"Breaking the News" [HOUN]

BREAKING NEWS

We're pleased to announce that you can participate in a live chat with Mark Gatiss, co-creator and star of Sherlock, right here on The Baker Street Blog at 1 p.m. EDT on Monday, May 14. Details are below.

The #SherlockPBS Twitter chats are one thing, and the  PBS-hosted event in New York was another, but we think this takes things to a much higher level. The PBS Masterpiece Sherlock team are giving you an opportunity to ask questions directly to Mark Gatiss in real-time for all to see! You might consider asking him about the creative process, how he came to realize a Sherlock Holmes for the 21st century, how he collaborates with Steven Moffat, or what he thinks of playing Mycroft Holmes, the much smarter (and usually much heavier) brother of Sherlock Holmes.

In our experience with live chats, there will likely be many more questions submitted than the subject can answer, and not all of the questions may be able to be displayed, due to the rather ponderous administrative task of the moderators. But if you ask insightful and appropriate questions, we can all be the beneficiaries of them if Mark can answer.

If you'd like to be reminded of the chat, simply enter your email address in the form below and select when you'd like to be notified. And if you miss the opportunity to participate live, we'll have the transcript available in the same embedded chat below, so you can replay it at any time. And bookmark this post so you can come back on Monday to participate.

Read more...

"Back Upon the Moor Once Again" [HOUN]

#SherlockPBS is back for a second week. As you no doubt recall, Season 2 of Sherlock premiered on PBS's Masterpiece on Sunday, and evidently the ratings were quite strong, with over 3,200,000 viewers. That's a figure that more than doubles the average primetime viewership for PBS.

Even Masterpiece Exeuctive Producer Rebecca Eaton was excited to share the news when she said, "Benedict Cumberbatch and Martin Freeman have taken Sherlock and Watson to a whole new level. We're thrilled that viewers have responded so enthusiastically to this groundbreaking series."

As you may recall, we participated in the live Twitter chat during the show in which we shared observations, commentary and discussion related to the characters, inspiration and other elements of "A Scandal in Belgravia." [If you missed the episode, you can still watch it on PBS online until June 15.] There were over 5,000 mentions of the #SherlockPBS hashtag on Twitter and over 15,000 people checked in via GetGlue, which is an a social TV site that connects viewers via the web (where you can earn stickers such as the image above).

On Sunday May 13, you'll be treated to Episode 2 of Season 2, titled "The Hounds of Baskerville." For those of you screaming "That should be 'The Hound of the Baskervilles'!" that's not a typo. In this case, Baskerville is a top-secret military compound where it is rumored that there are biological weapons and experimentation on genetically engineered animals, which may or may not account for "the footprints of a gigantic hound!"

You can see a preview here:

Read more...

"Awaiting the Return of Our Colleagues" [VALL]

Sherlock mania as at its heights. The second series of the BBC's Sherlock is making its way to the U.S. shores currently, and fandom online and offline is continuing to grow.

On behalf of the show, Burt made his way to New York City on May 2, 2012 for the sneak preview of the new season and question and answer time with some of the cast and crew of Sherlock, including Rebecca Eaton, Steven Moffat, Sue Vertue and of course, Benedict Cumberbatch. About 800 people crowded into a theatre after 10,000 applied for seats, and the reaction - including screams - were reminiscent of the Beatles coming to the Ed Sullivan Show in the 1960s. And this is nothing new; Frank Sinatra garnered a similar reaction at the Paramount in New York City back in the 1940s. Thanks to Burt's courageous reporting, we have some clips from the event and the queue, as well as a question and answer session with the cast, in which we're able to hear and feel the excitement of the crowd.

We've witnessed the #believeinsherlock movement that arose from the BBC airing of the series and how the phenomenon has grown. We discuss a bit of that and we sing our own praises to Sherlock Holmes, in a manner of speaking.

Read more...

"Holmes For the Second Time" [ABBE]

#SherlockPBS - a "hashtag" as it's known in Twitter - is a phrase you should get used to. Because beginning on May 6, it's going to reach a fever pitch when the acclaimed series Sherlock (starring Benedict Cumberbatch, Martin Freeman and Mark Gatiss, written by Steven Moffat and Mark Gatiss) returns to Masterpiece on PBS for its stunning second season.

This second series is expected to be even bigger than the first, as the stars have come into their own a bit and they and the series has been critically acclaimed. The second series also has the confidence of the creators, as the first was something of an experiment. Having ensured that the experimentation was indeed successful, they mined the Canon for the three most intriguing and popular stories for inspiration in season two. As Steven Moffat puts it in shorthand, this season consists of "the hound, the woman and the professor." More formally, those episodes consist of "The Hounds of Baskerville," "A Scandal in Belgravia" and "The Reichenbach Fall."

Read more...