The One Fixed Point in a Changing Age: Alternate Sherlock Holmes filmographies!

BBC Television Series Sherlock Holmes 1983-1985
Sherlock Holmes :Tom Baker
Dr Watson :Terence Rigby
Inspector Lestrade: Hubert Rees
Mrs Hudson ; Dinah Sheridan
Following the Hound Of the Baskervilles, the BBC made adaptations of " A Study in Scarlet", "The Sign of Four" and "The Valley of Fear". They were shown in the Sunday Evening Classic Serial slot on BBC1. They were generally well received but plans to start adapting the short stories foundered when Granada started showing their adaptations of these starring Jeremy Brett.
(From a slightly adjacent world where Tom Baker's Holmes was better received in 1982)
A good idea, although personally I think it would have helped if Baker had been paired with a stronger supporting cast, or at least a more engaging, less sluggish Watson.
 
My take on Tom Baker Holmes from My Step by Step Universe.

Both Baker success as Holmes in The Hound of the Baskerville and as the Doctor on Doctor Who, lead the BBC to cross Baker's Holmes with popular Horror characters.
The first90 minute tv movie was "Scarlet by Gaslight' in which Holmes and Professor Moriarty team up to stop Count Dracula. It aired in 1983.
The year after, they produced "A Case of Blind Fear" in which Holmes and Watson meet the Invisible Man from HG Wells Novel. It was another 90 minute movie.
In 1985, a movie and a three part miniseries were produced.
The Miniseries was based on the Manly Wade Wellman novel "Sherlock Holmes' War of the Worlds' . Additional material was added that dealt with Moriarty stealing a Martian War Machine after the death of the Martians . (The novel plot of Holmes having a relationship with Mrs. Hudson was not included ) .
It was a series of three 1 hour episodes .
And a shorter special , just one hour was made that cross Holmes with the events of Robert Louis Stevenson's "The Suicide Club".

(All of these plots were based on some American Comic Books in the 1980's. Most of those were written by Martin Powell)
Great Stuff! Any idea as to who would have played the characters?
 
A good idea, although personally I think it would have helped if Baker had been paired with a stronger supporting cast, or at least a more engaging, less sluggish Watson.
Tom Baker didn't quite click as Holmes in this. He actually made a better Holmes in "The Talons of Weng-Chiang" when playing the Doctor!
I agree about Terence Rigby as Dr Watson in the Hound but I'm assuming that here, like Baker, he upped his game, especially as he grew into the part in later adaptations. It took some time for David Burke to nail the character (but not Edward Hardwicke for some reason).
 
Flynn's Holmes would be more a man of action .
I was always surprised that Rathbone Holmes was not more a man of action.
Since he was villains against Flynn in most of the swashbucklers films .

I wonder if they had to tone the action down to account for Nigel Bruce? He was very badly injured in WW1 and invalided out of the Army as unfit for military service after being shot in the legs multiple times by a German machine gun.
 
Great Stuff! Any idea as to who would have played the characters?
I don't have a complet cast list but I was thinking Peter Cushing as Moriarty. (I like the idea of a former Holmes playing Moriarty)
I not sure who should play Dracula. Christopher Lee is too old and I doubt the BBC would hire Frank Langella.
The Character of Murry "The Invisible Man" from Case of Blind Fear , I was thinking Anthony Hopkins . the Character is mainly Bandages and the actor voice . Hopkins be perfect .
For the War of the World Crossover, I love to see Bob Hopkins as Challenger he was great in the 2001 special ) but it unlikely at the time. Hopkins is too successful in the early 80's.
Maybe Christopher Lee as Challenger .

The Series would be produced by Philip Hinchcliffe. He was the first producer for Tom Baker Doctor.
Scripts by Robert Holmes.
The first Movie was directed by Paddy Russell , a female director who did episodes of Doctor Who including Pyramids of Mars and Horror of Fang Rock.
Case of Blind Fear would be a early direction effort from Graeme Harper who would go on to direct the Doctor Who Classic "The Cave of Androzani "

Douglas Camfield was at first hired to direct the Sherlock Holmes War of the World Miniseries but his poor health would require Graeme Harper to take over.
American Special effect artist Jim Danforth was hired to do the Stop motion Martian Tripods.

