a glacial and frightening

character.

Oh, Professor Magati.

But he's rather like a character from
gothic fiction.

How fresh.

Justin. He used to work here. I knew
him.

He was nice.

He's rather like a vampire.

Dark glamour is just one aspect of
Holmes that has left its permanent mark

popular culture.

So, bad day, was it?

Another is fandom.

Nowadays, millions of people live in the
fantasy world of their favourite TV and

film heroes.

The Klingon universe is really no
different than any other universe.

The fictional Sherlock Holmes started it
all.

Prior to Doyle's creation, there had
never been a pop culture character more

famous than its creator.

People got confused.

Was Sherlock Holmes a real person?

The curious thing is, how many people
around the world are perfectly convinced

that he is a living human being?

That idea of... Understanding the
character as real began even as the

were being written.

I'll bet you if you go down Baker Street
and stop a random ten people and ask

them a question like, did you know that
Sherlock Holmes lived here?

I'll bet you that six or seven out of
those ten will say, yes, I did.

I get letters addressed to him.

I get letters asking for his autograph.

Get letters addressed to his rather
stupid friend, Watson.

Sherlock Holmes was the first fictional
figure who inspired role -playing among

his fans.

Today, fan fantasy is a part of popular
culture.

There were all of these little niches
and little pop culture tribes and

little... pockets of fandom there was
this incredibly potent character that

just reached out and shaped all of these
other things.

The same people who watch Law and Order
today are not the same people who are

dressing up as Klingons at Star Trek
conventions, but they all owe a debt to

Holmes.

There are Sherlock Holmes groups in
Britain, many in the United States.

mad for Sherlock Holmes.

Doyle sort of hit something universal.

No, no, it's not real. I do know that it
isn't real. But it made all that genre

escapism legitimate.

And it's a nice, enjoyable intellectual
exercise.

When Sir Arthur Conan Doyle had enough
of Holmes, he decided to kill him.

Holmes and his arch nemesis Moriarty
fell over a waterfall in the 1891

The Final Problem.

The public outcry was off the scale.

There was an outrage and people in the
city of London went around wearing black

armbands, mourning armbands. A woman
allegedly wrote to Conan Doyle saying,

brute. I've written a good deal more
about him than I ever intended to do,

my hand has been rather forced by kind
friends who continually wanted to know

more.

Slowly, slowly, he was able to usher him
back in.

He killed Holmes!

He killed Sherlock!

Watson. You!

There's something Christ -like.

about Holmes.

He's the man who dies and rises again.

He falls quite a long way, but he comes
back.

And I think that's one of the reasons
why he inspires that kind of following.

Holmes has survived through the 21st
century in ways his creator could never

have imagined.

He cannot be contained now.

He's out in the culture like a kind of
disease or a germ. And he'll go on

infecting the culture, I'm sure,
forever.

There is nothing nicer than to start a
Sherlock Holmes story and, you know, the

wind was blowing a storm down Baker
Street and the fire was crackling in the

hearth and Sherlock Holmes cast aside a
newspaper and took his first pipe of the

day and said, I'm bored, Watson. And
then you hear the quiet spurt upon the

stair and you know that they're going to
be off and racing and running.

You know, I owe you an apology.

You come here for adventure?

And I've none to offer you. Very soon
out of London's teeming millions, some

distressed person will step up to the
door and knock.

Ring watch and knock. It doesn't
function. You should have noticed that.

First stop on planet home.

The crime lab.

Sherlock Holmes' most critical
contribution to the modern world unfolds

labs and more all over the planet.

When Sir Arthur Conan Doyle wrote his
Holmes stories, there was no such thing

forensic science.

E .J. Wagner is the author of The
Science of Sherlock Holmes.

It wasn't called forensic science. It
was called, usually, medical

jurisprudence. Originally, this was the
area of physicians who would call in

various experts who knew something about
shoes or fine wines and sort of used

their knowledge. There was no
organization for it at all at the

Police, which was itself very new.

