140 Fun Facts About Sherlock (BBC Series)

In A Study in Pink, what does Sherlock get wrong when he deduces John's life from his phone?

Harry is John's sister: Sherlock reads the engraved phone as a gift from a hard-drinking brother, and is furious to learn that Harry is short for Harriet.

What army rank does John pull to get past a corporal in The Hounds of Baskerville?

Captain: John flashes his old ID as 'Captain John Watson, Fifth Northumberland Fusiliers', and the corporal on duty snaps to attention and salutes.

Which CBS series, launched in 2012, followed Sherlock in moving Holmes to the present day?

Elementary put Jonny Lee Miller's Holmes in modern-day New York beside Lucy Liu's Joan Watson; Sherlock's producers warned publicly that it had better not resemble their show.

What favour did Sherlock once do for Mrs Hudson, earning a special deal on the rent?

Ensured her husband's execution: he was on death row in Florida, and when John assumes Sherlock saved him, Sherlock replies, 'Oh no. I ensured it.'

On which channel did Sherlock originally air in the UK?

BBC One: a Russian-dubbed copy of the 2017 finale leaked online a day before its premiere on the channel, and the show's makers begged fans not to share it.

Sherlock is set in London, but in which city was most of it filmed?

Cardiff: the production shared Upper Boat Studios with Doctor Who, and filming there was cheaper than in London, so Welsh streets stood in for much of the capital.

Which real London road stands in for Baker Street in Sherlock's exterior shots of 221B?

North Gower Street: number 187 plays 221B because the real Baker Street has heavy traffic and far too many things labelled 'Sherlock Holmes' to hide.

Which US network co-produced Sherlock and gave it its American premiere?

PBS: its Masterpiece strand, made by Boston station WGBH, co-produced the series, which is why Sherlock's American Emmys are credited to PBS and not the BBC.

From which war has John Watson returned when he meets Sherlock?

Afghanistan: Conan Doyle's Watson was wounded there in 1880, so the backstory needed no updating, and Sherlock reads it off John's tan and bearing seconds after they meet.

Which song, Moriarty's ringtone, interrupts his standoff with Sherlock at the start of series two?

Stayin' Alive: the Bee Gees hit rings out at the tensest moment, and the call it announces makes Moriarty dismiss his snipers and stroll away.

What is Molly Hooper's job?

Pathologist: Molly works in the hospital morgue, where Sherlock horsewhips a corpse in his very first scene to see what bruises form after death.

Who plays Mrs Hudson, the landlady?

Una Stubbs: her Mrs Hudson keeps reminding her tenants, 'I'm your landlady, dear, not your housekeeper', and then brings up the tea anyway.

In The Great Game, what has a bored Sherlock spray-painted on the wall of 221B and then shot at?

A smiley face, sprayed in yellow paint left over from the previous case; Conan Doyle's Holmes did his indoor target practice by picking out a patriotic 'V.R.' in bullet holes.

Who plays DI Greg Lestrade?

Rupert Graves: his Lestrade's first name goes unspoken until The Hounds of Baskerville, where Sherlock is surprised to learn it, and he is still calling him Graham episodes later.

What is a blood-soaked Sherlock carrying when he comes home by Tube at the start of The Hounds of Baskerville?

A harpoon: 'None of the cabs would take me,' he complains; the scene nods to Conan Doyle's 'Black Peter', in which Holmes spends a morning stabbing a dead pig to test a murder method.

Which 2007 film made Moffat and Vertue want to cast Cumberbatch as Sherlock?

Atonement: Cumberbatch played the predatory Paul Marshall, and after seeing it the producers had him read the script and cast him before they auditioned a single Watson.

How does Sherlock describe himself instead of a psychopath?

A high-functioning sociopath: 'Do your research,' he tells Anderson, though psychologist Maria Konnikova has argued the label is simply wrong for a man who so plainly cares about his friends.

What replaces Holmes's pipe in the modern series?

Nicotine patches: Sherlock calls the first episode's puzzle 'a three-patch problem', updating Conan Doyle's 'three-pipe problem' because he cannot smoke indoors in modern London.

Which future Doctor Who star auditioned unsuccessfully for Watson, judged too 'barmy'?

Matt Smith was the first actor seen for Watson and was turned down as too 'barmy', more a Holmes than a Watson; Moffat soon cast him as the Eleventh Doctor instead.

Who plays Mary Morstan?

Amanda Abbington was then the real-life partner of the actor playing John, so the Watsons' screen marriage was played by an actual couple.

Who plays Sherlock and Mycroft's parents from series three onwards?

Cumberbatch's real mum and dad, the actors Wanda Ventham and Timothy Carlton, play a couple so cheerfully ordinary that Sherlock sighs, 'It's a cross I have to bear.'

Who plays Irene Adler in A Scandal in Belgravia?

Lara Pulver, previously seen in the BBC spy drama Spooks, played Irene Adler in the January 2012 series-two opener, which drew more than 100 complaints to the BBC.

Who plays Henry Knight in The Hounds of Baskerville?

Russell Tovey plays Henry Knight, whose childhood terror of a gigantic hound proves catching: after a night on the moor a badly shaken Sherlock admits he saw the creature too.

Sherlock was first announced in 2008 as what kind of production?

A single 60-minute drama was the plan announced at the 2008 Edinburgh TV festival; the BBC then shelved the finished pilot and paid to have the story shot all over again.

How was TV presenter Connie Prince really killed in The Great Game?

An overdose of Botox: her houseboy Raoul stepped up the dose in her regular injections, while John had confidently accused her brother and the cat.

Which visual device did director Paul McGuigan introduce in the first episode of Sherlock?

Text floating on screen: McGuigan is credited with the idea, which spared viewers cutaways to a hand holding a phone and let Sherlock's deductions hover beside each clue.

What is the name of the sandwich shop beneath the flat used as Sherlock's home?

Speedy's, the real sandwich bar next to the front door used as 221B; its owner reported a sharp rise in customers, many of them fans, after the series aired.

Which brand made the long wool coat that became Sherlock's trademark?

Belstaff: the coat had gone out of production, and demand from viewers was such that the brand was making it again before the first series had finished airing.

Who composed the music for Sherlock?

David Arnold and Michael Price wrote the score; the violin Sherlock plays on screen was recorded by Eos Chater, who stood where the actor could see her and copy her bowing.

Which film franchise had one of Sherlock's two composers already scored five times?

James Bond: he scored five 007 films from Tomorrow Never Dies to Quantum of Solace, after his album of Bond theme covers impressed the series' veteran composer John Barry.

Which production company made Sherlock with the BBC?

Hartswood Films: when CBS announced a modern-day Holmes of its own in 2012, the company's Sue Vertue revealed that the network had earlier asked about remaking Sherlock.

What verdict does the jury return at Moriarty's trial in The Reichenbach Fall?

Not guilty: Moriarty offers no defence at all, having threatened each juror's family through the television sets in their hotel rooms.

What form did each Sherlock series take?

Three 90-minute films: every story runs at feature length, which is why four series and a special, made between 2010 and 2017, add up to only 13 episodes.

The Empty Hearse, in which Sherlock comes back from the dead, opened which series?

The third series: its opener shows Sherlock surviving the fall by bungee rope, bouncing back up and in through a window, then reveals the whole thrilling escape as Anderson's conspiracy theory.

What does Mrs Hudson drive at speed in The Lying Detective, with Sherlock handcuffed in the boot?

An Aston Martin: when John asks how the car can be hers, she snaps that she is the widow of a drug dealer who owns property in central London, and not his housekeeper.

What does John get in The Blind Banker after being caught holding a graffiti artist's spray can?

An ASBO, an anti-social behaviour order: Sherlock and the real tagger run for it, and when John fumes about his court date Sherlock, deep in a book, says only 'Good. Fine.'

Which Sherlock episode won the Emmy for Outstanding Television Movie?

The Abominable Bride won in 2016, two years after the show's series-three finale had been nominated for the same award and lost to The Normal Heart.

In which category did Freeman win a BAFTA for Sherlock in 2011?

Best Supporting Actor: Freeman won in 2011 for the first series, then lost the same award a year later to the actor playing the show's villain, Moriarty.

What message does Moriarty leave carved into an apple at 221B in The Reichenbach Fall?

I O U: 'I owe you a fall, Sherlock,' he says over tea, and the three letters then start appearing as graffiti around London.

What did the Royal Mail hide on its 2020 Sherlock stamps?

Secret storylines revealed under UV light: each of the six stamps shows a character in one episode, and producer Sue Vertue vowed to book a British holiday just to send postcards with them.

Which phrase does Sherlock use to warn John to duck as he opens Irene Adler's booby-trapped safe?

Vatican cameos: John hits the floor at once and the hidden gun shoots one of their captors instead; the phrase comes from a case Holmes mentions in passing in The Hound of the Baskervilles.

Which miniseries did fans wrongly believe was a cover for a secret fourth episode of series four?

Apple Tree Yard: the Emily Watson thriller took the Sunday slot after The Final Problem in January 2017, and some fans insisted it was a disguise for a secret fourth episode.

Which Conan Doyle novel is Sherlock's first episode loosely based on?

A Study in Scarlet, the 1887 novel that introduced Holmes and Watson; its title is Holmes's phrase for the 'scarlet thread of murder' running through the colourless skein of life.

In A Study in Pink, what does Anderson say the scratched word 'Rache' means?

German for revenge is Anderson's guess, and Sherlock scoffs that she was writing Rachel; Conan Doyle's novel has it the other way round, with Lestrade guessing Rachel and Holmes supplying the German.

What is the murderer's occupation in A Study in Pink?

Taxi driver: Sherlock works out that a cabbie is someone who 'passes unnoticed wherever they go', and this one has a sponsor who pays his children for every life he takes.

What game does the killer make his victims play in A Study in Pink?

Choosing between two pills: one bottle is harmless and one deadly, the killer swallows whichever is left, and he is shot before Sherlock can learn whether he chose correctly.

What is the killer's 'gun' in A Study in Pink actually?

A cigarette lighter: 'I know a real gun when I see one,' says Sherlock, who is free to walk out and instead turns back to finish the killer's challenge.

In A Study in Pink, what does Mycroft offer John at their first meeting?

Money to spy on Sherlock: John turns it down flat, and Sherlock's only complaint is that they could have split the fee.

What is the name of the Chinese smuggling gang in The Blind Banker?

Black Lotus Tong: everyone who hauls for it bears a black lotus tattoo on the heel, the mark that proves to Sherlock both murdered men were smugglers for the gang.

What book does Sherlock use to crack the cipher in The Blind Banker?

The London A–Z street atlas: the numbers are a book cipher, page and word, and Sherlock realises every tourist and new arrival in London would own the A–Z.

What is the stolen 'treasure' in The Blind Banker?

A jade hairpin, the Empress Pin worth £9 million; Van Coon had pocketed it and given it to his secretary Amanda, who wore it without knowing its value.

Whose old trainers turn up in flat 221C at the start of The Great Game?

Carl Powers, a schoolboy who drowned in London in 1989 after botulinum toxin was slipped into his eczema medication; young Sherlock had noticed his missing shoes.

How does Sherlock prove the Old Master is a forgery in The Great Game?

It shows a supernova from 200 years later: the sky includes the Van Buren supernova, first visible in 1858, so a supposed 17th-century Vermeer must be fake; Sherlock spots it as a child hostage counts down.

In what guise had the villain already appeared before revealing himself in The Great Game?

As Molly's boyfriend: 'Jim from IT' drops by the lab to be introduced, and the great detective waves him away at a glance as merely gay, a pose Moriarty later gloats about.

Where does the series-one finale cliffhanger take place?

