Benedict Cumberbatch as Sherlock Holmes & Martin Freeman as Dr. Watson
“The Blind Banker”
Note: I’ll be doing recap-style reviews for the remaining two episodes in Sherlock’s inaugural season, so unlike last week’s more wide-ranging review of the series première, this writeup and next week’s will include specific plot details.
The second episode of Sherlock signals its neo-Victorian bent early, as Sherlock fends off a cutlass-wielding assassin of indeterminate Middle Eastern origin, one who seems to come straight from a Rudyard Kipling yarn. The series is unapologetic about its grounding in the present day, but it isn’t ashamed to offer a nod to its roots, either, especially when it can do so with such a playful, light touch. Sherlock’s life-or-death grapple is intercut with Watson’s own battle against a self-checkout station at the supermarket, so it’s a comic sequence instead of just a campy one.
Sherlock wins his fight, and Watson loses his (a TKO by way of insufficient funds), which leads the audience to the conclusion that Sherlock has already reached: he’s fine on his own, and Watson is mostly there for company. But this is another one of those misdirects that the series does with such skill, as “The Blind Banker” is really about the growing symbiosis between the two residents at 221B. The duo’s greatest successes come when they’re together, and their greatest frustrations emerge when they’re apart.
The clever combat sequence is unfortunately preceded by a cold open that epitomizes the worst aspect of “The Blind Banker,” its occasional tendency toward lazy Orientalism. A Chinese woman demonstrates a tea ceremony at a fine-arts museum, her moves captured in slow motion and accentuated with the sound of breeze sweeping through the weeds, as if she were some unknowable mystic. The woman is Soo-Lin, an antiquities expert who plays a central role in this week’s mystery, which is a shame, since every scene that features her is a tedious dead spot.
The trouble with Soo-Lin is that the actress delivers every line as if it were an ancient proverb of infinite wisdom. I think this tiresome habit is less a problem of the actress’ talent than bad direction, because the problem afflicts every Chinese character in the episode to some degree. The writers even go explicitly to the “ancient Chinese proverb” well at one point, although by then it seems to be at least partially in jest.
The mystery of the week is afoot when Sherlock receives a message from an old college acquaintance, Sebastian. The fellow alum of Unnamed University is a douche-y investment banker who feigns friendship and tolerance for Sherlock’s analytical “trick.” He’ll put up with his weird old dorm-mate because he wants the consulting detective to find a hole in his office’s security. See, someone broke in the previous night and spray-painted a couple of strange symbols in the unoccupied office of the firm’s former chairman. Sebastian only wants to know how they got in; Sherlock is more interested to know why.
Bobbing and weaving around the office, Sherlock determines that the cryptic message was intended for Edward Van Coon, a Hong Kong trader whose office is the only one with a direct view of the graffiti. He heads with Watson to Van Coon’s apartment building, where there’s no answer at the buzzer downstairs.
This sets up my favorite shot of the episode, a close-up on Benedict Cumberbatch’s face as Sherlock tries to convince a woman upstairs, over the intercom, to let him in. In the space of 15 seconds, and without any cutaways, Cumberbatch goes through a range of expressions that give a vivid picture of Sherlock’s mental agility. It’s impressive enough that Sherlock shifts to the lip-biting humility of a regular schmoe in such convincing fashion. The genius part is that when the woman upstairs confirms Sherlock’s theory that she’s a new resident, he breaks the friendly-neighbor façade just long enough to slip Watson an “I told you so” glance. If you want to see why Cumberbatch is the perfect choice to play this character, watch that little sequence again. (That’s assuming PBS didn’t cut this part out—I’m going from the uncut British airings.)
It turns out that Van Coon’s dead, and Sherlock maintains that it’s a murder, despite the appearance of suicide. When a journalist turns up dead under the same circumstances—dude encounters some weird spray-painted markings and then gets offed by a building-climbing assassin not soon after—Sherlock takes the new evidence to Detective Inspector Dimmock, the cop assigned to the case. Initially suspicious of Sherlock, Dimmock admits that the ballistics report did indeed confirm that the Van Coon death was a murder, and Sherlock declares, “This investigation might move a bit quicker if you were to take my word as gospel.”
That’s a revealing line, because what Sherlock doesn’t realize in his bluster is that the investigation would also move more quickly if he listened more closely to Watson. They’re still early in their relationship, so Sherlock is all too eager to tune out his friend/colleague associate. He ignores Watson’s pleas to open the door while he inspects Van Coon’s apartment. He leaves him holding the bag, literally, after the cops break up a consultation session with a Banksy-esque graffiti artist. And he locks Watson out once again while he noses around Soo Lin’s abandoned home—though tellingly, he croaks “John!” as the Chinese assassin (who happened to be there as well) grasps Sherlock in a choke hold.
The killings come into focus. Van Coon and the dead journalist were both part of an underground ring that smuggled artifacts between China and London, and the mob is hunting down its couriers because one of them stole something valuable during his last stop in China.
Sherlock is the one unraveling the broad strokes of the plot, yet it’s Watson who provides most of the pieces that advance toward a solution. This is a troubling state of affairs for Sherlock—it’s important to solve the puzzle, yes, but it’s equally important that he is the one to solve the puzzle. When the two men bump into each other at a West End café, both hot on the trail of the smugglers’ drop-off point, Sherlock rattles off the picture he’s managed to piece together from scraps of information. But Watson already knows where the smugglers ended up: “That shop, over there,” he says. Sherlock is indignant. “How could you tell?” he says, glaring. Well, the address was right in the journalist’s diary, which Watson got from the police as instructed. It’s progress, but Sherlock would have preferred to get there his way.
Along the same lines, when Watson brings Sherlock back to a railroad underpass filled with the mysterious ciphers they’ve been trying to decode—only to find that the wall has been painted over—Sherlock whips Watson around the tracks in a desperate effort to make the poor doctor’s feeble mind recall the image he saw. Watson is eventually able to slow Sherlock down enough to explain that there’s no need for worry, he’ll remember, because he took a freaking picture on his phone.
There’s no extraordinary craft to what Watson does, but he can see the forest while Sherlock is inspecting the age of the mildew on the underside of the bark on the trees. Sherlock is slowly recognizing, if not acknowledging, the value in Watson’s point of view.
At the smugglers’ drop-off point, a Chinese souvenir shop, Sherlock and Watson discover that the ciphers are, in fact, pairs of digits written with an ancient Chinese numbering system, the “Hangzhou” system. The episode screeches to a halt as the hunt returns to the museum, where the boys corner Soo-Lin and press her for more information. Careful what you wish for. She tells the boring, predictable story of how she got involved with the Black Lotus clan when she was a little girl in China. Far shorter version: She was poor, so she joined a gang.
Just when she’s almost getting around to explaining the code, the assassin—Soo-Lin’s brother—shows up, and a rather scattered chase/gunfight ensues. Sherlock and Watson lose track of the attacker, and Soo-Lin shares some parting words with her sibling before he does her in. The scene probably ought to have been more wrenching than it was, but the actress played the role with too little humanity, so Watson’s post-gunshot “Oh, my god” is more moving than anything we get from Soo-Lin herself. Martin Freeman’s delivery makes it clear that Watson has tried and failed to save a life many times before, and now it’s happened again.