In pertinence, she called us policemen.

And what's wrong with being a policeman?

Late Victorian era, late 1800s,
policing.

in London left a lot to be desired.

The crime scenes in those days were
simply chaotic.

Crime like Jack the Ripper, for
instance.

The bodies were not sketched properly in
situ.

Evidence disappeared.

Evidence was never collected.

Evidence was deliberately destroyed
because they were afraid of causing

which was very well meant, but it didn't
get anywhere towards solving the crime.

Sherlock Holmes says in one of the
stories, a greater mess could not have

made if a herd of elephants had
blundered through.

Well, that is pretty much what happened.

They had no method.

One of the first principles in solving
crime is never to disregard anything, no

matter how trivial.

If Sherlock Holmes had been running the
investigation, each of those bodies

would have been examined very, very
carefully as they lay, as they were

not after they were removed from the
morgue.

where things fell off, dropped off,
evidence was lost.

Holmes made people realize that
forensics and deductive reasoning, these

are methods that we need to use.

Even today, police forces around the
world, universities who teach forensic

crime scene investigation use Sherlock
Holmes and quote Sherlock Holmes in

lessons. As the model.

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He helped lay the foundation for this
kind of modern crime scene

It always annoyed me how in the old
-fashioned detective story, the

always seemed to get at his results by
some sort of lucky chance or a fluke.

Let's leave jumping to conclusions to
the professional perspective.

Conan Doyle was a physician, and there
is a great deal in forensic science

is really based on medical procedures.

And I used, as a student, to have an old
professor, his name was Bell,

who was extraordinarily quick at
deductive work.

Joseph Bell would very often bring
before his class some unfortunate

a mysterious, complex disease.

But he would make his...

diagnosis of the disease entirely by his
part of observation.

He certainly had a tremendous influence
on Conan Doyle and therefore on Sherlock

Holmes. So naturally, I thought to
myself, well, if a scientific man like

was to come into the detective business,
he wouldn't do these things by chance.

He'd get the thing by building it up
scientifically.

Proof, my dear fellow. We must have
proof.

The Sherlock Holmes stories caught the
attention of a French doctor, Edmond

Locard, in the 1920s.

Locard worked with police to solve
crimes, and developed a theory that all

things leave a trace.

Forensic science was born.

He wrote that Sherlock Holmes inspired
his groundbreaking theories on trace

evidence, and he set the course for the
next century's CSIs.

Sherlock Holmes taught them. Locard said
he thought everyone studying forensic

science should read Sherlock Holmes,
especially The Sign of Four.

In the first place, it's been bleached
and soaked by long immersion in salt

water. I don't know if you like the
taste of it. The Holmes stories featured

array of forensic tools.

Chemical analysis.

Microscopic inspection.

Footprint identification.

Ballistics.

Handwriting analysis, gunpowder residue,
typography,

photographic enlargement.

All of these devices appeared in fiction
before any were actually used by real

CSIs.

And today, many forensic scientists
admit Holmes' love of the lab is only

of their job.

The other half is his love for intrigue.

I love puzzles.

And this is a puzzle. You're trying to
figure out what happened.

My life and death and stagnation.

I grew up on mystery novels as a kid.
Getting the answer has always been

something. I love information.

Give me the most abstruse cryptogram,
the most intricate analysis, and I rely

proper atmosphere.

I just love it. When I was seven, I
wrote stories about people getting

and me solving the crimes.

Holmes' love for cutting -edge science
inspires the current generation of

forensic analysts who specialize in
fields Doyle could never have imagined.

This is the typical condition that will
get a cell phone in.

This expert retrieves data from cell
phones that have been smashed by

trying to erase electronic evidence of
their whereabouts.

It's the kind of data collection that
Doyle invented with the fictional

It was method, he said.

