I, Holmes
Premise
Set in an apocalyptic snow covered wasteland, centuries after the fall of man, this Mad-Max world of talking, intelligent animals and mutant creatures is in constant turmoil and the Super-Hyper-Sleuth Sherlock Holmes and his faithful companion Dr Watson are the only thing capable of keeping evil at bay.
Holmes
Holmes is just like the iconic character we all know and love, only Monkey-ized. This simian twist combines the conflicting and crazy monkey behavior with the traditional sleuth solving intellect. Holmes is perpetually caffeinated (animals have adopted many human behaviors and Holmes loves his java). His monkey mind never stops thinking, obsessing, talking, picking, moving or solving problems even if it wanted to. Frequently, while listening to a client’s testimony, he must straighten crooked decorations, examine shiny items, or correct grammar. Unable to resist pointing out crumbs in someone’s mustache or stray threads, he is seen as rude and gets himself and his partner into considerable trouble.
An extremely obsessive personality, Holmes’s advantage is he lives in the vast abandoned London Library, giving him night and day access to every book within. He knows dozens of languages, he knows quantum physics, he knows martial arts, he knows macrame. Holmes has little patience for anything but new challenges. Stagnancy causes him a bad funk in between cases. But, when the game is afoot, he’s unstoppable, and even Watson can barely keep up.
Watson
Watson is the duo’s ballast, providing the empathy, civility, and sensitivity Holmes lacks. He is good-natured, loyal, and congenial. Just like an otter, he’s consistently spirited even when things look bleak. He maintains an optimistic, can-do attitude, particularly when a pastry, donut, or jelly-filled treat is a potential reward.
Watson is fascinated by Holmes’s singular skills, documenting their adventures and finding it endlessly entertaining. He’s never afraid to step in to help and with Holmes it is often needed and always appreciated.
If Watson has a fault, it is his temper and his quick frustration in dangerous situations. The Naval veteran won several boxing competitions when he was a sailor and isn’t afraid of getting into a scrap.
Watson serves as Holmes’s translator to the monkey’s gushers of knowledge that no one understands, and to Holmes’s misunderstanding of common animal decency.
Moriarty
Moriarty is a polar bear who suffers from a nasty superiority complex and a preoccupation with being Holmes’s arch-nemesis. We eventually learn that he is the source of all evil in the post-human world. Plotting from his evil lair, the Great Pyramids, now a submerged flood plain, Moriarty sends out tendrils of crime across the world while amassing great fortune and power. Holmes and Watson are the only ones able to thwart his menace. Moriarty is pure arrogance and deadly intelligence. He feels entitled to be in charge of the new world, and all life should answer to him. The Polar Bear plays a constant game of chess with the duo, determined that even if he cannot win, Holmes must lose.
Hoskins
Hoskins is Moriarty’s acting lieutenant. Gruff, grouchy and some think the evil element in their plots, Hoskins is definitely not a sidekick and not to be underestimated because of his diminutive size (And don’t ever call him “cute.”) Many a henchman has disappeared after calling him...just don’t say it. Often disagreeing with Moriarty’s drawn out theatrics and obsession with Holmes, Hoskins is nevertheless always ready carry out the most dangerous parts of any scheme.
L.E.S.T.R.A.D - Computer Consult
L.E.S.T.R.A.D is the archaic computer that the Ministry of Defense uses to make difficult decisions for them. Miraculously, it is self-powered and Holmes hates the reliance on the computing relic which was unreliable even when it was state of the art. Equating it with a leaky magic eight ball, Holmes is constantly inconvenienced by the beige plastic box’s arbitrary solutions and answers that are treated as gospel by an otherwise functioning government. Holmes’s exasperation grows every time he has to tailor his investigation to fortune cookie computer wisdom.
Sylvanus Holden & Dodson
Sylvanus Holden and Dodson or Sylvie and Dodie are a female Penguin and Walrus sleuthing duo. They are Holmes and Watson’s direct competitors. More even-tempered and efficient that Holmes and Watson they lack Holmes' brilliance and his ability to handle the really crazy cases, but they are more reliable and rarely get caught up in trouble. Sometimes both duo’s cases gets intertwined to much comic effect.
The Rest - Friends and Foes
Every week there will be new and exciting characters that need mysteries solved and new villains perpetrating the crimes. Only Holmes and Watson will know who is friend and who is foe.
The World
Civilization has regressed to Victorian age-like state. Isolated islands of mild-temperate land are refuge for all warm-weather animals, making for pockets of overpopulation. While the Animal Kingdom has regained control, their society comes under constant threat from a lingering plague of crime and mutant monster animals created by the fall of man.
Since man and his microchip civilization are gone, technology is pieced from leftovers. Parts that need the least energy have been retooled for new purposes. Coaches are horse-driven hollowed cars (now horses are paid and have their own union). Trains are rubber band powered. The only truly reliable mode of transportation is by boat, thus most remaining animal nations, are naval based. While criminals are always searching for the ultimate warfare relic in order to take over, they also cobble together new armaments. Holmes and Watson are at one point assaulted with a CD slinging cannon. All the post-apocalyptic junk-rigging regularly pays off in thrilling, but funny, bursts of action, like a comical Mad Max style chase through the Great Sand Sea in solar powered, re-tooled bumper cars, which periodically stall because of a cloudy day.
Governments constantly call on our duo to solve their most perplexing problems, and now more than ever, civilization needs a Holmes and Watson.
A Sherlock Holmes like no other
Episode Layout
Holmes and Watson’s relationship will be the main focus of the series. They will bicker like the Larry and Jeff from Curb Your Enthusiasm, sympathize and nerd out like Frasier and Niles Crane, and kick-butt like Batman and Robin. The mysteries will be scatterbrained like Holmes, all asides and detours, rarely will one mystery be solved or
Holmes and Watson’s relationship will be the main focus of the series. They will bicker like the Larry and Jeff from Curb Your Enthusiasm, sympathize and nerd out like Frasier and Niles Crane, and kick-butt like Batman and Robin. The mysteries will be scatterbrained like Holmes, all asides and detours, rarely will one mystery be solved or finished in an episode. Previous mysteries thought solved will remerge, future mysteries will be set up by meeting new suspicious characters. The viewer won’t mind because each every scene is a funny vignette, there is no overall plot to follow other than Holmes and Watsons interactions with the world. It will constantly feature the jury-rig tech, a cobbled laser-weapon here, Holmes’s malfunctioning gadget-cane there. Former military weapons, buried for centuries, will be the target of many villains throughout the adventures and cases.
During every episode there will be one of Holme’s lessons where he addresses the audience about some particular point of fact. For example, Watson will about to be periled by a poison dart frog, and Holmes will elucidate about the poison dart frog, with scientific names and diagrams on screen, while Watson sweats in the background. Foes and other characters will have to patently wait for Holmes lesson to be over before resuming the action.
Also during an episode there will be a quick musical number and it will be a source of humor by how the musical number is incorporated, usually at the request of the music-loving Watson and always annoying Holmes who does not appreciate modern music.