The following is a list and description of the characters of Sherlock, a British television series that debuted on BBC One in July 2010. The series is a contemporary adaptation of the Sherlock Holmes stories by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and was created by Steven Moffat and Mark Gatiss.
Cast table The opening title cards for the show only list Benedict Cumberbatch and Martin Freeman, but other actors have held roles prominent enough to be considered part of the main cast. Character Portrayed by Series Series 1(2010) Series 2(2012) Series 3(2014) Special(2016) Series 4(2017) Main Sherlock Holmes Benedict Cumberbatch colspan="5" Dr. John Watson Martin Freeman colspan="5" D.I. Greg Lestrade Rupert Graves colspan="5" Mrs. Hudson Una Stubbs colspan="5" Mycroft Holmes Mark Gatiss colspan="4" Molly Hooper Louise Brealey colspan="4" Jim Moriarty Andrew Scott colspan="2" Mary Morstan Watson Amanda Abbington colspan="2" colspan="3" Recurring Sgt. Sally Donovan Vinette Robinson colspan="2" colspan="2" Sarah Sawyer Zoe Telford colspan="4" Philip Anderson Jonathan Aris colspan="2" Ella Tanya Moodie colspan="2" colspan="2" Anthea Lisa McAllister colspan="2" Mike Stamford David Nellist colspan="2" D.I. Dimmock Paul Chequer colspan="3" Irene Adler Lara Pulver colspan="2" colspan="2" Janine Hawkins Yasmine Akram colspan="2" Mrs. Holmes Wanda Ventham colspan="2" Mr. Holmes Timothy Carlton colspan="2" Charles Augustus Magnussen Lars Mikkelsen colspan="2" colspan="2" Tom Ed Birch colspan="2" colspan="2" Archie Adam Greaves-Neal colspan="2" colspan="2" Lady Smallwood Lindsay Duncan colspan="2" Sir Edwin Simon Kunz colspan="2" Bill Wiggins Tom Brooke colspan="2" Eurus Holmes Siân Brooke colspan="4"
Main characters
Sherlock Holmes William Sherlock Scott Holmes (Benedict Cumberbatch) describes himself initially as "a consulting detective, the only one in the world", helping out Scotland Yard when they are out of their depth with cases (usually homicides). He appears as a tall, thin man with dark, curly hair. Like the original character, Sherlock is highly intelligent and able to deduce or abduce information from the small details. According to Molly Hooper in the episode The Sign of Three, he is a graduate chemist.
Sherlock has a very unusual personality, and describes himself in the first episode "A Study in Pink", as a "high-functioning sociopath", a term he insists on in subsequent episodes. Others call him a "psychopath", and in "The Hounds of Baskerville" John Watson suggests to Lestrade that he believes Sherlock has Asperger syndrome. This manifests itself in very poor people skills and the extremely rude manners which Sherlock shows toward everyone he deals with. On two occasions in the episode The Hounds of Baskerville, he also appears to suffer from episodes of sensory overload and has minor meltdowns, and fidgeting with his hand after such an episode appears to soothe him. Also a characteristic of autism, Sherlock can be shown to have a very literal understanding of what is said to him – once, when after Sherlock tells John that he wants to go out that evening, John tells him that he can't because he is going on a date, describing it as "two people who like each other [going] out and [having] fun", Sherlock replies that "That's what [he] was suggesting". Nonverbal communication also does not seem to come naturally to him, and he appears sometimes not to understand sarcasm, though he uses it often. During the episode The Six Thatchers, John and Lestrade have a sarcastic conversation during which they compare Sherlock's neediness and selfishness to that of John's infant daughter, and although Sherlock is able to tell that they are making a joke about him, he does not fully comprehend. After asking them if they are making a joke, he admits that he "doesn't get it". He is also disdainful of the "typical" affectionate relationships he sees other people sharing, referring to them as "sentiment ... a chemical defect found on the losing side". He seems to admit that he does not understand sentiment and does not wish to, but he is shown throughout the series to care deeply about his closest friends. Sherlock is, however, skilled at feigning emotion and is shown successfully manipulating strangers – mostly by playing on their weaknesses – into helping him or providing information useful for a case. His brother Mycroft, in the first episode, says Sherlock has the mind of a scholar or philosopher.
