"Out, Damned Watson!"

One of the nicer points of Sherlockian scholarship is that when things get complicated, you can always blame Dr. Watson. And why not? He wrote the sixty tales of Sherlock Holmes, so let's give debit where debit is due. Take the messed up chronology of the Canon, for example. It's all Watson's fault, no two ways about it. His wife Mary could be accused of putting old calendars up for decoration, and generally toying with Watson's time-sense in an effort to keep him away from Sherlock, but it's still Watson's fault that he fell for such a scheme. The man should have still got his chronology right, especially after he moved back in with Holmes. And chronology isn't the only thing that has been layed at Watson's doorstep over the years.

That war wound of his, for instance. It's in both his shoulder and leg, and as Sherlockian experts have pointed out. But however he managed such a f eat, it was surely his own fault. You just don't get a war wound in two places by sheer accident, you know. Movie producers quickly picked up on this knack of blaming Watson, and made him a handy excuse for the escape of the villain at least once in any Holmes film. After all, Holmes wouldn't make a mistake, would he? Of course not.

But Watson ... Watson has a lot to answer for. Look at Doylean scholarship, to name one thing. The entire trend toward Doylean scholarship and away from proper Holmes scholarship is most certainly the doctor's fault. If Watson had only sold his stories outright and taken full credit for them instead of using an agent, we wouldn't be subjected to all the dreary studies of Doyle going on today. Those writers could be out spending their time writing amazing things that would surely stop the decline in literacy. With more people reading, they wouldn't have as much time to worry about censorship and burning books. The lower pollution factor from fewer book burnings would surely help the acid rain situation. And somewhere along the line, if you really look closely ... Watson is surely behind this whole international terrorism thing, too.

Yes, Watson has a lot to answer for.

At this point in the decline and fall of the Western World, swift and decisive action is called for. While pondering the veiled and occult actions of Granada television, a solution to Watson-induced woes suggested itself, and if implemented, could save future generations from the doctor's influence.

Granada TV, you will remember, added Watson to "The Musgrave Ritual." Film makers are always doing that, adding Watson to things he had nothing to do with. And whatever for? The man is little more than a narrative device, totally worthless when it comes to doing Holmes on the screen. So why not let Holmes have the screen all to himself?

Why not start taking Watson out of canonical adaptations? Let's get the focus on detectivework brainwork, and just plain Holmes-workl Wouldn't you rather see just what Holmes is doing when he's out in disguise, instead of watching Watson read a book? Let Holmes surprise Lestrade at the end of the case; his reactions are so much more amusing. And with Watson out of the way, maybe Holmes could make the fair sex his department on occasion.

With a new emphasis on Holmes which the removal of Watson would bring, tomorrow's Sherlockians could approach the Canon from a detective-oriented viewpoint, rather than the Watsonian writer's viewpoint that undoubtedly spurred all the interest in the literary agent to begin with. The adapted stories would move at a quicker pace without having to wait for Watson, thus allowing them to keep up with the fast-paced adventure films that will be their competition. New blood will be drawn into the Holmes cult, and these new Sherlockians won't have to worry whether Watson was a woman or if he was Jack the Ripper. They won't have to worry about Watson at all. Holmes was the important one; the new adaptations would show them that.

The world would be a better place.

And then ... you weren't all that fond of Mrs. Hudson, were you?

(This column appeared in the January 1991 issue of Plugs & Dottles.)