10.13130/2036-461X/16386
This paper considers BBC’s Sherlock (2010-2017) to intervene in debates on European identity and the transnational circulation of popular culture. The series, one of the most recent and successful television adaptations of Arthur Conan Doyle’s novels, is set in contemporary rather than Victorian London. It represents an example of both ‘quality’ international television and ‘prestige’ British popular culture. As noted by other writers, among the characteristics that enabled the commercial success of the series is its capacity to merge nostalgic elements deriving from the widespread imagery of the ‘original’ Sherlock Holmes with new and innovative textual components (e.g. use of digital technology, social media). The paper considers how Sherlock negotiates between tradition and innovation by bringing together past and present. It argues that such negotiations could perhaps be considered a mark of Europeanness, understood as a process of negotiating national identities. The paper then looks at the reception and circulation of Sherlock in Italy through the lens of cultural encounter theory. The series can be considered a success in terms of ratings and audience share. To some extent Sherlock has triggered both reflections on British television and self-reflections on Italian culture. Nevertheless, from the data we have collected, we observe that such reflections, however significant, remain limited.
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Cinéma & Cie. Film and Media Studies Journal
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BBC’s "Sherlock" and Europeanness: A Case Study on the Circulation of a European TV Crime Series in Italy
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Thematic issue / Section thématique
2021-11-17
2021-09-19
2021-11-17
2022-12-30
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Sara Casoli
2021/11/17
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BBC’s "Sherlock" and Europeanness: A Case Study on the Circulation of a European TV Crime Series in Italy
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                                                                                       BBC’s Sherlock and Europeanness:
                                                                                       A Case Study on the Circulation
                                                                                       of a European TV Crime Series in Italy
                                                                                       Luca Antoniazzi and Sara Casoli
                                                                                       University of Bologna



                                                                                       This paper considers BBC’s Sherlock (2010-2017) to intervene in debates on                             Keywords
                                                                                       European identity and the transnational circulation of popular culture. The series,
                                                                                                                                                                                               Sherlock
                                                                                       one of the most recent and successful television adaptations of Arthur Conan
                                                                                       Doyle’s novels, is set in contemporary rather than Victorian London. It represents                      TV Series
                                                                                       an example of both ‘quality’ international television and ‘prestige’ British popular         Cultural Encounters
                                                                                       culture. As noted by other writers, among the characteristics that enabled the                     Europeanness
                                                                                       commercial success of the series is its capacity to merge nostalgic elements                          Britishness
                                                                                       deriving from the widespread imagery of the ‘original’ Sherlock Holmes with new
                                                                                                                                                                                                     DOI
                                                                                       and innovative textual components (e.g. use of digital technology, social media).
                                                                                       The paper considers how Sherlock negotiates between tradition and innovation by        10.13130/2036-461X/16386
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License




                                                                                       bringing together past and present. It argues that such negotiations could perhaps
                                                                                       be considered a mark of Europeanness, understood as a process of negotiating
                                                                                       national identities. The paper then looks at the reception and circulation of
                                                                                       Sherlock in Italy through the lens of cultural encounter theory. The series can
                                                                                       be considered a success in terms of ratings and audience share. To some extent
                                                                                       Sherlock has triggered both reflections on British television and self-reflections
                                                                                       on Italian culture. Nevertheless, from the data we have collected, we observe that
                                                                                       such reflections, however significant, remain limited.




                                                                                       INTRODUCTION1
                                                                                         Sherlock Holmes’ observational attitude could be particularly helpful
                                                                                       when it comes to dealing with serial TV as ‘material documentary
                                                                                       evidence that is used to make sense of our lives,’2 as TV can tell us a lot
                                                                                       about the conventions, traditions and the cultural shaping of our society.
                                                                                       Through its analysis of Sherlock (BBC, 2010–2017), this paper deals with
                                                                                       European identity and the exchange of popular culture within Europe.3 An
                                                                                       increasingly rich literature has recently been produced on transnational
                                                                                       media circulation in Europe. In particular, we are interested here in
                                                                                       cultural encounters with Europeanness as processes that can help to
                                                                                       bridge cultures by creating common ground among audiences in different
                                                                                       countries.4


                                                                                       Cinéma & Cie vol. 21 no. 36/37 2021 · ISSN 2036-461X                                                      19
                                                                                 
       As usual for case studies, our work has no ambition to be exhaustive, or
     fully generalizable, and its conclusions will certainly be partial. However,
     we believe that much can be learned from Sherlock as a series that has
     been conceived both as an embodiment of British cultural heritage and as
     an international product suitable for export. Sherlock is unmistakably a
     British product, but it is also relevant as far as ‘Europeanness’ is concerned.
     Milly Buonanno has interestingly claimed that ‘the high reputation for
     quality enjoyed in Italy, as elsewhere, by British television drama, can
     even turn […] [marked] Britishness […] into the proud emblem of a shared
     transnational Europeanness.’ She defines ‘marked Europeanness’ as the
     ‘unmistakable evidence of European involvement and presence at some
     level of the creative and production process.’5
       All four seasons of Sherlock and the special ‘The Abominable Bride’ were
     all planned and written before the Brexit referendum6 – but one might
     legitimately ask, why, after Brexit, one chooses a British case study to talk
     about European identity? Although the EU project and Europeanness are
     related, we do not conceive them as totally overlapping. Should we not
     consider Switzerland, Norway, or other countries in central Europe as non-
     European because they are not part of the EU? Even if UK citizens voted to
     leave the EU, this does not make them non-European. ‘To be a “European”
     is different from being a member of a “European nation”,’ wrote Philip
     Schlesinger.7 It is also noteworthy that even the historically Eurosceptic
     UK, the day after the EU referendum appeared split almost in half, and with
     46% of people aged between 18 and 25, mostly ‘remainers’, not showing up
     at the ballot box.8 It would be inaccurate to think of Brexit as a return to an
     ‘original’ British identity; rather, Brexit is more reasonably understood as
     the start of an identity transition shaped and articulated by new forms of
     nationalist rhetoric.
       In the following sections we seek to answer these two questions: (RQ1)
     To what extent can Sherlock be regarded as marked by ‘Europeanness’?
     (RQ2) What does the Italian circulation and media reception of this series
     tell us about cultural encounters and European identity?
       In the next section, as anticipated, after introducing the concept of cultural
     encounter, we define what we mean by Europeanness. Subsequently we
     proceed to answer our research questions in two distinct sections. Firstly,
     to answer RQ1 we analyse two aspects of Sherlock: its production history;
     and its textual and narrative construction.9 After analysing its production,
     we carry out a textual analysis of the series, taking a narratological
     perspective10 to understand how Sherlock mediates between national
     and non-national identities and to what extent it could be read as marked
     by Europeanness. As discussed by Allrath, Gymnich and Surkamp, a
     narratological, textualist perspective on a TV series ‘regard(s) structure
     as a carrier of meaning and seek(s) to capture the interplay between form
     and content.’11 Hence, this approach can be useful in analysing Sherlock’s
     ability to negotiate between national and transnational (and possibly


20                                   Antoniazzi, Casoli, BBC’s Sherlock and Europeanness

European) identities. By analyzing the aesthetic and narrative configuration
of the series as well as its plot devices, we consider how Sherlock merges
national culture with American TV features and, while fostering the idea of
a national identity, also challenges it.
  We then consider the scheduling strategies of the Italian networks that
have broadcast the series. This scheduling provides both quantitative and
qualitative information about the popularity of the series, consumption
and exploitation patterns, and the demographics of its audience.12 We also
look at the reaction of the press to identify the features of the series that
have proven most attractive to journalists and commentators. As Paul
Rixon reminds us, ‘[b]y analysing television reviews and associated critical
articles, we can gain an insight into how a society values, reflects on, and
struggles over the meaning of television as a cultural medium.’13 We have
collected all the available published journalistic materials from Italian
media and looked at quantitative data on programming, audience share
and ratings. Before getting into the heart of the findings, in the section
that immediately follows, we lay out the research, defining the theoretical
framework and conceptual boundaries.



