Sherlock s01e04 Episode Script

MAN: Turning over.
585, take one, A camera.
Action! S.
MOFFAT (creator) : This all began on the train to Cardiff, appropriately enough, because Mark and I were both working on different episodes of Doctor Who.
And we'd sit on the train together - we always get the train together so we can chat - and we talked about our other great obsession, which was Sherlock Holmes.
The name's Sherlock Holmes and the address is 221 B Baker Street.
We did this little dance, not literally, in the compartment, around the fact that our favourite Sherlock Holmes is still the Basil Rathbone/Nigel Bruce movies of the '30s and '40s.
We thought they were actually rather more fun, and in certain ways, in certain tonal ways, certain humorous ways, truer to the originals than many grander and more important film versions.
And what we kept saying to each other was, "Someday, someone is going to think of doing that again.
"Someday, someone is going to do Sherlock Holmes and Dr Watson "in the modern day.
" And we thought, "And we'll feel so cross, because we should have done it.
" And we had this conversation, I don't know, 20-odd times, probably, over years.
And then suddenly, it formed very quickly, the idea, in a very exciting train journey, and in a very Sherlock Holmes way.
I'm sure we were sitting either side of the compartment, going like that.
It was a proper Sherlock Holmes journey.
The idea of blowing away the fog from it.
And I once mentioned it to my wife, Sue, who said, "Well, why don't you do it?" And it was a kind of light-bulb moment, if you like.
"We should just do this present-day.
" And that's when it properly began.
We actually started focusing on putting it together, as opposed to bemoaning the fact that someone else was bound to do it first.
- You read his blog? - Of course I read his blog.
We all do.
You've brought me here to send a text.
[GUNSHOTS.]
It seemed to us - and this is just our point of view - that it's become so much about the trappings, about the hansom cabs, the costume, the fog, Jack the Ripper will creep in here It's become a sort of strange maelstrom of stuff.
There's a wealth of Victorian Sherlocks out there and I love them.
There are tons of them.
Why not just try it in the modern day and see how it works? And I think the clinching moment for both of us, and for everyone else we'd spoken to, was when we realised, if we took the story from the beginning, that the original stories began with Dr John Watson being invalided home from Afghanistan, and we realised, well, of course, that could happen just as easily today.
Watson! [EXPLOSIONS.]
Watson, in this scenario, it's the same in the book, he comes back from Kandahar, from war, but rather like a lot of the clever adaptations, what's changed about it is obviously it's a modern context, so instead of writing a journal, he's keeping a blog MOFFAT : One of the fun things is, as you update it, as you find each equivalent, you think I remember Mark thinking, "He wouldn't write a journal now, he wouldn't write memoirs.
"He'd write a blog.
" And suddenly you realise, of course, that tells you what memoirs were.
They were blogs.
And he wouldn't have teams of homeless children.
He'd have homeless people on the streets selling the Big Issue.
- Spare change, sir? - Don't mind if I do.
MOFFAT: In a way, it allows you to see the original stories the way the original reader would have read them - as exciting, cutting-edge, contemporary stories, as opposed to these relics that they've become.
And it's just endless fun to take the little details and realise how easily, how neatly they update.
X1 004, take five.
Action! [PHONE RINGS.]
Hello? [WOMAN CRIES.]
HelloSexy.
Who is this? I'vesent you a little puzzle.
[SNIFFS.]
Just to say hi.
Who's talking? Why are you crying? I'm not.
I'm not crying.
I'mtyping.
And this stupidbitch is reading it out.
MOFFAT: I suppose one should feel extra pressure if you're adapting or working on something that you've always loved, but the truth is, that is so completely blotted out and obscured by the fact it's, "Ooh, it's our turn.
We get to do it now.
"It's me and Mark doing our Sherlock Holmes series.
" And we still giggle like schoolgirls that we've got this.
So, yeah, the pressure's there.
The pressure's always there.
Who cares about pressure? It's the fun.
It's the absolute joy that 221 B Baker Street is our address, just for this little while.
And that's too exciting to be worried about the pressure.
GATISS: I think that sometimes, as with James Bond, there are half a dozen possible Bonds.
Sometimes there's just one.
And Benedict just sort of leapt into our minds.
Benedict was a hugely simple decision for us.
Sue and I were watching Atonement.
We saw Benedict Cumberbatch.
We were thinking, "Oh, he looks like a Sherlock Holmes.
" Mark knows Benedict.
He instantly thought that was a good idea, so we just sent the script to him and he came in and read for us, and we all thought, "Well, it's just not going to get better than that, is it? "That's perfect.
" And we cast him.