It’s not all gloom for Watson, though, as he smoothly asks his new boss, the manager at a local clinic, if she’d like to join him on a date. She obliges of course, because who can resist the Martin Freeman charm?
Sherlock finds the idea of Watson’s night out “dull” but suggests that Watson take Sarah to a Chinese circus act that is in town for one night only. Oh, and surprise, he shows up unannounced to tag along as the third wheel, because Sherlock suspects that the circus is a front for the smuggling ring. He needs to keep working on the case.
Of course, why bother Watson with this when he’s supposed to be out on a date? For one, Sherlock doesn’t care about Watson’s romantic life. More to the point, Sherlock was spooked by the encounter in Soo-Lin’s apartment earlier. It broke through the cockiness just enough for Sherlock to accept that he needs his flatmate more than he thought. He’d never admit as much, though. The closest he comes is when Watson threatens to take Sarah and leave Sherlock by himself at the circus. Sherlock says, “I need your help!” but he growls it, like an overstressed convenience-store manager whose stockboy has flaked out on him yet again.
Sherlock’s circus hunch turns out to be right, as does his instinct that he would need Watson’s help (not to mention Sarah’s) to survive in the midst of the Chinese thieves and killers. Yet when they escape, it’s rock bottom. Sherlock’s police contact, Dimmock, is fed up after ordering a raid on the circus venue—on the amateur detective’s advice—which turns up nothing. And there’s no concrete evidence of the ultra-valuable artifact that Sherlock surmises the mob is after. Even the code remains a dead end. While Sherlock believes that each number pair in the cipher refers to a page and number in a certain book, a search through the libraries of both dead men has failed to turn up the all-important tome.
The stalemate is broken by a pair of German tourists bumbling down Baker Street. After “borrowing” their London A To Z guidebook, Sherlock finds that the ciphers left for the investment banker and the journalist decode as “Deadman.” Huzzah, the key is unlocked, but meanwhile, Watson and Sarah have been abducted to Black Lotus headquarters.
The Chinese ringleader, she who recites “Chinese proverb,” believes that Watson is actually Sherlock. Indeed, thanks to some nice setup from the first 80 minutes of the episode, she has good reason to think so. To make him talk, Sarah is put at the receiving end of a deadly crossbow set to fire when triggered by a slo-w-w-wly lowering weight. It’s a reprise of a circus act they saw earlier.
Sherlock arrives to play white knight, but he gets sidetracked by the same Shanghai Strangler who vexed him before, so it’s the bound-and-gagged Watson who saves both Sarah and Sherlock by redirecting the bolt into the sternum of Sherlock’s attacker. In an even bolder act, he assumes that there will be a second date.
Sherlock finds the stolen bauble—a £9-million jade hairpin—poking out from the blond tresses of Van Coon’s secretary. Back at their flat, Watson and Sherlock have one last exchange over breakfast, and I’d happily watch the two of them chat all day. What makes “The Blind Banker” such a delight is not so much its serviceable mystery but rather the exchanges between Cumberbatch and Freeman, who take the brilliant layers of the writing and add a couple layers more. Their performances make this a very good episode despite its mistakes. The story concludes with a fleeting off-screen appearance by a mysterious figure known only as “M,” and thus the creators set up this season’s final adventure, one that makes very few mistakes at all.
Stray Observations:
The set dressing for Sherlock and Watson’s apartment is full of great little points of interest. Nice attention to detail there.
I don’t understand why the London A To Z book wasn’t in the boxes of books from the two men’s apartments, which Sherlock and Watson seemed to inspect pretty thoroughly. (It took all night, after all.) Did the episode explain this somehow?
A little research reveals that the ciphers are actually Suzhou numbers, not Hangzhou, and whatever the numbering system is called, it seems like exactly the type of thing that Sherlock would already be familiar with. I’m a little dubious of the notion that, given the China connection, it wouldn’t occur to him that a horizontal line is the number for “one” in China and in pretty much all East Asian countries.
“He was left kind of trying to cut his hair with a fork. Which of course could never be done!”
I find myself referring to John Watson as “Watson” rather than “John.” I’m not sure why. Maybe it’s because the show’s preferred nomenclature of “Sherlock” still makes for a distinctive character name, but “John” doesn’t.
I liked this episode a bit less on second viewing, whereas I liked the season premiere a bit more the second time around. So to those of you in the comments last week who said that “A Study In Pink” is superior to “The Blind Banker,” well, I’m still not there, but I’m not going to argue with you, either. They’re both pretty good.
The show’s music is excellent all-around, but I especially liked the touches of electronica that peeked into the background themes at times in this episode.
By John Teti - avclub.com
October 31, 2010
Masterpiece Mystery’s Sherlock
By Ken Blanchard - South Dakota Politics
October 31, 2010
I am not certain that it would be possible to produce an historically accurate adaptation of the Arthur Conan Doyle stories for film. I am quite sure that no one knows what such a thing would look like or whether it would be of any value. To pull it off one would have to know how much more about how Doyle himself imagined the character than the text can tell you, which is difficult. One would also have to present London as it looked to Doyle, which is probably impossible. That is because it would have to look like it really did and at the same time it would have to look fresh and impressively modern. History does impose some limitations on the viewer, and writing is abstract in ways that film is not.
I am a big fan of The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, starring Jeremy Brett, as readers fond of the Doyle stories tend to be. Someone with more knowledge of Victorian interiors than I will ever have can judge the historical accuracy of the sets. However, as I argued in my review of the Robert Downy Jr. big screen adaptation, Brett's Holmes was not Doyle's Holmes. The Granada Television series was highbrow film making, whereas the original stories were popular entertainment; likewise Brett's Holmes walked about in what were, to our eyes, museum settings, whereas Doyle's Holmes inhabited the same London as his readers. The Brett series was superb precisely because of its distance from the original text.
Tonight I watched the first episode of Masterpiece Mystery's new series, Sherlock. Benedict Cumberbatch's Holmes lives in 21st century London. He has a website. He manipulates the bad guy by sending cryptic text messages. That is enough, I am guessing, to turn a lot of traditional philoholmesians into seething Moriarties. It is defensible, I would argue, as the only alternative to the Museum exhibit approach.
I was completely unprepared for how good it was. I would go so far as to say that it was one of the most exciting things I have seen on TV since Deadwood. The action was perfectly composed, and nearly every bit of dialogue from beginning to end was delicious. Just as good was the story, which rivals, I think, the plots of the original stories. There is a reason for all of that. Sherlock is the creation of Mark Gatiss and Steven Moffat, who were writers for the incomparable Dr. Who series.
"A Study in Pink" begins with brief scene of battle. John Watson (Martin Freeman) has just returned from serving his country as an army doctor in Afghanistan, an element of the first Sherlock Holmes story that history has been kind enough to repeat. He is somewhat haunted by his experience there, though the nature of the haunting is something that Holmes understands better than Watson's therapist. Holmes and Watson meet in a scene lifted right out of "A Study in Scarlet".
Meanwhile, Inspector Lestrade holds a press conference. Three Londoners with no obvious connection have committed suicide, all of them consuming identical poison from identical small bottles. "Suicides can't be linked," exclaims one reporter. "Well, obviously they can!" Lestrade replies, while pulling his cell out of his pocket. The text message reads: "you know where to find me. SH."
What follows is the most delightful kind of mystery: you care about the characters but you also want to know what the hell going on. I will only tell you that the climactic moment is unusually satisfying, intellectually and emotionally.