A swimming pool: Moriarty has John strapped into an explosive vest, and series one ends with Sherlock aiming his pistol at the bomb while snipers' lasers play over them both.

Which Conan Doyle story provided the electronic beeps sent as warnings in The Great Game?

The Five Orange Pips: Moriarty's bomber warns with five, then four, then three Greenwich-style pips, updating the orange pips that warned Conan Doyle's victims of the Ku Klux Klan.

What is Irene Adler's profession in A Scandal in Belgravia?

Dominatrix: Irene styles herself 'The Woman' and keeps compromising photographs of her clients, including a royal; in Conan Doyle she was a retired opera singer.

What is the password to Irene Adler's phone?

SHER: the lock screen then reads 'I AM SHER-LOCKED', and Sherlock cracks it after taking her pulse and seeing her pupils dilate, proof that she had fallen for him.

How does Irene Adler greet Sherlock at their first meeting in A Scandal in Belgravia, leaving him unable to deduce a thing?

Nude, her 'battle dress', because Sherlock reads people by their clothes and she has given him nothing to read. The scene aired before the 9pm watershed and drew complaints.

What does the stolen code Irene asks Sherlock to crack turn out to be?

Airline seat numbers: the email Sherlock decodes in seconds lists seat allocations on a jumbo jet, exposing the government's plan to let terrorists bomb a plane loaded with corpses.

Where is Sherlock taken, wearing only a bedsheet, to be briefed on the case in A Scandal in Belgravia?

Buckingham Palace: John admits he is fighting an urge to steal an ashtray, and in the cab home Sherlock produces one from inside his coat.

How does Sherlock get close to Irene Adler to rescue her in Karachi?

Disguised as her executioner: Mycroft tells John she has been beheaded by a terrorist cell, but a flashback shows the man about to strike the blow was Sherlock, who had infiltrated the cell to save her.

What is John Watson's middle name, revealed in A Scandal in Belgravia?

Hamish: John lets it slip while Irene and Sherlock spar, honouring Dorothy L. Sayers' theory that Watson's 'H.' stood for Hamish, the Scots form of James.

What is Baskerville in The Hounds of Baskerville?

A Ministry of Defence research base: Baskerville is a secretive military lab on Dartmoor, and Sherlock bluffs his way in with Mycroft's pilfered security pass.

In The Hounds of Baskerville, what was Project H.O.U.N.D.?

A CIA hallucinogen experiment: it tested an aerosol fear drug and took its name from its five scientists' initials, which is how 'Liberty' and 'In' led Sherlock to Liberty, Indiana.

Why does Sherlock first put on a deerstalker in A Scandal in Belgravia?

To hide from photographers: he grabs it off a theatre costume rail, the pictures make the papers anyway, and the hat he cannot stand becomes his trademark.

How does the killer, Dr Frankland, die in The Hounds of Baskerville?

He runs into a minefield: Frankland bolts across the Grimpen Minefield and treads on a mine, the show's answer to the Grimpen Mire that swallows the villain of Conan Doyle's novel.

What does Moriarty's all-powerful computer key code turn out to be in The Reichenbach Fall?

A bluff backed by bribes: on the rooftop Moriarty jeers that a few lines of code could not open every door, and that his break-ins took only some 'willing participants' inside.

Which landmark does Moriarty break into in The Reichenbach Fall, along with the Bank of England and Pentonville Prison?

The Tower of London: police find Moriarty on a throne wearing the Crown Jewels, having scrawled 'Get Sherlock' on their glass case before smashing it.

What fake identity does the villain create to discredit Sherlock in series two?

Richard Brook: 'Rich Brook' is an English rendering of Reichenbach, the name of the Swiss falls; Moriarty poses as an actor Sherlock supposedly hired to play a criminal mastermind.

From which London hospital's roof does Sherlock apparently jump in The Reichenbach Fall?

St Bartholomew's, or Barts: Conan Doyle's Holmes and Watson first met in its laboratory, and the show swaps the canon's Swiss waterfall for the roof of the hospital where its own pair met.

