Sherlock
Series One (aka Season One for us Yanks)
BBC (or PBS for us Colonials)
This will hopefully be another fairly short review, since I opted to review the three episodes that comprise the first season of BBC's Sherlock as a group, instead of separately. I'm also by no means an expert on Sherlock Holmes: I've never read any of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's works, I've never seen any of the Basil Rathbone movies - my only real exposure to the character has been through the 2009 Guy Ritchie film (which I thought was solidly entertaining) and an episode of Wishbone based on The Hound of the Baskervilles (also pretty entertaining, from what I remember). My lack of preconceptions or expectations actually probably makes me the ideal audience for Sherlock, which brings the characters into a modern-day London setting.
Perhaps Holmes purists would consider the updated setting an outrage, but I found it to be a fairly astute move on the part of creators Mark Gatiss and Steven Moffat (of Doctor Who fame), as it made the idea of plunging into the classic stories and characters a bit less intimidating. And while it is true that Sherlock's version of Holmes includes texting and nicotine patches, the elements that made Doyle's work so iconic remain the focus - namely, the brilliant dynamic between Holmes and his much-beleaguered assistant, Watson.
