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Kristy Kim
Dr. Lynda Haas
Writing 39 B
21 May 2014
Twisted Detective Genre Conventions in the 21st Century
A detective story is known to be very different than other typical stories of different
genres. In stories of different genres, the audience takes in the information without thinking
deeply into what they have seen. However, the detective genre forces its audience to take in what
they have seen, absorb the information, and engage themselves into becoming one with the
characters of the stories to find a resolution. In his text, literary scholar George N. Dove
describes the detective stories as transitory and purely recreational and intellectual for its
audience (2). The Conan Doyle texts rose to fame during the late Victorian Era when the
audience was presented with an eccentric, intelligent detective who was more competent and
successful than the police were. Known as the new creator of the detective genre, Conan Doyle's
stories have been reinterpreted in endless ways throughout many decades. Although the
incredibly intelligent Sherlock Holmes may have been tweaked and twisted in various ways, the
classic genre convention of having the audience play along with the game of solving the mystery
with the detective remains. In the classic Conan Doyle texts, readers have a limited knowledge of
what is happening because the point of view is strictly limited to the narrator, John Watson. John
Watson is a representative of the average person who is clever, but is not up to par with Holmes.
With Watson as the narrator, the element of surprise is preserved and the readers are able to
"play the game" with the detective in order to solve the mystery. However, the 21st century
interpretation of Sherlock Holmes twists the classic convention of allowing the audience to have
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limited knowledge by broadening the perspectives of each character and instead letting the
audience have more knowledge of what is happening. The 2010 television show BBC Sherlock,
directed by Steven Moffat and starring Benedict Cumberbatch as Sherlock Holmes and Martin
Freeman as John Watson, successfully illustrates the classic convention of having the audience
"play a game" with the detective story and updates it to appeal to a current day audience.
Unlike having the audience look through John Watson's eyes in the Conan Doyle texts,
the camera in the television show ultimately becomes the omniscient narrator and sets its own
boundaries on what it wants the audience to know. In text, it is absolutely necessary for an
ordinary person like John Watson to narrate the stories because there are no particular visuals
that are given; the audience only knows what Watson knows. However, the television show
broadens the points of view and communicates to the audience visually. In episode 1, "A Study
in Pink," which explores four serial suicides, the camera becomes one as Sherlock's eyes. Into 24
minutes of the episode, Sherlock, Watson, and an inspector named Greg Lestrade investigate a
dead woman in a pink coat, who is the last to commit suicide. As Sherlock investigates the dead
body, the camera hovers over where his eyes are and superimposed texts appear to explain his
thoughts. The camera often is at a lower angle and closes up to Sherlock's face during the
investigation. The shots from his face and the body jump back and forth to make the audience
feel as if they were the ones investigating. The audience's attention is drawn to the scene when
the superimposed texts appear and slight sound effects are added in to create a more visualizing
scene. When Sherlock puts his fingers under the woman's collar and discovers that it is wet, the
superimposed text "wet" shows up above Sherlock's fingers and the sound effect of a rainstorm
can be heard in the background. During this investigation, there are a few shots that focus on the
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confused expressions of Watson and investigator Lestrade. These shots reveal how Watson and
Lestrade are unable to comprehend and understand what Sherlock is doing as he investigates, but
it also allows the audience to feel confident and feel as if they are sharing the knowledge with
Sherlock, whom no one is able to figure out. High key lighting is used when the camera is
focused on Sherlock's investigations of the dead body, such as the ring the dead woman is
wearing, or the umbrella she has been carrying before her death. Also while Sherlock is
investigating, an exciting instrumental is playing in the background, and this forces the audience
to share the same emotion with Sherlock as well: excitement. Sherlock becomes overly joyful
when a new case surfaces, and the four serial suicides gives Sherlock adrenaline, thus making
Sherlock feel even more joy when he is investigating because he is doing what he ultimately
loves the most as a detective.