‘Europeanness’ and
Cultural Encounters
  As anticipated in the introduction, in order to develop our analysis
of Sherlock and understand its relevance to European identity, a sound
definition of Europeanness is required. Cultural identities can be defined as
symbolic systems that justify and explain the political alliance of different
social groups and their commitment to stay together as a unit to protect
the life and wellbeing of each member. Put simply, collective cultural
identities tell us, cognitively and emotionally, why we are together and ‘aid
in the spread of habits of voluntary compliance’14 to certain social rules
and conventions. Neil Fligstein, in his widely read contribution15 to debates
on European identity, acknowledges that, although weak and confined to
certain social classes, in many European countries we can see emerging
a sense of identification with the process of European unification. A
substantial, although decreasing, proportion of people in Europe feel they
have both a national and a European identity. However, in his illuminating
account, Fligstein does not provide an objectivist definition of European
identity, basing his assessment on how people ‘feel’ and ‘perceive’ their
own relationship with the EU project.
  Klaus Eder16 argued that European identity cannot be defined as
traditional national identities through normative, monolithic, and
substantive definitions. Nor can such identity be defined in terms of pure
cosmopolitanism, as a radical transcendence from national dimensions.


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                                                                                
     Eder proposes European identity be rooted in the collective memory of the
     ‘murderous nationalist past’ of Europe (e.g. world wars, colonialism) and its
     destructive socio-political consequences. He writes that it is useful to look
     at ‘European collective identity by viewing it as the accumulated conflictual
     efforts to construct the particularity of the Europeans as a transnational
     people’17 who reject such violent heritage. At the core of European
     identity there is therefore the struggle against a violently nationalist past
     and, at the same time, the tensions generated by the impossibility of
     totally transcending these roots. There is a need to remember national
     identities with external (European) interlocutors that could encourage
     critical reflection and simultaneously strengthen mutual recognition
     and collective creativity. Identity formation, in Eder’s account, should be
     understood both as a process of remembering together local or national
     European pasts and as ‘a collective learning process in which people not
     only become conscious about the collective “We” […] [but also about the]
     particular obligations that these Europeans share among themselves and
     with no one else.’18
       One might argue that, in the age of what has been called globalization,
     these processes of identity negotiations are shared by many countries
     around the world. This might be true to some extent, but as many media
     scholars have stressed, globalization theory has often overemphasised
     the magnitude of certain processes that in some cases were not even
     unprecedented.19 Although there have been some significant (and diverse)
     changes with the advent of new technologies (satellite technologies, the
     Internet) and new international trade agreements, world cultural identities
     are still very much national (where nation exist not only on paper). Given
     this background, we see the EU political unification process as unique
     because it entails a real and profound collective institutional change with
     huge repercussions for all social groups forming its constituent national
     communities.
       We believe that these negotiations of identity, based on the sharing of
     national memory and learning of collective consciousness, are inscribed
     in some European television dramas to the point of becoming the
     distinguishing mark of Europeanness. Writing about the Welsh series Y
     Gwyll/Hinterland (BBC, 2013-2016), shot in rural Wales, Elke Weissmann20
     identifies three levels of symbolic realms that are respectively meaningful
     to local, national, and international audiences. The series attracted local
     spectators of rural Wales; a portion of British national audiences, mainly
     within urban cosmopolitan groups; and a significant portion of European
     international audiences. Similarly to many Nordic Noir products, ‘the
     series [Hinterland] was made for all three realms and as a result includes
     significant textual negotiations that mark them.’21 The series was produced
     and supported by a range of different organisations at local, national,
     and European levels that mirrored such tripartition.22 As is common in
     the European context, many key organisations involved in the production


22                                  Antoniazzi, Casoli, BBC’s Sherlock and Europeanness

and distribution of the programme were supported with public money; as
such, their mandates include a mix of economic and extra-economic goals
(e.g. giving a voice to minority groups, providing a more diverse picture of
European culture by exposing British margins, and making these places
visible to help the tourist industry). It is precisely this negotiation that
distinguishes our still-emerging European culture, this tension between
keeping symbols rooted in specific places and national histories and
making them understandable and relatable to different cultures to allow
their broader circulation. Hinterland is therefore characterized by marked
Europeanness as its stylistic and narrative negotiations reflect those of
European cultural identity. The relative transnational success of this type of
series demonstrates how synergy and negotiation among local, national and
transnational components can be capitalized to target a diverse audience.
The feature of Europeanness might not be so easy to identify, as Buonanno
herself foresaw, as we also observe ‘unmarked Europeanness’ in the case
of TV formats circulating transnationally that undergo a process of strong
indigenization and even ready-made products imported and ‘mediated’
by national industries.23 Also, Buonanno adds, European features are not
always recognized by audiences and their reaction to such materials can
be diverse. In this specific respect, cultural encounters theory can help us
to fruitfully consider audience reception of transitional cultural products.
   Cultural encounters refer to experiences of and engagement with foreign
or culturally distant media productions. Media scholars in sociology
of culture and media studies have shown the capacity of transnational
cultural encounters to bridge different cultures.24 Audiences recognize
both similarities and differences during exposures to ‘otherness’ and this
peculiar relatability in turn triggers a process of self-reflection on one’s own
culture. Looking at UK audience reception of the Scandinavian series Broen/
The Bridge (SVT1/DR1, 2011), Ib Bondebjerg concludes: ‘what we see again
is this double effect of mediated cultural encounters: the interpretation of
(and fascination with) the Nordic Other prompts a self-reflexive discussion
of British culture and society.’25 Aforementioned established sociologists
such as Neil Fligstein and Klaus Eder, along with cultural policy scholar
Monica Sassatelli,26 have also argued that long-lasting exposure to cultures
from other countries can bring social groups closer. This argument is
important, or should be, for all those who are worried about the spread of
national populism and cultural prejudice.27 But it is even more important
as an argument for those engaged in conversations related to European
cultural identity formation and the crisis of the EU as a political entity.
   Bondebjerg identifies three levels at which encounters can activate
emotional and cognitive responses. Responses and reflections at the
personal level refer to the resonance of media narratives with particular
life experiences of individuals, such as love affairs, childhood traumas,
and family relationships. Responses at the collective level relate to
collective identity and social groups, national or regional cultures, social


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                                                                                 
     class, or gender. An example could be the recognition of and empathy for
     similar dynamics of class emancipation in a different social context, or
     the relatability to the cultural history of a different country. Finally, at the
     universal level, the deepest level of engagement, audiences’ reflections
     are triggered by basic human feelings as, for example, empathy for others’
     humiliation and suffering. Audiences’ reactions can be simultaneously
     triggered at different levels, but given the scope of this paper and the
     definition of Europeanness that we have embraced, central to our analysis
     is the collective level of self-reflexivity.
        It is important to stress that Bondebjerg and colleagues acknowledge that
     critical self-reflexivity is only a possibility and not an automatic reaction
     to cultural encounters. Some programmes do not challenge stereotypes
     or structured schemas relating to different cultures. Bondebjerg and
     colleagues give the example of historical dramas such as 1864 (DR1,
     2014) and Downton Abbey (ITV, 2010-15) as fictions that ‘are primarily
     reconfirmations of an already established reality.’28 But even popular
     crime dramas like Midsomer Murders, which the authors also consider in
     their analysis, seem to us to encourage uncritical reaffirmation of national
     stereotypes. The programme relies on superficial repurposing of narrative
     tropes of the golden age of English literature (e.g. politeness, the mystery
     of rural England), on caricatured characters and locations, traditionalist
     values embodied in large parts of its episodes (a producer famously
     referred to the series as ‘the last bastion of Englishness’).29 The encounter
     of Midsomer Murders by Danish audiences, argue the authors, triggers
     processes of recognition of similarities and differences with English society
     — and we do not dispute that; but the potential of the series to trigger
     transformative processes and cultural closeness remains questionable.30
     In summary, in this section we have defined Europeanness, and although
     it is a useful concept, we have shown that it is not always easy to capture.
     We have also stressed that when products from another European country
     are encountered on-screen, they might not trigger critical self-reflection
     on cultural identity.
        Let us now consider the specific case of Sherlock to intervene in these
     discussions. In the next section we address RQ1, essentially showing
     that Sherlock can be considered European because: (1) it is produced by
     a public service broadcaster, a raw model in many EU countries, that is
     bound by a public mandate to root its production in national culture while
     dealing with an ever more transnational TV market; (2) it is a product that is
     thought to challenge American industries nationally and internationally, so
     it is designed to be similar to but distinct from American output (reiterating
     the traditional America vs Europe rivalry that now extends to international
     television more than ever before);31 and (3) Sherlock’s writers are forced
     to challenge the same cultural heritage in which the series is supposed to
     be rooted.