You collect all these small facts, data,
data, data, and then I will put it

together, and I will come out with a
satisfactory conclusion.

All we need to do at this point is press
read.

It's reading all of the information from
the chip.

The word voicemail is in here, so we
know that there's probably some kind of

voicemail.

Broken fibers appear darker than the
rest of the paper and are therefore

visible. Splendid, Holmes.

I believe Dr. Tobel meant to communicate
with us by that means.

In 1893, Doyle wrote about the unique
character of handwriting, 15 years

it was ever used in a real case.

Today, that tradition continues in this
CSI's lab.

This is called the Video Spectral
Comparator, or VSD for short.

And basically, this just uses different
wavelengths of light to distinguish

between ink.

So in this case, we have an individual
who's found dead, and

a bunch of things have been obliterated
in the day timer.

And so you can

see here...

that we're seeing Lunch with Sue
underneath the scribble, and that's

under this infrared light, the Lunch
with Sue ink is absorbing the infrared.

Watson, I'm beginning to see the plan.

Holmes believed that data could be
proved useful no matter how obscure.

He collected hundreds of types of
tobacco, so that no matter what the

smoked,

Holmes would know how to narrow his
search.

That premise drives 21st century
forensics.

What Holmes was doing really was saying,
collect your data and don't form your

theory until you have it. Know a lot
about a lot of different things.

He was sort of a one -person walking
crime laboratory.

He even beat corpses to see where the
bruises would form, because that's

very big problem to this day.

Did this bruising take place post
-mortem or anti -mortem? How did this

Dr. Joseph Bell inspired Sir Arthur
Conan Doyle to use the autopsy as a

-solving tool.

Doyle popularized it in fiction long
before it was put into practice.

And today, the autopsy is the universal
standard.

At the end of the day, we are death
investigators.

This individual who is deceased is...

our patient so to speak and we are the
last people who are ever going to

that individual and get as close to the
truth as we possibly can modern tools

make the autopsy even more powerful than
conan doyle could ever have imagined

traditionally autopsy looks at the
organs in the chest and abdominal area

however when you start using a ct scan
you can start seeing parts of the body

such as the internal portions of the
extremities the muscles the bones So

this technology really provides a huge
amount of additional information.

And in some cases, has eliminated the
need to do an autopsy as long as the

pertinent questions were answered by the
scan.

But with all the advancements, old
school Sherlockian forensics are still

strong.

In The Adventure of the Wreck -It
Squire, Doyle introduced the notion of

ballistics analysis to determine which
gun fired a bullet.

That practice continues, and today's
forensic experts agree with Sherlock

that no two weapons are the same.

We're constantly trying to disprove our
theory to where we are taking

consecutively manufactured firearms, we
are test firing them, trying to compare

them to each other, trying to make the
firearm that was made first match with

the firearm that was made second. And to
this day, that has still not been done.

So we can still prove and have been
proven over and over again that we can

fact identify fired bullets and fired
cartridge cases back to a fire.

In 1887's A Study in Scarlet, Sherlock
Holmes analyzed blood to determine who

came from.

Thirteen years pass before this
technique is put into practice.

And almost a century goes by before the
advent of DNA testing.

The DNA profile tests for hair color,
eye color, ethnicity, height, weight,

other physical traits. It continues to
grow and grow.

The techniques are so robust and
reliable, and they just keep improving,

discriminatory power keeps improving.

Sherlock's influence on criminologists
and their methods runs deeper than any

other real historical figure.

That says a lot for a man who never
lived.

Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes
had an unusual talent, hiding in plain

sight.

Holmes was a master of the sky.

Hands up, gentlemen!

Oh, why, it's Mr.

Holmes!

Holmes! Put that thing away now, Watson.

Watson said that the stage lost an actor
when Holmes decided to become a

detective.

He would

immerse himself in the character.

He had several bolt holes around London
that were equipped with makeup and

costume that he could retire to and
emerge as somebody else.

Completely different identity.

