However Improbable

Holmes and Watson celebrate the winter season with a literal wild goose chase in “The Adventure of the Blue Carbuncle,” from The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes.

This story is filled with holiday cheer, home museums and the benefits of private detection. As we approach the end of our year, we look back on Holmes and Watson’s busy year, and contemplate Holmes’s hypocrisy, the archetype of the private detective, and what’s looming in the year ahead.

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"The Adventure of the Blue Carbuncle" from The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, narrated by Georie Taylor. 

“My name is Sherlock Holmes. It is my business to know what other people don’t know.”

This story is narrated by Georie Taylor (ey/em/eir). A baker and voice actor in the Pacific Northwest, ey have been in podcasts for almost five years and baking for two decades. Off mic you can find em caring for eir child (a beautiful baby sourdough starter), knitting, and playing tabletop RPGs. Eir twitter is @Delta.Georie.

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Sherlock Holmes goes to great lengths to catch a killer... and tests the patience of his landlady, his own physical health, and the strength of his friendship with Watson. “The Adventure of the Dying Detective,” from His Last Bow does feel a little out of place - but hear us out for why this story works so well in the earlier years of Holmes and Watson’s friendship.

We discuss biological weaponry, perfect crimes, Sigmund Freud swordfighting on a train, and the powerfully moving and unspoken depths of Holmes and Watson’s care for one another. And Arthur Conan Doyle’s racism. This story is so racist.

Content warning (spoilers coming): Holmes starves himself, fakes delirium and lies to Watson. Medical malpractice, infectious disease and murder abound - as does considerable anti-Asian racism. 

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"The Adventure of the Dying Detective" from His Last Bow, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, narrated by Dan Heidt. 

"He's dying, Dr. Watson," said she. "For three days he has been sinking, and I doubt if he will last the day. He would not let me get a doctor."

Content warning (also spoilers for the twist): Illness, starvation, and some tremendous Holmesian lies. 

Dan Heidt is a songwriter and podcaster from Columbus, Ohio.  His podcast, "Flies in the Kitchen" features conversations with creative folx from all genres, in all settings.  Dan previously recorded several stories for Librivox, an online audio archive of public domain publications, and when not blabbering into a microphone, he is building SUVs for Honda Manufacturing and enjoying life with his wife and 4 cats.  His debut album, 'The View From Up Here', is available on all streaming platforms as well, for your listening pleasure.

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To wrap up our one-year anniversary month, we indulged in gin and “Sherlock Holmes,” (2009) dir. Guy Ritchie. It was Marisa’s first introduction to the Holmes and Watson, and reviewers have described it as either “disturbingly bad” or a “fresh reinvention” of an old classic. This steampunk roller coaster ride of a film raises some interesting questions about how we value adaptations of stories we understand to be enshrined in a literary canon. We talk about its versions of these iconic characters, why it’s mean to bisexuals, what it gets right and wrong about occultism in the Victorian era, and the enduring appeal of queer subtext in blockbusters even when we really should know better.

Content warning: The movie itself contains some cartoonishly grisly deaths, most notably by hanging. And heed the "explicit" note on this episode - it's cocktail hour and we talk like it. Contains a lot more cursing than usual, and objectification of the bisexual kind. We love and respect you for your work, Ms. McAdams, really we promise. 

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It’s hard to believe, but it’s been an entire year since we aired the first chapters of A Study in Scarlet. Since then, we’ve followed Holmes and Watson on adventures ranging from slapstick to sinister, and we couldn’t have done it without you. Thank you so much for listening this year!

We took a moment to reflect back on our first experiences with Holmes - and think about why this character and the stories have such a hold on our imaginations. Plus, we share listener and narrator stories about the first Holmes adaptations they remember - from Barbie video games and The Great Mouse Detective to high school English teachers and Jeremy Brett.

Thank you to Grace, Natalie, Vince, Rose, Monique, Kyle, Alaina, and Courtney for sharing your first encounters with Holmes for this episode!

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Underpaid employees, bank heists, and Spanish violin virtuosos. “The Red-Headed League” is the second story in The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, part heist, part comedy, and all-around good time. We discuss perhaps the canon's best and least represented villain, Holmes's mental health, and the inherent sexual tension between a gentleman thief and the police detective who wants to arrest him. 

Content warning: Watson carries a gun in this episode, and there are some tense moments of drama and classism.

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From The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, this is "The Red-Headed League" by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, narrated by Kate Murtaugh.

“My dear doctor, this is a time for observation, not for talk. We are spies in an enemy’s country."

Content warning: Watson carries a gun in this episode, and there are some tense moments of drama and classism. 

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Mistaken identity, evil stepfathers, and the importance of a good optician. “A Case of Identity” (from The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes) has a plot fit for a Shakespeare play - without the narrative satisfaction. In this surprisingly sinister armchair detective story, we discuss skeevy men, Peter Pan, Watson's eye for color and the complicated undercurrent of misogyny running beneath the narrative. 

Content warning: This episode some spectacularly weird and mean-spirited lies directed at a young woman, and some classic Doylish misogyny.

A transcript of this episode is available here: https://www.howeverimprobablepodcast.com/transcripts

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"A Case of Identity" from The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes by Arthur Conan Doyle, narrated by Lucille Valentine. 

“It was most suggestive,” said Holmes. “It has long been an axiom of mine that the little things are infinitely the most important."

This story is narrated by Lucille Valentine. Lucille is a desert rat masquerading as a voice actor, poetry and fiction writer, visual artist, and sensitivity consultant. You can hear her in numerous podcasts, including The Six Disappearances of Ella McCray, The Easiest of All the Hard Things, and The 12:37, or by pressing your ear up against a cactus skeleton on a windy night. She’s happiest when reading poetry to be sad on purpose and while aggravating grammar elitists over on Twitter.

Content warning: This episode some spectacularly weird and mean-spirited lies directed at a young woman, and some classic Doylish misogyny. 

Find recommended reading, more stories, info about the show and more on our website:

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