David Maloney, another Doctor who veteran director who did the Talons of Weng Chiang, would do the Suicide Club crossover .
(Yes I know I using a lot of Doctor Who Veterans . But most of them also did mystery series for the BBC, and who else are the BBC going to get to do Holmes/Horror crossovers.)
 
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I don't have a complet cast list but I was thinking Peter Cushing as Moriarty. (I like the idea of a former Holmes playing Moriarty)
I not sure who should play Dracula. Christopher Lee is too old and I doubt the BBC would hire Frank Langella.
The Character of Murry "The Invisible Man" from Case of Blind Fear , I was thinking Anthony Hopkins . the Character is mainly Bandages and the actor voice . Hopkins be perfect .
For the War of the World Crossover, I love to see Bob Hopkins as Challenger he was great in the 2001 special ) but it unlikely at the time. Hopkins is too successful in the early 80's.
Maybe Christopher Lee as Challenger .

The Series would be produced by Philip Hinchcliffe. He was the first producer for Tom Baker Doctor.
Scripts by Robert Holmes.
The first Movie was directed by Paddy Russell , a female director who did episodes of Doctor Who including Pyramids of Mars and Horror of Fang Rock.
Case of Blind Fear would be a early direction effort from Graeme Harper who would go on to direct the Doctor Who Classic "The Cave of Androzani "

Douglas Camfield was at first hired to direct the Sherlock Holmes War of the World Miniseries but his poor health would require Graeme Harper to take over.
American Special effect artist Jim Danforth was hired to do the Stop motion Martian Tripods.

David Maloney, another Doctor who veteran director who did the Talons of Weng Chiang, would do the Suicide Club crossover .
(Yes I know I using a lot of Doctor Who Veterans . But most of them also did mystery series for the BBC, and who else are the BBC going to get to do Holmes/Horror crossovers.)
Minor note, I figure that The Baker Hound of the Bakerville is filmed on Film instead of Video .
That will improve the picture quality and help it get airing in the US .
So we see all the later movies also done film.
 
I don't have a complet cast list but I was thinking Peter Cushing as Moriarty. (I like the idea of a former Holmes playing Moriarty)
I not sure who should play Dracula. Christopher Lee is too old and I doubt the BBC would hire Frank Langella.
The Character of Murry "The Invisible Man" from Case of Blind Fear , I was thinking Anthony Hopkins . the Character is mainly Bandages and the actor voice . Hopkins be perfect .
For the War of the World Crossover, I love to see Bob Hopkins as Challenger he was great in the 2001 special ) but it unlikely at the time. Hopkins is too successful in the early 80's.
Maybe Christopher Lee as Challenger .

The Series would be produced by Philip Hinchcliffe. He was the first producer for Tom Baker Doctor.
Scripts by Robert Holmes.
The first Movie was directed by Paddy Russell , a female director who did episodes of Doctor Who including Pyramids of Mars and Horror of Fang Rock.
Case of Blind Fear would be a early direction effort from Graeme Harper who would go on to direct the Doctor Who Classic "The Cave of Androzani "

Douglas Camfield was at first hired to direct the Sherlock Holmes War of the World Miniseries but his poor health would require Graeme Harper to take over.
American Special effect artist Jim Danforth was hired to do the Stop motion Martian Tripods.

David Maloney, another Doctor who veteran director who did the Talons of Weng Chiang, would do the Suicide Club crossover .
(Yes I know I using a lot of Doctor Who Veterans . But most of them also did mystery series for the BBC, and who else are the BBC going to get to do Holmes/Horror crossovers.)
Looks excellent. If I may make some casting suggestions?
Donald Pleasence as Griffin (The Invisible Man)
Brian Blessed as Challenger
Paul Darrow as Dracula
 
Looks excellent. If I may make some casting suggestions?
Donald Pleasence as Griffin (The Invisible Man)
Brian Blessed as Challenger
Paul Darrow as Dracula
I like all three, especially Brian Blessed as Challenger. We go with him.

While Paul Darrow is a Good Actor, I not sure about him as Dracula.
After I posted last night, I thought about Michael Pennington. He be a good Dracula
 
I will suggest that Lee would make a superb Professor Summerlee. (Tall, gaunt, ascerbic).