Cumberbatch (there's a British name for you!) and Freeman certainly offer us novel interpretations of the original characters, but they are interpretations that build on Doyle's original genius. That is what passes for virtue among actors. When a forensic pathologist calls Holmes a psychopath, he replies:
I am not a psychopath, Anderson. I'm a high-functioning sociopath. Do your research.
Sherlock is brilliant. The second episode debuted tonight. If you like great TV, or Sherlock Holmes, or both, don't miss this one.
PBS scores with modern age 'Sherlock'
TV Den by Craig Sanger - Washington Times Communities
October 26, 2010
OKLAHOMA CITY -- Hasty generalizations can be a tricky business. Sometimes there's an outlier. It's easy to criticize the studio and network heads for creative bankruptcy given the wide swath of remakes, reboots and re-imaginings that have cluttered the box office and primetime lineups of late. But, PBS may have delivered the anomaly we've been waiting for.
Cloaked in a smart, dark over coat, Sherlock Holmes 2.0 (Benedict Cumberbatch, I know, what a name, right?) hits the damp streets of London with the same encyclopedic knowledge of everything, ever, and a snappy, half sociopathic, half tactless savant sense of social communication.
His hipped up rendition of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's classic Sherlock Holmes is a bit more eccentric than you'll remember. Yes, Even more spastic than Robert Downey, Jr.s cinematic depiction last Christmas.
Dr. John Watson is played by the brilliantly subdued, but still funny Martin Freeman (the original Jim-but named Tim-in the British version of The Office). He's also just been confirmed as Bilbo Baggins in Peter Jacksons The Hobbit. The first scene that Freeman and Cumberbatch appear together on screen couldnt have been executed better.
The new PBS version of Sherlock is set in contemporary London and plays and feels a bit like a British version of Dexter. Like Dexter Morgan, both Holmes and Watson have a whimsical excitement about investigating rime scenes and murders that borders on creepy. But unlike Dexter, the crime solving Brits don't actually kill anyone.
Holmes seems to be armed with a near photographic memory and insanely heightened observational skills. The heroes on most of the USA Network programming also possess this trait. A number of characters from Monk, White Collar and Psych are able to tune into an almost super hero like awareness of detail and minutia.
Steven Moffat (Dr Who) and writer/actor Mark Gatiss developed the three-part-er for PBS Masterpiece anthology series. They've crafted an absorbedly witty and brisk script, complete with language and gadget updates adjusted for the modern era.
On the surface, another contemporary retread of a classic sounds like a lousy idea, but the result of Sherlock could not be more fun. The legendary characters are re-drawn with such charm and care and placed in buyable situations its almost impossible not to be entirely captivated.
Sherlock: A Study In Pink
The American Culture
By Lars Walker
October 26, 2010
Although we naturally (and quite rightly) think of Sherlock Holmes as a character comfortably ensconced in Victorian London, with its hansom cabs rattling down cobblestone streets, yellow fog, and helmeted bobbies, the idea of updating the character isnt actually a new one. The early Holmes films were always set in the year of their production, just as we today think nothing of seeing James Bond (whose stories were written in the 1950s and 60s) using a laptop computer or carrying a cell phone. The first Holmes film actually set in period was The Hound of the Baskervilles, starring Basil Rathbone, released by Twentieth Century Fox in 1939. Then, after one more Victorian film for Fox (The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes), the series moved to Universal and back to the cheaper approach of updating.
I was prepared to dislike the new BBC series Sherlock, broadcast on PBS, but to my surprise I quite liked it. The new Holmes operates as a police consultant in contemporary London. The police are suspicious of him (one accuses him of being a psychopath, to which he replies that hes a high-functioning sociopath). He doesn't wear a deerstalker or Inverness cape, but those costume elements have tended to be overused (and inappropriately used) in films and TV shows anyway. The modern world doesnt allow him to smoke, so he relies on multiple nicotine patches when he needs to think out a problem. He does take drugs. The actor who plays him (one who rejoices in the name Benedict Cumberbatch) looks too young for the part, but has the attitude exactly right.
He is supported by one of the best Watsons I've ever seen (Martin Freeman), like the original a recently returned wounded veteran of a war in Afghanistan. He's seeing a psychologist who thinks his limp is psychosomatic, and is right. However, she thinks he's suffering from PTSD, while Holmes immediately recognizes the truth, that Watsons become an action junkie, and is starved for adventurea commodity his new fellow lodger is ready and willing to supply.
There are even some references to the idea, common among what C. S. Lewis once called the amateur psychological wiseacres, that Holmes and Watson were a homosexual couple. That idea, Im happy to report, is treated as comic, as it should be.
I think what pleased me best about the episode, though, was that it was clearly written by people who know the Holmes stories, and enjoy riffing off the canonical material. For instance, in the scene where the body is found, the word RACHE has been scratched in the floor by the victim (in the original version, it was written in blood on the wall by the murderer). In the original, Inspector Gregson assumed that someone started writing the name Rachel and was interrupted. Holmes condescendingly informed him that Rache is German for revenge.
In this version, Inspector Lestrade suggests that the victim must be German, and Holmes condescendingly informs him that it's surely an unfinished Rachel.
This episode, called A Study in Pink, is loosely based on A Study In Scarlet, the first Sherlock Holmes mystery. I give the writers full marks for taking on the job of adapting this particular Holmes adventure, a story so improbable and convoluted that I don't think anyone has ever dramatized it before (though the title has been used for a film). A Study In Scarlet is interesting to readers as an introduction to some fascinating characters, but involves an interminable flashback set in the American west (Doyle was always at his weakest as a writer when venturing abroad). This new version avoids all that, providing the viewer with a competent, plausible modern tale that touches base with the original in enough places to please Sherlockians.
The bottom line is that it's a lot of fun, with special joys for fans of Conan Doyle. Recommended.
'Sherlock' Review
By Jack Moore
Ology.com
October 24, 2010
Sherlock, PBS, Sundays at 9 p.m. EST
I loved last year's Guy Ritchie/Robert Downey Jr. Sherlock Holmes reboot. It was dumb, yes, but fun. That said, I wasn't so in love with it that I was disappointed when I heard that there was a new, modern-imagining of the classic Conan Doyle detective coming to PBS from London. In fact the pedigree of this Sherlock was such that I couldn't wait to see it. With a script from some guys known for writing the revived version of Doctor Who and a cast featuring Martin Freeman (Tim from Ricky Gervais's The Office) and Benedict Cumberbatch (Atonement) what wasn't to be excited about?
After watching the premiere, I found my somewhat lofty expectations pleasantly exceeded. The chemistry between Freeman and Cumberbatch (best name ever, by the way) is out of this world, and the modernization of the characters and circumstances work wonderfully for the source material. This Sherlock feels so much more alive than any I've ever seen. The characters are kinetic. The weekly case format of a procedural is a dream fit for the classic detective and the derision he is met with by other people (one detective takes pleasure in calling him "freak") feels more true to how someone in Holmes' position would be treated today than he would have in his original time period. (One particularly excellent moment had Holmes using his abilities of deduction to work out that two of the police on the case had been having an affair. Hilarious)
And that's one of the more amazing things about the series. It's funnier than almost any comedy on TV. In fact Cumberbatch's performance as Holmes is most reminiscent of a cooler version of Jim Parson's Big Bang Theory character. He's socially awkward because of his brilliance which leads to never-ending witticisms about the state of everyone else's brains: "What is it like inside those tiny little minds. It must be so boring." Also extraordinary is how cool and stylized the series is. It brilliantly uses text overlays as a way of ingratiating technology into the narrative. Someone receives a text? We see the words next to their head as they read their phone. This same technique allows the show to silently walk through Sherlock's thought process, which is brilliant, as too often it would be reduced to voice over in the Ritchie film.