Whether it was a drunken groom or an
Italian priest or an up -and -coming

plumber, Holmes actually became the
character.

His mastery of that technique was really
a pioneering thing.

Sherlock Holmes.

Improvement on the other makeup?

Don't you think so, Professor?

The tradition of going undercover lives
on in police forces around the world.

I think some of them are slightly
embarrassed, to tell you the truth,

much they are influenced by what they
read when they were 14.

A team of former undercover

cops now runs a top private
investigation firm in Canada.

The team is about to close in on a
deadly drug dealer using techniques

from the pages of Sherlock Holmes.

Just so you know, this guy's got a
record dated back to 1983, assault

convictions and an assault causing.

Milanovic is 6 '1", 320 pounds.

He's been involved in martial arts for
about 40 years.

He's an absolute bone crusher.

He does a lot of dirty work for the
Hells Angels, and he's hurt a lot of

I will be posing as the boss of Mott's
criminal organization this afternoon.

To complete his risky job, Fred Pinnock
dons a simple but effective disguise.

There are many occasions where deception
and trickery have to be used to have

people responsible for criminal acts
divulge long -held evidence or

My dear Watson, if we're to catch our
fishes, we refuse to bake their bite on

them. On the surveillance, Julia, you're
going to be wired, so I need you to let

your hair down to cover that earpiece.

Jake, you're going to ride with Len.

Julia, you ride with me.

Make no mistake, Watson.

This is our greatest antagonist,
Professor Mariachi.

You've got to beat him.

Dragon is a dangerous guy. He has a
history of violence.

Having said that, I've gained his trust
over the past year.

He's aware of the deal, you know, eager
to make it happen. You know, I'm

confident that he believes it's
legitimate.

General Samuel Wilson is a career spy, a
master of deception.

Sherlock Holmes was one of the early
practitioners of deception.

Deception is engaging in acts that
mislead, confuse,

discombobulate an opponent.

cause him to take actions that are not
in his best interest, but may be in

yours, or not to act when he should act.

I'm always eager to get it going. We're
just waiting for a call.

It'll be calling in a couple minutes.

Once you get your phone call from Fred
that they're in place, then get them in

the car and drive them over there.

The criminal stepped straight into the
trap.

Holmes had a way of smoking people out.

Holmes confused, misled people to where
they suddenly appeared and he had them

in their grasp. I would say you were
wrong and Mr. Sherlock Holmes was

Good evening, Professor Moriarty.

A single flip -up and the undercover
agents could find themselves in a deadly

situation.

You will meet and greet.

Our subject, before he gets in the car,
I want you to check him out, make sure

he's got nothing on him that he
shouldn't have.

Okay? Then let him in the car.

Now, the moment of greatest danger.

Who do we have here?

How are you?

Doing fine.

It's a moment that echoes Holmes.

Who's this bloke?

He's a bloodthirsty heathen.

but has good money to spend for
information.

I recognize Sherlock Holmes, as we would
say, fine Italian hand in the business

of deception, of which he was a master.

Leave at 6 ,000 units?

Approximately, yeah.

It would cost you $40 per unit? $40 per
unit, yeah.

How fast can this happen?

As soon as you get me the money.

Within about, I would say within 24
hours. Okay. Will has the cash right

Good.

I think maybe at some time we will
become good friends. Yeah.

Good friends do good business. Yeah. I
never did think much of this dressing up

business. It was necessary, I assure
you.

Another violent criminal is caught in
the snare, thanks to the art of disguise

inspired by Sherlock Holmes.

But his undercover influence doesn't end
there.

Others consider Holmes the master spy,
the model for the 21st century's high

-stakes game of espionage.

General Sam Wilson is one of the United
States' most decorated spies.

For what exactly, he will never say.

But he will admit that it all started
reading Sherlock Holmes stories as a

I found so much that was deep and
substantive, meaningful and rich in

Holmes as a figure and in the
intellectual feats that he was able to

I simply found myself fascinated with
it.