24                                   Antoniazzi, Casoli, BBC’s Sherlock and Europeanness

Sherlock and Europeanness
  Sherlock embodies similar textual and cultural negotiations that
characterize products such as Y Gwyll/Hinterland and many Nordic Noir
TV series. Analysing the production history of Sherlock’s showrunners
Steven Moffat and Mark Gatiss, we can see how it has been shaped by
the interaction of different players, like BBC Wales, BBC Worldwide and
the American network PBS, mediating between national (even local) and
transnational concerns. However, the role of the BBC and its ongoing (albeit
recently weakened) institutional rootedness to the European tradition of
PSB is key to understanding Sherlock, as both a cultural and an economic
product.
  Sherlock is designed to meet the various needs of the players involved
in its production, from creating a show addressing the nation by means
of its cultural heritage (BBC’s formal mandate) and textual conformation,
to more industrial and commercial necessities connected to ‘selling’
Sherlock outside the UK. The series benefits from the high reputation
of its writers and producers, since Gatiss, Moffatt, and Moffat’s wife —
renowned TV producer Sue Vertue — are all well-established figures in
the British TV industry. Thanks to their position in the landscape of the
British TV market, the creators of Sherlock have been able to produce a
hybrid (and therefore economically risky) show, which merges national and
transnational aims. On one hand, the series marks its British identity by
exploiting the familiarity of the detective within a British cultural tradition
in order to articulate, elaborate and prompt an idea of the ‘nation’ that
cooperates in maintaining a sense of cultural identity. Additionally, the
format of the series also confirms its British connotation. With each season
split into three, ninety-minute episodes, Sherlock recalls the tradition
of British police procedurals32 and a sense of stylistic grandeur that is
typical of many British mini-series.33 On the other hand, the series, like
other TV dramas, is a nationally produced commodity that can be traded
worldwide and which gains transnational circulation in different markets
as a competitor to US ‘quality’ TV.34 Interestingly, the ninety-minute format
proves crucial to promoting the international dimension of the series. As
noted by Creeber, this format ‘does allow each episode a scale unlike the
majority of television dramas and provides Sherlock with a sense of ‘event
television’, also permitting the series’ marketability to overseas sales
territories as a stand-out programme, serving to promote the BBC as a
‘quality broadcaster.’35 Mixing traditionally British elements with other
features emphasising its transnational ‘saleability’, Sherlock shows the
effort, by the most important European PBS broadcasting network, which
has often served as a model for other European television, to renegotiate
its role and priorities. Evans writes that the


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                                                                                
              BBC’s version of Sherlock Holmes reflects his source [Holmes
              as a character] in a modern public service broadcaster
              negotiating both its position within a global television market
              and its own cultural past. The combination of quality and
              prestige drama that he encapsulates echoes both the BBC’s
              response to the growing global popularity of U.S. drama and
              how it continues to negotiate its place within a long history
              of British heritage and literary productions that pre-dates
              television.36

       The BBC’s model for producing TV series that must combine the
     necessities of both the domestic and the international market can be seen
     as a virtuous example for other European PBS television networks coping
     with a changing context, problems and prospects.37 Indeed, with Sherlock,
     the BBC demonstrates how public broadcasting services can place
     themselves in the international market as a brand not only in commercial
     but also in cultural terms. Proposing itself as a productive subject capable
     of attracting a varied and international audience while reaffirming its
     cultural value to the public, the BBC conciliates national and transnational,
     as well as cultural and economic values.
       The balance between these divergent directives is crucial to determining
     not only the commercial but also the cultural and aesthetic identity of the
     series. The textual negotiations that we find in Sherlock, the stratified and
     multifaceted nature of the value proposition of the series, are key features
     of television drama and reflections of those ‘conflictual efforts’ identified
     by Klaus Eder, mentioned in the previous section, as defining features of
     an emerging European identity. In this regard, we can look at Sherlock
     as a multimodal text and analyse it through a narratological toolkit, as
     anticipated in the introduction.
       Marks of Europeanness can be found in the text itself, in its aesthetic
     configuration and narrative structure. As observed by Elizabeth Evans
     (2014), Sherlock concerns itself with dual standards of ‘quality’ television,
     British and American. While the former predominantly concerns the story,
     the latter shapes the discourse. The series, indeed, recreates repeatedly
     the aesthetic characteristics of US quality TV drama. For example, it exhibits
     a cinematographic visual style (well-finished,lit, and enriched in texture,
     sometimes with the addition of text) and fast editing of scenes, illustrated
     when Sherlock uses his ‘mind palace’ to solve a mystery or when the series
     displays Sherlock’s deductions by ‘writing’ his observations directly on the
     image. Moreover, Sherlock employs entangled, puzzled and non-linear
     storylines that challenge viewers’ capacity to follow the events. This is
     evident, to name just one case, in episode S3E03 ‘The Sign of Three’, both
     when Sherlock questions some women about ‘the Mayfly Man’ in a sort
     of mental courthouse and when, during his best man’s speech at John’s
     wedding, he resolves a case in real time. The work carried out by Moffat
     and Gatiss on the characters tends toward a transformation of the figures


26                                  Antoniazzi, Casoli, BBC’s Sherlock and Europeanness

we find in the Sherlockian canon: Watson, Moriarty, Irene Adler, Mary,
and Sherlock himself are more complex and psychologically profound
characters than their literary counterparts, as requested by the dominant
mode of televisual storytelling. The employment of all these aesthetic,
stylistic and narrative strategies presented by Sherlock can be ascribed to
a phenomenon of incorporation of American ‘know-how’ in the field of TV
series aesthetics by the British – and, more broadly, European – TV industry.
Aligning Sherlock with the standards of contemporary high-quality seriality,
the adoption of these features helped the series to circulate internationally
and to attract an international audience.
  However, while Sherlock’s discourse emphasises the influence of the
US’s TV aesthetics, its British origins are not neglected. By actualizing the
adventures of Sherlock Holmes, Moffat and Gatiss’ series does not forget to
establish a bond with the British tradition of ‘quality’ television, the prestige
TV drama, which privileges literary adaptations and references to British
cultural heritage. Holmes is a British ‘popular hero’ who, functioning as
a focal point of cultural reference that condenses and connects cultural
and ideological concerns,38 establishes a direct linkage with a certain
type of Britishness and consolidates its belonging to the British cultural
identity. While modernizing Sherlock Holmes’ adventures both in style and
content (for example, by setting the stories in a 21st century, cosmopolitan,
technological London), the series adapts them with deep respect for the
traditional Sherlockian canon. The continuous references to the deerstalker
hat and its meta-textual iconicity are just the most evident figurative trait
that connects Sherlock to the cultural heritage of the original Holmes.
  Other elements fostering this connection are the recurring appearances
of established and well-known characters of the Holmesian world (including
Watson, Lestrade, Moriarty, Mrs Hudson and Irene Adler) and the more or
less explicit references to narrative situations from Conan Doyle’s literary
canon (from ‘The Hounds of the Baskervilles’, S2E02, to the ‘Reichenbach
Falls’, S2E03). Moreover, while Sherlock Holmes is a highly globalized
figure and frequently exported outside the UK,39 Sherlock stresses its
Britishness by the use of stereotypical icons (e.g. the black cabs, the tea
drinking habits of Mrs Hudson, the gentlemen’s club attended by Mycroft)
and an air of Victoriana permeating the entire series (which culminates
in the special episode ‘The Abominable Bride’). But, again, both the BBC
public mandate and the size of the domestic market that Britain shares
with many European countries set economic and aesthetic limitations
that American productions do not normally experience. For example, the
American televisual adaptation of Conan Doyle’s book, Elementary (CBS
2012), displays an aesthetic that is substantially dissimilar from BBC and
other previous adaptations (e.g. by using shorter episodes and an entirely
different setting). Although both series are set in the contemporary world,
Sherlock relates far more closely to Doyle’s work. As demonstrated
by Roberta Pearson,40 these differences were not simply influenced by


