Sherlock Holmes: Discovering the Border Burghs and, by deduction, the Brig Bazaar

This one is a review (I would never dare attempt to write a Sherlock Holmes story), and also an occasion for a few musings.

I came across Sherlock Holmes: Discovering the Border Burghs and, by deduction, the Brig Bazaar by accident. I was actually reading a political blog when I stumbled upon a link to it. (This link, specifically.)

This is a newly rediscovered Sherlock Holmes story, and learning of its existence caused...mixed emotions for me. Let me explain:

I get unduly attached to fictional characters. When I find a series I like, I read (or watch) it from beginning to end, skipping nothing, and not being interrupted by any other story. I might have a TV show I'm watching and a book I'm reading, but I'll never have two TV shows nor two books going at the same time. I don't binge, usually. One episode a night is sufficient, but I do read or watch an episode just about every night. (I will confess I'm worse with novels here. A TV show or series of short stories have nice breaks at every episode, even if there is a cliffhanger. The chapters of a novel don't feel nearly as clear-cut.)

Anyway, this is all well and good until the series ends. I usually read or watch series that are no longer being produced because I don't like having to wait a long time between episodes. This means that the end is known. There is no wondering if the author will write another one, or if the show will get another season. Once it's over, it's over.

The problem is, there are only a few ways a series can end, and all of them are sad. First, if it's really and solidly episodial in nature, it might not even have to acknowledge that this is the end. Sherlock Holmes, for example, could have ended this way. (It didn't--it tried to give you some closure--but it could have.) You got to see the characters doing what they always do one last time, and, at the end of it, you can do nothing but assume that they will continue to do so...only you won't be there any more. It's like friends moving away. They are still out there, existing as they always were, but you don't get to see them anymore, and if you did, it wouldn't be the same.

Second, it might not be really and solidly episodial in nature, but it still doesn't acknowledge that it has ended (for example, the producers were expecting another season). Not only did your friends move away, but they moved away right smack in the middle of a conversation you were having.

Third, it might tie up all (or most) of its loose ends. This is sad because of the dreadful finality that it entails. As long as Earth is in danger, SG-1 will show up to save it, but what happens when the Goa'uld and the Replicators and the Ori are all decisively defeated? This isn't so much friends moving away as co-workers retiring. Even if you did see them again, it would be out of context. What would you talk about, without all the open problems that still need solving?

Fourth, and worst, it might overstay its welcome. Sometimes series keep going until well after the writers have any more good ideas, and so they crash and burn. Characters you once loved morph into people you despise. Worlds that were initially promising and complex become Byzantine mazes of self-contradicting twists. Plot lines that were once amusing get drawn out ad nauseum. Then the series ends because you, the reader (or watcher) leave. This is by far the worst of all. You cannot even miss it properly once it (or rather, you) are gone. You are not left wondering what they are up to now. You know, and the truth is ugly.

I read the Sherlock Holmes stories from start to finish and loved just about every single minute of it. I stuck to the cannon. If Doyle didn't write it, it's not Sherlock Holmes. I do like the Robert Downey Jr.  movies, and I gave the BBC Sherlock an honest try, but both of these serve mainly to remind me of the good times I had reading the original stories. The ending was somewhere between the first and third type. There really weren't many loose ends to tie up, but Doyle did try to say a proper farewell to the reader.

I have been trying very hard to forget these stories since the moment I put the last one down. After all, the sooner I can forget them, the sooner I can enjoy them anew. I know it will never really be the same. I can never read them for the first time again. No matter how long I wait, I'm afraid there are little details that will always stick in my memory, mostly forgotten, but recalled just before the critical moment to ruin everything, but I can try, and perhaps it will be almost as good.

What there won't be is any real suspense. Oh, I won't always remember who did it or how Sherlock Holmes figured it out, but I will know that I won't be disappointed. Holmes will always be brilliant; Watson will always be droll; the criminal will usually be caught. There won't be any risk. Every new episode in a series is a risk, and that, strangely, is part of the fun. Stargate, for example, had an episode that gave every indication of being a crash-and-burn turning point, after which nothing would be the same, after which I might not even continue watching, until at the last minute there was a brilliant twist that set everything right (which, in retrospect, I should have absolutely seen coming). That's what good series do: Bring you to the brink of disaster only to snatch you safely back at the last possible moment. I don't know why, but we humans enjoy that. In a series you've read before, it can never be quite so satisfying because you know, whatever the details were, that everything ended okay.

This is why a long-lost episode in a series I've finished and loved is the cause of mixed emotions. Do I read it? Do I take the risk that this might be the crash-and-burn episode? Do I dare to see my old friends again? What if they aren't as I remembered them? If they are, can I bare to say good-bye a second time?

I read it. After all that emotional build-up (which admittedly was more drawn out in this "review" than it was at the time--as I said, I've taken this as an occasion to muse a bit) it was really a little anti-climactic. The story was very short (less than 2,000 words), the stakes were very low, Holmes was Holmes, and Watson was Watson. I got to be with my old friends, but only for a moment. They never knew I was there.

And that is really the fundamental difficulty. Fictional characters are, at the end of the day, fictional. No matter how many adventures you go on with them, no matter how many of their conversations you listen to, no matter how you laugh at their jokes, they will never be aware of you. That is why the end is The End. Once the series is over, the characters cease existing. They are not co-workers who have retired or friends who have moved away. There is no chance at all that they will ever call or write or show up at your door. They are simply gone, no matter how much we wish it were otherwise. That is why we must not become too attached to any fiction--even fictions as wonderful as Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson.