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A Study in Pink

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Not to be confused with A Study in Scarlet.
"A Study in Pink"

"A Study in Pink" is the first episode of the television series Sherlock and first broadcast on BBC One and BBC HD on 25 July 2010. It introduces the main characters and resolves a murder mystery. It is loosely based upon the first Sherlock Holmes novel, A Study in Scarlet.[1]

The episode was written by Steven Moffat, who co-created the series. It was originally filmed as a 60-minute pilot for Sherlock, directed by Coky Giedroyc. However, the BBC decided not to transmit the pilot, but instead commissioned a series of three 90-minute episodes.[2] The story was refilmed, this time directed by Paul McGuigan. The British Board of Film Classification has rated the pilot as a 12 certificate for video and online exhibition, and it is included as an additional feature on the DVD released on 30 August 2010.[3]

Synopsis

John Watson, an ex-army doctor injured in the war in Afghanistan, meets Sherlock Holmes through a mutual friend. They become flatmates, sharing rooms at 221B Baker Street owned by landlady Mrs. Hudson.

There have been a strange series of deaths that Inspector Lestrade supposes to be serial suicides. Sherlock is consulted by Lestrade to look into the latest crime scene which is of a woman wearing an "alarming shade of pink". Before departing with Lestrade, Sherlock utters a derivation of one of his famous phrases, "The game is on." Sherlock deduces that the woman is an serial adulterer with an unhappy, decade long marriage. However, this victim, unlike others, left a note: she clawed the word "Rache" into the floor before dying. Sherlock quickly ignores the suggestion of the forensic expert, Anderson, that it's the German word for revenge and settles on "Rachel", deeming that the victim died before finishing the scrawl.

Examining the woman's clothing and accessories, Sherlock reveals that she's from out of town, intending to stay over for one night which he deduces from splashes of mud on only one leg, thrown up by the wheel of the case. However Lestrade explains that no suitcase was found in the premises. Sherlock flies off, searching for the spot where the murderer might have ditched the case. It turns out that the murderer threw it into a nearby garbage container.

Meanwhile, John receives a call from a public phone. After the subsequent conversation, a black sedan arrives, taking John to an empty warehouse. There, he meets a man claiming to be Sherlock's "arch-enemy" who proposes money in return of information about Sherlock's activities, which John refuses. The man warns John to "choose a side" and walks off.

John finds Sherlock in 221B, where he asks John to send a text message to a number which he reveals to be the fourth victim's. The two then go out for a dinner in a local Italian restaurant where it strikes Sherlock that the murderer must be someone who can stalk and approach people without raising suspicion on the streets of London. That instant, Sherlock perceives a cabbie across the street with a passenger. They give chase with Sherlock using his profound knowledge of London's streets and alleys to run into the cab via various detours and backstreets. Eventually they catch up with the cab but the passenger turns out to be a newly arrived American; a perfect alibi.

Back at Baker Street, Sherlock and John find Scotland Yard executing a drug bust, in retaliation for the fact that Sherlock withheld evidence by chasing after the suitcase himself. In a chain of deductions, he reasons that the last victim planted her mobile phone on the murderer and clawed her mail address password upon the floor, allowing the investigators to trace the GPS signal. John sees that the signal is coming from 221B at which point Mrs. Hudson tells him that there's a cabbie waiting for him downstairs. Sherlock, in a moment of epiphany, realizes the plot. It was the cabbie approaching people without suspicion and taking them to irrelevant locations where they're found dead.

Sherlock leaves his apartment, facing off the cabbie who confesses his doings, but also proclaims that he doesn't kill - instead, he speaks to his victims and they kill themselves. He challenges Sherlock to solve his puzzle instead of arresting him then and there. They drive around London and finally arrive at a school building. There, the cabbie pulls out a gun and two bottles he claims contain one harmless pill and one poisonous pill. Sherlock and the cabbie have a dialogue about motives and consequences after which Sherlock reads that the cabbie is dying. The murderer confesses that he has an aneurysm, and that his 'victims' can either take a 50/50 chance at picking the right pill and surviving or get shot by the gun. Refusing to play the pill game and calling off the cabbie's gun bluff (which in reality is a novelty cigarette lighter), Sherlock walks off, but he's challenged once again to choose a pill to see if he'd got it right.

Meanwhile, John has traced the GPS signal from the victim's phone and followed Sherlock. He perceives him to be in danger when he spots him across the building where he is about to take one of the pills. The cabbie is shot by a bullet from John piercing through a nearby window. He lies there fatally wounded as Sherlock questions him, first about whether he got the pill game right, then, realising it's not important, about his 'fan'. Upon the cabbie's reluctance to tell, Sherlock stomps on the cabbie's bullet wound and manages to get a name: "Moriarty".