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                                                                                  
     commercial strategies but ultimately due to the European policy and
     industrial environment that influenced the aesthetics of Sherlock.
       Even if confirmed by the cultural heritage of Sherlock Holmes and his
     ‘cultural currency’ as a British popular hero, the national identity and the
     cultural stereotypes embedded in Sherlock are challenged by the changes
     made to the source material by Moffat and Gatiss. Indeed, the Europeanness
     of Sherlock also emerges from the show’s questioning of its Britishness
     and a process of self-reflection on British culture. The rewritings operated
     by Moffat and Gatiss contribute to distancing Sherlock from a complete
     adherence to a flat representation of British cultural history, leaving room
     for forms of meditation, self-reflexivity, and intersection between national
     and non-national identities. For example, on more than one occasion the
     BBC series performs a social and political critique of British institutions
     (often personified by Mycroft but also by Lady Smallwood), specifically
     targeting the endurance of a ‘post-colonial melancholia’41 as well as
     nostalgia for imperialism. As discussed by Paul Gilroy, residue of the
     imperial and colonial culture still lives in contemporary British culture and
     society, which sometimes shows an ‘inability to really work through the
     loss of global prestige and the economic and political benefits that once
     attended it.’42
       Sherlock exhibits signs of criticism towards an imperial past and these
     melancholic feelings of loss and decline. Interesting in that regard is
     Martin Freeman’s rendering of Doctor Watson and his post-traumatic
     experience and aversion for the Afghanistan war. Like his Victorian literary
     predecessor, Freeman’s Watson is a veteran who fought during an Afghan
     war, but the distress he feels toward his military experience and the
     difficulties he suffers in reintegrating into civilian society (as clearly seen in
     episode S1E01 ‘A Study in Pink’ and throughout other episodes, including
     S3E02 ‘The Sign of Three’) are symptomatic of a mutated socio-political
     reality unlike the one in which Conan Doyle was writing. Thus, while
     inviting the audience to consider the differences with the Victorian Watson,
     Freeman’s interpretation makes viewers reflect on what it means to fight
     a war in Afghanistan in the 21st century, calling for a critical consideration
     of the contemporary legacies of imperialism and their consequences in a
     transformed geopolitical landscape.
       Another example of how Sherlock exploits its literary sources to
     conduct a critical analysis of British society and the UK’s position in the
     contemporary world is the characterization of Sherlock Holmes himself.
     Rather than representing the famous detective as ‘an exemplar of
     enlightenment order, capable of securing the capital of the British Empire
     through a combination of romantic genius and rationality’ as the canonical
     Holmes was,43 Benedict Cumberbatch’s Sherlock is a sociopathic and
     isolated detective who operates on the edge between what is or is not
     socially and legally accepted, often acting as a threat to the British social
     order rather than as its keeper. For example, he is often rude towards the


28                                    Antoniazzi, Casoli, BBC’s Sherlock and Europeanness

people around him, as he seems incapable of compassion and empathy; he
disregards and scorns icons of the British State such as Scotland Yard and
Buckingham Palace, as when he sits in the Palace wearing only a bed-sheet
in episode S2E01 ‘A Scandal in Belgravia’; he tortures people, throwing a
man out of a window in the same episode, or even kills them, like when
he assassinates Magnus in cold blood, in episode S3E03 ‘His Last Vow’.
However, even if Sherlock shows a certain degree of criticism towards the
social and political reality of contemporary England, traces of postcolonial
melancholia and representations of British imperialism are still present in
the series. An example can be found in episode S1E02 ‘The Blind Banker’,
where the narration enforces the old stereotypes of Orientalism, of the
‘Yellow Peril’44 and of Chinese people as culturally alien – and bearers of
fascination, anxieties and fears.
  To some extent, therefore, Sherlock displays a tension between the
reaffirmation of the Britishness of Sherlock Holmes, and a questioning
of its values and worldview. In this gap there is, in our opinion, room for
manoeuvre for a self-reflexive analysis of the British cultural identity that
can be considered a step forward in the discussion of a transnational – or
even European – cultural identity. The open-ended but recognisable trait
of Europeanness refers to the real questioning of national culture due to
new geopolitical challenges and the internationalisation of the economy.
This process is particularly strong in the EU, especially when compared to
similar processes in other areas of the world. In this sense, to some extent,
Sherlock can be seen as a British-European product as it challenges
several tropes of English national culture and evokes themes such as a
post-colonial melancholia perceived also in other European nations.
  Nevertheless, arguing that Sherlock directly or indirectly bears some
marks of Europeanness does not imply that these marks are necessarily
recognized and appreciated by audiences. In order to tackle this issue, we
will now take into consideration the Italian reception and circulation of the
series.



Italian Circulation and
Critical Reception
  In this section we address RQ2. We look at the programming and critical
reception of Sherlock to see what publics it was offered to, and what types
of conversation it has generated in the media. The circulation of Sherlock
is articulated in three stages – penetration, expansion, and consolidation –
each centred on the launch of the series by different exploitation channels,
free-to-air, pay TV, and VoD (see Figure 1).
  The first stage begins with the broadcasting of the first two seasons
between 2011 and 2013. The penetration strategy that the media company


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                                                                                                       




Fig. 1: Number of           Mediaset designed for the product had two routes: pay TV and free-to-
broadcasts of Sherlock      air television. The first episode of Sherlock, S1E01 ‘A Study in Pink’ (Uno
on free-to-air and pay TV
channels 2009–18            Studio in Rosa), was broadcast for the first time on pay channel Premium
(Source: Auditel ratings    Joi (19 runs), a mainstream channel whose schedule is devoted to family
data from www.auditel.it,   entertainment. The first three episodes were broadcast in February 2011
elaboration added).
                            on Fridays in prime-time slots and repeated between May and June, on
                            a diverse range of time slots and days of the week. The second Mediaset
                            exploitation trajectory began in December 2011, during the Christmas
                            holidays, when the programme was broadcast in prime-time by free-to-
                            air Mediaset channel Italia 1, a channel mainly aimed at teenagers and
                            young adults. The average audience share on Italia 1 was a good 6.98%
                            where the average audience share of the channel the same month was
                            7.82% (see Figure 2). Thus, through its pay TV channel, Mediaset tried to
                            exploit the programme’s potential to attract a generalist public as family
                            entertainment. Although Joi is a pay channel, the attempt to engage
                            a larger audience mirrored the choice of the BBC, which broadcast the
                            programme in prime time on BBC1. Moreover, through free-to-air TV,
                            Mediaset exploited the product by targeting a relatively young audience
                            capitalizing on the innovative textual elements of the series (contemporary
                            London, technology, gay-friendly attitudes). To do so, Mediaset, as the
                            BBC did in the UK, created a broadcasting event for Christmas to mainly
                            target teenagers and young adults, but with the potential to further engage
                            families.
                               Sherlock’s life on Joi in 2012 continued following a similar scheduling
                            pattern as in 2011. Between 26 June and 11 July, the first series was
                            broadcast on digital terrestrial television (DTT) channel Italia 2, Mediaset’s
                            semi-generalist channel primarily addressed at a young male audience,