He is the only person ever to have been sent that script for the part of Sherlock Holmes, and the only person to audition for it.
So it was as simple as that.
There's a huge honour to be asked to play that in the first place, but you have to be careful.
Your vanity can trick you into taking the wrong job sometimes.
So you always read the script.
That's the main thing you go to.
And they're justsublime.
It's a murder.
All of them.
I don't know how, I don't know how, but they're not suicides - they're killings.
Serial killings.
We've got a serial killer.
Oh, I love those.
Something to look forward to.
It's a wonderful combination of playing a hero who isa faulted human being.
There's an awful lot of him that is dangerous and perverse and interesting and great stuff to get your teeth into as an actor, and at the same time, he is a Class A hero, you know? Sorry, Mrs Hanson, I'll skip the tea.
Off out.
Both of you? Possible suicides, four of them.
There's no point sitting at home when there's finally something fun going on! Look at you, all happy.
It's not decent.
Who cares about decent? The game, Mrs Hudson, is on.
Casting John Watson was a much longer process because I think once you've got one side of the partnership, you've got to find the fit.
The clincher with Martin was, the chemistry was instant.
Martin's presence in the room changed the way Benedict played the part.
It was again a very, very easy decision.
You saw them standing together and said, "Oh, well, that's a television series, right there.
" What's this about, the case? - Her case.
- Her case? Suitcase, yes, obviously.
The murderer took her suitcase.
First big mistake.
OK.
He took her case.
So? It's no use.
There's no other way.
I'll have to risk it.
There's a phone number on my desk.
I want you to send a text.
I suppose, with John and Sherlock, chemistry either happens or not and you can't really manufacture it and you can't really do anything but hope it's going to happen.
You're a doctor.
In fact, you're an army doctor.
Yes.
Any good? Very good.
Seen a lot of injuries, then? Violent deaths? Hmm, yes.
Bit of trouble, too, I bet? Of course.
Yes.
Enough for a lifetime.
Far too much.
Want to see some more? Oh, God, yes.
And I'd liked Benedict from a distance.
I'd liked his work for a long time.
And I was looking forward to working with him.
But then there's no guarantee you'll work well together, and thank God we have, really, you know.
Because, yeah, we're two quite different people with I guess we're quite different actors.
I think we want to arrive at the same place, which is hopefully not too showy, not too, erhammy.
I think there was a friendship instantly between Martin and Benedict.
They're not at all like the parts they play, at all, really.
But the relationship between them really informs the much pricklier on-screen relationship.
Because obviously, Sherlock's a quite cruel man at times and John's quite a put-upon man at times.
And you won't buy that, you won't enjoy that unless you absolutely feel in every scene, in every heartbeat, that there is that proper underlying warmth, that real, proper, solid friendship.
And that friendship has actually happened between Benedict and Martin.
And the value of that, you get on screen.
It's such a close relationship, Watson and Holmes, and I think for all their adversity and the prickliness of Holmes and how that does often come well, sometimes comes to a crisis, at least, with Watson and Holmes, in order for that to really work on screen it's got to be with two actors who get on well.
- Sorry, what? - There are lives at stake, Sherlock.
Actual human lives.
Just so I know, do you care about that at all? - Will caring about them help save them? - No.
Then I'll continue not to make that mistake.
- And you find that easy, do you? - Yes, very.
Is that news to you? No.
No.
I've disappointed you.
Good.
That's a good deduction, yeah.
Don't make people into heroes, John.
Heroes don't exist, and if they did, I wouldn't be one of them.
Conan Doyle's genius in creating those characters is the friendship between the unlikely friendship between Holmes and Watson.
Sherlock Holmes and John Watson are a fantastic pairing.
They are in many ways not quite chalk and cheese, but they complement each other, really.
It's not a thing of difference being a problem, it's the thing that allies them.
They are the missing half of either party.
- What am I doing here? - Helping me make a point.
I'm supposed to be helping you pay the rent.
- Yeah, well, this is more fun.
- Fun? There's a woman lying dead.
Perfectly sound analysis, but I was hoping you'd go deeper.
Unbeknown to them, like any sort of great relationship or any great chemistry, without knowing it, they realise they've met the right person.
By the end of the first night they've spent together hanging out, they realise that they're going to be very, very good friends.
Because they're a perfect foil for each other.
John is In a way, he's like Sherlock's kind of moral compass.
Because Sherlock's mind is so genuinely brilliant, he doesn't always stop to consider the whys and wherefores or the rights and wrongs of what is.
And John is kind of like his moral barometer there.
And he's a more decent person in a way than Sherlock, because he's more normal.
Sherlock is genuinely extraordinary.
