It is BBC’sthat is the driving force behind the New Sherlock Holmes Boom. So much so, in fact, that calling it a "Sherlock Holmes" boom is a misnomer. It truly is a Cumberbatch/Boom fueled by an inventive internet fan base that has dominated the discussion so much that “the great unobservant public, who could hardly tell a weaver by his tooth or a compositor by his left thumb” does not know that there is a difference between the Steven Moffat and Mark Gatiss creation and the Arthur Conan Doyle original. Like Madonna or Beyoncé, the great detective is now a one name celeb recognizable for his dark wavy hair and prominent cheekbones. TV dialog, not Canon quotes are theof disparate fans.There are websites, official and unofficial , dedicated to the show and its actors. Fanfic and fan art featuring Benedict Cumberbatch and Martin Freeman in their roles dominate the internet in a way other current and past actors do not. Not to give Freeman short shrift, but the accelerant for this conflagration is Cumberbatch - just as Brett, Rathbone and Gillette before him.Imagine if you will aidentical in every way to the one we know except that Jonny Lee Miller plays Sherlock. (Don’t snicker. Let me just remind you of the Olivier and the London Evening Standard Award for Best Actor that Miller and Cumberbatch jointly won for Danny Boyle’sin which they switched roles) Yes, it would be a hit, and a worldwide hit, but not the phenomenon it is with Cumberbatch. No “Curly Fu” and “Peanut” inflaming China, for example. Cumberbatch andis the perfect marriage of actor and role. There is something otherworldly, child-like, an asexual sexuality—an undefinable quality, the very definition of je ne sais quoi—that Cumberbatch brings to the Moffat/Gatiss version of Holmes that has ignited the imagination of fans across the globe. Even those things, places and characters that have no parallel in the Canon, Speedy's Sandwich Bar & Cafe, Molly Hooper, the wallpaper of the Baker Street set, have become icons instantly calling to the mind offans221B Baker Street and London.Ifdidn’t exist, the Downey films andwould not be leading a new boom, but, at best, an upswelling. Pastiches are perennial, so no doubt Anthony Horowitz’s House of Silk (2011) and Lyndsay Faye’s Dust and Shadow (2009) would have seen print and excellent sales. Sales of the Canon would still have increased, though not as much as they currently have. Would we have seen Maria Konnikova’s Mastermind: How to Think Like Sherlock Holmes (2013) or James O'Brien’s Edgar winning The Scientific Sherlock Holmes (2013) or, in fact, publishers slapping the detective’s name to any book that can be vaguely related to Holmes? Perhaps, perhaps not.What is distressing to some Sherlockians (old school or not) is Cumberbatch becoming the public face of Sherlock Holmes in a way that Jeremy Brett, Basil Rathbone and William Gillette never could have been. In the 1900s, the 1940s and 1980s, the stage, cinema, radio and television were adjuncts to the written word. If one wanted to learn more about Sherlock Holmes, one turned to the Canon. Now, in our post-literate world , reading an actual book is one choice among many to gain information on a subject. Where once Gillette's face graced the cover of, Cumberbatch's face is placed on the front of panties.