Wilson worked for ten U .S. presidents
as a secret agent, never revealing his

own secret.

Sherlock Holmes was his silent
protector.

I absorbed Holmes and his life and was
aware of his thesis that the human

mind is a most powerful tool if it is
finely honed and educated and

concentrated on solving problems.

Holmes, to me, was a problem solver.

The intricacies of his mind simply
appealed to me very, very greatly.

I think they were a benefit to me as I
moved into intelligence as a career.

Spies never retire.

They just work in the shadows.

And General Wilson now imagines what
might have happened if intelligence

officials had used Sherlock Holmes as
their model to catch Osama bin Laden.

Sherlock Holmes would have found Osama
bin Laden for us much sooner.

We can't keep secrets these days.

One of the things that we always fish
was how to avoid the spotlight at the

of the action.

And just fade away.

Holmes was good at this. Give the credit
and the publicity to someone else.

Let's fade away into the shadows so we
can work again another day.

By the way, there's an empty statue
behind. It's probably of no value.

No value?

What? Well, it's Faulkner's.

You emissaries always overlook the
important things.

Sherlock Holmes set the stage for the
dangerous world of modern undercover

operations. Master of the art of being
invisible in plain sight.

Every day, human hunters stalk the
streets, looking for opportunities to

violent crimes.

In the late 20th century, criminologists
realized that most of these predators

follow recognizable patterns.

Police call it behavioral science, or
more simply, profiling.

And in 1887, study in Scarlet, Sir
Arthur Conan Doyle anticipated profiling

almost a hundred years.

This makes four, Inspector.

Four defenseless women here in the heart
of London.

Lee Rainbow is the UK's top criminal
profiler, a modern Sherlock.

I think certainly in terms of crime
scene assessment, what we do is very

to the Holmes approach in gathering
data, using the data to drive the theory

rather than vice versa, and hypothesis
generation and testing, the search for

further data to support or refute those
hypotheses.

and then coming up with the best fit for
the known information, which is

essentially what Holmes was using.

One of our roles is to very much
recognise that the theory should fit the

not the data fitting the theory, and
that's very much what we do.

The truth has only arrived at by the
painstaking process of eliminating the

untrue.

We are not able to do that in this case
without further data.

Everything we do is driven by data.

Everything.

There's a tendency to glamorize,
romanticize the intelligence operator,

James Bond.

That is the exciting arena. That's where
the headlines are.

There's a tendency to ignore faceless
analysts laboring, putting bits and

of evidence together and trying to
figure out what they mean.

And that's Sherlock Holmes.

Sherlock Holmes.

spanned pretty much the field of
deception, collection operations, and so

But when I stopped to think about doing
what he was, I would say, first and

foremost, the world's greatest
intelligence analyst.

One cutting -edge technique owes its
inspiration to the Holmesian method.

It's called geographic profiling, and
it's proven to narrow down where a

offender hunts and even where he lives.

Ian Laverty is one of the creators of a
geoprofiling program inspired by

Sherlock Holmes.

Well, to start with in geographic
profiling, you need a series of

locations. It's like the old pin maps
that the police used to put on the wall,

stick little pins in the map, and then
they'd stare at the pattern and say,

I wonder what this means.

So what we do is enter the crime
locations into the program, and it does

very complicated calculation, actually,
where it runs through the entire city.

If the criminal lived here, and he
traveled to all of these crime sites,

long would it take? And then it moves
over a little bit, and as you do that,

you're building up the probability map
that shows you where the criminal is

likely to live over the entire city.

We thought we were the hunters.

instead of which we're the hunted.

Scott Filer is a profiler and private
investigator in Canada.

People commit crimes for a reason.

People think it's random. It's really
not a random process. There are reasons

that people choose to do things the way
they do. And that's the premise behind

the software. It takes all those
scientific considerations into play.

