SHERLOCK HOLMES SHOWS UP

Elementary My Dear Winston

Original Air date September 16, 1989

Writer: Richard Mueller

Director: Charles Grosvenor

Main Cast:

• Dave Coulier as Peter Venkman
• Frank Welker as Raymond Stantz
• Maurice LaMarche as Egon Spengler
• Buster Jones as Winston Zeddemore
• Kath Soucie as Janine Melnitz
• Frank Welker as Slimer
• Rodger Bumpass as Louis Tully

(Rating 5 of 5)

Summary:  The city is invaded by a ghost claiming to be the ghost of Professor Moriarty who is accompanied by his Hound.  He is looking to absorb evil spirits and become a solid person.   The ghosts of Holmes and Watson however are on his tail.  At the firehouse the Ghostbusters were tossing football on their downtime.  Moriarty enters and tries to open the Containment Unit.  The Ghostbusters chase him away and discover they also have the other two ghosts to deal with as well.

Moriarty arrives!

He is not the only one however.

                Later Moriarty attacks the museum of crime for its evil energies. The Ghostbusters try to blast him but he is unaffected. Holmes and Watson show up again but the Hound captures Watson and the villains take off with him.  Holmes tries to pursue but Peter traps him.  Winston comes to the conclusion that this is the ghost of Sherlock Holmes.  The other Ghostbusters think Winston has lost a nut but he frees the ghost anyway.  Holmes identifies himself and recruits Winston to help him around New York.  As they leave Egon concludes this is an example of belief made manifest.  So many people believed in Holmes that it created a ghost of him even through he was not a real person.

Moriarty tries to absorb the evil spirits.

Holmes.

                Holmes and Winston track Moriarty to the city library.  The other three Ghostbusters arrive shortly after and attack Moriarty but he escapes again.  Holmes figure out that Moriarty plans for a second try at the Containment Unit.  Moriarty is set to release the ghosts and does free some and starts to absorb them.  Winston however throws a football at the Containment Unit switch turning it to trap mode.    The ghosts get sucked back in and Holmes makes it so he and Moriarty are absorbed together.  Watson jumped in to join them.  In the end Winston feels guilty that they have the greatest detective in the Containment Unit.

Slimer meets Watson.

Slimer doing his best Holmes impersonation.

My Take: In the course of this series the Ghostbusters have faced other fictional characters from other stories.  Sometimes they are parodies so there are no trademark violations.  Other times with stories in the public domain they have faced off against creatures such as Cathulhu and the Headless Horseman.  They once went back in time and interfered with the three ghosts' attempt to reform Ebenezer Scrooge.  At the end of that last one Winston wonder what other stories that they have heard might more than just stories and they heard Santa!   Okay so belief made manifest that could explain some things including Santa.  This nevertheless was an interesting way to approach the idea.

                

                 Now for my stray observations:

·         If Holmes and Watson are so smart why couldn’t they figure out that they were driving the wrong way?

·         Instead of belief made manifest I would have guessed fanboy cosplay ghost.  In life he really liked Holmes.

·         I love Peter’s line about having to deal with Darth Vader.

·         Good continuity observation about Winston being well read.

·         I thought the Containment Unit was downstairs, this episode the characters seemed to go up.

·         Traps work packs don’t got it.

·         Why were the Ghostbusters hanging on for dear life when the Containment Unit was in trap mode?  They’re not ghosts.

All around great episode.