Posted in: Movies, TV | Tagged: amanda abbington, benedict cumberbatch, entertainment, martin freeman, sherlock, television

Freeman And Abbington Split As Sherlock Season 4 Is Set To Premiere

We don't go much into covering celebrity relationships here on BC. It just doesn't fall into our wheelhouse normally unless it has a bigger effect. Like Milla Jovovich's pregnancy moving the filming of a Resident Evil film. The news that came out yesterday falls in that category as well.

Martin Freeman and Amanda Abington have announced they are splitting after 15 years together. Both sides say it's amicable and that the time apart was at the heart of the split. The couple have two children, Joe (10) and Grace (8).  We here wish the best to all parties involved.

Freeman has been climbing up the Hollywood ladder after his role on the Office lead to his becoming Dr. John Watson on Sherlock, Bilbo Baggins in the Hobbit trilogy, a lead on one of the seasons of Fargo and an appearance in Captain America: Civil War. Addington plays Mary Morstan, Watson's wife on Sherlock and Miss Mardle on Mr. Selfridge. The two originally met while working on the series Men Only in 2000 and also appeared together in The Robinsons, the TV movie The Debt and films Swinging with the Finkels and The All Together.

Which leads to the question, how does this effect the series they are both part of right now? In the fourth season of Sherlock, the Watson's have a baby and it leads to some marital problems. That's about as much as we know at this point. Could John and Mary end up split by the end of the season?

Since there is no guarantee that a fifth season of Sherlock will happen, it might not be an issue and since the separation is amicable, they could keep the couple together on screen… but if they do decide to have them split, it will tap into what could be the biggest unsolved mystery in all of the Sherlockian history. How many times has Dr. John Watson been married?

If you read the Sir Arthur Conan Doyle stories, only one woman is ever officially named as Mrs. Watson, and that is Mary Morstan. But, if you breakdown the stories and the tales as told by Watson, you can come away with the idea that he has had up to six different wives with Mary being number five and the only one to leave him a widower. In a paper presented to the Dayton ACD symposium, Brad Keefauver lays out the evidence to show that Watson took up a common practice at the time of living with a lover and taking to calling them wife and given them the Mrs. Watson title without it being official. Hence no need for a divorce. Keefauver then goes step by step through each wife as they appear in the stories: Lucy Ferrier, Norah Creina, Miss Morrison, Flora Millar, Mary Morstan and finally… Mrs. Hudson. Why else would he keep moving back in? Holmes is a horrible roommate.

Whether you go for the six marriages or not, there is definitely a lot of Watson moving in and out of 221 B. Baker Street and the moving out always involved a woman… and the moving in always had him being a bit grumpy. I know when I read all the adventures over a few weeks, I was under the impression that Watson had been married multiple times and that was how it was present in the Jeremy Britt lead TV series. So there is plenty of precedent for Watson to suddenly be single and living in Baker Street again.

The producers of the Sherlock series have often set their own path and made changes where they seen fit. If it is something they address in a fifth season, I'm sure it will be their own twist on the Holmes / Watson mythos.

Sherlock begins its fourth season Jan. 1 at 9 p.m. ET on PBS.

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