#translating stuff you've only read and talked about in another language is An Experience

[granada-brett-crumbs]

Do you know the filming order of the Granada series (vs the broadcast order) or where I can find information about it? In The Navel Treaty, especially in the opening scene, Watson acts like he's visiting 221B rather than living there. It makes sense because in canon it takes place after his marriage, so maybe it was filmed first when they hadn't yet decided to make him (thankfully) a confirmed bachelor? I know Granada doesn't adhere to the chronology of the stories, but it's just so random!

Hi! there are several things to talk about here, so there’s going to be a lot of information but I’ll try to go in order and be as brief and clear as possible :)

1. There are answers to most of your questions in the book Bending the Willow by David Stuart Davies, if you can get the ebook I highly recommend it but you can find in my blog (and in tumblr in general) tons of excerpts and quotes from it.

2. The writers of the series decided from the beginning that Watson was to remain unmarried, this is what Bending the Willow says about it:

It was decided, for example, that Watson would not have a wife or a Mary Morstan romance and that any chronologies which attempted to place the stories in certain years or a articular period of Holmes’s life would be ignored. To the serious Sherlockian scholar this may have seemed radical or even drastic; but one must remember that what Michael Cox [the series producer] and the team were dealing with was a popular drama series dedicated to bringing the essence of Sherlock Holmes to the television screen for millions of viewers, not a slavish, scholarly, and pedestrian re-telling of the tales.

and in Jeremy’s own words 🔥🔥🔥:

The character of Mary Morstan was removed from the stories in which she originally features: nothing ought to get in between Holmes and Watson. She would have got in the way. Watson was more in love with Holmes - in a pure sense - than he could have been with a woman.

3. Regarding the way Watson acts in the opening scene of The Naval Treaty: I think it is because he’s excited to show Holmes the letter from Percy, and more importantly when he tries to enter the sitting room the doors are locked and he knows Holmes is in the middle of an important experiment so he has to call him several times to get his attention. (they know each other so well :>)

4. The granada series has its own chronology and for the most part it can be explained very easily: they did first the most famous and tv friendly stories because the didn’t know if the series was going be well received, so that’s what they did for the first two seasons (The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes) and then they end it with The Final Problem to give it a good (and terribly tragic oh god) ending in case that was all and to provide a good cliffhanger in case they could keep producing it. You can find more info about it here.

5. And now, the answer to your main question: The filming order of the series. So, they started with The Solitary Cyclist (more about it here) as a “kind of warm up”, which makes sense, that case is the quintessential detective story. You can notice it how it was the first episode they filmed, for example in Holmes’s and Watson’s (and I think Mrs. H’s too) hair, is not as sleek and neat as in A Scandal in Bohemia, the Baker Street set looks super clean, and also in the entrance to their sitting room, the little wall next to the door is empty: there are no frames hanging there as in (again) A Scandal in Bohemia. Also, in The Naval Treaty and The Speckled Band episodes the wall is empty again, so I suppose those episodes were filmed, too, before the first aired episode.

Now, in The Return of Sherlock Holmes, The Abbey Grange episode was the first one the filmed now with Edward Hardwicke as Dr. Watson. Jeremy told this lovely anecdote in a 1991 interview:

Well, Edward’s a very, very remarkable man. One – probably the nicest – one of the nicest people I’ve ever met in my life. And … he wanted to fit in. So he watched the previous thirteen films … Decided to try and look a little like David Burke, as much as he could, bless him. So he put on a rug, I mean a toupee, and, umm - and put lifts in his heels. And the first film we shot together was The Abbey Grange. And we were running across a field, (chuckles) and he (laughs as he continues) he, course he – these heels were too high so he was slipping and sliding. And I said, ‘Oh, Edward, take them out! I’ll bend my knees for the rest of the film!’ (x)(x)