Outside, Scotland Yard has surrounded the perimeter and Sherlock is treated for shock. Lestrade questions Sherlock about the shooter and he starts to make some deductions before realizing it must be John. Sherlock feigns shock to cover for John and tells Lestrade to ignore everything he has just said. Sherlock and John leave the scene but run into the man who abducted John earlier in the episode, who turns out to be Mycroft Holmes, Sherlock's elder brother, with whom he has a grudge. After a brief conversation, Sherlock and John return to Baker Street, and Mycroft instructs his secretary to increase their surveillance status.

Allusions

The episode is loosely based on A Study in Scarlet and contains allusions to other works by Arthur Conan Doyle. Tom Sutcliffe of The Independent points out, "Fans will recognise at once that the close-reading Sherlock applies to John's mobile phone is drawn from an almost identical analysis of a pocket watch [albeit this analysis is actually found in The Sign of the Four]. More slyly oblique is the conversion of the lost ring that Holmes uses to lure the killer in A Study in Scarlet into a lost "ring", a mobile phone that can be used to contact the killer directly."[4]

John's reference in the final scene to having been shot in the shoulder (but developing a psychosomatic limp in the leg) refers to the fact that in the original A Study in Scarlet Watson's injury is said to be in his shoulder, but in Conan Doyle's later Holmes stories, it is said to be in his leg.

Production

The story was originally filmed as a 60-minute pilot for Sherlock, directed by Coky Giedroyc. However, when the BBC commissioned a three-part series, it ordered several changes and decided not to transmit the pilot. The Sun reported an unnamed source as saying, "The crew couldn't just re-use footage because the series is now totally different. The stories are now more intricate and detailed, so they basically had to start again." [2]

The episode was set in 2010 rather than the Victorian period and so used modern devices such as mobile phones, TX1 London cabs and nicotine patches rather than the traditional Meerschaum pipe and other period props.[5]

Cast

Broadcast

The first broadcast was on BBC1 at 21:00 on 25 July 2010. Viewing figures were up to 9.23 million viewers and averaged a 28.5% share of the UK audience with a high AI rating of 87.[6][7]

Reception

The episode received critical acclaim. The Guardian's Dan Martin said, "It's early days, but the first of three 90-minute movies, "A Study in Pink", is brilliantly promising. It has the finesse of Spooks but is indisputably Sherlock Holmes. The deduction sequences are ingenious, and the plot is classic Moffat intricacy. Purists will take umbrage, as purists always do."[8] However, Sam Wollaston, also for The Guardian, was concerned that some elements of the story were unexplained.[9] Tom Sutcliffe for The Independent also suggests that Holmes was "a bit slow" to connect the attributes of the killer to a London taxicab driver, but his review is otherwise positive. He wrote, "Sherlock is a triumph, witty and knowing, without ever undercutting the flair and dazzle of the original. It understands that Holmes isn't really about plot but about charisma ... Flagrantly unfaithful to the original in some respects, Sherlock is wonderfully loyal to it in every way that matters.[4]

References

  1. ^ Tim Oglethorpe (23 July 2010), "Sherlock's got sexy! With nicotine papers instead of a pipe and taxis replacing hansom cabs, the new TV Holmes is a very 21st century hero", Daily Mail
  2. ^ a b Wightman, Catriona (27 May 2010). "BBC drops Sherlock Holmes pilot". Digital Spy. Retrieved 27 May 2010.
  3. ^ "SHERLOCK - A STUDY IN PINK". BBFC. 23 July 2010. Retrieved 2010-07-26.
  4. ^ a b Sutcliffe, Tom (26 July 2010). "The Weekend's TV: Sherlock, Sun, BBC1 Amish: World's Squarest Teenagers, Sun, Channel 4". The Independent. Retrieved 2010-07-28.
  5. ^ Sam Wollaston (26 July 2010), "Sherlock has a great new take on the characters - but what happened to the plot", The Guardian
  6. ^ Mark Sweney (26 July 2010), "Sherlock Holmes more popular than Tom Cruise", The Guardian
  7. ^ Paul Millar (28 July 2010), "'Sherlock' well-received by critics", Digital Spy
  8. ^ Martin, Dan (23 July 2010). "Sherlock makes Sunday night TV sexy". The Guardian. Retrieved 2010-07-25.
  9. ^ Wollaston, Sam (26 July 2010). "TV Review: Sherlock and Orchestra United". The Guardian. Retrieved 2010-07-26.
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