Sherlock Holmes and Land Wars in Asia

[andraste]

I watched the first episode of Sherlock with friends today, and enjoyed it.

However, one thing that bemused me is that Sherlock has never seen The Princess Bride! This in itself is entirely plausible, since his interest in eighties fantasy romances strikes me as limited. However, I was surprised that he at no point suggested the solution to the pill problem that is blindingly obvious to anyone who has watched it. Possibly that scene is more tense if you don't spend the whole time thinking of the Dread Pirate Roberts.

What surprised me even more is that the friend I watched it with said she hadn't seen anyone in Sherlock fandom discussing the parallel!

Comments

[musesfool]

I think some people are acting on the theory that without Holmes in his usual time period, there IS no iocane poisoning scene in Princess Bride. I've also been told that the two scenes (er, Study in Scarlet and PB) are not so similar that the latter couldn't have come about organically, even without a Holmesian predecessor, so I don't know. It was certainly my first thought, and distracting throughout the scene that nobody else ever mentioned it.

There was a really interesting discussion somewhere about how detective fiction would have evolved differently without Holmes... *digs through tags* here.