I don't want to go into too much detail about plot, but the episodes are packed with twists. The characters develop brilliantly and the show is a joy to watch. It is well-written and well-acted. It's a shame that its PBS pedigree will give people the wrong idea. This show is cooler than just about anything on TV. Give it a chance. You won't regret it.
Sum...ology: One of the coolest shows on TV. A must-see.
Cumberbatch: 'Freeman is extraordinary'
By Tara Fowler
Television - News - Digital Spy
October 25, 2010
Benedict Cumberbatch has revealed that it will be challenging to find time to film the second series of Sherlock.
Cumberbatch, who plays the titular Sherlock Holmes, admitted to the Wall Street Journal that it will be difficult to shoot more episodes, but praised co-star Martin Freeman (Dr John Watson) for his new role in The Hobbit.
The actor said: "It's great simply knowing that were going to do more episodes. I get peeved when people say that the shows being pushed back because of Martin's work on The Hobbit.
"We would both happily return to working on Sherlock and Martin actually initially said no to doing The Hobbit because he thought it would conflict with shooting Sherlock. Now, they're working around his schedule. I obviously want him to have the experience of being the hairy-footed one."
Cumberbatch also emphasised that he loves working alongside Freeman on the show.
"He's extraordinary," he added. "During auditions, the minute he stepped into the room I said to the producers, 'I don't know if you want my opinion, but I want to work with him, because he makes my game better'. I honestly felt myself get better as an actor playing scenes opposite him. He has a brilliant level of humanity."
Sherlock Updates Holmes et al. for Contemporary Audiences
By S. T. Karnick - The American Culture
October 24, 2010
Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes is surely one of the most fascinating characters in modern fiction, having inspired countless imitations, societies of fans who pretend he is real (and some people who really believed he was a real-life person), and numerous literary pastiches and stage and screen adaptations. He is just real enough to fascinate, and just unreal enough to provide room for audiences to use their imaginations in understanding him.
With so much Holmes-work having been done over the decades since his first appearance in Beetons Christmas Annual in 1887, it's very difficult for an adapter to find a usable new angle. Thus its impressive that the producers of the new BBC series Sherlock have managed to do exactly that, and with a exceedingly simple strategy. Theyve moved Holmes, Watson, and the stories other principle characters to modern London.
The show,which ran in July and August of this year in Britain and will be on the PBS series Masterpiece Mystery starting tonight (check local listings for times.), superbly translates the atmosphere, ambiance, and concerns of the Doyle stories to the modern day.
There are many, many differences from the original stories, of course, but the most important elements survive the translation wellespecially Holmes and Watson. This Holmes (played by Benedict Cumberbatch) is rather younger than the one in most screen adaptationsapparently in his late twenties or early thirties (and thats the correct age for the Holmes of the first stories). He doesnt have a an aquiline nose, but he is very much like Doyles Holmes in other ways. Hes tall and lean, speaks rapidly and with much emphasis and enthusiasm, moves abruptly and with determination, and gestures emphatically with his hands when he speaks. Holmes reveals extremely personal things about others without realizing that it will embarrass them.
The shows Watson (Martin Freeman) is a little older and very much like the Watson of the stories: an ex-soldier, strong, determined, and soft-spoken but also a bit insecure. The pilot episode, A Study in Pink, depicts the initial meeting of this new Holmes and Watson, and it amusingly updates the famous bravura string of deductions in which Holmes draws numerous conclusions about Watsons background, with this one taking place in a taxicab and involving Holmess observations about Watsons cell phone.
That's emblematic of the way the show ties together the past and present, undoubtedly a lesson co-creators Steven Moffat and Mark Gatiss learned well in working on Doctor Who. A Study in Pink is suffused with the elements of modern life, including cell phones, computers, the internet (Holmes even has a website), the Iraq and Afghan wars, ubiquitous security cameras, and the like. Much of the episode takes place at night, and though theres no fog, Holmess contemporary London is visually appealing and highly romantic, a vibrant, lively metropolis that can easily accommodate both great good and immense evil, like that of the original stories.
There are some inventive visuals, and the action scenes in particular convey the sense of adventure and joy in pursuing the most difficult and dangerous dangerous quarry in the world: criminals.
The story concerns the apparently linked suicides of several Londoners, and the investigation leads Holmes to a suspenseful and intellectually involving encounter with the killer. It doesnt have a particularly fair or involving puzzle, but that was not really the biggest strong point of the Doyle stories, either. Its all about the chase, the danger, the excitement, and the ultimate triumph.
The showmakers do a good job of making the mystery element come alive for TV viewers. For example, the clues and deductions are indicated by onscreen supertitles as Holmes investigates the crime scenes, as are text messages the characters receive. There are also some amusing moments in which modern life tears at elements of the original conception of the characters. A female police detective, for example, tells Watson that she believes Holmes is a psychopath who will eventually begin committing crimes himself. Similarly, the episode has some fun with the common assumption that anyone and everyone might be a homosexual. (It does not, however, suggest that Holmes is a homosexual, simply that the assumption is so easy for people to make in the current day.)
In all, the show is a fond, sincere, and rather successful attempt to bring the characters to modern audiences. It's not an overly faithful adaptation, but it's an affectionate one and basically respectful toward its source. This Holmes and Watson are well worth investigating.
PBS restarts beloved franchise with 'Sherlock'
By Dave Walker - The Times-Picayune
October 24, 2010
A contemporary reset of Sir Arthur Conan Doyles beloved characters, Sherlock is Doyle meets CSI meets Gilmore Girls.
What it's not is much like the 2009 action-adventure film reset starring Robert Downey Jr., though the two projects were developed in parallel.
We sort of vaguely knew, said Steven Moffat, co-creator and writer of the BBC-Masterpiece Mystery! miniseries coproduction. You're never going to be the only one. Just make sure youre a damn good one.
Benedict Cumberbatch (Atonement, The Last Enemy) joins the long logical line of actors to play Holmes on film. (The screen-credits repository www.imdb.com lists dozens of them, in more than 230 titles.) Martin Freeman (Tim in the British original of The Office) is Dr. Watson.
Moffat and co-creator Mark Gatiss, both Dr. Who production veterans, have written ripping byplay (hence the above reference to the Gilmores) for the characters, who power one of popular cultures most enduring and endearing buddy stories.
You take this cold, remarkable, difficult, dangerous, borderline-psychopath man, and you wonder what might have happened to him had he not met his best friend, a friend that no one would have put him with, this solid, dependable, brave, big-hearted war hero, said Moffat, who with Gatiss were interviewed during the summertime TV Tour in Hollywood at about the same time that their episodes were airing to broad acclaim in England. I think people fall in love, not with Sherlock Holmes or with Dr. Watson, but with their friendship. I think it is the most famous friendship in fiction, without a doubt. It is a moving and affecting one, and best of all, its a great portrait, in the original stories, of a male friendship, by which I mean it is never discussed at all. They never mention it. They never have one moment of articulated affection.
