History MythologyGag / Sherlock

* A nod to an episode and a book: "Vatican Cameos" was used in "A Scandal in Belgravia", while the words originally appeared in ''Literature/TheHoundOfTheBaskervilles.''

* "[[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7yiz7cToJxI Vatican cameos]]" was a code phrase used in World War 2 on British military bases when identifying an armed intruder in an occupied area - a signal for everyone to duck out of the line of fire. Sherlock knew that John, being a military man, would recognize it and duck out of the way of the gun [[spoiler:in Irene Adler's safe]]. Best part? The military appropriated it from a throwaway line in ''Literature/TheHoundOfTheBaskervilles''. Meta!

* Mary [[spoiler: shoots Sherlock]] on their next meeting, only to find out that [[spoiler: it's a dummy]]. The same trick was used in ''The Adventure of the Empty House'' and ''The Adventure of the Mazarin Stone''.

* One of Watson's patients was dressed exactly like how Holmes was disguised in the story "The Empty House" and even recited Holmes's little speech almost verbatim (except instead of trying to offer Watson antiquarian books, he was peddling porn). The man was not Holmes.

* One of the client cases involving a stepfather posing as a false boyfriend in order to put his stepdaughter off dating is basically the plot of "A Case of Identity"
** The stepfather's last name is "Windebank", same as the stepfather in "A Case of Identity".

* The whole episode is based off a few lines from Sherlock in "The Adventure Of The Empty House", of how he travelled around the world after faking his death.

* The episode teaser-short alludes to Holmes exploits during the two years after he faked his death. The story of him infiltrating a sect of breakaway warrior monks alludes to a line in "The Empty House": "I travelled for two years in Tibet, therefore, and amused myself by visiting Lhassa and spending some days with the head Llama." And the story of him cracking a case in India by measuring how far a chocolate flake had sunk into some ice cream comes from a throwaway line in "the Six Napoleons" about how he solved the Abernetty Case by measuring how far the parsley had sunk into the butter.

* Mycroft's morbid obesity in the Victorian story is taken straight from the books, which portray him as extremely fat and sedentary. H
ere, he's having a bet with Sherlock over when exactly he'll die after regularly eating all sorts of unhealthy things.

* Mycroft's morbid obesity in the Victorian story is taken straight from the books, which portray him as extremely fat and sedentary. Here, he's having a bet with Sherlock over when exactly he'll die after regularly eating all sorts of unhealthy things.

* The episode teaser-short alludes to Holmes exploits during the two years after he faked his death. The story of him infiltrating a sect of breakaway warrior monks alludes to a line in "The Empty House": "I travelled for two years in Tibet, therefore, and amused myself by visiting Lhassa and spending some days with the head Llama." And the story of him cracking a case in India by measuring how far s chocolate flake had sunk into some ice cream comes from a throwaway line in "the Six Napoleons" about how he solved the Abernetty Case by measuring how far the parsley had sunk into the butter.

** And to canon itself, since the mustache is mentioned in the Charles Augustus Milverton case

* John's blog entry "[[http://www.johnwatsonblog.co.uk/blog/16june The Geek Interpreter]]" has several references to the original, "The Greek Interpreter". The client's name is Melas, the name of the interpreter in the original and KRATIDES, the fictional organisation, is the name of the Greek prisoner. The names Davenport, Kemp, Latimer, and Sophy are also taken from the original story. Mention of 'a storyline about Latimer, one of the superheroes, defeating two masked terrorists on Shaftesbury Avenue...' might also be a reference to how Sophy originally killed her captors.

* Also from ''The Woman in Green'' is the sequence where Moriarty enters 221 B Baker street and starts to sneak up the stairs while Sherlock's violin plays in the background. He steps on a squeaky step, the violin stops for a second and then starts again. Moriarty walks up the stairs normaly knowing perfectly well that Sherlock is aware that Moriarty is coming.

** Speaking of which, the deerstalker is a result of an illustration when Holmes was in the country, when it and tweeds would be appropriate wear. Due to not having time to change, he's forced to wear it to the morgue at the start of the episode. And then he ends up on ''another'' case in the countryside. [[spoiler:And then John forces it on him instead of more appropriate wear because "[he's] Sherlock Holmes".]]

[[folder: Victorian Christmas Special]]

* "The Bloody Guardsman" resembles "The Adventure Of The Crooked Man." Both are "locked-room" type mysteries, where the victim is a soldier and the setting is an army camp.

* Hudson also complains about how the apartment seems so dull in the stories. Watson blames the illustrator, and says he had to grow a moustache so people would recognize him.

* "[[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PQvnXfTkwiw Vatican cameos]]" was a code phrase used in World War 2 on British military bases when identifying an armed intruder in an occupied area - a signal for everyone to duck out of the line of fire. Sherlock knew that John, being a military man, would recognize it and duck out of the way of the gun [[spoiler:in Irene Adler's safe]]. Best part? The military appropriated it from a throwaway line in ''Literature/TheHoundOfTheBaskervilles''. Meta!

* The main plotline is, essentially, ''VForVendetta'' crossed with Guy Ritchie's ''Film/SherlockHolmes''. The shot of Westminster exploding and the shot of hot gas seeping into the House of Commons from a bench grate are copied from each of the two films, respectively.

* "Vatican cameos" is a reference to a throwaway line in ''Literature/TheHoundOfTheBaskervilles'' about a case Holmes had worked on.

* The episode teaser-short alludes to Holmes exploits during the two years after he faked his death. The story of him infiltrating a sect of breakaway warrior monks alludes to a line in "The Empty House": "I travelled for two years in Tibet, therefore, and amused myself by visiting Lhassa and spending some days with the head Llama." And the story of him cracking a case in India by measuring how far s leaf of parsley had sunk into some ice cream comes from a throwaway line in "the Six Napoleons" about how he solved the Abernetty Case.

* Holmes refers to the man who disappears from subway train as "the big rat" (a reference to him calling certain people markers of upcoming terrorist activity, like "rats leaving a sinking ship"). He then deduces that the train car that was detached from the train (the method by which the man seemingly disappeared) was left at the Sumatra road station. This would make the disappearing man a figurative "Giant Rat of Sumatra", which was mentioned by Holmes in "The Essex Vampire".

* [[http://www.johnwatsonblog.co.uk/blog/02september The Aluminium Crutch:]] The name of the detective in the play is a reference to [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sidney_Paget the original illustrator]] of the short stories and novels, who had the same name.

* [[http://www.johnwatsonblog.co.uk/blog/27may The Poison Giant]]: Giles Conover gets his name fromthe Basil Rathbone film ''Film/ThePearlOfDeath'', and the Headcrusher is based on the Hoxton Creeper from the same film. Swandale, as noted above, is based on the tribesman from ''The Sign of the Four''.

* Sherlock calls Magnussen "The Napoleon of Blackmail." In "The Final Problem", he called Professor Moriarty "The Napoleon of Crime."

* John's blog entry "The Geek Interpreter" has several references to the original, "The Greek Interpreter". The client's name is Melas, the name of the interpreter in the original and KRATIDES, the fictional organisation, is the name of the Greek prisoner. The names Davenport, Kemp, Latimer, and Sophy are also taken from the original story. Mention of 'a storyline about Latimer, one of the superheroes, defeating two masked terrorists on Shaftesbury Avenue...' might also be a reference to how Sophy originally killed her captors.
* "The Speckled Blonde" is an ''inversion'' of "The Speckled Band" [[spoiler: It looks like she was killed by a snake, but she wasn't]].