Steven Moffat and Mark Gatiss’ Dracula has been out for a couple of weeks now on the BBC and a week or so on Netflix, so fans of the duo’s other two series – Doctor Who and Sherlock – have had time to chew over the three feature-length episodes that make up their new take on the horror classic so far. And those same fans may well have noticed the nods to both of those shows hidden in the first episode of Dracula.
As previously discussed, there’s a nifty easter egg referencing Jenna Coleman’s Clara from Doctor Who in an early scene from episode 1, titled “The Rules of the Beast.” Later on in the same story, there’s another intriguing line that will grab fans’ attentions. When Agatha Van Helsing is explaining how she located and brought Jonathan Harker’s fiancee Mina to her convent in Budapest to see him, she says that she has a “detective acquaintance in London” who helped her.
Given the Clara connection, I speculated before that this isn’t a nod to the obvious character and is in fact talking about Who‘s Madame Vastra. But, as ScreenRant points out, this is more likely intended as an easter egg to the one and only Sherlock Holmes. Mostly because it fits so perfectly in the Great Detective’s life story.
This episode takes place in 1897, a time Holmes would have been operational in London and so would have been able to help Agatha out. What’s more, there’s even a way for the pair to have met. In 1891, Holmes faked his death in Switzerland and is known to have travelled Europe before returning to England three years later. So, he could have become chums with the vampire-hunting nun in Hungary during this same period.
Obviously, though, this isn’t Benedict Cumberbatch’s Holmes we’re talking about. Or is it? Remember, Sherlock‘s weirdest episode, “The Abominable Bride,” suggested that the modern-set series was all a drug-induced hallucination of the original Victorian character. So, perhaps Dracula does take place simultaneously in both the Doctor Who and Sherlock universes?