When the algorithm behind the software
is working, these maps allow us to

prioritize the search area for the
suspect.

Sherlock Holmes was all about applying
his knowledge with a little bit of

intuition, and he was a very smart guy.

But what we have that he didn't have is
a whole lot of information.

He had the kids that ran around the
streets gathering information for him,

we have the modern equivalent of the
computer tools that we use, and they

whole lot more information to go on.

If Sherlock Holmes was around today,
he'd have apps like ours on his

and he'd be using them all the time.

But Lee Rainbow points out that despite
computers, the data still needs a

detective like Holmes to make sense of
it.

You still need that human aspect to it
to identify which are the important

variables. Those things can't be done by
a computer.

There's something in that bag she wants
to show me.

What makes you say that?

The bag doesn't match her dress.

I'm beginning to pick the size rather
than style to accommodate some bulky

object.

You'll amaze me, Holmes.

Anybody can get in front of a computer
and punch keys and make something come

out of it. What goes into that is the
human factor.

Holmes was an expert in logic, reasoning
out explanations, looking at the

evidence that remains, and putting the
puzzle together.

So at the end of the day, what comes out
of it is an informed hypothesis about

what you think happened between the
victim and the suspect.

That's the critical piece. It's about
the analyst and the skills and knowledge

that the analyst brings to the process
that makes it successful.

Sometimes, when the profilers hit a dead
end, old -school lie detection comes

into play.

Theo Hollomby is one of the world's top
polygraphic analysts.

I think that Holmes probably would have
appreciated the instrument like that, to

be very honest with you, because he used
the powers of observation to see if

somebody was sweating or that his heart
was beating faster than normal.

I was studying the faces of our fellow
passengers.

Fascinating hobby, and sometimes most
enlightening.

You can actually see that the body is
reacting when you ask him that certain

type of question.

The polygraph.

has been a forensic tool since Conan
Doyle's time, and it's still going

At the moment, it is still the best tool
to use in any investigation, according

to me.

There's a lot of other scientific ways
to investigate, statement analysis or

reading of the body, but with a
polygraph, you can actually put

paper. You can say the body reacted to a
certain question at that time, and this

is what the body did.

Did you steal that watch?

No.

Many profilers admit their model was
Sherlock Holmes, a fictional character

used deduction to close in on criminals
that were too elusive for standard

police methods.

It's very home.

I make it akin to doing crossword
puzzles. You get one piece of data, that

starts giving you a clue for the next.

You slowly build up this picture, which
is very intellectually challenging, like

a crossword.

But the completion of that crossword is,
catch a bad guy.

For me, it's a perfect job.

I love it.

I really think.

Yeah.

What are you thinking of?

I'm thinking of all the women who can
come and go in safety in the streets of

London at night.

Sherlock Holmes is known all over the
planet, but his influence also reaches

into space, inspiring NASA scientist Dr.
James Garvin.

Science operates in a lot of different
ways, but perhaps at the most visceral

level, it's very forensic.

All of us who are fans of that 221B
Baker Street idea...

recognized in reading those stories of
more than 100 plus years ago that this

science applied to understanding.

Garbin was an intern when NASA first put
a camera on Mars in 1975.

He's now the agency's top scientist.

He's defined NASA's direction for space
exploration and owes it all to reading

Sherlock Holmes as a little boy.

Sherlock Holmes, I might have known.

I really came into science by being
curious, as all young people probably

They may not realize it, but they are. I
mean, I like rocks and bugs, but other

kids like beating up their neighborhood
kid or sister, whatever it is. It's that

curiosity. But once you read the
Sherlock Holmes story and you see the

between thinking, evidence, solving
something that matters, you know, death

people kind of does, you realize that's
what science is. We are crime solvers.

But the crimes are the problem you're
solving.

Ocean heat flow, climate stories on
Earth, why Venus is so weird, whether

exists on Mars or the bigger universe,
are we alone?