How does the villain die on the roof in The Reichenbach Fall?

He shoots himself: Moriarty sees that while he lives Sherlock can make him call off the gunmen, so he puts a pistol in his own mouth and leaves Sherlock no way out but the jump.

Which English artist painted the Reichenbach Falls picture Sherlock recovers at the start of series two's finale?

J.M.W. Turner: recovering his painting of the falls makes Sherlock a tabloid celebrity, the 'Reichenbach hero', and Moriarty sets out to turn that fame against him.

What is the tabloid headline Mycroft reads after Sherlock's fall?

Suicide of Fake Genius: The Sun's front page, which Mycroft reads alone at the Diogenes Club; it was Mycroft who had given Moriarty the life story that made the fraud claim stick.

What is the seven-minute 2013 Christmas mini-episode called?

Many Happy Returns, released online on 24 December 2013, in which Anderson tracks an apparently alive Sherlock from Tibet to New Delhi to Germany.

Which TV star cameos in The Empty Hearse, hypnotising John in a fake explanation of the fall?

Derren Brown, the TV mentalist, cameos in the first fake explanation, hypnotising John on the pavement while Sherlock's fall is staged; the theory is revealed as Anderson's.

What is Sherlock disguised as when he reveals himself to John in The Empty Hearse?

A French waiter, with an eyeliner moustache and a comic accent, interrupting John's restaurant dinner; John is so furious that he attacks him in three different eateries.

Which code word did Sherlock text Mycroft to launch his fake-death plan?

Lazarus: by his own account, one of thirteen rooftop outcomes the brothers had planned for, each with its own code name; the text sends his homeless helpers out with an airbag while John's view is blocked.

What does Sherlock use under his arm to stop his pulse in his explanation of the fall?

A squash ball: squeezed in the armpit, it briefly cuts off the pulse in that arm, so John, knocked dizzy by a cyclist, finds none when he grabs Sherlock's wrist.

Where is John trapped when Sherlock and Mary rescue him in The Empty Hearse?

Inside a Guy Fawkes bonfire: John is drugged and stuffed inside a Bonfire Night pyre, and Sherlock and Mary race there by motorbike after a skip-code text warns them.

What is the target of the bomb hidden in a Tube carriage in The Empty Hearse?

The Houses of Parliament: Lord Moran turns a whole Tube carriage into a bomb in a station that never opened, right under Westminster, timed for an all-night vote on an anti-terrorism bill.

Around what event is The Sign of Three built?

John and Mary's wedding: the episode unfolds through Sherlock's rambling best man speech, which turns into a live investigation of a murder attempt among the guests.

What nickname does Sherlock give the photographer stalking Major Sholto in The Sign of Three?

The Mayfly Man, so called because he dates women for a single night under dead men's identities; he is the photographer Jonathan Small, out to kill Major Sholto.

What does Sherlock deduce about Mary at the end of The Sign of Three?

She is pregnant: Sherlock reads Mary's bigger appetite, changed sense of taste and morning sickness, and blurts out the news before the couple know it themselves.

Which Conan Doyle story is His Last Vow based on?

The Adventure of Charles Augustus Milverton: Conan Doyle's society blackmailer, whose house Holmes burgles, became the newspaper owner Magnussen and kept his first names, Charles Augustus.

Who plays the blackmailer Magnussen in His Last Vow?

Lars Mikkelsen: the villain was imagined as an American until his audition tape won the part, so the writers made him a Dane and hunted for a Danish surname to fit.

Who shoots Sherlock at Magnussen's headquarters in His Last Vow?

Mary, John's wife: Sherlock finds her holding Magnussen at gunpoint, and she places her shot so precisely that he survives; he later tricks her into admitting her past as an assassin.

Why is Sherlock dating Janine in His Last Vow?

She is Magnussen's assistant: Janine is his personal assistant, so a fake engagement gets Sherlock past security into Magnussen's office; she later sells the story to the tabloids.

