Steven Moffat's "Sherlock"

Synopsis: It's Holmes, set in modern day. Fortunately, not as some time traveler in a strange land but a complete contemporary re-telling, much like Moffat's previous production of "Jekyll".

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This aired on the BBC last weekend (and is still up on iPlayer, if you're a Brit and missed it). Overall, I really enjoyed it!

The casting of Holmes (Benedict Cumberbatch) and Watson (Martin Freeman) were both superb. They played off each other well and made a massively entertaining pair.

Sherlock's drug abuse is merely hinted at, though instead they choose to explore his obsessive and belligerent intellect as a form of sociopathy (something he himself admits to during the episode - he can't resist correcting a police officer who calls him a psychopath).

The relocation to modern day ended up a lot less jarring than I feared it would be. Watson is a former army doctor whose leg was wounded in Afghanistan. Holmes is a consultant to the police in the style of Monk or The Mentalist. For the most part it felt just like those shows too, albeit with a British cast and some very familiar characters.

This first episode was written by Moffat himself and the dialogue and pacing were typical of him, rapid-fire and funny. The presentation was slick, especially in the deduction scenes. The show's charisma and drama are such that the rather disappointing (and slightly predictable) mystery was quite forgivable. At least it wasn't as basic as the mystery in the recent Robert Downey Jr movie.

The weakest part of the tale (for me) was definitely Mark Gatiss' portrayal of exactly the same type of character he always seems to play. Not badly done at all, but a decidedly plain counterpart to the excellent Cumberbatch and Freeman.

I'm definitely looking forward to the next episode.

How did that quote I heard once go, "a psychopath doesn't know the difference between right and wrong, a sociopath does know the difference but just doesn't care". Or is that the other way around?

So, all new mysteries or modernized versions of the Holmes classics?

The first episode was called "A Study in Pink". As you can probably guess from the title, it's loosely based on the first classic Holmes story "A Study in Scarlet".

Great espisode. Few little niggles over certain things but the two leads are excellently cast and it was highly enjoyable

It's Mark Gatiss and Steven Moffats Sherlock though, both created and write for it. (I always like to give Mark Gatiss credit where-ever possible, even if he did create the iDaleks).

I really enjoyed this and am looking forward to the next one. Very well done mix of the original characters in the modern world. They even use some dialogue verbatim from the original scripts.


The characters were all great. Holmes and Watson are fantastic, loved Mrs. Hudson ("I'm not your houskeeper"), Lestrade was great and I liked Gatiss' character once it was revealed to be who I hoped it was.


SPOILERS










The badguy being a mix of Saw and the princess bride was interesting (and a good re-mix of the original culprit), but I think the overal mystery was the major flaw in this episode (and the real danger for the rest of the series). The audience shouldn't be that far ahead of Holmes.