Perhaps Brian Blessed for the blockier, boisterous Professor Challenger?

@WhovianHolmesianChap beat you to it with the Brian Blessed recommendation and I really like it.
So I going to use that when I start up my Step by Step Time again
Will think about Lee as Summerlee. I not sure on that.

regarding Lee, I don't like him as Holmes in "Sherlock Holmes and the Deadly Necklace " . He seem to lack the energy that Holmes has in the stories.
But I did like him as Mycroft in "The Private Life of Sherlock Holmes " and I like him as the older Holmes in the two miniseries from the 80's.
 
Sherlock Holmes - Private Investigator (1984)


Inspired by this publicity still of Brett and David Burke as Holmes and Watson in modern dress.
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Interview with Michael Cox, TV Zone, 1990
"Originally, we wanted to go back to the books, and do what we had done with Brideshead and do a lush, opulent period piece, but then the Sherlock Holmes Classics with Ian Richardson and David Jason [1} were announced and put into production extremely quickly, and then the BBC were considering doing another serial with Tom Baker [2],and it was a bit galling. Because we had spent quite a bit on pre-production, and we had essentially already cast Jeremy and David for the roles. Scripts were written, and there had been a feeling that because the Richardson shows had been made without a station, that they'd disappear. But then HBO in the US decided it needed original product, and then Channel 4 got involved, eventually. But because we had presold the project, we couldn't abandon it. John Hawkesworth was adamant that it should be a period piece. Because that's what the Americans like. To the Americans, London is Sherlock Holmes. And Sherlock Holmes is, well we say Victorian, but it's really anything between 1870 and just up to pre-First World War. But I was looking through various books on Sherlock Holmes, and I remembered that the 40s films with Basil Rathbone and Nigel Bruce eventually shifted Holmes and Watson to the 40s, to World War Two. And I then thought, what if you had Holmes and Watson alive for World War Three..."
"So, I got all the writers back. And eventually I convinced John (Hawkesworth) that . We discussed how do you contextualise the character in the 80s. Is he a grandson? A reincarnation? And in the end, we left a few ambiguous hints. We decided that Holmes should be an enigma. When we meet him, he's a dropout from society. There's a line when we first meet Mycroft, where he says that the Holmes family has a distinguished history of interfering with the secrets of British society. But Doyle didn't write them as period pieces. He wrote them for the modern world. They weren't intended as gothic fantasies, but mysteries rooted in the modern world. And that was the key for me. The fog, the deerstalker, the hansom cabs, we wanted to drive a sledgehammer through that. That's why in the first scene of A Study in Scarlet, Watson is seen in period dress, walking through fog where he meets a chap in a deerstalker. And then the fog clears. A car drives by.. And we learn he's going to a fancy dress party, and the man in the deerstalker is not Holmes but Stamford, dressed as a country squire. And then, on top of that, we're not even in London, but in Hong Kong!"

"Initially, we presumed that you couldn't get away with doing A Study in Scarlet as Jeremy and David were both pushing fifty. But Alan Plater{3} suggested that they could be past acquaintances. That Stamford had introduced them before, as young men. But they didn't get on, and soon after Watson left the country. And I liked that. It made Watson seem desperate. In the books, Dr. Watson is back from Afghanistan. And we did thinlk about having him be a Falklands vet. But we then decided to set A Study earlier so it would be a prologue. So five years pass between episode one and two. Though we never quite advertised it. And so the idea was that he was a UN medic, with a military background, who'd ended up in Hong Kong, but was now getting tired. We also decided that it would be a TV movie before the series, to act as a launch point. We had fun putting the thing together. Especially as it translated quite well, what with the Mormons. Casting Jeff Hope was quite hard. We looked at a lot of young American actors as we knew it was an opportunity to get a name but David Warner turned out to be perfect."