GATISS: We wanted to fetishise modern London in the way, I suppose, that period versions fetishise Victorian London.
Episode 2, which is largely set in the City, we wanted to capture the look of the Gherkin and all those kind of big, glass-and-steel cathedrals of finance.
It's part of a vibrancy which is very exciting to see.
Why have we come to London? Well, because Cardiff has incredible shootability, a word I've just coined for all kinds of things.
Particularly the huge theatre spaces, the amazing epic-looking places.
And also some great matches for parts of London.
But obviously, there are certain things, like the architecture of Baker Street, which you can't really fake.
The whole point is to reinvent Sherlock Holmes as a modern man.
We want his London to be a vibrant and thrilling place.
So we want to have as much of the benefit of these locations as possible.
Action! Action! Hello.
- Ah, Mr Holmes.
- Sherlock, please.
Well, this is a prime spot.
Must be expensive.
Mrs Hudson, the landlady, she's given me a special deal.
Owes me a favour.
A few years back her husband got himself sentenced to death in Florida.
I was able to help out.
Sorry, you stopped her husband being executed? Oh, no, I ensured it.
MRS HUDSON: Sherlock, hello! Mrs Hudson, Dr John Watson.
- Hello.
Come in.
- Hello.
- Thank you.
- Shall we? Cut! SUE VERTUE: Today we're in the middle of the City, and this is our Shad Sanderson bank.
Everyone's seen a Sherlock Holmes.
I think what's different, you've never seen Sherlock Holmes in this scenario, with escalators, with modern technology.
The whole soul of it, I think, is the same, and true to the original Sherlock Holmes stories, but it just has this modern twist.
And it's And taxis and London buses and just this huge expanse.
The more modern things around, the better it sort of works, really, for us.
Action! HOLMES: Two operatives, based in London.
Both travel to Dalian, where they smuggle those vases.
One of them helps himself to something, a little hairpin.
WATSON: Worth °Í9 million.
HOLMES: Eddie Van Coon was the thief.
He stole the treasure when he was in China.
WATSON: How'd you know it was Van Coon, not Lukis? Even the killer didn't know that.
HOLMES: Because of the soap.
THOMPSON: I think the original script, there's pages and pages at the beginning where I try to describe this building, and so it was great for me walking in it this morning and actually seeing the location they'd picked.
I'd not seen it before.
They told me they were coming to Tower 42, but I'd not seen it before, so when I came in this morning and saw it, and I remembered six months ago writing this very vivid, visual description as to what it was going to be like, it was great to finally see it for real and see what they'd chosen.
Yes, when you said we were going to the bank VERTUE: And really, what we're just doing is to give a real sense of London and size and things, so the last few days we've been here, and we've been Trafalgar Square WATSON: You need advice? HOLMES: On painting, yes.
I need to talk to an expert.
SUE VERTUE: It's just the scale of London that you get, from Trafalgar Square and walking up towards the gallery and everything, that you just can't get anywhere else, really.
Chinatown DIRECTOR: OK, just make sure, where B camera's set up, don't obscure our eyeline to Sarah.
We've been to Hungerford Bridge WATSON: Tuesday morning.
All you've got to do is turn up and say the bag was yours.
HOLMES: Forget about your court case.
We've been to Shaftesbury Avenue.
- Ooh, Jesus.
- Right.
- Van Coon came here - Yeah? on the day he died, with a package - whatever was hidden inside that suitcase.
Mm-hm.
I pieced together his movements using scraps of information.
- Sherlock - Credit card bills, receipts.
He came here after he got back from China.
Sherlock Somewhere in this street, somewhere near.
I don't know where Yeah, that shop, over there.
- How do you know? - Lukis's diary.
He was here.
He wrote down the address.
We wanted to show London, not just the normal locations, so there's some big, big locations that they're seeing.
[POP MUSIC PLAYS.]
John, I want you to go up onto the railway line and look for anything that looks like the same colour.
If we're going to decipher this language, we're going to need a lot more evidence.
It's been really interesting for me, seeing the locations.
Some very unusual ones.
I mean, one of the films is particularly about codes and ciphers, and they're painted in different places, like clues.
Very odd tunnels we went into, right on the South Bank, for example.
You realise you live in London and half the time you don't know it at all.
I was just staggered when I saw these things! The first thing we made wasn't any of these three movies.
The first thing we made was a pilot.
The name's Sherlock Holmes, and the address is 221 B Baker Street.
Afternoon.
This pilot wasn't intended as a pilot.
It was intended to be the first episode of our Sherlock Holmes television series, but it was 60 minutes long, because that was the plan.
And the BBC liked it so much they said, "Well, we want three 90s now.