30                                                         Antoniazzi, Casoli, BBC’s Sherlock and Europeanness





with six total repeats (with modest ratings). The first series then returned to   Fig. 2: Sherlock
Joi in mid-September (two broadcasts per episode), to prepare the ground          audience share and
                                                                                  ratings on Italian
for the new episodes that would air from 6 to 21 October on Saturdays             television channel Italia
in prime-time. In January 2013, Joi broadcast the series 16 times in the          1 2011-16 (Source:
afternoons, in late evening and at night. In December, again during the           Auditel ratings data
                                                                                  from www.auditel.it,
Christmas holidays, the first series returned in prime time to Italia 1           elaboration added).
(the third episode aired on 2 January 2014) with comparable audience              Columns 1, 2 and 3
performance to 2011/12 (5.3%).                                                    (Dec. 2011, 2013 and
                                                                                  Jun. 2014) include data
  In this first stage of Sherlock’s exploitation, the series did not receive      for one episode aired in
huge attention from the media, but the critical reception of the series           January of the following
was generally good. Journalist Antonio Dipollina, in the influential liberal-     year. Column 1 includes
                                                                                  data of the three
progressive newspaper La Repubblica, wrote a favourable piece stressing           episodes broadcast in
the gay- and tech-friendly components of the series. He noted that this           prime-time, as for the
was not a tremendous change though, as ‘the important thing is that, as           other columns, plus the
                                                                                  data of an additional
the original [Sherlock Holmes], when he meets you he is able to reveal who        night broadcast.
you are, your vices and where you have been during the last four hours.’45
Antonella Gullotti and Daniele Assorati on Sette TV reiterated the idea
that even in the contemporary setting, Sherlock’s charm is not lost, the
same charm found in other British series created by Moffat and Gatiss.46
Another journalist titled her piece ‘Holmes, back to the future’ in an online
magazine;47 ‘Sherlock Holmes travels in time’ wrote Renato Franco in
Corriere della Sera, the most widely-read Italian newspaper.48
   In general, we see in the Italian press a fascination with the innovative
elements of the product, skilfully combined with the traditional key
features of Sherlock Holmes’s personality and heritage. There is a sense
of appreciation for its rootedness in literary drama and British cultural
history. These ideas in the Italian media reception reflect some of the
key themes identified by Paul Rixon49 in the UK press, in particular the


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                                                                                
     ‘contemporary twist’ and the ‘linkage to the literary Sherlock Holmes.’ As
     Rixon emphasizes, these themes are very much influenced by promotional
     material circulated by the BBC. Thus, in this first phase of the commercial
     exploitation of Sherlock we see a reflection of themes identified in the
     British press and to some extent promoted by the BBC. Renato Franco’s
     article is interesting in this respect as it includes long and numerous quotes
     from international journalists and commentators.50 These include quotes
     from The Guardian and USA Today as well as excerpts from an interview
     with Cumberbatch. Such citations show how commentary on cultural
     production travels from one country to another through the media – as with
     programming strategies we therefore see similarities between the British
     and the Italian contexts. At this stage though, such cultural encounters
     do not seem to trigger critical critical reflection either on British cultural
     identity or on the similarity or dissimilarity to Italian culture.
        In 2014 the second stage of Sherlock’s commercial life in Italy began.
     The launch of the third series moved to DTT pay channel Premium Crime
     (Mediaset Premium, SKY Italia) and the broadcasting frequency of the series
     intensified. In 2014 the series was exploited with more intensity, reaching
     96 broadcasts. In January the repeats of the first edition were broadcast
     on free thematic channel Top Crime (Mediaset, Tivùsat, SKY Italia) and
     between 5 and 25 April the new episodes were launched on Premium
     Crime. Repeats of the programme were broadcast on these channels from
     summer to fall of the same year, and again, as usual, in December on Italia 1.
     Between 2015 and the first half of 2016, the programme aired only 39
     times on Italia 1 (nine reruns), Premium Crime (20) and Top Crime (10). On
     Italia 1 we observed a relatively steady audience share over the years but
     a decrease in terms of ratings, primarily because in December 2014 the
     programme was moved from prime-time slots to afternoon and night-time
     slots, targeting perhaps a more niche audience. Simultaneously, Sherlock
     was made available on VoD platform Infinity TV (Mediaset) and on Netflix,
     which had now arrived on the Italian national market. In this phase, though,
     the market share of these platforms was very limited.
          In this second stage of Sherlock’s lifecycle, critical interventions
     multiplied, their tone and content openly supportive and full of praise.
     The range of media outlets mentioning Sherlock increased, with articles
     in the aforementioned major newspapers, La Repubblica and Corriere
     della Sera, but also in more niche media outlets. The leftist newspaper
     Il Manifesto wrote that what is really remarkable about the series is that
     the contemporary setting helps viewers appreciate this Holmes’ distinct
     personality, which somehow emerges by both referencing and detaching
     itself from its traditional Victorian background.51 The conservative
     newspaper Libero titles its article: ‘Everybody down on their knees for
     Benedict.’52 But what seems interesting is that at this stage we see traces
     of the kind of reflections stimulated by cultural encounters at the collective
     level, as previously defined by Ib Bondebjerg.


32                                  Antoniazzi, Casoli, BBC’s Sherlock and Europeanness

  Aforementioned journalist Dipollina, for example, emphasised the
difference between Italian TV narratives and English ones. He titled a short
piece on the series, ‘Sherlock, the masterful series that we can only dream
of’, where ‘we’ stands for Italians. He continues writing that, ‘It would be
useless to underline the gigantic differences between this kind of audience
share in GB and the most popular shows [in Italy].’ In the title of another
article, he sarcastically calls Sherlock the ‘anti-World Cup series’53 as it was
broadcast in Italy simultaneously to the ‘terrible’ football match between
Italy and Nigeria. The fact that Sherlock had a lower audience share is
something that we Italians should take note of, he ironically claims, perhaps
alluding to Winston Churchill’s famous stereotyping statement about
Italians’ obsession with football.54 Similarly, critic Francesco Specchia wrote
that because of the high quality of the television programme he was only
expecting an average audience performance, alluding to Italians’ bad taste
in television. Thus, here we find some traces of collective reflections on the
comparison between Italian and British television, cultural preferences,
and perhaps veiled reiteration of national stereotypes. Such reflections, to
our eyes, although infrequent and superficial, are significant. One might
plausibly argue that self-reflexivity is taking place in more subtle ways and
perhaps more in-depth empirical research would reveal this with more
clarity.
  At the end of 2015, Netflix arrived in Italy, and TVoD platforms like Chili TV
and Infinity TV started to gain visibility and become important players in the
audiovisual industry. In 2017, Sherlock season four was launched on Netflix.
The first episode was uploaded on the platform on 2 January, the second
on 9 January and the third on 16 January, only 24 hours after the series was
broadcast by the BBC. Old episodes were already available on Netflix by
the end of 2015, but certainly, the consolidation of Netflix’s market share
was a game changer for Sherlock viewership. It goes beyond the scope of
this paper to provide an account of changing ‘cultures of consumption’ and
the impact of binge viewing on the promotional strategies and economic
exploitation of the product. However, we consider the consequences on
Sherlock’s exploitation on other channels.
  It seems that the consolidation of VoD that began in the second half of
2016 caused Sherlock to be broadcast exclusively on free TV. In June 2016,
repeats were aired on Paramount Channel (now Paramount Network) a
free Viacom channel, which operates on DTT and Tivusat (satellite). The
channel aired Sherlock 64 times from 9 June to 23 October in almost all
time slots, both during the week and at weekends. Paramount Network
broadcast the series 19 times in 2017 and 21 times in 2018 on a diverse
range of days and time slots. In 2019 and 2020, episodes from all four
seasons were broadcast in prime time on Tuesdays on Spike TV, another
Viacom channel.
  In the most recent critical reactions to Sherlock, we do not see a huge
difference from those of previous years. Themes and tones are largely