What initials are on the memory stick Mary gives John?

A.G.R.A.: the label on the memory stick holding Mary's past; John throws it into the fire unread months later, choosing to accept her as she is.

What is the name of Magnussen's house, whose famous vaults turn out to exist only in his memory?

Appledore: Magnussen keeps no paper files there at all, only what he has memorised, so there is nothing in the house for Mycroft's forces to seize.

How does Sherlock deal with Magnussen at the end of His Last Vow?

He shoots him in the head: with no documents to seize, Sherlock kills Magnussen as Mycroft and armed police arrive, and Mycroft then gets him exile on a mission abroad instead of a trial.

What message is broadcast on every screen at the end of His Last Vow?

Did you miss me?: Moriarty's face and the words appear on every screen in Britain, and Sherlock's exile flight is recalled minutes after take-off.

How does Mycroft look in Sherlock's Victorian special?

Enormously fat: closer to Conan Doyle's stout original, this Mycroft sits among piled plates while Sherlock bets on how few years his eating will leave him, plum pudding by plum pudding.

Which Conan Doyle story, echoed by Eurus's riddle song in The Final Problem, mentions 'Ricoletti of the club foot'?

The Musgrave Ritual, in which Holmes lists early untold cases including 'Ricoletti of the club-foot and his abominable wife', the phrase that gave the special its name.

Who is behind the Bride killings in the 2016 special?

A secret women's rights society: a suffragist conspiracy whose hooded members, including Molly's alter ego Dr Hooper and Janine, stage Emelia Ricoletti's 'ghost' to punish wicked men.

Why does Sherlock imagine the Victorian murder case that fills the 2016 special?

To explain Moriarty's apparent return: high on a drug cocktail taken before boarding his recalled exile jet, Sherlock casts his mind back to 1895 to re-run an unsolved case in which a dead woman seems to kill again.

What is the Watsons' daughter named in The Six Thatchers?

Rosamund: Rosie for short, she is given her mother's real first name, which Mary Watson had buried under a false identity; Sherlock, Molly and Mrs Hudson are godparents.

Which parable about a merchant fleeing Death does Sherlock retell in The Six Thatchers?

The Appointment in Samarra: Sherlock narrates the tale of the Baghdad merchant who flees to Samarra to escape Death, only to keep their appointment there; it frames the whole episode.

What word does 'Ammo' turn out to mean in The Six Thatchers?

Amo, Latin for I love: the word Ajay heard as 'ammo' was the code word Amo, pointing to Lady Smallwood's Whitehall code name Love, though the real traitor was Vivian Norbury.

Where does Sherlock meet Vivian Norbury for the confrontation in which Mary is shot?

The London Aquarium: Sherlock goads Norbury among the shark tanks, she fires at him and Mary throws herself in front of the bullet, dying in John's arms.

What does Mary ask Sherlock to do in her posthumous DVD message?

Save John Watson: Mary's DVD tells Sherlock that only by putting himself in danger, 'go to hell, Sherlock', can he make John save him and so be saved himself.

Who plays the serial killer Culverton Smith in The Lying Detective?

Toby Jones plays Culverton Smith, a famous philanthropist who drugs his own friends so that they will forget hearing him confess that he needs to kill.

What product does Culverton Smith use Sherlock's accusation to promote?

A brand of cereal: Smith turns Sherlock's 'serial killer' accusation into a jokey television advert for his breakfast cereal, billing himself as a 'cereal killer'.

Where was the recording device that captured Culverton Smith's confession?

In John's walking stick: Sherlock had hidden a recorder in the cane John was carrying again, capturing Smith's bedside confession; Smith then finds he rather enjoys confessing to Lestrade.

Who does John's therapist reveal herself to be at the end of The Lying Detective?

Sherlock's secret sister: Eurus pulls a gun on John and reveals that she was also the fake Faith Smith and the woman who flirted with him on the bus.

Who plays Eurus Holmes?