" But the thing about that is you can't simply bolt on another half-hour.
What we had to do, really, was to sort of make it from scratch.
Coky Giedroyc directed the pilot, and did a fantasticjob of it But once you start pulling things apart, you really have to start again, because every scene is probably somewhere else.
John! John Watson! Stamford.
Mike Stamford.
We were at Barts together.
Yes.
Sorry, yes.
Mike, hello.
Yeah, I know.
I got fat.
John! John Watson! Stamford.
Mike Stamford.
We were at Barts together.
- Yes, sorry.
Yes, Mike, hello.
- Yeah, I know, I got fat.
One of the advantages of making a pilot is that you can make the series right.
That means you can look at a pilot, and a pilot is changeable.
You can alter it.
You can say, "Let's change that set, let's alter that location.
" You can say any of those things.
It might seem wasteful.
It truly isn't.
It's the biggest saving you can make, is to have, in effect, a test flight.
And see what this show looks like if it's actually made, as opposed to the theory.
So the shooter's not one of yours, then.
God, no, we didn't have time.
A guy like that would have had enemies, I suppose.
One of them could have been following him.
Whoever it was was gone by the time we got there and we've got nothing to go on.
Oh, I wouldn't say that.
By the time you've got a different DoP, you've got a different camera - which is a far superior camera to the one that we could afford, in fact, on the pilot - it just won't match.
[PHONE RINGS.]
Hello? How do you make them take the poison? What? What did you say? I said, how do you make them take the poison? - Oi! Who are you? - Sherlock Holmes.
Do you like drugs, Sherlock Holmes? - Not in a while.
- I ask because you're very resilient.
Most people would have passed out by now.
Taxi for Sherlock Holmes.
I didn't order a taxi.
Doesn't mean you don't need one.
You're the cabbie.
The one who stopped outside Northumberland Street.
It was you.
Not your passenger.
See, no-one ever thinks about the cabbie.
It's like you're invisible.
Just the back of an 'ead.
Proper advantage for a serial killer.
So even if there are a couple of scenes where we had to say to them, "You couldn't just do what you did in the pilot, could you?" Because, you know, a lot of it did work.
But it was just easier to do it, to shoot it all again, really.
You rarely get the chance to have another go.
And there are all kinds of little things that we've been able to have another look at.
Baker Street itself, the interior of Baker Street.
Well, this could be very nice.
Very nice indeed.
Yes, I think so.
The final sequence in Episode 1 which originally took place in 221 B, now doesn't.
So a lot of the scene is the same but it now takes place somewhere else.
- My flat.
- Of course it is, yeah.
Found your keys in yourjacket.
I thought, well, why not? People like to die at home.
Where are we? You know every street in London.
You know exactly where we are.
Roland-Kerr Further Education College.
Why here? It's open.
Cleaners are in.
One thing about being a cabbie, you always know a nice, quiet spot for a murder.
I'm surprised more of us don't branch out.
The one thing that really, really was significant for us, a real moment for us, was that the scenes that worked best in that pilot were where the modern world was really, really apparent, was really surrounding our characters.
So, ran after a cab.
- I told you that limp was psychosomatic.
- I knew it was.
You did get shot, though.
- Oh, yeah.
In the shoulder.
- Ah.
If you stand Benedict and Martin in the half-light, against a Victorian wall, you wouldn't know it had been updated.
We have an idea now that you really should know in every shot that this is a modern-day Sherlock Holmes, because that's where the show has the most energy and is the most exciting.
221 B Baker Street is a very, very famous address, so it's quite a thrill when you step onto that set for the first time and think, "Right, this is his home in the 21 st century.
" Well, this could be very nice.
BERYL VERTUE: It was interesting for everybody, doing the interior of 221 B Baker Street because, you know, we're not into gas lamps, as I've said to you.
This is contemporary, this is modern-day.
But at the same time, you need for the Sherlock Holmes aficionados not to just lose it totally.
And also Sherlock, be he in the olden days or contemporary, he's still that same eccentric character and he wouldn't live in something that was, you know, too suburban or too modern.
WATSON: So, this is HOLMES: Well, obviously I can straighten things up.
It was really quite a difficult thing to get 221 B exactly right.
Quite often you can go too far down the road of it being too much of a mess, and you think, "Oh, it's like every single item they've ever owned "is now stacked for you to see on every surface, that's too much.
" It has to be a flat that two young fellas believably would live in.
The moment you bring it up to date, it sort of becomes half the familiar Baker Street and half Men Behaving Badly, because that's what it is.
It is these two fellas living in a flat, putting dreadful things in the fridge.
A severed head! - Just tea for me, thanks.
