Sherlock: The Hounds of Baskerville

[major_clanger]

Hmmm. Distinctly average, and rather let down for me by some little goofs.

Although these days I mainly nit-pick legal dramas, I still spot it when TV or film Gets The Military Wrong. Someone should have told whoever was responsible for casting that a British army officer would never wear a beard, they being the sole privilege of the Royal Navy (where, conversely, moustaches alone are never worn).* And although Corporal Lyons was formally correct to salute Watson when the latter identified himself as a captain, despite being in civvies, it was completely wrong for Watson to return the salute out of uniform. (The correct protocol - at least in the British forces - when someone junior to you and in uniform salutes you when you're not in uniform yourself is to politely nod in acknowledgement.)

For that matter, what was Watson doing with service ID? Isn't he meant to have been invalided out of the Army? I suppose it's possible he may have been on a short-service commission and transferred to the Reserves, which if nothing else would explain why he's still a captain in a corps where that's the entry rank and promotion to major would normally be automatic. Or of course he could have contrived to retain his ID, although that's rather naughty and makes it a little rich of him to raise eyebrows at Sherlock's purloining of Mycroft's handy access-all-areas pass.

Oh, and how exactly do mobile phones work in an underground bunker?

* Bonus nit-pick marks to anyone who knows who in the British Army are allowed to wear beards.

Comments

[watervole]

The bit I appreciated most in this episode was the casting. Using an actor who is well known for playing a werewolf added that extra possible twist as to whether there was actually a werewolf that had bitten the young boy. (Even though I discounted that as an explanation on the grounds that it's not in keeping with a Sherlock Holmes story)

[hano.livejournal.com]

Bonus nit-pick marks to anyone who knows who in the British Army are allowed to wear beards

I'm guessing Special Forces and Intelligence Corps?

[major-clanger.livejournal.com]

SF are certainly allowed to when out on ops (and increasingly regular infantry do as well, especially in Afghanistan where it beards are culturally the norm).

Traditionally though it was Pioneer Corps sergeants who were allowed to wear a beard, and I believe the tradition is maintained by Pioneer units within the Royal Logistics Corps.

[drasecretcampus.livejournal.com]

Plus the remarkable ease with which a British policeman produces a gun (cf Ashes to Ashes). It wasn't as bad as Public Enemies.

[burntcopper.livejournal.com]

that's been the scream of pretty much everyone I know, followed by 'and even if he did get a gun, why the hell did he get a handgun? Coppers don't use handguns, it's always rifles - not to mention he was told DOG. Runaway animals and humans going nuts*, you want a *rifle*.' :pause: 'Leaving beside the fact that it's Devon and, y'know, not Nottingham or Hackney. Rifles're a bit easier to get hold of.'

*as has happened in towns I've lived in where you get the news later in the day/next morning: 'and by the roundabout, the police shot a man...'

[pogodragon.livejournal.com]

I am weirdly pleased that you put Nottingham in there. One day I am going to get myself a t-shirt that says 'you don't scare me, I'm from Nottingham'. Only to be worn after yet another report about how dodgy my hometown is.

Though as I've not lived there for a while now maybe I've lost my edge and they would scare me.

[quercus.livejournal.com]

Plenty of mainland protection detail plod get to carry handguns and absolutely loads (some civvies too) in NI. One assumes that Lestrade is on Mycroft's Christmas card list for such tasks.

[nojay.livejournal.com]

Somewhere I have a picture of my father with a "full set" (beard and moustache) from his days in the Royal Navy near the end of WWII. It's frowned on generally today because it gets in the way of flash hoods and breathing apparatus.

[quercus.livejournal.com]

I've a couple of old family photos showing members of the Royal Garrison Artillery in the 1890s. They clearly favoured some particularly dense face topiary.

Some later photos show the Royal Horse Artillery in 1912 and, apart from a few moustaches, everyone is clean shaven.

[don-fitch.livejournal.com]

For Bonus Point: Sikhs, I'd suppose. Possibly other Indian, Moslem, & Tribal peoples, perhaps even including Orthodox Jews (assuming they'd be allowed to enlist in the first place).

