I enjoyed the review and agree that it is pleasing to see a good review of this episode. Intriguingly, I followed a link towards the foot of the page which took me to

http://www.criminalelement.com/blogs/2012/05/down-dog-bbc-new-sherlock-holmes-encounters-the-hounds-of-baskerville


Right at the end, the author makes the following comment and I wondered if anyone could shed any further light on it:

"To describe the episode in more detail would be to reveal spoilers, and that I won’t do. But I will say this: It seems to me that a pivotal clue is based on a misperception by the series creators. That would be an unusual misstep, so I’m curious to hear from anyone else who noticed an incongruity."

and beneath the main article in comments, #11

"It relates to Henry's recollection of the night his father died and has to do with an error that an American would notice and others might not, but Sherlock should."

Whether or not this is a "misconception" on the part of the creators, I can't be sure.

I don't think the cell vs mobile phone terminology is what was referred to.  I read somewhere else--can't remember where now--but tend to agree with it, that the phrase Henry remembered was written incorrectly.  What he saw and remembered was "Liberty, In."  But in the US, two-letter state abbreviations are written with both letters capitalized so it should have been "IN" instead. 

In fact, when I read that, I thought, well, Henry was a child and a British one at that so he wouldn't know how Americans wrote but in his young mind, his brain translated the abbreviation to something he could make sense of.  However, at the end of the episode, when viewers see the shirt Frankland is wearing (and I believe Lyndsey Faye got it wrong when she referred to the character as Franklin, unless the name was changed from the book to the TV show), it clearly reads as "Liberty, In."  So Henry was not re-imagining things.  But, yes, something like that I would have expected people involved with the show to know about.  And it wouldn't have mattered to the plot, because Henry could still have remembered it as "In" for the reason I stated above.

Whatever--I still like this episode!

(P.S.  BTW, Love your Wordle, JaneCo!)

Last edited by Sherli Bakerst (June 12, 2012 11:32 pm)

JaneCo wrote:

When I watched the episode the term 'cell phone' rather than 'mobile' leapt out at me. Then later I realised it was part of Sherlock's deduction, and  assumed that it had to be deliberate on the part of the writers.

I totally agree. At first I thought it must be his accent that was the major clue of his nationality to Sherlock-- although as an American, I thought his "accent" sounded phony, as though the actor was a non-American trying to adopt an American accent-- didn't sound real to my native-speaking ears, for what that's worth, 2 cents marked down from 5, as it were. But yeah, the cell phone thing. Just one more way in which Brit-speak differs from American-speak. To us, Mobile is a city in Alabama (sorry, bad joke-- it's not even pronounced the same way as the word mobile.)

I think everything the writers have the actors say and do on Sherlock is deliberate-- they're a smart bunch, to say the least.

JaneCo wrote:

Yes, I don't do accents, so don't shoot me please but it always sounds like Mobeel to me (or something like) with the stress on the eel. A big oil terminal there I think.

Yes, Mobile Alabama is pronounced "moe-BEEL". You're correct. No idea why. And we would never shoot you! *g*

No, I didn't think he was American. I recognised the actor as being British he used to be in a series I think, although I couldn't remember his name. I also thought that he had simply worked in the US for a while.