- No, there's a head in the fridge.
- Yes.
- A bloody head! Where else was I supposed to put it? You don't mind, do you? We really loved the scenes that we filmed in the Baker Street studio.
I love the design of it and I love the cosiness of it.
It looks beautiful and you instantly feel like it's a place with history.
You feel like you're Because it's been so well done, it's been so well dressed, so well designed, that it's like you are going into a flat that has been there for 1 50 years.
It's really good.
GATISS: It's one of those curious things, when you're basing something on existing stories and a very familiar world to people, you do have to, sort of, create, as it were, a bible of your version.
We wanted to have things like the jackknife on the mantelpiece which transfixes unopened correspondence.
A curious thing happened on the first day of shooting.
We were dressing various things in and I spotted this picture just there, where it is now.
And in the original stories, Dr Watson has an unframed picture of a man called Henry Ward Beecher.
This is not Henry Ward Beecher, but it's a complete coincidence.
The props people had just dressed in an unframed picture.
I said, "Leave that, that's like a little accidental reference.
" Um And obviously, through there in the kitchen, which Sherlock has just completely converted into his laboratory, we've got a lot of microscope equipment and test tubes and stuff like that.
It would be no accident to open the margarine tub and find a severed finger in there.
His experiments kind of creep out into the rest of everybody's life.
And I think it's quite a funny thing, the idea that they are flatmates and they're supposed to be two units, but Sherlock's interests and obsessions spread out like a mould through the house.
Sherlock! The mess you've made! SUE VERTUE: Today, we are doing the music for Episode 1 .
So David and Michael have done a bass line for the music and then we're now adding all the strings.
[MUTED DISCUSSION.]
I think the first thing was just trying to come up with a central theme and a character for it.
Is there a way of playing this character that, you know, is relevant to the movie that they've made and the character they're making? So, it's discussions with Steven and Sue and Mark, and then both myself and Michael try to find common ground in terms of what is going to be the defining sound of this show.
Here we go.
Eight clicks into three.
So the clicks start on the downbeat of bar one.
Myself and David Arnold are the composers, but we both work with fabulous assistants, programmers, orchestrators, arrangers, lots of people who all work really, really hard to make sure that when we come here for the sessions, everything is done and everything is absolutely flawless.
So, with the musicians, we can Because their time is very, very precious, we can just fly through things.
[DRAMATIC CHORD BUILDS.]
[MUSIC PLAYS.]
Entry at 43, beat 3, please.
SUE VERTUE: Music itself, I think it brings the whole thing together.
You do it at the end.
It is very subjective as well, I think, but it really brings out the drama or the light touch.
You need to know it's there without being overly aware of it, unless it's the time when it's really, you know, stressful and tense, when you really do want to hear that music coming through.
I think there's a lot of that really exciting stuff in this one.
[MUSIC BUILDS.]
GATISS: You know what you want, I think, and sometimes, when music really delivers, it's a fantastically satisfying thing.
You feel like, if your emotions are rising at the time, that the score is taking you along that journey.
Are we doing super-well? Thank you very much for the accelerated pace, guys.
The nature of the way the music has been written for this show We have certain pre-recorded synthetic elements, but I think, once you put real musicians on something, it starts to come to life and adds a real personality.
So I'm very pro having real people playing music for whatever it is, whether it's a TV show, animation or a film.
Notes on page are fine, but I think when you get people actually putting a real performance into something, it can make so much difference tothe way the music sounds, but also the way that you perceive the programme.
[TENSE MUSIC.]
You hope the music speaks for itself, you hope that what you have written is clear enough for them just to play and for it to work.
But from time to time, you can, um Sometimes we'll just turn the screens around and go, "Oh, it's this bit! This is what's happening now.
" And they go, "Oh, now we get it.
Why didn't you say?" So it's a fabulous living, breathing thing.
The exciting thing about Sherlock Holmes is an awful lot of the way forward is already there in the stories, because we have really been quite faithful, in a way, to lots of the ingredients in those stories, but using them in new ways.
What would The Hound Of The Baskervilles be in a modern setting? What would The Speckled Band be in a modern setting? Looking at their stories and updating them and thinking, "What would a haunted house be?" Haunted houses are a stalwart of Sherlock Holmes, but what's a modern haunted house? How would that be now? All those incidents.
We've got stuff from the stories that's never been covered.
Watson spends quite a lot of the stories married.
Are we going to do that? We could.
We could marry off John and have him living somewhere else other than Baker Street.
That's open to us.
All those things are out there for us in the future, and, if you know your Sherlock Holmes, you'll be sort of thinking, "Oh, how are they going to handle that?"