This holiday season will be a special one for fans of novelist Arthur Conan Doyle and his greatest creation, the fictional detective Sherlock Holmes. Two new TV programs about the two men are coming to BBC and PBS.
One is Killing Sherlock: Lucy Worsley on the Case of Conan Doyle, coming to BBC Two, BBC iPlayer, and PBS in December.
As the BBC explains, the three-episode series will examine how Doyle “came to hate” Holmes, who has become the world’s most famous fictional detective.
Lucy Worsley, a historian who previously hosted Agatha Christie: Lucy Worsley on the Mystery Queen, will present “a unique parallel biography of Sherlock Holmes and the complex man who created him,” the network adds. She’ll delve into archives, meet with experts and descendants, and incorporate historical context with personal history.
Dear friends, our TOP SECRET NEW PROJECT is secret no more! Our exciting new series KILLING SHERLOCK 🔍is coming your way very soon on @BBCTwo😀https://t.co/e4w3h2U4xS pic.twitter.com/WwAX6wcTnQ
— Lucy Worsley (@Lucy_Worsley) October 20, 2023
“I have had a life-long crush on Sherlock Holmes, so it was the biggest pleasure imaginable to explore his life, death and resurrection,” Worsley says in a press release. “While exploring his life and times, I also got a real and sometimes troubling insight into manliness, Empire and Victorian values. I find his creator, Arthur Conan Doyle, to be a complex, contradictory and endlessly fascinating character.”
The other new program is Lot No. 249, an adaptation of Doyle’s horror short story of the same name. Mark Gatiss, co-creator of Sherlock, is adapting the story, with Kit Harington and Freddie Fox set to star. The plot revolves around a group of Oxford students — one of whom unearths secrets about Ancient Egypt that become the talk of the college.
“It’s a serious delight for me to delve once again into the brilliant work of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, this time for the Christmas ghost story,” Gatiss says. “Lot No. 249 is a personal favourite and is the grand-daddy (or should that be Mummy?) of a particular kind of end-of-Empire chiller: a ripping yarn packed with ghastly scares and who-knows-what lurking in the Victorian closet…”
Lot No. 249, a thirty-minute special, will air on BBC Two and BBC iPlayer this Christmas, and BBC Studios is handling the international distribution.