[1} IOTL, the Sherlock Holmes telemovies with Richardson and David Healy and Donald Churchill as Watson ended after two installments in 1984, due to Granada announcing their project simultaneously with the Weintraub/Otto Plaschkes/HBO productions with Richardson. Apparently, in Alan Barnes' Sherlock on Screen, there would have been a third one made later on with Richardson and Jason reuniting in Porterhouse Blue. I decided to have Jason play Watson from the get-go to add a sense of continuity ITTL, where the Richardson Holmes runs to twenty TV movies, some in anthological form. Because of the success of these movies, Only Fools and Horses ends in 1986, becomes Hot Rod as planned IOTL when Jason got cold feet, it was planned that Del would leave for Australia in the episode Who Wants to be A Millionaire? leaving Rodney to have his own sitcom with Mickey Pearce as the new partner. The Sherlock Holmes Classics end in 1990, though there is at least occassional special.
[2] Baker's Hound of the Baskervilles for BBC One was 1982. Reports vary as to it being a pilot for more mysteries.
{3} ITTL, Plater becomes one of the real architects of the series, with the same sense of genre intersecting on dreary 70s/80s Britain as Juggernaut and the Beiderbecke Tapes.
 
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One thing that bugged me about the recent series Elementary .
Joan Watson is not a former Army Doctor. Why not?
We have female Army Doctors . It not at all uncommon .
Change a few lines in the pilot and we staying faithful to Arthur Conan Doyle .
 
What Pastiches would you like to see adapted as movies?
I like to see The West End Horror by Nicholas Meyer adapted .
It is now a play but the play add more humor.

I like to see Rick Boyer book "The Giant Rat of Sumatra " adapted
Michael Hardwick has two books that make great movies: The Revenge of the Hound and The Prisoner of the Devil (In which Holmes investigate the Dreyfus Affair)
There are at least two great books that have Holmes fight Jack the Ripper .
Edward B Hanna's The Whitechapel Horrors and Lindsay Faye's Dust and Shadow.

And I like to see Loren D Estleman's Sherlock Holmes vs Dracula.
It was adapted into a BBC Radio Drama

What Pastiches would you like to see adapted?
 
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What Pastiches would you like to see adapted?
Ask and you shall receive:)

In 1995 Granada were looking for a replacement for their Sherlock Holmes series. At the time it was unthinkable to film the remaining stories with somebody else cast as Holmes so they looked elsewhere and came upon August Derleth's Solar Pons stories. They saw these as basically Holmes stories set in the 20s and 30s . So they created:

In the footsteps of the Master
The Adventures of Solar Pons

Solar Pons; Nicholas Rowe
Dr Lyndon Parker: Nathaniel Parker
Mrs Johnson : Phyllida Law
Bancroft Pons : Sean Arnold

For the first series they used the stories from "in Re Sherlock Holmes. Holmes was referenced as the Great Master and they rewrote "the Adventure of the Frightened Baronet" to include Superintendant Gregson played by Brendan Gleeson who would comment on the similarities between Holmes and Pons.
The series was successful enough to enable a second series to be made but it never caught on as did the Sherlock Holmes stories and was cancelled in 1997.
 
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Ask and you shall receive:)

In 1995 Granada were lookig for a replacement for their Sherlock Holmes series. At the time it was unthinkable to film the remaining stories with somebody else cast as Holmes so they looked elsewhere and came upon August Derleth's Solar Pons stories. They saw these as basically Holmes stories set in the 20s and 30s . So they created:

In the footsteps of the Master
The Adventures of Solar Pons

Solar Pons; Nicholas Rowe
Dr Lyndon Parker: Nathaniel Parker
Mrs Johnson : Phyllida Law
Bancroft Pons : Sean Arnold

For the first series they used the stories from "in Re Sherlock Holmes. Holmes was referenced as the Great Master and they rewrote "the Adventure of the Frightened Baronet" to include Superintendant Gregson played by Brendan Gleeson who would comment on the similarities between Holmes and Pons.
The series was successful enough to enable a second series to be made but it never caught on as did the Sherlock Holmes stories and was cancelled in 1997.
This is great.
I wish they had done this.
 
Two short stories by Arthur Conan Doyle.
The Man with the Watches and the Lost Special.
They are not Sherlock Holmes stories but they have reference to notable Private Detective who make suggestion about the Cases.
Yet they have been made into Sherlock Audio Stories
I would like to see them adapted , maybe as part of the Granada series with Brett.
 