I read Holmes before I became a
scientist.

What Garvin learned from the Sherlock
Holmes stories is that data comes first.

Theories follow.

Nothing but an ordinary match folder.

Where does that lead us?

I imagine to something very important,
Gregson.

And with that...

A generation of scientists regards space
as a Holmesian mystery that needs to be

solved.

How do we figure these things out? How
do we make it into that puzzle -solving

forensic science that Sherlock Holmes
demonstrated in these great stories? And

we do so with data, with information.

And we increase that information in ways
that it's like increasing the pool of

evidence you would have in a mystery, in
a crime story.

What's the puzzle of water on Mars?

Well, we went to Mars.

We saw a dry... Alien, apparently
sterile desert.

We landed, we sat there for years,
nothing really much happened.

And then, revolution.

The forensic puzzle changed. We got a
little more information, as Holmes did,

the stories by Sir Conan Doyle. And you
put the extra piece of information in,

and even though it might seem small,
kaboom!

We now have the wet -warm Mars. The Mars
where following the water makes sense.

Today, following the carbon.

It's so Holmesian.

And I think that's what is attractive to
some of the scientists.

We kind of operate like Sherlock Holmes
did, you know, 140, 50 years ago, but

with new pieces of data.

NASA's role has evolved.

The agency now studies scientific
mysteries on Earth as much as the stars.

But Garvin says Sherlock Holmes' methods
still rule his vision.

Listen to the facts.

Then, make your analysis.

The 19th key of the keyboard is the 19th
letter of the alphabet.

Garvin and his team went back to the
moon missions and found new evidence in

data.

Seemingly a dead world. We visited it
with astronauts 40 years ago.

Been there, done that. In fact, that's
not the case. The moon is actually a

repository of information about the
whole solar system, and we've just come

realize that.

from the new evidence we're getting from
new mission.

So it's all about the information.

We get it from every perspective we can.

That's very Holmesian. Those pieces of
evidence give us the story where we can

play the Holmesian game, and that's
what's so beautiful. We're discovering

own future and our future question.

From the moon to the stars, Sherlock
Holmes' influence stretches deep into

exploration. But back on Earth...

It's driven popular culture in ways that
cannot be measured.

Sherlock Holmes has been imitated and
adapted more than any other fictional

character in history.

Mr. Holmes!

Mr. Sherlock Holmes! Good morning, Mr.
Holmes.

Mr. Holmes?

Good night, Mr. Sherlock Holmes.

Sir Arthur Conan Doyle.

created a character who exploded onto
the world of fiction and had left his

on three centuries.

We are living in Sherlock Holmes' world.
There are just so many creators of

fictional universes who are inspired by
Holmes. You could go back and say that

Holmes was the Model C of all.

modern science fiction, of mystery
fiction, of genre fiction.

All right, Chato, we're going to
introduce Mr. Grant and the world to the

Hornet.

The mark of it on every mystery novel,
every technical figure, and every

conflict between the rational and the
irrational, from the X -Files and the

to the belief procedurals.

Who was murdered?

I was.

It all comes back to Holmes.

It's hard to find something in modern
entertainment that Sherlock Holmes did

touch in one way or another.

Holmes is a character who conjured
something so powerful and so vital that

character just escaped and went running
through the culture. And it had a power

that Doyle couldn't tame.

A lot of people have written past these
Sherlock Holmes stories. The new

Sherlock Holmes series at the BBC was a
startling success.

But why has Sherlock Holmes remained so
popular?

The great Sherlock Holmes himself.

Many believe it's all about his
relationship with Dr. Watson.

Dr. Watson, of course.

Who, me?

I think the real Aliyah is the duo of
Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson.

Their relationship, the milieu that they
inhabit. How are you? How are you? I

haven't seen you for years.

I want you to meet my old friend
Sherlock Holmes.

Holmes, it's a stinky.

