The character Detective Marcus Bell (Jon Michael Hill) is a nod to Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's inspiration for Sherlock Holmes. In 1877 Conan Doyle met Dr. Joseph Bell and served as his clerk at the Edinburgh Royal Infirmary. Bell does not appear in the pilot, but is in every episode thereafter.
The song at the end of the episode is "Watching the Detectives" by Elvis Costello. In 2007 Lucy Liu played the female lead in a movie of the same name. Quite similar to Joan Watson, her character is fascinated by the work of detectives.