Furthermore, Sherlock does not seem to grasp the deep emotional impact his actions have on those who care deeply about him. Though Sherlock's fake suicide at the end of "The Reichenbach Fall" was conducted in order to protect Sherlock's friends, including John (when, two years later, Sherlock is ready to return to London and reunite with John) he seems to have no idea of the pain and grief John has suffered as the result of his "death". When Sherlock reveals himself to John, having disguised himself as a waiter, he is unhappily shocked at Watson's intense emotional reaction and the fact that John does not immediately accept him back into his life. After he and John have become close again, Sherlock is completely shocked when John asks him to be the best man at his and Mary's wedding, and is unable to mentally finish John's statement about wanting to be "with the two people that [he] love[s] and care[s] about most in the world" with his own name. Again, understanding John's words literally, when John first uses the phrase "the best man", Sherlock goes off on a tangent describing the "best man" he ever knew until John pauses him and explains that he is referring to the "best man" for his and Mary's upcoming wedding. During his best man speech later on in the episode, Sherlock moves everyone deeply by telling John that he is sitting "between the woman [he has] made [his] wife and the man [he] has saved; in short, the two people who love (him) most in all this world", and that he was shocked because he "never expected to be anybody's best friend. And certainly not the best friend of the bravest, and kindest and the wisest human being I have ever had the good fortune of knowing".
Sherlock seems to care more about the crimes than about the victims involved. He is rude and appears to be inconsiderate towards others, including John (often leaving him behind and asking him to do menial, domestic tasks such as shopping). As the series goes on, Sherlock is shown to care deeply for John, showing uncharacteristic emotion when his friend's life is in jeopardy or when John comes to his aid. Sherlock states the highest compliment he can give is saying that Mary deserves John as a husband. He considers only four people as his friends: John Watson, Mrs Hudson, Molly Hooper and DI Greg Lestrade, whose first name he never remembers. He also has an extremely complex relationship with his brother Mycroft, his only admitted intellectual superior. Mycroft, from the outset, is shown to care and worry deeply for him whilst at the same time sharing a mix of mutual contempt and respect. Sherlock seems to have grown more fond of his brother as the stories progress, even pleading with Mycroft to attend John and Mary's wedding; though he was also scornful upon hearing his brother admit he'd be saddened by his death.
Sherlock appears largely asexual and describes himself as "married to his work". He is also often interpreted as gay, having said that girlfriends are "not really [his] area". He seems oblivious to the romantic attraction that Molly has toward him in the first two series. After the introduction of Irene Adler, Sherlock seems to feel some interest in her, though her attempts to throw him off by shocking him seem to have no effect on him; and comes to her rescue when she is about to be executed in Karachi. She frequently flirts with and texts Sherlock in "A Scandal in Belgravia", but he seldom responds. When Irene is believed to be dead, Sherlock is visibly affected, with John saying "he's writing sad music; doesn't eat; barely talks" even suggesting he may be "heartbroken". In the following series, Sherlock briefly has a mental image of her in his Mind Palace when thinking of who would know John's middle name, but quickly retorts "Out of my head, I'm busy". In Series 3 he is briefly in a relationship with Janine. This is later revealed to be a ruse to gain information on her boss, and he carefully avoids allowing the relationship to become too intense.
Sherlock has considerable fighting ability, fighting off a man armed with a sword using his bare hands in The Blind Banker. In A Scandal in Belgravia, he disarms and incapacitates a CIA agent on two separate occasions. At the end of series three, seeing no other choice, he shoots and kills Charles Augustus Magnussen, a corrupt and unethical newspaper owner who is threatening to release incriminating material he has on Mary Watson. Instead of going to prison, Sherlock is sent to do dangerous undercover work in Central Europe; this is interrupted by the shocking revelation at the end of Series Three of Moriarty's survival. Sherlock also enjoys dancing; proudly demonstrating a perfect pirouette to Janine in The Sign of Three during the reception of John and Mary's wedding and lamenting the fact that dancing "never really comes up in crime work". In the same episode, shortly after he deduces Mary's pregnancy, Sherlock explains that he is the one who taught John to dance.
He knows the streets and alleys of London extremely well; in A Study in Pink, he quickly figures out what route a cab would take and plans a route to beat it to its destination. In The Empty Hearse, Sherlock works out which paths to take to shave time off the countdown to save John. He has strange connections, including a graffiti artist, as well as the entire network of the homeless (similar to the Baker Street Irregulars' street urchins in the original stories). In solving cases, Sherlock uses a technique known as the Method of Loci, which he calls his "mind palace", which enables him to efficiently store and retrieve information for deductions. Initially the mind palace appears as a series of assorted facts that appear on the screen when a scene is shown from Sherlock's point of view. In series 3, the mind palace became a very elaborate construction where other characters from the series discuss Sherlock's cases with him.
Sherlock has violent mood swings when there are no cases that interest him. He is once seen stretched out on his chair and firing a gun at a smiley face spray-painted on the wall in his flat. He finds smoking impractical in present-day urban London and, therefore, mostly makes do with nicotine patches. He may apply three patches at the same time when it is a "three patch problem", implying the nicotine helps him to think. For the same reason, he plays the violin and even composes music from time to time. Sherlock also has a history of recreational drug use; solving dangerous cases, as he puts it, "as an alternative to getting high". Seen in His Last Vow, Sherlock has a short fuse when high or recovering, shoving Mycroft against the wall of the flat and painfully twisting one arm behind him; John was concerned in this scene that Sherlock would seriously injure his brother.