Sherlock Holmes - Private Investigator (1984)


Inspired by this publicity still of Brett and David Burke as Holmes and Watson in modern dress.
View attachment 540870


Interview with Michael Cox, TV Zone, 1990
"Originally, we wanted to go back to the books, and do what we had done with Brideshead and do a lush, opulent period piece, but then the Sherlock Holmes Classics with Ian Richardson and David Jason [1} were announced and put into production extremely quickly, and then the BBC were considering doing another serial with Tom Baker [2],and it was a bit galling. Because we had spent quite a bit on pre-production, and we had essentially already cast Jeremy and David for the roles. Scripts were written, and there had been a feeling that because the Richardson shows had been made without a station, that they'd disappear. But then HBO in the US decided it needed original product, and then Channel 4 got involved, eventually. But because we had presold the project, we couldn't abandon it. John Hawkesworth was adamant that it should be a period piece. Because that's what the Americans like. To the Americans, London is Sherlock Holmes. And Sherlock Holmes is, well we say Victorian, but it's really anything between 1870 and just up to pre-First World War. But I was looking through various books on Sherlock Holmes, and I remembered that the 40s films with Basil Rathbone and Nigel Bruce eventually shifted Holmes and Watson to the 40s, to World War Two. And I then thought, what if you had Holmes and Watson alive for World War Three..."
"So, I got all the writers back. And eventually I convinced John (Hawkesworth) that . We discussed how do you contextualise the character in the 80s. Is he a grandson? A reincarnation? And in the end, we left a few ambiguous hints. We decided that Holmes should be an enigma. When we meet him, he's a dropout from society. There's a line when we first meet Mycroft, where he says that the Holmes family has a distinguished history of interfering with the secrets of British society. But Doyle didn't write them as period pieces. He wrote them for the modern world. They weren't intended as gothic fantasies, but mysteries rooted in the modern world. And that was the key for me. The fog, the deerstalker, the hansom cabs, we wanted to drive a sledgehammer through that. That's why in the first scene of A Study in Scarlet, Watson is seen in period dress, walking through fog where he meets a chap in a deerstalker. And then the fog clears. A car drives by.. And we learn he's going to a fancy dress party, and the man in the deerstalker is not Holmes but Stamford, dressed as a country squire. And then, on top of that, we're not even in London, but in Hong Kong!"

"Initially, we presumed that you couldn't get away with doing A Study in Scarlet as Jeremy and David were both pushing fifty. But Alan Plater{3} suggested that they could be past acquaintances. That Stamford had introduced them before, as young men. But they didn't get on, and soon after Watson left the country. And I liked that. It made Watson seem desperate. In the books, Dr. Watson is back from Afghanistan. And we did thinlk about having him be a Falklands vet. But we then decided to set A Study earlier so it would be a prologue. So five years pass between episode one and two. Though we never quite advertised it. And so the idea was that he was a UN medic, with a military background, who'd ended up in Hong Kong, but was now getting tired. We also decided that it would be a TV movie before the series, to act as a launch point. We had fun putting the thing together. Especially as it translated quite well, what with the Mormons. Casting Jeff Hope was quite hard. We looked at a lot of young American actors as we knew it was an opportunity to get a name but David Warner turned out to be perfect."



[1} IOTL, the Sherlock Holmes telemovies with Richardson and David Healy and Donald Churchill as Watson ended after two installments in 1984, due to Granada announcing their project simultaneously with the Weintraub/Otto Plaschkes/HBO productions with Richardson. Apparently, in Alan Barnes' Sherlock on Screen, there would have been a third one made later on with Richardson and Jason reuniting in Porterhouse Blue. I decided to have Jason play Watson from the get-go to add a sense of continuity ITTL, where the Richardson Holmes runs to twenty TV movies, some in anthological form. Because of the success of these movies, Only Fools and Horses ends in 1986, becomes Hot Rod as planned IOTL when Jason got cold feet, it was planned that Del would leave for Australia in the episode Who Wants to be A Millionaire? leaving Rodney to have his own sitcom with Mickey Pearce as the new partner. The Sherlock Holmes Classics end in 1990, though there is at least occassional special.
[2] Baker's Hound of the Baskervilles for BBC One was 1982. Reports vary as to it being a pilot for more mysteries.
{3} ITTL, Plater becomes one of the real architects of the series, with the same sense of genre intersecting on dreary 70s/80s Britain as Juggernaut and the Beiderbecke Tapes.
Oh, so much yes!!!!
 
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