When is a Change not a Change?

We've come a long way from the days when a screen presentation of Sherlock Holmes meant a melodrama involving automobiles, Nazis, and -- if we were lucky -- a vague reference to the title of an actual Canonical adventure. Not that such freewheeling "adaptations" won't continue to be made sometime, somewhere. But today we have relief in the form of the Granada television series.

This article isn't, we hasten to say, a review. Whether particular aspects of the new series make you sigh with delight or tear your hair out is a matter of personal taste. But a bit of reflection on the subject yields some insight into the nature of, adaptations in general, and this one it particular. The first item to note-at the risk of sounding blasphemous-is that the Granada series is not completely faithful to the original stories.

Perhaps a few changes have been obvious to you. For instance, our introduction to Holmes and Watson in the televised SCAN actually comes from SIGN. And you may give yourself bonus points if you knew, without peeking, that in SPEC Holmes did not say, "Mrs. Hudson has been roused." Not that we wish to quarrel with the wisdom of the program's creators, for there was justification for the changes in both cases.

The remarkable thing, of course, is that in the context of these episodes, such liberties qualify as "major" changes. As for the minor changes, they have a fascination all their own. In fact, the Granada series has done a commendable job of altering the Canon only enough so that it remains unchanged. A paradox? Certainly, but not entirely a whimsical one.

The stories are, without question, altered. The evidence is at the ready-make a long arm, won't you, and hand down your copy of the Canon. Conversations are condensed. Events that were, off-stage are dramatized. The action is often rearranged slightly. As a result, it's not quite possible to sit with book in hand and follow along, scene for scene, and word for word.

And yet so skillfully are the alterations made, that watching with book in hand is sometimes the only way to notice them. The scenes may be somewhat different, but they tell the same story. Parts of a character's speech may be deleted, rearranged, or spoken by someone else-but the words that are spoken come straight from the Canon, almost every time.

In short, after viewing any of the Granada episodes, one recognizes without doubt that these are, indeed, the same tales we know so well.-That's where the paradox comes in. Had there been no changes made at all, the stories would have seemed much duller than the ones we remember.

For instance, try reading Percy Phelps' account of what happened after the treaty was discovered to be missing in NAVA. The fact that you can visualize all that he is describing as if you were there demonstrates the power of the written word. Caught up in his narrative, you probably never noticed that poor hoarse Percy discourses uninterrupted from page 453 of the Doubleday edition well onto page 455! Had the scene been presented on the screen just as it is written, Holmes would have gained no new fans, and perhaps would have lost a few old ones.

Over the years we have become accustomed to ranting over unnecessary changes made in "our" Canon by Hollywood and others. ("Why do they have to rewrite the story? -- it's perfect as it is!"). The Granada series demonstrates that there is such a thing as necessary change. For once the alterations don't make the'screen version worse than the original. Nor do they make it any better. Their purpose is simply to ensure that this dramatic presentation and the literary presentation of the adventures of Sherlock Holmes are equally satisfying.

(Printed in Plugs & Dottles, May 1985)