So the story of Sherlock Holmes, on the surface, is about detection, but in reality, it's about the best of two men who save each other - a lost, washed-up war hero (and) a man who could end up committing murders instead of solving them. They come together. They become this perfect unit. They become the best friendship ever, and they become heroes.
That's what we fall in love with, not Sherlock Holmes on his own. No one can love that man on his own, but Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson -- the best friends ever.
Which is not to say that sleuthin and deducin are overlooked. The modern-day setting allows for the inclusion of all kinds of technology-aided detective work, though Holmes interacts with it all from a characteristically higher plain.
We live in a CSI world, Gatiss said. Conan Doyle effectively invented forensics with Sherlock Holmes, and, in fact, for many years, the books were prescribed reading for police forces around the world. So how could he be special?
What we worked out, really, is that obviously the police do go around now doing fingerprints and footprint castings and all those sorts of things, but Sherlock Holmes is still the cleverest man in the room, and that's key to it. He's the only one who can make that sort of leap.
Like Downey's Holmes but much less so, Cumberbatch's Sherlock is a man of action as well as intellect. Gatiss and Moffat took a break from early work on their version to investigate Downeys, which was chockfull of slam-bang.
We loved the film. It's so much fun, Gatiss said. It's great to have more Sherlock Holmes in the world, simple as that.
New Sherlock Holmes and Watson in digital age
By Joanne Ostrow
The Denver Post
October 24, 2010
The minds behind "Dr. Who" have moved on to their next witty project: a very sly update of the cleverest man in fiction, Sherlock Holmes.
In a risky move, they've dared to update the famous Arthur Conan Doyle creation, transporting the sage from Victorian times to contemporary London.
Dr. Watson blogs.
Holmes texts.
Strangers, even their landlady, mistake the bachelor flat-mates for a couple.
And onscreen graphics depict the way Holmes visualizes every street and alley in London as if via Mapquest.
Sounds horrid, but it works. The essence of the characters and their interplay is true to the original creation. The direction offers a great tour of modern London.
Even traditionalists raved when this new "Sherlock" debuted in England. The adaptation by "Dr. Who" co-creators Steven Moffat and Mark Gatiss is respectful of the personalities and the intellectual acuity of Holmes. It's not as if this update suggests Mapquest is helping him solve cases, it's that modern graphics illustrate how his singular mind has always worked, like a veritable computer.
The "world's only consulting detective" is in fine form, referring to his noggin as his "hard drive" as he pursues all manner of old- and new-styled murders. Instead of the famous pipe, this Holmes uses nicotine patches.
The characterization will inevitably be compared to Robert Downey Jr.'s take on the sleuth in Guy Ritchie's 2009 film. But lanky newcomer Benedict Cumberbatch holds his own. As Holmes, Cumberbatch is a tall, thin, birdlike creature. Every time he whips his cloak around his shoulders, he seems about to fly.
Cumberbatch ("Atonement") embodies the meditative, drug-enhanced and mercurial Holmes for a new generation.
As his sidekick, Martin Freeman (the original British version of "The Office," "Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy") is a slight figure unlike earlier stout Watsons on film. He's a military veteran, nursing a bad leg in the opening tale, and suffering post-traumatic stress from serving in the war in Afghanistan. (The original Watson served in the Second Anglo-Afghan War, 1878-80.)
Rupert Graves ("God on Trial," "The Forsyte Saga") plays the long-suffering Inspector Lestrade, who has learned to withstand Holmes' quirky brilliance.
"Any ideas?" a clueless Graves asks over a lifeless body.
"Seven," Holmes replies. "So far."
The most annoying bit of updating comes in the form of too-busy direction: split-screen shots meant to capture two locations at once only get in the way.
But references to earlier Holmes cases ("five orange pips, Sherlock!") help the tales feel consistent with the original writings.
When Holmes uses his superior powers of deduction to astound the professionals with a complete character description based on a scrap of evidence, onlookers are amazed.
"Fantastic!" Watson says.
"Meretricious," Holmes responds.
Viewers will be less amazed than pleasantly entertained by the latest wave of Holmes storytelling.
And Holmes' archenemy, Moriarty? How is the villain updated for the modern age? The third episode includes a confrontation between the two masterminds. Moriarty, played by Irish actor Andrew Scott, is a sadist and a psychopath with a fondness for theatrical flourishes.
A second set of three 90-minute "Sherlock" films has been ordered for next year.
Game is on for Holmes, Watson in zingy new 'Sherlock'
By John Crook, ZAP2IT.COM
Sunday, October 24, 2010
The notion of taking Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's iconic Victorian sleuth Sherlock Holmes and plopping him down into modern-day London might sound like a train wreck. That's the concept, however, at the heart of "Sherlock," a new "Masterpiece Mystery!" series that begins a three-week run Sunday on PBS.
Expectations be hanged. This thing not only works, it does so thrillingly. Series co-creators Steven Moffat ("Doctor Who") and Mark Gatiss ("The League of Gentlemen"), both self-professed "Holmes" geeks since childhood, have adapted Conan Doyle's original stories with great affection, imagination and flair, incorporating today's cutting-edge technology into the mysteries. And they've found two extraordinary actors, Benedict Cumberbatch and Martin Freeman, to be their Holmes and Watson for the new millennium.
The series opener, "A Study in Pink" (fans will recognize it as a riff on "A Study in Scarlet"), wastes no time in chronicling how eccentric, socially inept genius Sherlock Holmes and doctor and Afghanistan war hero John Watson meet and become roommates in Holmes' cluttered flat at 221B Baker St. They're still getting to know each other when they are swept up into Holmes' latest baffling case, in which a series of suicides sweeps London. The police are puzzled because the diverse victims seem to have swallowed poison capsules voluntarily, but Holmes gleefully seizes on the truth of the matter: "We've got ourselves a serial killer. I love those!"
By the time the 90-minute mystery has reached it's climax, Holmes has solved the case, found and confronted the killer, and made a revelatory discovery about Watson that seals their friendship forever.
"That's an incredibly moving moment, isn't it, because you realize that these are two men who are now bonded for life," Cumberbatch says of his and Freeman's characters. "Sherlock is the drug that Watson has been missing, because he provides that action edge that Watson craves now that he is back from the war. It's very touching, although both men handle it in a very 'English' manner."
While the cases very clever and satisfying in their own right, make no mistake, the relationship between this Holmes, a borderline sociopath with clear symptoms of Asperger's syndrome, and Watson, with his down-to-earth humor and innate sense of duty and loyalty, is what gives "Sherlock" its heart and soul.
For Freeman, the masterfully deadpan comedy actor who "unofficially" has been cast as Bilbo Baggins in the upcoming big-screen adaptation of "The Hobbit," this new incarnation of Dr. Watson was close to irresistible, since the character is multilayered and far more than a mere foil to Holmes.
"I don't think I would be interested in just playing a 'sidekick,' but this version opens through the eyes of John Watson, who has just returned from Afghanistan, and we meet Sherlock via Watson," Freeman explains. "I liked that, because while Sherlock is still the main guy, this gives Watson so much more of an equal footing.
