MOVIE NEWS – USA Network is developing an unusual Sherlock Holmes spin-off in which the detective’s London secretary begins solving cases of her own. Titled Sherlock’s Secretary, the procedural is inspired by the real people who spent decades answering fan mail addressed to 221B Baker Street.

The project from Versant and USA Network will follow an eccentric London woman who has replied to letters on Holmes’ behalf for years. Without intending to, she absorbs the celebrated detective’s methods and eventually decides to test what she has learned.

She takes over part of Holmes’ workload and ventures beyond 221B Baker Street to conduct investigations independently. The show continues a tradition of expanding the Sherlock Holmes mythology through other characters, following productions such as Miss Sherlock, The Irregulars, and Enola Holmes.

A Psych writer is reportedly circling the series

Andy Berman, whose credits include Psych and High Potential, is reportedly writing the story and is expected to serve as both producer and showrunner. The original concept came from producer Bruce Nash after he discovered that Sherlock Holmes had once employed real-world “secretaries.”

“When I learned there was an actual person whose job was answering letters sent to Sherlock Holmes, I knew there was a television series hiding inside that story,” Nash said.

The unlikely occupation grew out of one of literature’s strangest pieces of fan history. Arthur Conan Doyle’s first Holmes story, A Study in Scarlet, debuted in 1887, and part of its rapidly growing audience came to believe that the detective was an actual person.

The fictional address became real in 1932

Baker Street ended at number 85 at the time, so mail addressed to the fictional 221B could not be delivered. That changed in 1932 when the British building society Abbey National assigned the numbers 219 through 229 to its expansive headquarters to make the complex easier to navigate.

Almost overnight, 221B Baker Street became a genuine address and letters written to Holmes began arriving at Abbey National. Instead of asking the postal service to return them, the company hired a secretary to answer the correspondence, creating a clever publicity link with the world’s most famous detective.

Chris Bazlinton was the seventh person in the long line of Sherlock Holmes secretaries, ending his tenure in 1982. He told The Economist that he answered approximately 6,000 letters during seven years in the position. “Somebody had to answer,” he said.

A former Holmes secretary is consulting on the production

Gug Kyriacou also served as one of Holmes’ real-world secretaries and is now advising the development of Sherlock’s Secretary. Berman is expected to write the plot while overseeing the project as producer and showrunner.

No casting announcements or release window have been revealed. The series nevertheless joins an expanding group of Holmes spin-offs: the standalone Moriarty origin film Moriarty Rising: A Sherlock Holmes Tale was announced last June, while a second season of Sherlock & Daughter is also in development.

Source: MovieWeb