[major-clanger.livejournal.com]

Yes; beards worn for religious reasons are another exception, subject to operational necessity.

[quercus.livejournal.com]

AIUI even civvies at Nancekuke didn't get to wear beards, as they don't work well under masks. I thought the passing reference to the Common Cold Unit was a nice touch though.

Also AIUI 3rd hand, any useful army medic these days is lucky to get out in these short-handed days without passing through the Reserves. I keep watching Holtby City waiting to see that one get called back.

[hano.livejournal.com]

A doctor friend of mine has just done his few weeks at Sandhurst and is probably going out in August. He can't wait. Further proof that Anaesthetists are crazy if any was needed.

[ivory-goddess.livejournal.com]

Barrymore having a big, dark beard was a nod to the original.

I would think Sikhs would be allowed to wear a beard in the Army. (The whole beard thing was used in a Equality & Discrimination seminar I attended as an example of when discrimination was legal - firemen can't have beards due to the necessity of using breathing equipment, therefore Sikhs could be banned from being firemen. Health & Safety trumps religion/culture.)

As to how you get a mobile signal in an underground bunker - repeater thingies? Aren't we supposed to be able to get mobile signals on the tube shortly?

[major-clanger.livejournal.com]

Ah, I'd forgotten about that. (But make him a naval officer then - although I suppose that would have been met with "but won't the audience be confused by having a navy officer on land?", as if there aren't plenty of RN personnel at MOD establishments.)

Yes, I suppose there could be mobile phone repeaters, but they seem an odd idea for a secret base!

[quercus.livejournal.com]

Sekrit Bases like to use picocells, just to give phones a controlled signal to talk to, not an open network. Your connectivity out of that controlled cell might be different to a public cell tower.

[timscience.livejournal.com]

The beard grated on me too. You can wear a beard for religious reasons (as well as being a pioneer sergeant etc), BUT, if in a likely biohazard environment, you would be expected to shave a strip for a respirator seal for any of these beards.

Seeing as the beard was a nod to the original, where it was a plot point, I would have given big props if they had gone with the respirator strip.

[fjm.livejournal.com]

There were a couple of continuity errors also but I've forgotten what they were, when Holmes "learnt" something that had come up in conversation earlier.

But I did sort of enjoy it.

[major-clanger.livejournal.com]

Oh, it was fun enough, although not as much as last week's episode was. ('A Scandal in Belgravia had its own issues, but the writing positively sparkled.) My issue is that I increasingly suffer from difficulty in suspending disbelief when work I know about, e.g. the military or the law, is depicted on TV. I'm sure you have similar problems with how the work of historians is shown!

[teaparty.net (from livejournal.com)]

> Oh, and how exactly do mobile phones work in an underground bunker?

See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Femtocells (and their bigger brothers, picocells); they're intended for exactly that sort of deployment, bringing GSM service to places where it wouldn't normally penetrate, using fixed-line IP for the backhaul.

But whilst I'd be unsurprised to find picocells in such an establishment, I'd be **really** surprised to find them configured for open-access (any handset can bind).

[bugshaw.livejournal.com]

Medical exemptions?

Maybe as it's a Secret Base, he is disguising himself as not an Army officer.

[http://users.livejournal.com/la_marquise_de_/]

This!

[major-clanger.livejournal.com]

Best. Explanation. Ever.

[ffutures.livejournal.com]

Members of the Royal Family? Who may hold commissions in more than one service, IIRC.

[pauldormer.livejournal.com]

See how pervasive the Sherlock Holmes mythos is in our reality, this must be set in an alternate universe, anyway.

One wonders if the Goons existed in the Sherlock universe, in which case was there a Count Jim Moriarty in it?

I've been trying to find Sherlock Sarah Lund crossover fanfic on the net, without luck. I'm sure it's out there.

[major-clanger.livejournal.com]

Ah yes; the same issue pervades The Walking Dead, a series clearly set in a parallel world almost identical to our own save that there is no concept of zombies.

[pauldormer.livejournal.com]

Which was one of the fun things in Feed on last year's Hugo list. The ones who survived the initial zombie rising were the ones who had watched George Romero movies, and forty years on, the names George, Georgia and Georgette are very popular.