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                                                                                 
     the same, but a sense of emotional attachment emerges in some of the
     later reviews. In almost all of the recent significant interventions, there
     is a consecration of the series as one of the most important of the last 20
     years and a lauding of the BBC as a (European) alternative to American
     quality TV. Gianmaria Tammaro in La Repubblica wrote, ‘Sherlock has
     become a classic. One of the best examples of contemporary “seriality”.
     An intelligent way of writing and reimaging. It was one of the best series
     of the 2000s. Something thoroughly new.’55 Lorenza Negri in Wired wrote
     that ‘British productions — those authored by the national BBC, the more
     brave ones by Channel 4, those more conformist by the ITV and so on —
     are and remain among the best worldwide, even after the advent of shows
     produced by Netflix, Amazon Prime Video and other digital platforms.’56
     Another journalist wrote on a Web magazine that ‘in 2010, the BBC [with
     Sherlock] devised a new storytelling mode. A fragmented one but at the
     same time able to keep together all the pieces.’57 Although the space
     devoted to Sherlock by the media has not expanded in recent years, current
     reviews by critics and commentators praise Sherlock for changing our
     sense of what contemporary TV fiction can be.
       Italians all know Sherlock Holmes and have memories of him and his
     stories thanks to Doyle’s books and subsequent film and TV adaptations.
     But the emotion expressed in these articles also seems to be about
     British television, and about the BBC as a raw European PSB model
     that has succeeded in combining ‘quality’ and audience popularity. Thus,
     the Europeanness of Sherlock is related to the fact that the quality of
     the programme is not only desirable but also a realistic and achievable
     objective since the budget, themes, stories, and formats are not too far
     away from those Italian producers could invest in (e.g. RAI, Mediaset) and
     are surely relatable to Italian publics. Although nuanced and limited to few
     journalistic conversations, a sense of shared collective memory can be
     observed here, and a sense of meaningful dialogue between tradition and
     innovation in ‘cultures of production’ is taken, explicitly and implicitly, as a
     distinctive feature of being European.
       Some commentators have written that nationalism and imperialism still
     inhabit the series, as there is a celebration of London as a ‘digital global
     capital’ and a non-threatening, non-critical restyling of British identity.
     This might be true to some extent, but Europeanness, as defined here, will
     hardly form through washing away European history’s dark shadows, but
     rather through remembering and reconsidering them together with other
     Europeans to form collective shared critiques of that same history.




34                                   Antoniazzi, Casoli, BBC’s Sherlock and Europeanness

Conclusion
  In this paper we have shown that in Sherlock we can appreciate
the presence of Europeanness, as defined in section 2. ‘Genetically
engineered to appeal to a wider range of viewer tastes’58, both nationally
and transnationally, Sherlock represents the BBC’s attempt to balance
contradictory goals: satisfying ‘the culture’ as well as ‘the market’. On the
textual level, Sherlock maintains elements that enhance a sense of national
identity and boost the Britishness of the series. However, the show also
displays a tendency towards a transnational dimension, adopting a generic
hybridity that blends multiple visual, stylistic, and narrative elements
drawn from different TV quality traditions. Thus, Sherlock prompts forms
of cultural self-reflexivity, ignited by writers’ disruption of national identity
and conception of a more shared, mediated, and transnational cultural
identity that can potentially bridge different national and local cultures.
  We then considered Sherlock’s circulation and reception in Italy to look
at its viewership and, as we have shown, its circulation through a wide
range of avenues, from free-to-air TV to pay-per-view and VoD platforms.
Where ratings and audience share data was available, we observed good
outcomes (even if, predictably, they were not comparable with its home
market performance). However, the circulation history of the programme
shows that it is far from being a mass cultural phenomenon in Italy. As Neil
Fligstein observed,59 as with many similar television products, the show
was mostly appreciated by niche or relatively limited audiences on those
exploitation channels that are normally linked with urban middle classes or
niche audiences such as Pay TV, VoD and thematic channels (social groups
who are normally sympathetic with the EU and feel partially European).
  The critical reception became increasingly positive over time, confirming
similar tendencies observed by Bondebjerg in relation to other non-national
European series. Initially, we saw the circulation of themes and narrative
constructions similar to, if not originating from, those of the UK press. As
time went on, the appreciation for the series spread throughout the media.
More frequent and passionate reviews appeared, including some indirect
comparisons with Italian TV productions and Italian viewing preferences. In
2020, Sherlock was praised as a classic and, confirming Milly Buonanno’s
claims about British television, the series was considered a British
success and a blueprint for reaching cultural and economic independence
from American productions (a way to define Europeanness ex negativo).
However, when we consider media coverage, even in specialized outlets, we
realize that the number of serious journalistic contributions is low, and the
debates generating critical reflexivity on a collective level are limited. Thus,
in our view, it is unlikely that even excellent products, such as Sherlock,
would trigger deep social reflection on national identity if exposure does
not intensify, lengthen, and most importantly expand to the lower-middle


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                                                                                
     classes, working people and regional communities. The democratization of
     media consumption to promote equality of access appears to be critical to
     cultural policy making in Europe to cement any form of a shared imagined
     future among European people. As Schlesinger stressed, ‘[t]he production
     of an overarching collective identity can only seriously be conceived
     as the outcome of long-standing social and political practice’60 which,
     in our view, should go beyond simply encouraging further exchanges.
     Such encouragement would only continue to connect non-national or
     transnational television with audiences who already feel affinity for Europe,
     leaving a gap between this programming and potential viewers who tend to
     consume and identify with nationally-rooted and local cultural productions.