Sian Brooke thought she was getting 'a little part' and found out only later that her several small roles added up to one woman, a master of disguise.

What is Sherrinford in The Final Problem?

A maximum-security prison in the North Sea: Mycroft had his sister moved to the island fortress behind their parents' backs, after telling them she had died.

What was Redbeard really, as Sherlock realises in The Final Problem?

His childhood friend Victor Trevor: 'Redbeard' was not a dog but the boy Sherlock played pirates with; Eurus trapped him in a well, and Sherlock rewrote the memory as a lost pet.

What Christmas treat did Mycroft grant Eurus five years before The Final Problem?

Unsupervised minutes with Moriarty: five of them, her reward for spotting threats to Britain, and in that time he agreed to record the video messages she later uses in her game.

In The Final Problem, which caller turns out to be Eurus herself?

A girl on a doomed plane: the frightened child is Eurus's picture of her own isolation, and the whole game is a cry for help that Sherlock answers by going to find her.

How do Sherlock and Eurus communicate at the end of The Final Problem?

Playing the violin together: Eurus, locked up again, will not speak, so Sherlock visits and plays duets with her, sometimes with their parents and Mycroft listening.

Which genius does Mycroft compare Eurus to?

Isaac Newton: Mycroft recalls that assessors rated him merely 'remarkable' but called his sister 'an era-defining genius', measuring her against Newton himself.

What does Mary call Sherlock and John in her final video?

The Baker Street Boys: Mary's closing narration calls them 'the best and wisest men I have ever known, my Baker Street boys', as life in the restored flat resumes.

Which BBC mockumentary made the Watson actor famous as Tim Canterbury?

The Office: in Ricky Gervais and Stephen Merchant's mockumentary his Tim Canterbury, a bored sales rep at the Wernham Hogg paper company, spends the series flirting with the receptionist Dawn.

Which hobbit did the Watson actor play in Peter Jackson's trilogy?

Bilbo Baggins: he at first turned the part down because the shoot clashed with Sherlock, then led Peter Jackson's Hobbit trilogy after all.

Which two Hobbit characters did Sherlock's lead actor portray?

Smaug and Sauron: he voiced and motion-captured the dragon Smaug and the Necromancer, Sauron's shadow form, so Holmes and Watson faced off again in Middle-earth.

For which role did Sherlock's lead actor get his first Oscar nomination?

Alan Turing in The Imitation Game earned him a Best Actor nomination, but he lost to Eddie Redmayne's Stephen Hawking, a part he had played himself in the 2004 BBC film Hawking.

Which Phoebe Waller-Bridge series later cast the Moriarty actor as 'the Priest'?

Fleabag: he plays the priest Fleabag falls in love with in the second series, soon nicknamed the 'hot priest', and it won him a Critics' Choice Television Award.

Which Patricia Highsmith character did the Moriarty actor play in a 2024 Netflix series?

Tom Ripley: Steven Zaillian's black-and-white series was made for Showtime and moved to Netflix before it aired, and the con man earned him Emmy and Golden Globe nominations.

Which sitcom made the Mrs Hudson actress famous as Rita, Alf Garnett's daughter?

Till Death Us Do Part: she played Rita opposite Warren Mitchell's bigoted Alf Garnett in the BBC sitcom that inspired America's All in the Family.

Which children's series had the Mrs Hudson actress play Aunt Sally opposite Jon Pertwee?

Worzel Gummidge, the ITV children's series of 1979–81, in which her Aunt Sally, a life-size fairground doll, is the object of the affections of Jon Pertwee's scarecrow.

On which HBO series did the Irene Adler actress play Sookie's fairy godmother?

True Blood: she joined HBO's vampire drama in 2010 as Claudine Crane, the fairy godmother who ends that season by spiriting Sookie Stackhouse away to the land of Faerie.

Which ITV period drama had the Mary Morstan actress play Josie Mardle?

Mr Selfridge: her Miss Mardle, the head of accessories, is shocked when the newly widowed chief of staff Mr Grove gets engaged to Doris, a shop girl from her own counter.

