Sherlock comes to PBS

For all of you without BBC America, the new series Sherlock is starting on PBS tomorrow night at 9-10:30p EDT, and the next two Sundays as well.

I wonder if the LA area will be able to watch it, then. Seeing how our main PBS station (KCET) decided to cut ties with PBS over the membership dues and all.
Maybe the Orange County station (KOCE) will carry it.

Well that was different. Definitely get a Doctor Who vibe off of it.

Nice take on Watson, being a blogger. Mycroft with his "ability" to control the CCTV cams in London. Sherlock using multiple nicotine patches. Nice mix of humor with the seriousness.

I gotta watch Venture Brothers, so I got this recording on TiVO. I'll watch it tomorrow.

I liked that Holmes could clearly not choose the pill in front of him.

Well he most likely is completely unaware of the movie or I would have expected a quip.

Really looks like an interesting take on the character. I missed the start of it, so I'll catch the rerun tomorrow afternoon.

This is a great take on the Holmes/Watson mythos.

I was skeptical at first, but within five minutes of "A Study in Pink", I was hooked. The producers have really outdone themselves at offering a modern-day re-imagining of Holmes and Watson, while still managing to pay homage to the original material.

Watson, in particular, is correctly portrayed as an able companion to Holmes and a foil that he comes to depend upon very quickly. They do an cute scene in "The Blind Banker" where Holmes introduces Watson to the client as "My friend, Doctor John Watson", at which Watson adds "Colleague, actually", earning a look from Holmes that speaks volumes. ;-)

The stories are brand new, yet they draw upon the originals for recognizable inspiration.

"A Study in Pink" is, obviously, inspired by "A Study in Scarlet". The original story was really two stories in one: The case that brings Holmes and Watson into the mystery, and what amounts to a separate novelette about the story of Jefferson Hope and what drove him to murder.

"A Study in Pink" imagines the case as a straight-forward serial killer, albeit one who seems to convince his victims to commit suicide. The original clues are given new meanings and the last quarter of the case necessarily goes in a different direction entirely than the original.

It speaks volumes that I'm a bit of a purist, despite embracing most of the variants ("Without a Clue" being one of the best) and I thoroughly enjoyed "Sherlock".

The additions are often amusing - As in the original, our first introduction to Holmes has him beating a corpse to determine how long bruises can be caused after death. He gets away with desecrating said corpse because the university coroner is a mousy young woman who has a crush on Holmes; one that he isn't above exploiting when it suits him. It's quite clear that the poor girl is barking up the wrong tree, however.

The show even toys with the idea that Holmes might be gay, though they mostly keep the canon that Holmes is far too dedicated to his work to be interested in such things at all. The gay theme is mostly a comical way to discomfit Watson for a while as many people imagine that two men taking up residence together must be a couple, and as Seinfeld would put it, "not that there's anything wrong with that..."

The best thing about the show is Watson. If there was an opposite to Nigel Bruce, this is it. The show goes to pains to point up the fact that Watson is, in fact, capable and competent as an adventurer. This is brought home in a couple of interesting ways.

On the one hand, Watson is semi-forcibly taken to meet with a mysterious, urbane gentleman who wants to keep tabs on Holmes and is willing to pay Watson handsomely to spy on him. This gentlemen is intimidating, but Watson rises to the challenge and refuses him despite his obvious danger. At this, the gentleman releases him, but not before pointing out that he should fire his psychiatrist for reasons that I won't spoil here. Suffice to say that this man shows him evidence that his problem is not that his nerves are shattered by the danger he experienced as a soldier in Afghanistan. His problem is that he misses the excitement of being in harm's way on a daily basis.

On the other hand, towards the end of the show, Watson rescues Holmes from an imminent threat to his life. Holmes has no idea what happened, and while "recovering" ("Why do they keep putting this blanket on me?" "You're in shock, you just nearly lost your life") he ends up advising Lestrade to search for someone with nerves of steel, a crack shot, and probably an ex-soldier... at which he sees Watson standing outside the police line and realizes who he is describing. He then waves off the perplexed Lestrade ("Ignore everything I said. I'm in shock. Look, I have blanket on me!") With only a few lines, we establish Watson's competency, Holmes' admiration of him, and his loyalty to someone he barely yet knows but who has proven that he can be counted on when it matters.

This density of writing, if you will, is carried on through the entire program. These are men worth admiring and if they aren't the originals, they're cast from the same molds and it shows.

"The Blind Banker" is also a good yarn, and while it's less recognizably based on the canon, it keeps enough faith with its origins that the story is recognizably a Holmes and Watson story. The story borrows elements from both "The Sign of Four" and "The Adventure of the Dancing Men",but creates a new storyline of its own. It's not quite as engaging as "A Study in Pink" but I had no complaints. The one trend I hope they are not going to pursue overmuch is the idea of Watson attempting to have a normal social and personal life with Holmes constantly breaking in on his attempts to do so and causing him various consternations as a result.

If you're a Holmes fan, I recommend the show highly. There's one more episode that will air on Sunday night. Meanwhile, if you missed the first two episodes, you can watch them online at the "Masterpiece Mystery!" website until December 7.

If you're interested in detailed information about the show, as well as links to supporting websites such as Holmes' and Watson's blogs, there is an informative wiki entry about it.

On another note, I have to agree that when Holmes finally confronts the serial killer, I couldn't help expecting the killer to say "Now it is down to you, and now it is down to me..."

The challenge placed before Holmes is SO much a carbon copy of the same scene in the Princess Bride that it becomes unintentionally funny if you let it. I have to attribute this to the show being a British production, so that "The Princess Bride" isn't the big deal for the British audience as it is for an American audience in which almost all could be expected to be familiar with that scene. It probably felt wonderfully original and apropos to the British writers to have an intellectual duel between Holmes and the killer instead of a physical duel.

Alas, to an American audience, that duel can't help but create echoes of Wesley and Vizzini. It's a tribute to the quality of the program that, for me at least, it managed to rise past that unintentionally comic comparison and keep my interest anyway.

So, it's viewable online until December 7th. Drink up, lovelies.

True, and I did love the fact that it was Holme's very nature that forced him to take the chalenge, rather than him being forced to do it by threats.

Also, I loved the revelation as to why he was doing all this. It made a lot of sense, whilst simultaneously making even less sense than him just being a nutter.