36                                  Antoniazzi, Casoli, BBC’s Sherlock and Europeanness

Notes
  1
     This paper has drawn on data collected during two research projects. The television-related
research project ‘Distribution, Adaptation, Circulation. An Industrial and Cultural Model of Anglophone
Television in Italy’ coordinated by Luca Barra (University of Bologna) and the Horizon 2020 research
project DETECt — Detecting Transcultural Identity in European Popular Crime Narratives (2018–
2021) [Grant agreement number 770151], coordinated by Monica Dall’Asta. Luca Antoniazzi provided
sections 1 (Introduction), 2 (‘Europeanness’ and Cultural Encounters) and 4 (Italian Circulation and
Cultural Reception); Sara Casoli wrote sections 3 (Sherlock and Europeanness) and 5 (Conclusion).
  2
    Bonnie Brennen, Qualitative Research Methods for Media Studies (London: Routledge, 2017), p. 204.
  3
     A European Television Fiction Renaissance: Premium Production Models and Transnational
Circulation, ed. by Luca Barra and Massimo Scaglioni (London: Routledge, 2020); Transnational
European Television Drama: Production, Genres and Audiences, by Ib Bondebjerg, Eva Novrup
Redvall, Rasmus Helles, Signe Sophus Lai, Henrik Søndergaard and Cecilie Astrupgaard (London:
Palgrave, 2017).
  4
     Ib Bondebjerg, ‘Bridging Cultures: Transnational Cultural Encounters in the Reception of the
Bridge,’ in Danish Television Drama Global Lessons From a Small Nation, ed. by Anne Marit Waade,
Eva Novrup Redvall, Pia Majbritt Jensen (Basingstoke: Palgrave, 2020), 209–230.
  5
     Milly Buonanno, ‘Italian TV Drama: The Multiple Forms of European Influence’, in European
Cinema and Television, ed. by Ib Bondebjerg, Eva Novrup Redvall and Andrew Higson (London:
Palgrave Macmillan, 2015), 195-213 (pp. 210-211).
  6
     Sherlock’s fourth season was announced in July 2014 while David Cameron announced the
referendum the 20th of February 2016. The shooting of the fourth season started in April 2016 two
months before the referendum.
  7
     Philip Schlesinger, ‘“Europeanness” – a new cultural battlefield?’ Innovation: The European
Journal of Social Science Research, 5.2 (1992), 11–23 (p. 15).
  8
    Brexit won supporters only among people aged 55+. The 65+ turnout was around 90%. See John
Curtice, ‘The vote to leave the EU: Litmus test or lightning rod,’ in British Social Attitudes: The 34th
Report, ed. Elizabeth Clery, John Curtice and Roger Harding (London, UK: Natcen Social Research,
2016), pp. 1–24. Available at: https://www.bsa.natcen.ac.uk/media/39149/bsa34_brexit_final.pdf.
  9
     Glen Creeber, ‘The Joy of Text?: Television and Textual Analysis’, Critical Studies in Television:
an International Journal of Television Studies, 1.1 (2006), 81–88; Glen Creeber, Tele-visions: An
Introduction to Studying Television (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2009); Alan Mckee, Textual
Analysis. A Beginner’s Guide (Los Angeles: SAGE, 2016); Bonnie Brenner, Qualitative Research
Methods for Media Studies (London: Routledge, 2017).
  10
     Gaby Allrath and Marion Gymnich, ‘Introduction: Towards a Narratology of TV Series’, in Narrative
Strategies in Television Series, ed. by Gaby Allrath and Marion Gymnich (Houndmills and New York:
Palgrave, 2005), 1–43; Sarah Kozloff, ‘Narrative Theory and Television’, in Channels of Discourse,
Reassembled. Television and Contemporary Criticism, 2nd ed., ed. by Robert C. Allen (New York and
London: Routledge, 1992), 52–76.
  11
      Gaby Allrath and Marion Gymnich, ‘Introduction: Towards a Narratology of TV Series’, p. 38. See
also Lawrence R. Frey, Interpreting Communication Research: A Case Study Approach (Englewood
Cliffs, N.J: Prentice-Hall, 1993).
  12
      Luca Barra, Palinsesto (Roma: Laterza 2015); John Ellis, ‘Scheduling: The Last Creative Act In


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                                                                                                       
Television?’, Media, Culture & Society, 22.1 (2000), 25–38.
  13
     Paul Rixon, ‘Sherlock: Critical Reception by the Media,’ in Sherlock and Transmedia Fandom:
Essays on the BBC Series, ed. by Louisa K. Stein and Kristina Busse (Jefferson, North Carolina:
McFarland & Company Inc., 2012), 165–78 (p. 166).
  14
     Karl Deutsch cited in Neil Fligstein, Euroclash: The EU, European Identity, and the Future of
Europe (Oxford: Oxford University Press on Demand, 2008).
  15
     Fligstein, Euroclash.
  16
     Klaus Eder, ‘Remembering National Memories Together: The Formation of a Transnational
Identity in Europe’, in Collective Memory and European Identity, ed. by Klaus Eder and Willfried Spohn
(Abington and New York: Routledge, 2016 [2005]).
  17
     Eder, ‘Remembering National Memories Together’, p. 209.
  18
     Eder, p. 219.
  19
     See for example the following collection of essays that challenges the myth of powerless states
theory: Global Media and National Policies, ed. by Terry Flew, Petros Iosifidis, and Jeanette Steemers
(London: Palgrave Macmillan 2016).
  20
      Elke Weissmann, ‘Local, National, Transnational. Local, National, Transnational Y Gwyll/
Hinterland as Crime of/for All Places’, in European Television Crime Drama and Beyond, ed. by Kim
Toft Hansen, Steven Peacock and Sue Turnbull (Cham: Palgrave Macmillan, 2018), 119–137.
  21
     Weissman, p. 131.
  22
     The TV network that commissioned the series, Sianel Pedwar Cymru, and the production company
Fiction Factory are organisations active at local level. The EU Media Programme provided international
funding and the national organisations BBC Wales and BBC4 broadcast the programme.
  23
     See also Luca Barra, ‘Invisible Mediations: The Role of Adaptation and Dubbing Professionals in
Shaping US TV for Italian Audiences’, VIEW Journal of European Television History and Culture, 2.4
(2013), 101–111.
  24
     Ib Bondebjerg, ‘Bridging Cultures: Transnational Cultural Encounters in the Reception of the
Bridge,’ in Danish Television Drama Global Lessons from a Small Nation, ed. by Anne Marit Waade,
Eva Novrup Redvall, Pia Majbritt Jensen (Basingstoke: Palgrave, 2020), 209–230; Transnational
European Television Drama: Production, Genres and Audiences, ed. by Ib Bondebjerg, Eva Redvall,
Rasmus Helles, R. Lai, Signe Sophus, Henrik Søndergaard, Cecile Astrupgaard (London: Palgrave,
2017); Gerard Delanty, ‘Cultural Diversity, Democracy and the Prospects of Cosmopolitanism: A
Theory of Cultural Encounters,’ The British Journal of Sociology, 62.4 (2011), 633–656.
  25
     Bondebjerg, ‘Bridging Cultures’, p. 222.
  26
      Fligstein, Euroclash; Eder, ‘Remembering National Memories Together’; Monica Sassatelli,
‘Narratives of European identity,’ in European Cinema and Television, ed. by Ib Bondebjerg, Eva N.
Redvall, Andrew Higson (London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2015), 25–42.
  27
     The fact that cultural encounters can create closeness between people does not imply that the
construction of a European cultural identity is just around the corner or that it is possible to strengthen
‘togetherness’ through European non-national media content circulation. Alina Polyakova and Neil
Fligstein see the creation of a European identity inhibited by the fact that the benefits of ‘being
together’ are mostly enjoyed by middle and upper classes. Large sectors of the European population
have seen their social security decrease, blaming the top-down nature of European integration, then
seeking protections from nation-states from the neoliberal policies encouraged by the EU. See Alina
Polyakova and Neil Fligstein, ‘Is European Integration Causing Europe to Become More Nationalist?
Evidence from the 2007–9 financial crisis’, Journal of European Public Policy, 23.1 (2016), 60–83. See