Literary scholar George N. Dove discusses that the role of the audience in the classic
Conan Doyle texts is "both recreational and intellectual; the [audience] voluntarily accepts the
limits, in order to permit the game to be played" (4). In the Conan Doyle texts, solving the
mystery is a game and the audience is just a player who can only use what is given to them. The
same idea is applied to the BBC Sherlock television show, but the television show now places
the audience as a player who is given the clues before the other characters have access to those
clues. Permitting the audience to have the clues beforehand is acceptable because the television
show must be able to relate to the current audience as the 21st century becomes more
technologically driven and people desire immediate results instead of having to wait. In an essay
about the 21st century Sherlock Holmes, literary scholar, Rhonda Harris Taylor, says that
"information overload is actually an important part of the paradigm" (141). Although many
clues are thrown at the audience, they are still accustomed to their automated way of thinking
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and they must depend on Sherlock to explain everything eventually; psychologist and journalist
Maria Konnikova emphasizes that the audience is lacking the "natural skepticism and
inquisitiveness toward the world," further proving their inabilities for deductions like Sherlock
Holmes (17).
The element of surprise that is used in the Conan Doyle text is presented differently in the
television series. Once again, the television series uses the camera to tackle several perspectives
of different characters, place the limits on what the audience should know, and later presents the
element of surprise. Literary scholar Leroy Panek notes that the original Conan Doyle texts uses
"the narrator's ignorance to hide important facts and through him can praise the detective and
keep him civilly reticent at the same time" (80). In episode 6, "The Reichenbach Fall," Sherlock
is forced to fight against his enemy, Jim Moriarty, who tries to destroy Sherlock's reputation.
Near the end of the episode, Sherlock is left with the decision to kill himself by falling off of a
building and die in disgrace or have his loved ones killed. In the scene where Sherlock is
standing on top of a building and Watson watching from the ground, the camera shifts its point
of view from Sherlock and Watson continuously. A tragic instrumental is playing in the
background to force the audience to feel sadness. When the camera is focusing on Watson, the
handheld camera movement is applied to further emphasize Watson's conflicting emotion and
panic as Sherlock is about to jump off. The camera also puts itself in Watson's perspective as he
is watching Sherlock on the roof during their "last" phone call; the camera is in a low angle
behind Watson. The shot often switches to Sherlock looking down at Watson from the building,
putting the camera in a high angle. The edits are made abruptly to show the different
perspectives of both characters. When Sherlock finally jumps off, Watson runs toward Sherlock,
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but he is knocked over by a bicycle rider. The camera is now at a oblique angle, which
emphasizes how confused and devastated Watson is, and how strange the entire situation is.
Until this point, the audience is forced to believe that Sherlock truly threw himself off of the roof.
However, at the very end of the episode when Watson visits Sherlock's "grave," the camera
slowly shifts from Watson grieving to a normal, uninjured Sherlock in the background, letting
the audience know that Sherlock did not kill himself. Literary scholar, George N. Dove, says that
the audience "proceeds with confidence that the mystery will be solved" at the very end (18).
However, the television series twists this slightly by allowing the audience to see that Sherlock is
alive, but does not explain how he had survived the fall. The episode ends with a close up of
Sherlock's face, leaving the audience the assurance the fact that Sherlock had survived. In this
episode, BBC twists the convention of letting the audience know the resolution at the end by
instead giving the audience a cliffhanger without a full explanation. This is to create anticipation
for the next season and forcing the audience to become more excited for the next episode in the
series. In this episode, the audience is also playing the "game" but the audience is forced to focus
mostly on Watson's perspective to create a more dramatic effect. When revealing too early how
Sherlock survived, the audience will be unable to connect with Watson and share the same
emotions that he feels when he watches Sherlock fall.
The 21st century interpretation of Sherlock Holmes takes the classic conventions that are
used in the Conan Doyle stories and twists them in a fashionable way in order to appeal to the
modern audience. Although BBC's stories of Sherlock are different than Conan Doyle's stories,
the essential formulaic structure of a detective story remains.


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Works Cited
Dove, George N. The Reader and the Detective Story. Bowling Green, OH: Bowling Green State
University Popular Press, 1997. Print.
Konnikova, Maria. Mastermind: How to Think Like Sherlock Holmes. New York: Viking, 2013.
Print.
Panek, Leroy. An Introduction to the Detective Story. Bowling Green, OH: Bowling Green State
University Popular Press, 1987. Print.
Taylor, Rhonda Harris. "The 'Great Game' Of Information." Sherlock Holmes for the 21st
Century. ed. Lynette Porter. Jefferson, NC: Macfarland & Company, 2012. 128-142.
Print.