Sherlock: The Network is an application, available on iOS or Android, that allows the user to participate in a case much like one depicted in the TV series. Is it a game? Not quite. I’d call it more of a digital marketing tool. It extends the world of the story but does not directly contribute to it, if we were to watch the show exclusively we would not be missing elements by not using this application.

We’re allowed to click through as we please but the story is intended to unravel in the same way not subject to what the audience members do. (Murray 1997, p.127) We don’t have agency in this space and normally we do not expect agency in narrative (Murray 1997, p.126) but in this case, I think we do anticipate that sense, that we might get to play around the world as Sherlock does, at our own free will. Instead it’s a list of clues found by Sherlock and Dr Watson and we play arcade games to ride the train to the locations they’ve suggested.

Sherlock: The Network is not a ‘digital labyrinth,’ (Murray 1997, p.132) it takes from traditional modes of story – linearity, single solution, obstacles and goals. It’s a money-making low-brow regurgitation of the show itself. I don’t think Deleuze would’ve digged it.

Murray, J (1997), ‘Chapter 5: Agency’ in Hamlet on the Holodeck. Cambridge, USA: The MIT Press