Sherlock Holmes wireless future

Radio waves are positioned as the ultimate device for evil if they fall into the wrong hands.

In this final scene from Sherlock Holmes, it is revealed that a radio wave-based remote control device was actually the most dangerous element of a doomsday machine created to murder the entire British Parliament, placing control of the government in the hands of a secret society ruled by old white men. While the intended mass murder was successfully foiled by Holmes, his emergent arch-nemesis, Professor Moriarty stole the radio remote device for as-yet-untold nefariousness. Holmes' final soliloquy, "A technology of that kind would be worth an untold fortune. Imagine being able to control any device simply by sending a command via radio waves. It's the future, Watson!" both sets up the inevitable sequel to the film franchise and alludes to a technology that was indeed nascent in the late 19th century. The privileging of radio waves at this moment in history (and in the context of this film's reassertion of science/rationalism over magic/superstition bears further scrutiny in relation to the "magical" properties that were attributed to early wireless technologies emerging at the turn of the 20th century.