"John has been back for a while, and he's completely rudderless, aimless, and all of a sudden he meets this extraordinary person who takes him on dangerous adventures involving guns and murder and stuff, which absolutely appeals to John. He's a career soldier and doctor, so he is very much at home in life-or-death situations. What I found interesting is that in any other situation, John Watson would be the alpha male, the main guy, which just underscores how extraordinary Sherlock is. But John also saves Sherlock in a way. They give each other a sense of purpose."
Sherlock Holmes Gets an iPhone
By Jace Lacob - Yahoo! News
October 23, 2010
NEW YORK - Sherlock Holmes has an iPhone, Watson blogs: The 21st-century version of Sherlock, a BBC phenomenon, begins Sunday on Masterpiece Mystery. Jace Lacob talks to its creators and stars.
There are few fictional characters as beloved and as omnipresent within the collective consciousness as Arthur Conan Doyles Sherlock Holmes, the consulting detective with a nose for deduction and a flair for the impossible.
The role has been played by everyone from Robert Downey, Jr. - who starred in Guy Ritchies Sherlock Holmes last year - to Basil Rathbone, who played Holmes as a Nazi-fighting detective in 1940s London in a series of 14 films that took the detective and his trusted companion, ex-army surgeon Dr. Watson out of the original novels Victorian trappings.
Steven Moffat and Mark Gatiss, both known for their work on the British sci-fi series Doctor Who, hatched a scheme to bring Holmes and Watson to the present day for the BBC. Their take on the supercilious detective, Sherlock, launches Sunday on PBS Masterpiece Mystery after a hugely successful run in the U.K., where it racked up nearly 10 million viewers each week.
The three-episode season stars Benedict Cumberbatch (Small Island) and Martin Freeman (The Office). Freeman made headlines this week when he was confirmed as the lead in Peter Jacksons Lord of the Rings prequel, The Hobbit, where he will play another iconic literary figure, Bilbo Baggins, a role originated by Ian Holm.
Sherlocks genesis occurred during a series of train trips back and forth to Cardiff, Wales, where Doctor Who is shot, after Moffat and Gatiss admitted to an embarrassing Holmesian truth: that they both preferred those anachronistic Basil Rathbone/Nigel Bruce adaptations to the Victorian ones.
As a little child, I remember being slightly cross about it, but I remember thinking they're so much more fun, said Moffat, sitting alongside Gatiss in a deserted ballroom at the Beverly Hilton in August. They capture the lightness, the humor, the fun, the gratuitous luridness of Doyles original stories in a way that many of the grander, more important adaptations completely miss.
It's only fitting then that Moffat and Gatiss should pick up Holmes and Watson and deposit them in the 21st century, in a London thats vastly different from the Victoriana of Doyles novels and yet eerily similar, a city that runs on the fumes of industrialization.
The sleuths tools are iPhones, GPS tracking, and text messages, as Moffat and Gatiss have given the audience a technologically proficient Holmes thats uniquely suited to our modern age, while retaining elements of the original, such as the 221B Baker Street address, Inspector Lestrade (Rupert Graves), and landlady Mrs. Hudson (Una Stubbs). Watsons blog posts become an ongoing account of Holmes exploits and text messages appear on screen as thought bubbles, an invention of director Paul McGuigan.
We are precisely as respectful and reverential as Sherlock Holmes creator was, i.e., not, said Gatiss. But that comes from a place of love. He used to write the stories in crowded rooms. The reason for all the wonderful, odd continuity errors - like Professor Moriarty having the same Christian name as his brother or how Watsons wound keeps movingwas because he dashed them off. He was a genius so therefore his version of dashing it off is rather amazing. We wanted to get that sort of fun back.
He's a work-obsessed sociopath who is almost divinely gifted, said Cumberbatch.
Make no mistake: the bold and brainy Sherlock is a madcap thrill-ride, with Cumberbatchs Holmes a misanthropic genius who doesn't gladly suffer fools.
He's a work-obsessed sociopath who is almost divinely gifted, said Cumberbatch. The deduction, the idea of understanding through circumstances, stimulus, and evidence is a bigger bracket, whether it's human behavior, whether it's a bit of mud left behind, whether its blood or a wedding ring shinier on the inside than the outside, whether it's a coat being damp. The details of life he makes everything suddenly seem more exotic.
The arc of his character over the three stories is how he becomes humanized by Watson, he continued. He's a man who wants to be a God. He wants to be able to control and do away with the unimportant, the mediocre, the stupid, and even the victims. He's interested in the game and that leads headlong into morality by the end.
Watson here is an ex-army doctor returned from Afghanistan who starts a blog as part of his recovery process. The two become roommates and partners in crime, a bond solidified in the field. We wanted to blow the fog away and get back to this friendship, said Gatiss.
But don't expect Watson to be portrayed as the bumbling sidekick that modern audiences have come to wrongly expect. This skilled marksman is no Miss Marple.
I wanted to get away from that, said Freeman, via a late-night phone call after a stage performance of Clybourne Park at the Royal Court in London recently. He was a soldier. Hed just come back from the war, been injured in the war, and he was used to serving people on the battlefield and saving lives and, if necessary, taking lives. This wasnt a 75-year-old man on his own holiday of solving a murder in Sussex. This was a man of action.
It was also important to the creators that Watson not be given short shrift. Besides narrating Doyles stories, he bore an equal amount of prominence, something thats been lost in many Holmes adaptations over the years.
It's only in the fiction that Dr. Watson is somehow less important than Sherlock Holmes, because he's not a detective and Sherlock Holmes is, Moffat said. In the actual mechanics of the way the stories work, they are two characters of equal stature.
Together, they are a consummate team of crime-fighters, as Holmes deductive skills are matched by Watsons grasp of the real world. Drawing on the vast array of novels at their disposal, Moffat and Gatiss create a vivid and evocative world for Holmes and Watson, one where the threat of Moriarty looms large, and then theres the matter of the mysterious M - played by Gatiss himself - who is a thorn in Holmes side.
Given the projects provenance - Moffat is the head writer/executive producer of Doctor Who - its impossible not to compare Holmes with the Doctor.
In terms of the Doctor, he's notionally an alien, Moffat said. But hes not at all grand He is a deeply, profoundly emotional man. Theres nothing aloof about that fellow at all. He has every emotion from the petty to the grand. Whereas Sherlock Holmes really is an ordinary human being with no special powers who just tries to raise himself up to something more extraordinary, to try and put all these emotions away in an iron box... and absolutely believe, in quite a Victorian way, that these things are limits. The Doctor thinks they're empowerments.
Delivering Doctor Who-level ratings, its no surprise that the BBC has commissioned another season of Sherlock, for which Cumberbatch and Freeman will both return. Rumors had swirled, meanwhile, that Freeman would play Bilbo Baggins in Peter Jacksons The Hobbit. As late as last month, Freeman said that he had very reluctantly turned down the role.
Freeman said, I had to, unfortunately, because (Season 2) was all set to go and contractually I had to, but its a happy contract Im in. Im very glad to be doing Watson.
Fortunately, that scheduling conflict has been averted and Freeman will don a set of prosthetic hobbit feet for Jackson's two-part Hobbit adaptation, and return as John Watson for Season 2 of Sherlock, expected next year.
Everyone - from the creators to the cast - seem satisfied that audiences have embraced Sherlocks modern context, despite any initial fears.
