The Disgruntled Physician

EPISODE ONE
The Misadventure of the Disgruntled Physician
By Vince Stadon
	"Holmes, have you gone insane?" Christmas, 1894: As Dr Watson is feeling lovelorn and melancholy, Mr Sherlock Holmes is conducting bloody forensic experiments. How does this connect to a surprise visitor, a brutal murder, and the reappearance of an infamous spectral hound?
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Major References: “The Hound of the Baskervilles” Placement : This Misadventure takes place on December 24/25 1894. In “the Canon”, this places it between “The Norwood Builder” and “Wisteria Lodge”-- if agreement can be reached as to where WIST is placed, which, frankly, is unlikely. Of singular interest? How many wives did Watson have? Watson's first wife is a mystery, though prominent Sherlockians speculate that Watson travelled to America in 1884, where he meets and woos Constance Adams; they are wedded in England in 1886. Presumably, Constance dies soon after, because Watson marries Mary Morstan -- wife no. 2-- at the end of "The Sign of the Four" (1888). Mary must have been as unlucky with her health as Constance, for in "The Empty House" (1894), Watson remarks that he has been bereaved, leaving him free to move back into Baker Street. The good Doctor is married again by the time of "The Blanched Solider" (1895), though the third Mrs Watson -- is never identified. Why were so many of Holmes’s young and attractive female clients named “Violet”? There is the marvelous, feisty Violet Hunter in "The Copper Beeches" (1890); the nervous Violet Smith in "The Solitary Cyclist" (1895); Violet Westbury in "The Bruce Partington Plans" (1895); and Violet de Merville in "The Illustrious Client" (1902). One would surmise that all a young lady needed to do to gain Holmes's services was to pretend to be called Violet. Why was Holmes absent for most of “The Hound of the Baskervilles”? "The Hound..." was originally conceived by Doyle as a straightforward tale of the supernatural, based on the legend of a spectral hound called Black Shuck that had supposedly haunted the Norfolk coastline, and another ghostly hound that roamed the bleak landscape of Dartmoor -- a place Doyle had once visited. Keen on the possibilities of writing a novel based on these enduring legends, Doyle returned to Dartmoor and with a map in one pocket and a notebook in the other, explored the terrain as he sketched out a narrative. It was only when Doyle began writing "The Hound of the Baskervilles" that Doyle realised he needed to call upon the services of the arch-rationalist Sherlock Holmes. The trouble was, Doyle was thoroughly sick of the character, and had killed him off in "The Final Problem". "The Hound..." is a work of compromise, with Holmes barely in it (ironically for his most famous case) and with the more prosaic Dr Watson taking on the bulk of the protagonists' journey. How do you pronounce “Lestrade”? It seems that Doyle intended the name to be pronounced the French way ("Lis-trahrd"; rhymes with "hard"), in much the same way that Robert Louis Stevenson intended Dr Jekyll to be pronounced "Jee-call", playing on the rhyme "hide and seek". However, a Cockney like the Inspector would likely have pronounced his name "Li-strayed", which is how the name is pronounced in the majority of of pastiches and adaptations. We never learn Lestrade's first name, though he is given the initial "G". Holmes's gruesome forensic experiments are established in "A Study in Scarlet", wherein we see Holmes beating and poisoning a corpse and noting the reactions. The name “Spedding” is an homage to the character Adrea Spedding from the film “The Spider Woman” (Universal, 1943)	Mr Sherlock Holmes Dr John H Watson Mrs Hudson Violet Spedding Theme music Incidental Music Additional music Sound Design Executive Producer Executive Producer for Dream Realm Enterprises	Jeff Niles Elie Hirschman Lisanne Heyward Dani Cutler Alain Morin Alain Morin Andy Flees DRE Jeff Niles Jonithan Patrick Russell
(C) DREAM REALM ENTERPRISES 2007