History YMMV / SherlockHolmes

* SeasonalRot: Beginning with "The Case-Book of Sherlock Holmes" the series began to decline. For the first few seasons, the production team had cherry-picked the best and most well-known stories to adapt, now they were left with average to mediocre ones. Special mention goes to "The Last Vampyre" and "The Eligible Bachelor" which were especially dreadful.

** In "The Adventure of the Noble Bachelor," Holmes expresses a hope that the U.S. would rejoin the U.K. An...eccentric position when the story was written, but with the popularity of [[Webcomic/AxisPowersHetalia USUK]], [[FanPreferredCouple he has plenty of support on that,]] [[{{Shipping}} albeit in a different sense]]. An additional layer of hilarity is that this is one of the goals of ''the villain'' in the 2009 Holmes film.

* CompleteMonster: Some of the villains Holmes goes up against. The counterfeiters from "The Engineer's Thumb", the villain in "The Illustrious Client", the eponymous Charles Augustus Silverton, the AssholeVictim of "The Devil's Foot", and the killer in "The Adventure of the Retired Colourman." To name a few.

* FanNickname:
** [[invoked]] The Agent - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle; a reference to the LiteraryAgentHypothesis.
** The Master - Literature/SherlockHolmes.
** The Good Doctor - Watson. [[Series/DoctorWho No relation]].
*** [[EpilepticTrees As far as you know.]]
*** The ''Series/DoctorWho'' screenwriters [[Series/{{Sherlock}} aren't helping the confusion.]]
** John "Three Continents" Watson - the three continents in question refer to the [[TheCasanova number and variety of the women he's sampled.]]

** [[Film/HarryPotter Cornelius Fudge]] as Charles Augustus Milverton.

* FandomRivalry: ''Series/{{Elementary}}'' vs. ''Series/{{Sherlock}}'' aside, you would see fans butting heads on each other regarding which actor played Sherlock Holmes the best. Usually, it would be Creator/BasilRathbone fans vs. Vasily Livanov fans vs. Creator/JeremyBrett fans. Then, toss in Creator/BenedictCumberbatch fans and it's an all-out war. The only thing that most fans agree on is that none of them like Creator/RobertDowneyJr's portrayal and only see him as [[Comicbook/IronMan Tony Stark]] rather than Holmes.

* ValuesResonance: The last few paragraphs of "The Yellow Face". To clarify, Effie Munro [[spoiler:had married a black man in America and had a child with him before he died of disease]]. [[TheGayNineties Considering the time period]] and their attitudes on [[spoiler:non-whites]], this is quite remarkable. Then her husband (Grant Munro) quietly tells her that she could have just confided in him from the start, [[spoiler: picks up the girl and kisses her affectionately]] and tells his wife [[SugarWiki/HeartwarmingMoments that he would find a way to make it work out for all if them.]]

** Nearly every interpretation of Sherlock Holmes is different from the last. The base character seems to be a cool, brilliant, strait-laced and classy hero-for-hire (sort of like the Creator/BasilRathbone version), but later adaptations have branched into two (equally accurate but not mutually exclusive) interpretations: the BunnyEarsLawyer Sherlock Holmes, who is a {{Cloudcuckoolander}} while being disturbingly competent (see [[Film/SherlockHolmes2009 the Guy Ritchie/Robert Downey Jr. version]] or Disney's animated ''Disney/TheGreatMouseDetective'') or an anti-social {{Jerkass}} who is highly manipulative and insensitive, often out of lack of understanding rather than malice (see ''Series/{{Sherlock}}'' and ''Series/{{Elementary}}''). Naturally, expect a great deal of overlap within these two fields, but most interpretations will lean towards one or the other.

* SeasonalRot: Beginning with "The Case-Book of Sherlock Holmes" the series began to decline. For the first few seasons, the production team had cherry-picked the best and most well-known stories to adapt, now they were left with average to mediocre ones, and some of the episodes began to derail from their source material. Special mention goes to "The Last Vampyre" and "The Eligible Bachelor" which were the final feature length episodes which bear '''no''' resemblance to the ''short'' stories they were supposed to be based on.

* FandomRivalry: ''Series/{{Elementary}}'' vs. ''Series/{{Sherlock}}'' aside, you would see fans butting heads on each other regarding which actor played Sherlock Holmes the best. Usually, it would be Creator/BasilRathbone fans vs. Vasily Livanov fans vs. Creator/JeremyBrett fans. Then, toss in Creator/BenedictCumberbatch fans and it's an all-out war. The only thing that most fans agree on is that none of them like Creator/RobertDowneyJr's portrayal and only see him as [[Comicbook/IronMan Tony Stark]] rather than Holmes.

** In "The Devil's Foot" it turns out that Dr. Sterndale was in love with Brenda Tregennis (one of the initial murder victims) for years, and vice versa, but they couldn't marry because Sterndale was unable to divorce his current wife. When he learns that Brenda and her brothers not only died in agony but the murderer used a poison stolen from him, he tracks him down and kills him using the same poison...but is left devastated at Brenda's death and with nothing left now except his work in Africa. Holmes and Watson are moved and let him depart.

* Tearjerker: Employing Holmes on a case can’t always give happy endings. Sometimes what he uncovers is tragedy that cannot be repaired.

* ValuesDissonance: Sir Arthur's depiction of the Mormons as a ReligionOfEvil in ''A Study in Scarlet'' was completely uncontroversial at the time (Creator/JulesVerne also did it in ''Literature/AroundTheWorldInEightyDays''), whereas his portrayal of the KKK as a murderous secret society in "The Five Orange Pips" was not. [[AcceptableTargets Nowadays, it's the opposite.]]