Almost every other fictional character is routinely updated, said Moffat. Everyone was rejoicing quite recently that at last Flemings Bond was on screen in Casino Royale. Not one person said, Updated by several decades. The setting doesn't matter. That is true of Sherlock Holmes. I think we can now say were right. We've just proven it. It's been such a huge hit in Britain. That's what people like with Sherlock Holmes As much as we love fog and the gas lamps and posh shouting, it's not about that.
TV review: Fresh dose of fun in 'Sherlock'
David Wiegand, Chronicle Staff Writer
San Francisco Chronicle
October 22, 2010
There have been many great "Masterpiece" offerings over the decades, but I can't think of a single one that is as much out-and-out fun as "Sherlock," a modern-dress Conan Doyle that crackles with superb writing, brilliant performances and snappy direction, and does it all while somehow managing to be oddly faithful to the original source material.
The best news is that when the three "Sherlocks" are over, you'll be left, not only with a completely earned cliff-hanger at the end of "The Great Game," but the promise of more episodes in future seasons.
The first of the three episodes, airing Sunday on PBS, is called "A Study in Pink," a sly reference to the first of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes mysteries, "A Study in Scarlet," published in 1887. But we are in present-day London and the fellow without the deerstalker hat and pipe is an oddball with a high IQ, an ever-humming laptop and virtually no social graces. One young Scotland Yard detective simply calls him "Freak," and never gets in trouble with her superiors for doing so.
The casting here is thrillingly correct: The young British actor Benedict Cumberbatch, known for roles in "Atonement" and other films where he often plays upper-crust misfits, is a Sherlock for the 21st century.
But of course, a Holmes simply must have his Dr. Watson, and in modern times, it would be unlikely for a bumbling, aging medic in the mold of, say, Nigel Bruce to be motivated to follow and abet Holmes. But how about a young doctor, recently retired from the British Army after being wounded while serving in Afghanistan? Seeking a place to live, Watson, played by Martin Freeman, ends up sharing a flat with Holmes and, of course, battling constant exasperation as he becomes involved in his cases which he later ... wait for it ... blogs about.
Oh, I know: The purists are already reaching for the smelling salts, but it all works, thanks in large part to the series creators, Steven Moffat and Mark Gatiss of the more recent "Doctor Who" series. The writing is extraordinarily smart - every word of dialogue, delivered at a rapid-fire pace, every oblique reference to elements of the original Holmes stories. If you know your Conan Doyle, you'll appreciate that Moffat and Gatiss do not "write down" to viewers who only recall a Basil Rathbone movie or two from the past. Not knowing the original, however, isn't a handicap at all: The creators and their writers know how to tell a ripping yarn, not to mention how to create irresistible characterizations.
"A Study in Pink" turns on a rash of supposed suicides in London, which Holmes quickly determines to be murders. But who is making these seemingly unrelated people poison themselves? The title refers to one of the victims, found dressed entirely in pink - even her cell phone is pink (Holmes appropriates it after solving the murders).
The second film is just a tad weaker than the other two. "The Blind Banker" evokes the "mysterious Orient" made popular in mysteries of the early 20th century, as Holmes and Watson find themselves in London's Chinatown battling a crime syndicate known as the Black Lotus as they attempt to discover how a banker and a journalist were killed in rooms that were locked from the inside.
But the real wrinkle here is that Watson attempts to have a personal life, which seems to both annoy and fascinate Holmes. One of the small running subthemes in the series is that Holmes and Watson are sometimes mistaken as more than just flat-mates, which only irritates Watson but seems to unnerve Holmes just a bit, as much as anything can ever be said to unnerve Holmes.
Of course, this bit of business points up the absence of any sort of personal life for Holmes in most adaptations. In the original stories, Watson eventually married, but returned to 221B Baker St. after his wife died. What we know of Holmes is only that he has a brother, Mycroft, who is older and works as a civil servant. We also know that the original Holmes was fond of smoking pipes and the occasional cigarette. Here, however, in a nod toward contemporary sensibilities, Sherlock is trying valiantly to quit ... by wearing three nicotine patches at once.
Of course of all the elements of the Conan Doyle stories, the one missing until the third episode, "The Great Game," is Holmes' archenemy, Professor Moriarty. He's mentioned in passing, but shows up in person only when Holmes and Watson work against the clock trying to solve little mysteries, imparted to them by complete strangers who happen to be girdled by explosives that will detonate if Holmes can't solve the riddles in time.
But even when the real Moriarty is revealed, Moffat and Gatiss aren't done with us: There are many, many more questions to answer, but they will have to wait until future episodes. The wait will be agonizing.
Sherlock -- TV Review
By David Rooney
Hollywood Reporter
October 22, 2010
The Bottom Line: Benedict Cumberbatch brings deliciously abrasive brilliance to the title role of this PBS Masterpiece Mystery! Import, an entertaining overhaul of the Holmes and Watson double-act that plants one foot in their Victorian origins and the other in the cyber age.
In Sherlock, the BBCs inventive contemporary makeover of crime fictions most iconic detective duo, Martin Freeman's John Watson is introduced as a brooding war veteran returning injured from Afghanistan and possibly suffering from PTSD, while Benedict Cumberbatchs Sherlock Holmes is first seen diligently flogging a corpse with a riding crop to measure the time it takes for bruises to appear. Refashioning your protagonists as a damaged soul spat out of an ongoing conflict and a self-described high functioning sociopath might seem an obvious ploy to blow the dust off well-worn Victorian archetypes. But those scenes, and many other choice nuggets, were lifted almost directly from Arthur Conan Doyle.
The show deftly straddles the materials literary essence and the dictates of modern-day entertainment, trading fog and gaslight for a sleek 21st century London thats equal parts gloss and grit. Unlike Warners 2009 big-screen version, which revved up a period adventure by placing a heavy foot on the action-movie accelerator, this three-part series (with more episodes to come in 2011) brings a subtle relish to its blending of the two eras.
That asset is secondary, however, to the pleasures of watching the incisive characterizations and nuanced interplay of Cumberbatch and Freeman take shape.
It's not hard to spot the hands at work of series creators Steven Moffat and Mark Gatiss, both part of the rescue team that helped rehabilitate Doctor Who. With his foppish taste in outerwear and scarves, it's conceivable that Cumberbatchs Sherlock shares the time-traveling doctors stylist, but there's also a kinship in the eccentricities of two characters on their own frequently impenetrable wavelength.
Rock-star thin and with the beady gaze of a raptor, Cumberbatch comes from the same school as gifted, etiquette-challenged professional problem-solvers like Dr. Gregory House. He's arrogant, blunt, asexual and seemingly unencumbered by the banalities of conventional morality or compassion.
The enthusiasm of Conan Doyle's Holmes for gadgetry translates smoothly into nimble-fingered smart-phone app-titude, while the pipe gets swapped out for nicotine patches multiples when extra concentration is required. Like his progenitor, the new Sherlock also is an obsessive auto-didact with little concern for the common-sense gaps in his knowledge.
Those gaps are filled via a perfect symbiosis with Freemans John (no starchy Dr. Watson here). Unlike the dim bulb of too many adaptations, the sidekick is characterized here by his thoughtful dignity. Even when he's struggling to keep up with Sherlocks deductive powers, John is a leveling influence, never a clueless foil.
