Sherlock was a television series broadcast on BBC One created by Steven Moffat and Mark Gatiss, both of whom have historically been prominent writers on Doctor Who.
Crossover[]
The Sherlock versions of Holmes and Watson appear in Sprout Boy meets a Galaxy of Stars alongside the Twelfth Doctor.
Cast and crew connections[]
Cast[]
Crew[]
As of 2023, every individual to have written for the television series Sherlock has also written something for Doctor Who or one of its spin-offs. These are Guy Adams, Joseph Lidster, Mark Gatiss, Steven Moffat, and Steve Thompson.
Directors the series have in common are Rachel Talalay, Euros Lyn, Douglas Mackinnon, Toby Haynes, Colm McCarthy and Nick Hurran.
Sherlock's producer, Sue Vertue, also produced The Curse of Fatal Death [+]Steven Moffat, Doctor Who television episodes (BBC One, 1999).. Gatiss, Moffat and Vertue were all executive producers on the series, as was Beryl Vertue, Moffat's mother-in-law and Sue's mother, who had been the agent of Terry Nation.
David Arnold has worked as a composer for Big Finish Productions and on Sherlock.
Arwel Wyn Jones has worked as a production designer for Sherlock, Doctor Who and The Sarah Jane Adventures.
more to be added
References to Sherlock in the DWU[]
- Main article: Sherlock (in-universe)
A poster for Sherlock. (COMIC: Killer App [+]Andrew Cartmel, DWA comic stories (Panini UK, 2017).)
In Killer App [+]Andrew Cartmel, DWA comic stories (Panini UK, 2017)., a poster for Sherlock is seen on the wall. In The Shining Man [+]Cavan Scott, BBC New Series Adventures (BBC Books, 2017)., the Twelfth Doctor mentions the series.
In the eleventh episode of The Fan Show, Stealing Series 9 Scripts [+]Error: Code 2 - no data stored in variables, cache or SMW., pinned to a wall in a fictionalised version of Steven Moffat's study, a project on a wall can be seen that says "Wholock: The Musical". A fan-made Wholock: The Musical exists in real life.
References to the DWU in Sherlock[]
The Torchwood logo cameos in Sherlock.
In the first episode of the second series of Sherlock, The Empty Hearse, which is largely a homage to The Talons of Weng-Chiang [+]Robert Holmes, Doctor Who season 14 (BBC1, 1977)., some letters in the closing credits are hightlighted red. Rearranged, they spell out Weng-Chiang.
In the second episode of the second series, The Hounds of Baskerville, what appears to be the Doctor's TARDIS can be seen through some trees.
In the third episode of the second series, The Reichenbach Fall, the wifi password that is used in The Bells of Saint John [+]Steven Moffat, Doctor Who series 7 (BBC One, 2013). can be seen on Sherlock's phone.
In the second episode of the fourth series of Sherlock, The Lying Detective, the Torchwood logo can be seen on a letter addressed to Sherlock Holmes.
Also in The Lying Detective, a journalist by the name of Harold Chorley is mentioned.
In a short promotional video for the series, a book by Lavinia Smith can be seen. [1]
Other connections[]
- Other versions of Sherlock Holmes have appeared in the DWU multiple times, perhaps most notably in All-Consuming Fire [+]Andy Lane, Virgin New Adventures (Virgin Books, 1994)..
- Fandom for Sherlock and Doctor Who was often interconnected with each other, frequently leading to fan content celebrating the shows together, often by crossing them over with each other (the term "SuperWhoLock" tended to be used with this mixed fandom activity, which included fans of the American dark fantasy drama Supernatural). A prominent example of this was the short film Wholock, depicting Sherlock meeting the Eleventh Doctor, made by Ben Pickles under his John Smith VFX YouTube channel, prior to him working on Doctor Who officially.
- Matt Smith auditioned for John Watson, but was deemed too young and too wacky for the role. It was this audition that landed him the role of the Doctor.
- However, there has never been an official crossover between the series, with the closest being the minor licensed appearances of elements from Who.
- According to the website Flickering Myth, when quizzed on whether he would like a crossover between Sherlock and Doctor Who, Steven Moffat said the following:
- However, there has never been an official crossover between the series, with the closest being the minor licensed appearances of elements from Who.
Look I’m going to come clean on this: I would… Go speak to Benedict Cumberbatch, Martin Freeman, Mark Gatiss and Sue Vertue, OK? They’re all in the way. I’m not the killjoy, it’s that lot. It’s probably not going to happen [...] You know in some ways, I think Mark [Gatiss] has got a point when he says that however good you imagine [the crossover], it would be almost better in your imagination than it would be if the two grand old egotists actually met. They’d just both go off in opposite corners and sulk that there was someone cleverer than them.
- However, in an interview with Collider, he said:
That’s a question that I get asked so often, and I can’t keep answering it. It’s all right for Doctor Who. That’s fine. But it would change Sherlock’s life, if he met the Doctor and knew that time travel was possible. He’d have to factor that into every crime he solved. And do we really think that Sherlock Holmes lived through a Dalek invasion? I don’t think he did. I think he’d have mentioned it by now. It’s not going to happen. That’s just the truth of it.
- Mark Gatiss, on the other hand, said:
It may be possible to do a crossover for Comic Relief or as a sketch, but that’s it. We should be careful about not giving people everything they want. I don’t want to be a killjoy or Ebenezer Scrooge, but I don’t see why people are so obsessed with the idea. When I was a kid, I had no desire for TARDIS to appear alongside the Starship Enterprise. I liked them as they were. Having said that, I can say that if we did do it, it would disappoint people. Because the image they have in their heads will always be better.
- Titan Comics have produced comics for both Doctor Who and for Sherlock.