Sherlock Holmes had become so much about
trappings, about the fog, about the top

hats, about the handsome cab, that at a
stroke, by modernizing it, it becomes

about them again, the friendship between
these two men.

The buddy film genre began with Sherlock
Holmes and Dr. Watson.

Buddy films owe a tremendous amount to
Sherlock Holmes, obviously.

And you'll notice that the duos tend to
kind of have the same sort of interplay

that Holmes and Watson had.

I think the idea of a pairing of two
men, one of whom is rather distant and

unknowable, and one of whom is much more
like us, I think this is terribly

important.

You don't mind breaking the law?

Not in a good cause.

Mother called it excellent.

Well, then I am your man.

Splendid. It's like he's crazy, but he's
crazy because he sees everything as it

is. That's what makes him crazy, and
it's also what makes him great. That's

hope. You can see it in Lethal Weapon.

You can see it in Butch Cassidy and the
Sundance Kid.

You can see it in Star Trek.

Captain Kirk and Mr. Spock.

Before all of them, though, there was
Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson. That's

prototype.

In the 21st century, the Holmes -Watson
relationship

has taken on a new dimension.

The homoerotic buddy -cop combination as
we know it today owes just about

everything to Holmes and Watson.

Holmes himself was... Extremely
ambiguous. Didn't show a whole lot of

in women.

Irene Adler was the only woman who
fascinated him.

What the relationship between Holmes and
Watson captures is a kind of intimate

male relationship that, in a way,
predates those categories of sexuality

that we're all stuck with now.

Holmes, I think your visitor will want
me out of the way.

Not a bit, Doctor. Stay where you are.

I am lost without my Boswell.

There was a very definite homoerotic
vibe to the relationship depicted in the

Granada TV series, largely thanks to
Jeremy Brett's performance, I think. And

it's now a running gag in the new BBC
Sherlock series, because all the people

they meet, of course, assume that
they're rather more than flatmates.

There's another bedroom upstairs if
you've been needing two bedrooms.

Of course we'll be needing two.

Sir Arthur Conan Doyle would have denied
the implication.

Male relationships in his era were
different.

But there is one thing in the stories
that was not ambiguous.

Sherlock Holmes was a cocaine addict.

His favorite method, injecting what he
called the 7 % solution.

The fact that he was a drug addict. The
fact that he's a bit of a sociopath.

That's an incredibly potent thing in
fiction.

The hero who is also potentially a demon
or has something demonic inside that

both gives him his power and makes him a
liability, that's incredibly powerful.

Addicted.

Superheroic.

Sociopathic.

Scientific.

Genius.

Sherlock Holmes anticipated the future.

A complex, flawed character.

So worshipped, some people forget that
he never existed.

We're going to be having a gathering of
Sherlock Holmes people in the city where

I live, in Oxford.

There is a pub there where Sherlock
Holmes undoubtedly stayed because of

internal evidence in the stories. And,
you know, I've just been writing a

chronology of what you get to do.

And they were, you know, I'm going to
say, just think, when you actually go in

there, Sherlock Holmes really did stay
here. Exclamation mark.

We're talking about him like he's real.
We can't help ourselves.

We're not saying Arthur Conan Doyle did
it, are we? We're saying that Sherlock

Holmes did it. I mean, I do know that he
isn't real.

Sir Arthur Conan Doyle dropped a
fictional character on our planet, and

like a bomb.

The ripple effect of Sherlock Holmes
shows no sign of stopping over a century

later.

In a world that doesn't often make
sense, cold, calculated reason, gives

a feeling of safety and strength.

Holmes appears in the strangest of
places because we need him.

Good work, Mr. Holmes. Perhaps I
underestimated you.

I've written a good deal more about him
than I ever intended to do, but my hand

has been rather forced by kind friends
who continually wanted to know more.

And so it is that this monstrous growth
has come out. I don't want to really...

A comparatively small seed.

Oh. Goodbye.