by Allan Fish
(UK 2010- 532m) DVD1/2
I – O – U…
p Sue Vertue, Rebecca Eaton, Mark Gatiss, Steven Moffat d Paul McGuigan, Euros Lyn created by Steven Moffat, Mark Gatiss w Steven Moffat, Mark Gatiss, Steve Thompson m David Arnold, Michael Price
Benedict Cumberbatch (Sherlock Holmes), Martin Freeman (Dr John Watson), Mark Gatiss (Mycroft Holmes), Una Stubbs (Mrs Hudson), Andrew Scott (Jim Moriarty), Rupert Graves (Chf.Insp.Lestrade), Lara Pulver (Irene Adler), Zoe Telford, Phil Davis, Louise Brealey, John Sessions, Russell Tovey, Amber Elizabeth, Douglas Wilmer,
We all have our own Holmes. For the old brigade, no-one can top Basil Rathbone, and for sure on the large screen, while Robert Stephens and Peter Cushing were both admirable, he remains definitive. Baker Street obsessives will say the best incarnations were on TV. Hand on heart, if asked who the most accurate Holmes was on screen, it would be Jeremy Brett’s immortal incarnation that ran for a decade from 1984-94 and was faithful enough to build an entire Baker Street set (back to back with the Coronation Street set) on the Granada backlot. Yet while they were the most authentic, the earlier series undoubtedly were the best (Brett’s ailments started to show towards the end). Back a generation earlier there was a now rarely seen take with Douglas Wilmer a superb Holmes (he makes a lovely cameo appearance, aged 90, in the Series 2 finale). Yet these were all faithful period recreations and they failed to make the main text, so how come a 21st century updating could prove the best of the bunch?
What’s ironic is that many of the people who criticised Moffat and Gatiss’ baby for committing heresy and updating Holmes are people who still cherish Basil Rathbone, in spite of the fact that all the later Universal Holmes films with Basil were set in the then present of the 1940s. In other words, the notion of updating was not a new one. So if Holmes could exist in an age of fingerprinting and Nazis, so he could also exist in an age of text messaging, blogging, MI5, genetic engineering and forensics.
In some of his episodes for Doctor Who, one can sense Moffat running away from his audience, breathlessly trying to keep up behind and imagine him tutting like Matt Smith and murmuring “keep up, have you been paying attention?” Yet in doing so he was operating the way the Doctor thinks. There are similarities between the Timelord and Conan-Doyle’s detective, but he and Gatiss have 90 minutes over which to flex their muscles. Even so, one of the most delightful of many such touches in the series is how, by literally feeding the contents of Sherlock’s thought processes and text messages to and from characters on the actual screen, he allows the audience to follow Holmes’ super-charged mind, to see the deductions fall into place without recourse to a recap.
The first series was a runaway hit with audiences and critics alike, and a surprise one, being the BBC were so unsure they only commissioned three episodes. Even the most ardent fan couldn’t have called them perfect, but they were enough to make one hope for even better. Series 2, again just three episodes ironically due to the scheduling commitments of creators and stars, was to take it into uncharted territory. That a still fiendishly clever updating of Baskervilles could be seen as the least of the triptych showed how far it had travelled. Here was a series that was both revisionist and faithful and plotted at the pace of Sherlock’s head; a wonderfully entertaining ride. Yet for all the writers’ wit and cleverness it couldn’t work without the right cast, and the two leads are perfect. Cumberbatch is miraculous ringing off thought processes as if on a speeded up autocue while Freeman plays Watson straight as in the Brett series rather than the buffoon of Nigels Bruce and Stock and is often touching. And a final word for the deliriously twisted Andrew Scott as Jim Moriarty, an insane sociopath for our times, with his own Irish drawl delivered in the monotone style of Paul McCartney (who he played in Lennon Naked), dancing to ‘The Thieving Magpie’ while stealing the crown jewels. He’s a worthy foe in a more than worthy update. Somewhere, Conan Doyle is smiling.
I loved the first series of this. It had its problems, yes, especially the middle episode, but the leads were fantastic and it was all just so clever and charming that any flaws were easy to overlook. Cumberbatch is such a great Holmes, you can really see his mind moving at hyper-speed in everything he does. Really looking forward to checking out the second series soon, especially if it’s an improvement.
Oh it is, Ed, believe me. Again the middle one was the least, but it was still good. The first and third were magnificent. Cumberbatch does indeed make a perfect Holmes, you quite literally see him thinking. Not for musty purists, but they’d hate the Rathbone Universal series as they were modernised, too.