The Lestrade actor made his name in 1980s Merchant Ivory films of which novelist's books?

E. M. Forster: he was Freddy Honeychurch in A Room with a View, then Alec Scudder, the gamekeeper the hero falls in love with, in Maurice.

For which episode's score did Sherlock's composers win a 2014 Creative Arts Emmy?

His Last Vow: entered on its own as a television movie, the finale took craft Emmys for its score, cinematography, picture editing and sound editing.

What does John find when he opens the fridge at 221B in The Great Game?

A severed head: 'Well, where else was I supposed to put it?' asks Sherlock, who is using it to measure how saliva coagulates after death.

What job title does Moriarty's line of work earn him at the end of The Great Game?

Consulting criminal: Moriarty fixes other people's crimes and stays out of reach himself, so Sherlock, half admiring, gives him a title that mirrors his own.

What is the combination to Irene Adler's safe?

Her measurements: American agents hold Sherlock and John at gunpoint until he works the code out, and the opened safe fires a hidden pistol into one of the gunmen.

Which actress, later Rosa Parks in Doctor Who, plays Sergeant Sally Donovan?

Vinette Robinson plays Sergeant Sally Donovan, who greets Sherlock with 'Hello, freak' in the first episode and is the first officer to suspect him in The Reichenbach Fall.

Sherlock updates the old Holmes cry 'The game is afoot' to 'The game is' what?

On: he first cries the line to Mrs Hudson as he dashes out in the opening episode, and the 2016 special hands the original 'afoot' back to his Victorian self.

Which pair of in-character websites did the BBC publish alongside Sherlock?

thescienceofdeduction.co.uk and johnwatsonblog.co.uk: written by Joseph Lidster, they present the cases as Sherlock's own website and John's blog, with extra 'unseen' cases that never reached television.

Which board game got a Sherlock-themed edition in 2012?

Cluedo: in Winning Moves' 2012 Sherlock edition the murder victim is Moriarty, and the suspects include Mrs Hudson and Sherlock himself.

Which category did Sherlock itself win at the 2011 BAFTA Television Awards?

Best Drama Series: Sherlock's short first run won the 2011 BAFTA Television Award ahead of Downton Abbey, Being Human and Misfits.

Besides television, where was Sherlock's New Year's special shown on 1 January 2016?

In British cinemas: the special was simulcast on big screens around the UK as it aired, and a longer cut with a tour of the 221B set reached American cinemas a few days later.

Which actor plays the serial-killer Jefferson Hope in A Study in Pink?

Phil Davis, of Quadrophenia and Vera Drake, plays Jeff Hope, a dying man who kills because a hidden sponsor has promised money for his children with every death.

Which IT Crowd actress plays journalist Kitty Riley in The Reichenbach Fall?

Katherine Parkinson, Jen from The IT Crowd, plays Kitty Riley, the tabloid reporter Sherlock brushes off with 'You repel me', who later readies the exposé that brands him a fraud.

In His Last Vow, what does Sherlock say 'takes us all in the end', recalling a story Mycroft told him?

The East Wind: a force that plucks the unworthy from the Earth in his brother's childhood tale, taken from Conan Doyle's 'There's an east wind coming', which John echoes as the plane turns back.

Which former Doctor Who lead provides the planetarium voice-over heard in the series-one finale?

Peter Davison, the Fifth Doctor, is the uncredited narrator of the planetarium film that keeps running while Sherlock and John fight the Golem in the dark.

Sherlock: The Game Is Now, which opened in London in 2018, was what kind of attraction?

An escape room: written by the show's creators with filmed scenes from the cast, it hid its entrance in a west London shopping centre behind a fake optician's called Doyle's.

A 2012 Japanese adaptation retold Sherlock's first series as what?

A manga: drawn by the artist Jay for Kadokawa's Young Ace magazine from October 2012, it travelled back west when Titan began publishing it in English in 2016.