38                                                         Antoniazzi, Casoli, BBC’s Sherlock and Europeanness

also Richard Collins, ‘Television, Cohesion and the EU’, in The Palgrave Handbook of European Media
Policy, ed. by Karen Donders, Caroline Pauwels and Jan Loisen (London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2014),
172–186.
  28
     Bondebjerg et al., p. 167.
  29
     Anita Singh, ‘Midsomer Murders Creator Suspended After Calling Show “The Last Bastion
of Englishness”’, The Telegraph, 14 March 2011, https://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/
tvandradio/8381769/Midsomer-Murders-creator-suspended-after-calling-show-the-last-bastion-
of-Englishness.html [accessed 14 November 2020].
  30
     Luca Antoniazzi, ‘Midsomer Murders AKA L’ispettore Barnaby: How Did It Find Its Way Into the
Italian Market and Why Was It Successful?’, The Journal of Popular Television 8.3 (2020), 255–262.
See also Tiffany Bergin, ‘Identity and Nostalgia In a Globalised World: Investigating the International
Popularity of Midsomer Murders’, Crime, Media, Culture, 9.1 (2013), 83–99.
  31
     This rivalry in relation to film distribution is well documented; see an early contribution by
Armand Mattelart, ‘European Film Policy and the Response to Hollywood’, in World Cinemas: Critical
Approaches, ed. by John Hill and Pamela Church Gibson (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000).
  32
     This is especially true for crime TV series produced by ITV more than the BBC, such as Inspector
Morse (1987-2000). Cf. Glen Creeber, ‘Sherlock’, in The Television Genre Book, 3rd Edition, ed. by
Glen Creeber (London: BFI, 2015).
  33
     Glen Creeber, ‘The Miniseries’, in The Television Genre Book, 1st Edition, ed. by Glen Creeber,
(London: BFI, 2001); John De Vito and Frank Tropea, Epic Television Miniseries: A Critical History
(Jefferson: McFarland & Co, 2010).
  34
     Roberta Pearson, ‘A Case of Identity: Sherlock, Elementary and Their National Broadcasting
Systems’, in Storytelling in the Media Convergence Age Exploring Screen Narratives, ed. Roberta
Pearson and Anthony N. Smith (Basingstoke: Palgrave 2015), 122–148; Elizabeth J. Evans, ‘Shaping
Sherlocks: Institutional Practice and the Adaptation of Character’, in Sherlock and Transmedia
Fandom: Essays On the BBC Series, ed. by Louisa Ellen Stein and Kristina Busse (Jefferson;
McFarland, 2014), 102–117; Tom Steward, ‘Holmes in the Small Screen: The Television Contexts of
Sherlock’, in Sherlock and Transmedia Fandom: Essays On the BBC Series, ed. by Louisa Ellen Stein
and Kristina Busse (Jefferson: McFarland, 2014), 133–147.
  35
     Creeber, ‘Sherlock’, p. 25.
  36
     Evans, ‘Shaping Sherlocks’, p. 115.
  37
     Johannes Bardoel and Leen d’Haenens, ‘Reinventing public service broadcasting in Europe:
prospects, promises and problems’, Media, Culture & Society, 30.3 (2008), 337–355 (p. 337).
  38
     Tony Bennett and Janet Woollacott, Bond and Beyond: The Political Career of a Popular Hero
(London: Macmillan, 1987), p. 14.
  39
     Neil McCaw, ‘The Global Hybridity of Sherlock Holmes’, in Crime Fiction and National Identities in
the Global Age: Critical Essays, ed. by Julie H. Kim (Jefferson: McFarland, 2020).
  40
     Roberta Pearson, ‘A Case of Identity: Sherlock, Elementary and Their National Broadcasting
Systems’ in Storytelling in the Media Convergence Age, ed. by Roberta Pearson and Anthony N. Smith
(Palgrave Macmillan, 2015)
  41
     Paul Gilroy, ‘Joined-up Politics and Postcolonial Melancholia’, Theory, Culture & Society, 18.2–3,
(2001), 151–167.
  42
     Gilroy, p. 162.
  43
     Anne Kustritz, ‘Imperial and Critical Cosmopolitans: Screening the Multicultural City on Sherlock
and Elementary’, Alphaville: Journal of Film and Screen Media, 14 (2017), 143–159 (p. 143).


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 44
     Ruth Mayer, Serial Fu Manchu: The Chinese Supervillain and the Spread of Yellow Peril Ideology
(Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 2013).
  45
      (Our translation). Or. Text. ‘[…] l’importante è che, al pari dell’originale quando ti incontra ti
rivela chi sei, i tuoi vizi e dove sei stato nelle ultime quattro ore. Antonio Dipollina, La Repubblica,
18 Febbraio 2011, https://ricerca.repubblica.it/repubblica/archivio/repubblica/2011/02/18/watson-
reduce-dell-afghanistan-elementare.html [accessed 26 October 2020]
  46
     Antonella Gullotti and Daniela Assorati, ‘Holmes perde la pipa ma guadagna il GPS’, Sette TV, 4
Gennaio 2013.
  47
     (Our translation). ‘Holmes, ritorno al futuro’. Katia Ancona, ‘Holmes, ritorno al futuro: dal taccuino
allo smartphone’, Kataweb, 13 Febbraio 2011.
  48
      (Our translation). ‘Sherlock viaggia nel tempo’. Renato Franco, ‘Sherlock viaggia nel tempo
e oggi indaga con lo smartphone’, Corriere della Sera, February 2011, http://www.mediaset.
it/binary/98.$plit/C_22_rubrica_qm_210_grpspalladx_gruppoallegati_lstAllegati_allegato_0_
upfAllegato.pdf. See also Renato Franco, ‘I Classici Stravolti dai Serial TV’, Corriere della Sera, 23
Ottobre 2012.
  49
     Paul Rixon, ‘Sherlock: Critical Reception by the Media’, in Sherlock and Transmedia Fandom: Essays
On the BBC Series, ed. by Louisa Ellen Stein and Kristina Busse (Jefferson: McFarland, 2014), 165–78.
  50
     Franco, ‘Sherlock viaggia nel tempo.’
  51
     Giovanna Branca, ‘Il detective vittoriano nella Londra di Oggi’, Il Manifesto, 12 Gennaio 2016.
  52
      (Our translation). ‘Tutti in ginocchio da Benedict’. Francesca D’Angelo, ‘Tutti in ginocchio da
Benedict’, Libero, 3 April 2014.
  53
      (Our translation). ‘Gli anti-mondiali in serie’. Antonio Dipollina, ‘Gli Anti-mondiali in serie’, La
Repubblica, 20 Giugno 2014.
  54
     ‘Italians lose wars as if they were football matches, and football matches as if they were wars’
(Winston Churchill).
  55
     (Our translation). Or. Text: ‘Sherlock è riuscito a diventare un classico. Uno degli esempi migliori
della nuova serialità. Un modo intelligente di scrivere e reimmaginare. […] Decisamente tra le più
importanti [serie] dei primi venti anni del 2000. […] Qualcosa di intimamente nuovo.’ Gianmaria
Tammaro, ‘Sherlock, dieci anni fa la serie con Cumberbatch’, La Repubblica, 27 Luglio 2020. https://
www.repubblica.it/serietv/netflix/2020/07/27/news/sherlock_10_anni-262928059/ [accessed 27
November 2020].
  56
     (Our translation). Or. Text: ‘Le produzioni britanniche – quelle firmate dalla BBC nazionale, quelle
più audaci di Channel 4, quelle più conformiste di Itv e così via – sono e restano tra le migliori del
panorama mondiale, anche dopo l’avvento degli show targati Netflix, Amazon Prime Video e altre
piattaforme digitali.’ Lorenza Negri, ‘5 Ottime Ragioni per Riguardare Sherlock’, Wired, 21 Luglio 2020,
https://www.wired.it/play/televisione/2020/07/21/motivi-riguardare-sherlock-serie-bbc/?refresh_ce
[accessed 16 September 2020]
  57
     (Our translation). Or. Text: ‘La BBC, già nel 2010, era riuscita a comprendere un nuovo modo con
cui raccontare un storia. In modo frammentato, ma allo stesso tempo capace di ricollegare tutti i
tasselli.’ Emanuela Di Pinto, ‘Sherlock, una Rivoluzione su Piccolo Schermo?’, Spettacolo, https://
spettacolo.periodicodaily.com/sherlock-una-rivoluzione-su-piccolo-schermo/ [accessed 11 October
2020].
  58
     Roberta Pearson, ‘A Case of Identity’, p. 139.
  59
     Fligstein, Euroclash.
  60
     Schlesinger, ‘Europeanness,’ p. 17.


40                                                         Antoniazzi, Casoli, BBC’s Sherlock and Europeanness
