MAsters of the universe?
139
The Press in Sherlock
The paradox of modernizing a Victorian detective series in order to stay
true to its “spirit” is also reflected in the modernization of Charles Augustus
Milverton (from the Conan Doyle story “The Adventure of Charles Augustus
Milverton”) as Charles Augustus Magnussen in Sherlock. Why, we may
ask, in a show so obsessed with cutting-edge technology and innovation
– “a new sleuth for the 21 st century,” as the DVD packaging for series one
says – did series three select an old-fashioned press baron as 2014’s most
dangerous man in London? Even the expression “press baron” evokes the
powerful newspaper figures of the late nineteenth and early twentieth
century: Lord Rothermere, Lord Northcliffe, William Randolph Hearst, and
Lord Beaverbrook. Why then, in 2014, with the print operations of so many
newspapers running at a loss, and the long-term future of print newspapers
in doubt, did Sherlock cast a newspaper magnate as a super-villain, just
when the power of real-life news and media bosses like Rupert Murdoch
were under powerful governmental and legal scrutiny? To consolidate the
sense that this is a villain from an earlier point in history, it may be recalled
that Jared Harris’ Moriarty in Guy Ritchie’s 2011 film Sherlock Holmes: A
Game of Shadows has comparable international influence to Magnussen;
he is an agent provocateur industrialist with the ear of governments, who
can pull the strings to provoke a world war. Ritchie’s movies are set in a
fantasy alternative Victorian universe, of course, but they still play up to
the idea of Moriarty as a “hidden hand” itching to start the First World War.
One answer to these questions is that the visual medium of television
can only survive for so long by picturing screen shots, floating text, and
data streams; it needs the materiality of old-fashioned newsprint to embody
the threat of the media magnate, especially since the villainous twist to
Magnussen’s operation turns out to be that he has no physical files after
all in his “Appledore vaults,” only his own prodigious memory. Thus, the
misleading shots of Magnussen wandering through his extensive filing
system are another way for the narrative to pull the rug from under the
viewer. We are led to believe that Magnussen is dependent on “Google
Glass” spectacles (or a similar device) feeding him information, then we
are shown him exploring his physical vaults, and only at the climax of “His
Last Vow” do we find that Magnussen’s secret weapon is neither analog nor
digital but, like Sherlock, his mind itself. The modernizing adaptation sets
up the expectation of a technological solution (Magnussen’s knowledge
comes from Google Glass), then hints that there has been no modernization
at all (it comes from filing cabinets and papers), before finally settling on
139
The Press in Sherlock
The paradox of modernizing a Victorian detective series in order to stay
true to its “spirit” is also reflected in the modernization of Charles Augustus
Milverton (from the Conan Doyle story “The Adventure of Charles Augustus
Milverton”) as Charles Augustus Magnussen in Sherlock. Why, we may
ask, in a show so obsessed with cutting-edge technology and innovation
– “a new sleuth for the 21 st century,” as the DVD packaging for series one
says – did series three select an old-fashioned press baron as 2014’s most
dangerous man in London? Even the expression “press baron” evokes the
powerful newspaper figures of the late nineteenth and early twentieth
century: Lord Rothermere, Lord Northcliffe, William Randolph Hearst, and
Lord Beaverbrook. Why then, in 2014, with the print operations of so many
newspapers running at a loss, and the long-term future of print newspapers
in doubt, did Sherlock cast a newspaper magnate as a super-villain, just
when the power of real-life news and media bosses like Rupert Murdoch
were under powerful governmental and legal scrutiny? To consolidate the
sense that this is a villain from an earlier point in history, it may be recalled
that Jared Harris’ Moriarty in Guy Ritchie’s 2011 film Sherlock Holmes: A
Game of Shadows has comparable international influence to Magnussen;
he is an agent provocateur industrialist with the ear of governments, who
can pull the strings to provoke a world war. Ritchie’s movies are set in a
fantasy alternative Victorian universe, of course, but they still play up to
the idea of Moriarty as a “hidden hand” itching to start the First World War.
One answer to these questions is that the visual medium of television
can only survive for so long by picturing screen shots, floating text, and
data streams; it needs the materiality of old-fashioned newsprint to embody
the threat of the media magnate, especially since the villainous twist to
Magnussen’s operation turns out to be that he has no physical files after
all in his “Appledore vaults,” only his own prodigious memory. Thus, the
misleading shots of Magnussen wandering through his extensive filing
system are another way for the narrative to pull the rug from under the
viewer. We are led to believe that Magnussen is dependent on “Google
Glass” spectacles (or a similar device) feeding him information, then we
are shown him exploring his physical vaults, and only at the climax of “His
Last Vow” do we find that Magnussen’s secret weapon is neither analog nor
digital but, like Sherlock, his mind itself. The modernizing adaptation sets
up the expectation of a technological solution (Magnussen’s knowledge
comes from Google Glass), then hints that there has been no modernization
at all (it comes from filing cabinets and papers), before finally settling on