** [[Series/StarTrekTheNextGeneration Deanna Troi]] as Lucretia Venucci.

* GenrePopularizer: Arguably the character that jumpstarted the detective story.

* TookALevelInJerkass: Sherlock Holmes pretty famously became a bigger asshole than he ever was before from "The Empty House" and onward. Given that Doyle hadn't wanted to resurrect the character, it's hard not to see this change as a result of his bitterness.

** Creator/TimMcInnerny as Lord Percy/Captain Darling]] as Vincent Spaulding.

** [[Series/OneFootInTheGrave Victor Meldrew]] as Duncan Ross.

** Nearly every interpretation of Sherlock Holmes is different from the last. The base character seems to be as a cool, brilliant, strait-laced and classy hero-for-hire (sort of like the Creator/BasilRathbone version), but later adaptations have branched into two (equally accurate but not mutually exclusive) interpretations: the BunnyEarsLawyer Sherlock Holmes, who is a {{Cloudcuckoolander}} while being disturbingly competent (see [[Film/SherlockHolmes2009 the Guy Ritchie/Robert Downey Jr. version]] or Disney's animated ''Disney/TheGreatMouseDetective'') or an anti-social {{Jerkass}} who is highly manipulative and insensitive, often out of lack of understanding rather than malice (see ''Series/{{Sherlock}}'' and ''Series/{{Elementary}}''). Naturally, expect a great deal of overlap within these two fields, but most interpretations will lean towards one or the other.

* FandomRivalry: ''Series/{{Elementary}}'' vs. ''Series/{{Sherlock}}'' aside, you would see fans butting heads on each other regarding which actor played Sherlock Holmes the best. Usually, it would be Creator/BasilRatborne fans vs. Vasily Livanov fans vs. Creator/JeremyBrett fans. Then, toss in Creator/BenedictCumberbatch fans and it's an all-out war. The only thing that most fans agree on is that none of them like Creator/RobertDowneyJr's portrayal and only see him as [[Comicbook/IronMan Tony Stark]] rather than Holmes.

* FandomRivalry: ''Series/{{Elementary}}'' vs. ''Series/{{Sherlock}}'' aside, you would see fans butting heads on each other regarding which actor played Sherlock Holmes the best. Usually, it would be Creator/BasilRathborne fans vs. Vasily Livanov fans vs. Creator/JeremyBrett fans. Then, toss in Creator/BenedictCumberbatch fans and Creator/JonnyLeeMiller fans and it's an all-out war.

*** The films featuring Creator/BasilRathbone have also been suggested as the origin of the calabash. However, Rathbone smoked an apple-bowled black briar pipe with a half bend (made by Dunhill) in his first two Sherlock Holmes movies (the ones produced by Creator/TwentiethCenturyFox and set in the Victorian era), and in the next dozen movies (which were produced by Creator/{{Universal}} and [[SettingUpdate set in the 1940s]]), he smokes a Peterson half bend with a billiard-shaped bowl. There ''is'' a calabash pipe in ''The Spider Woman''... but Holmes doesn't smoke it.

** Similarly, Holmes is popularly assumed to smoke a calabash pipe with a meerschaum bowl. However, this wasn't mentioned in the text either, nor was he ever drawn smoking one on Paget's illustrations (he always depicted him smoking a cherrywood pipe). Where the idea of him smoking a calabash pipe came from is a mystery.
** Watson spent ''decades'' being imagined as a clumsy, boorish, dimwitted oaf. In reality, ''Doctor'' Watson was consistently depicted as quite intelligent in the original stories (he wasn't as smart as Sherlock, [[OvershadowedByAwesome but that's hardly a knock against him]]). After all, idiots generally don't become army doctors. He certainly wasn't physically incompetent either. "The Adventure of the Sussex Vampire" mentions that he used to play rugby union for Blackheath F.C., which is hardly something you'd expect from a wimpy klutz. While we're on the subject, Watson wasn't fat, and the stories consistently describe him as "[[HeroicBuild strongly-built]]". In fact, he was probably better-looking than Holmes. These misconceptions were probably the result of film adaptations making Watson [[AdaptationalDumbass dumber]], [[AdaptationalWimp less competent]] and [[AdaptationalUgliness less attractive]]. This is, however, starting to change, thanks to multiple recent adaptations that were TruerToTheText in regards to Watson.

** Watson spent ''decades'' being imagined as a clumsy, boorish, dimwitted oaf. In reality, ''Doctor'' Watson was consistently depicted as quite intelligent in the original stories (he wasn't as smart as Sherlock, [[OvershadowedByAwesome but that's hardly a knock against him]]). After all, idiots generally don't become army doctors. He certainly wasn't physically incompetent either. While we're on the subject, Watson wasn't fat, and the stories consistently describe him as "[[HeroicBuild strongly-built]]". In fact, he was probably better-looking than Holmes. These misconceptions were probably the result of film adaptations making Watson [[AdaptationalDumbass dumber]], [[AdaptationalWimp less competent]] and [[AdaptationalUgliness less attractive]]. This is, however, starting to change, thanks to multiple recent adaptations that were TruerToTheText in regards to Watson.

* ValuesResonance: The last few paragraphs of "The Yellow Face". To clarify, Effie Munro [[spoiler:had married a black man in America and had a child with him before he died of disease]]. [[TheGayNineties Considering the time period]] and their attitudes on [[spoiler:non-whites]], this is quite remarkable. Then her husband (Grant Munro) quietly tells her that she could have just confided in him from the start, [[spoiler: picks up the girl and kisses her affectionately]] and tells his wife [[CrowningMomentOfHeartwarming that he would find a way to make it work out for all if them.]]