By serendipity, I just watched the last episode of this today and must agree with you that it is an excellent updating – Cumberbatch and Freeman make a perfect combination. In the earlier episodes I was sometimes slightly surprised by the amount of new technology, smartphones, websites etc, worked into the stories, but after a little while you get used to that and it stops mattering. My teenage son is a huge fan of this series and has been useful to explain plot twists to me when occasionally I fail to keep up!
Interesting to read this before being able to catch the second season in full, and furthermore to find this popping up just as I read news of an American modernized Sherlock series with Johnny Lee Miller in New York. It seems destined to be a useless, increasingly derivative endeavor, yet I’ll probably make the mistake of watching it, anyway.
Have you tried the Russian adaptation with Vasily Livanov as Holmes…
I think that the only reason it moves so fast is that the makers fear that the teens might starting texting and lose interest
It has more of Buffy and mainstream (non-HBO) US TV sensibilities (say, CSI) than the rollicking adventure mode of Doyle’s ‘Strand Magazine’ stories. Not a patch on the early Brett shows, the Rathbone films or Wilder’s brilliant effort. Trust me to be a purist and spoil the love-in, lol
I expect no less, Bobby
“It has more of Buffy and mainstream (non-HBO) US TV sensibilities (say, CSI)”
+1 Bobby J.
I felt the same thing while watching the first season.
While I love anything Sherlock Holmes, I am still waiting for that definitive masterpiece interpretation. Some Rathbone and Brett attempts come closest IMO. This new adaptation falls way short in my personal estimation.
So are you guys jacked up for this new ‘contemporary update’ Sherlock Holmes with Lucy Liu and some stiff called ELEMENTARY (as in “Elementary, my Dear Watson”)?
Yes, with Zero Cool as some stiff. Oh, how the mighty have fallen.
God, I had to look thinking “that was Jonny Lee Miller?” as I had just seen one advertisement on the television. You are right, how the mighty have fallen. Though how could one age when I recall them drugged up in TRAINSPOTTING?
I would say that might lend the show an occasional edge as far as Holmes’ well known drug habits are known. Except CBS’ demographic probably hasn’t seen “Transpotting”, or at least wouldn’t remember him as much as Ewan McGreggor and the rest. And anyway, even if they do milk the drug angle, it’ll only make the Moffat show look better for how they’ve been able to dodge it in a creative and real way, so far, with Holmes’ 21st century drug of choice being the web– which again takes us back to Zero Cool.
Well, the show looks little more than the endless parade of one off episode shows where cases are solved. There are honestly like 35 of those on TV at this moment. It boggles my mind how they just keep coming out. Hell last week TNT gave us another with PERCEPTION.
Yeah. Granted, most of these shows have some kind of serialization, the ongoing cases that never get solved until the series finale, and odds are that’s what Moriarty will become for this American series (especially funny considering how Moffat remained true to the originals in one regards to the Reichenbach incident). Series like these are sort of in the same position that detective-feature serials were in the 40′s, lilke the “Thin Man” or “The Saint” thingamajigs.
Handled well, you could have a lot of fun and experiment with them in nice ways– “The X Files” is sort of the perfect example of this format– but lately all of the endless procedurals out there just seem formulaic to the point of watering everything down with their ubiquitousness. I enjoy “Person of Interest” on and off, mostly to see if they’ll ever make good on the premise and make it about the all-powerful surveilance system watching everyone and not just the standard case-of-the-week, but even that’s kinda drab after more than a few minutes.
Oh, how I miss the campy fun of “24″. At least that had cliffhangers.
Of the versions I have seen, the one with Jeremy Brett seems the best (not best adaptation, necessarily, as I haven’t read a single Holmes book). It is more intriguing, as is the character. Intrigue, after all, is what you want a fictional detective story.
I find this version insufferable, clever-clever and not at all intriguing. The fast talking and fast thinking does not mean it is intelligent. It has plenty of rabbits and plenty of hats but no magic.
Part of the point of this series (the first season) is the lack of chemistry between the two leads and where they do not see eye to eye at all. Watson is a bit of a wet blanket and Holmes’ superiority is trying.
I watched the whole series a month or so ago, and greatly enjoyed it. Moffat is all-around brilliant and always worth watching, and Cumberbatch is excellent as a semi-sociopathic Holmes who sees all the physical details but can’t seem to get human psychology–something you would think would actually hinder detective work, now that I think of it.
The one sort-of-negative I have is Moriarty. His plans are appropriately fiendish, but he is played as crazier and loonier even than The Joker, constantly breaking into sing-song voices or making farting sounds with his mouth in an incredibly childish way that I found grating and stupid. It isn’t really original–villains have been bipolarly shifting between humor and murderous rage for ages–so it just takes things to a whole new level of wacky that I just don’t know how to react to. It takes all the intimidation out of the character, intimidation which does get built up whenever he’s off-screen.