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T H E D O O R
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The comments and additions on this post about the famous Baker Street door with the number 221b, got me started on a little research regarding that topic.
One of the most striking differences lies in the glossiness of the door. In Series One the door appeares to be painted in matt-black (pic above). A big scratch mark next to the B can be easily seen.
This changes with ASIB, where the surface of the same door suddenly shines in a brilliant, bright black (pic below). Not the slightest trace of a scratch mark can be detected.
But that’s not the only difference. More doors below the cut …..
@ebaeschnbliah: Thank you for doing all this meticulous work of collecting doors, knockers, scratches and letterboxes. This is really curious because there is not obvious reason for the changes. Am I right in assuming that the real owners changed the letterbox at some point in time? I think I will have to muse about all this for a bit …
i would guess that the new letterbox is something the owners put in. It does look like the old one is quite small, so perhaps their postman was having trouble getting some things to go through it. The in-universe explanation of a spruce-up after the TGG explosion works for me.
sarahthecoat reblogged
Hm …
Hmmmmm …. (X)
The 221 B door in the PILOT, which is reality, is brown. The 221 B door Sherlock uses in his MP is this black one. Moffat is speaking both literally and figuratively.
Interesting @sherlockshadow Have never noticed this but it looks like you’re right. The PILOT door appears indeed rather brownish. And that door on Instagram is much more glossy compared to the one in ASIP.
Also, there is some sort of scratch next to the ‘B’ on the ‘aired’ door, which is missing on the PILOT door. Another example of inexplicable and seemingly unnecessary little changes from PILOT to ASIP? Like …
- Sherlock’s and John’s meeting date - from 14. January to 29. January
- Angelo’s alabi from car-jacking to house-breaking
- the ‘retired plumber’ into an ‘airline pilot’
- Northumberland Terrace to Northumberland Street
- the sound of the barking dog moved from the end to the beginning of the episode
- changed (mirrored) positions of the characters in almost all the scenes (X)
Hmm - glossy indeed! Is that from the filming of S4? Actually, I can’t remember a single close-up of that door in the whole of S4 so I don’t think we would have noticed the glossiness. As for the brownish tone in the PILOT: is it just me, or does that whole episode seem to be filmed with a bit of sepia toning? Sepia gives an almost nostalgic tone to a photo. Maybe the PILOT is meant to appear as a ‘lost opportunity’ or something? (Which would make me all the more convinced that it’s the most ‘real’ of the episodes and that we’ll come back to it in the end, after going full circle :) ).
Just out of curiosity, I checked (thanks to Ariane deVere’s transcripts) the whole show, including PILOT, for how many times the words “not real” figure. In total, it’s four times: 1. Irene says it in ASiB, the scene with dead people on a plane. 2. Magnussen says it about his vaults in Appledore in HLV. 3. Moriarty says it to Holmes in TAB, disguised as a bride. 4. At Musgrave Hall in TFP, Sherlock notices that walls “don’t contract after you’ve painted them” - not real ones. “Fresh paint to disguise another smell”? It’s not real. “I want to break free”. ;)
Indeed, there is a certain warm sepia tone to the pilot which can also be seen in the 221b interior. Of course there have been a lot of changes from Pilot to ASiP, just think of using the real Speedy’s instead of “Mrs Hudson’s Snacks and Sarnies”. So this is one thing but the apparent change of the “real” 221b” door used in S1 to S3 to the one in the photo is quite striking as well.
Which leads me to this question. Does anyone remember if they use the real door from 187 North Gower Street and just changed the numbers? Or did they insert another door for filming? If yes, the question would why they have this door at all.
@gosherlocked that's what i was wondering too. I dimly recall something from way back about just changing the numbers on the in-situ door, so this prop door in storage is either from a later series (perhaps the process of changing the numbers back and forth was beginning to leave unwanted marks on the door?) Or from a scene where they needed the outside door to be visible from an interior shot, since all the interiors are filmed on a set. I suppose any time the camera follows the boys down the stairs to the entryway, qualifies as such.
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Sherlock door!! 221b!!!
wow!