That well-honed dynamic and a sly sense of humor keep Sherlock compelling even when its plotting falters, as it does in part three, The Great Game, with it's overburdened grid of crisscrossing cases. As a cliffhanger its effective, but the episode works itself into too much of a lather preparing for the showy entrance of Holmes arch enemy and criminal mastermind counterpart, Moriarty (Andrew Scott).
The sharpest of the three 90-minute self-contained mysteries is the opener, A Study in Pink, written by Moffat and directed with brio by Paul McGuigan. Detective stories are nothing without meticulous exposition, and this one dazzles with the economy of it's character presentation, it's witty groundwork for the central relationship and the diabolical glee with which it lays out pieces of the puzzle at hand. This is superior sleuth TV.
A modern classic, modernized
Sherlock Holmes in a strange and brilliant take
By Matthew Gilbert - Boston Globe
October 21, 2010
So what, you might be thinking. Another Sherlock Holmezzzz. And that would be a fair so what, given the fact that we've been swimming in Sherlocks since he first appeared in the 1880s. And I'm not just talking about adaptations of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes; I'm talking about Sherlock knockoffs on TVs countless forensic dramas, including the CSI shows, The Mentalist, and Bones, not to mention the most Sherlockian of them all, medical detective Dr. Gregory House, who even has his own Watson - Wilson. House is definitely a Holmes.
But PBS's Sherlock is not just another Sherlock Holmes. The new three-part series, which premieres on Sunday at 9 on Channel 2, is a strange, fascinating, and sometimes brilliant contemporary take on the father of forensic crime-solving. This texting, laptopping Sherlock is part Conan Doyle, part House, part petulant rock star, and part Sheldon from The Big Bang Theory as he makes social blunders with shades of Aspergers. Instead of a 7 percent solution of cocaine, hes hooked on nicotine patches, and he isnt averse to solving daytime-TV mysteries and having a website to attract business. But underneath the present-day tweaks by series creators Steven Moffat and Mark Gatiss, the new Sherlock is remarkably true to the spirit of the original, an arrogant, antisocial man fixated on tiny details and deductive reasoning.
The concept may sound gimmicky, I know, but it unfolds quite naturally, not least of all thanks to Benedict Cumberbatchs focused, hyperactive lead performance. It makes perfect sense that a present-day Sherlock would be Internet savvy, that he would distrust landline phones, that he would arrogantly send a text blast reading WRONG to a gathering of reporters during a Scotland Yard press conference. He is a geek god, in a way, even while he crawls around London in a Victorian cape and an absurd dandys haircut like a pale, fringe creature. Across the century, he rhymes perfectly with Conan Doyles brainy bohemian.
Dr. John Watson, too, has been updated yet left essentially true to the original. He's Holmes's assistant, Baker Street flatmate, and chronicler, and his Holmes stories are written for a blog. (The first entry, Sundays A Study in Pink, is a take on Conan Doyles A Study in Scarlet.) He is a military doctor who served in Afghanistan, as did the original Watson, and his therapist is encouraging him to blog as a way to address his post-traumatic stress disorder. Martin Freeman, who was the deadpanning Tim in the original The Office, is excellent and earthy in the role. While Cumberbatchs Sherlock is something of a drama queen lost in his own thinking, Freemans downbeat Watson accepts Sherlocks quirks because he is in awe of his peculiar brilliance. Also, beneath his composed appearance, Watson knows he is drawn to Holmes because he is a danger junkie just like Holmes.
Watson is straight, and Sherlock is asexual, it seems; but the writers frequently make fun by having people mistake Watson and Holmes for lovers - something House has also done. In the second episode, next Sunday, Holmes meets one of Watsons dates and behaves like a jealous competitor. But Holmes is not self-aware, emotionally speaking, even while he knows hes a high-functioning sociopath, as he proudly puts it. He is in love with the notion of having an archenemy - Moriarty, whom we meet in the third episode - but he doesnt examine why. Nor does he analyze his rivalry with his brother, Mycroft (Gatiss). His thoughts speed by too quickly.
The three episodes are a mixed bag in terms of the crime plots. (A new trilogy is in the works, by the way.) Ultimately, though, it doesnt matter; the show is all about Sherlock and Watson, circa 2010.
A Modern 'Sherlock' Is More Than Elementary
By David Bianculli - NPR
October 21, 2010
Before I previewed the three installments of the new Sherlock TV series, I wasn't convinced we needed another adaptation of Sherlock Holmes. Last year's movie version featured a solid star turn by Robert Downey Jr., but was much too overblown, underwritten and entirely unmemorable. Besides, we already have Hugh Laurie as television's House, who's basically Sherlock Holmes as a doctor - and with a limp. Except that instead of one Dr. Watson as his companion and assistant, House has a whole team. And before solving his case each week with a flash of brilliant diagnosis, House always gets it wrong a few times - something Sherlock Holmes would never do.
But the new British import, beginning Oct. 24 on the PBS showcase Masterpiece Mystery, gets everything right. It's a modern-day version, with storytelling approaches to match. Sometimes, when Sherlock is explaining the reasoning behind his astounding powers of observation, the camera zooms in tight on the various clues, with whooshy sound effects, just like on an episode of CSI. And why not? This guy was the original one-man crime lab.
Holmes is played by Benedict Cumberbatch, a young actor who has a great-sounding name of his own. John Watson, M.D. is played by Martin Freeman, the co-star of the original British version of The Office, and the series is co-created, with obvious passion for the original stories, by Steven Moffat and Mark Gatiss, who last worked together on Doctor Who.
That may sound like an odd team, but it's actually a great fit. Doctor Who, like Sherlock Holmes, is worlds smarter than everyone around him and goes about his adventures with a loyal companion in tow. And while Doctor Who is an alien, Sherlock only feels like one.
This new Sherlock series definitely gets all that - and the changes it makes, in telling new stories and reshaping the characters, are as smart as the elements it retains. When Sherlock first meets Dr. Watson, for example, he instantly sizes him up as a war veteran who is in therapy and who has just returned from action in Afghanistan or Iraq. It may sound like an easy update - but in fact in A Study in Scarlet, the 1887 story in which the two men first met, Watson had just returned from Afghanistan. And in this first TV adventure, called A Study in Pink, Watson's demand for Holmes to reveal himself, and his tricks, is just as clever and delightful - even with all the zooming and swooshing.
This new version isn't just good. It's terrific, and the changes bringing the characters into modern-day London are inspired. Sherlock no longer injects himself with a 7 percent solution of cocaine to get a buzz when he's bored or baffled. Now he slaps nicotine patches on his arm. (Lots of them.) And this new Sherlock Holmes carries a cell phone - but, like the anti-social misfit that he is, he much prefers to text than to talk.
The three stories, all new spins on old themes, are about a deadly smuggling ring, a mad bomber and murders disguised as suicides. They're fast-paced and surprising and truly exciting, as well as quite well-acted.
That goes for the supporting cast as well. Rupert Graves plays Inspector Lestrade - and the evil Professor Moriarty is here, too. But I can't tell you where, or who plays him, without spoiling some of the fun. Because Moriarty loves disguises, and loves to hide in plain sight.
Readers of the old stories know that already - but even if you're not familiar with the old Sherlock Holmes adventures, you'll love this new Sherlock series. If you are familiar with them, chances are you'll love this new Sherlock even more.
A 21st-century Sherlock Holmes, from the BBC
By Tirdad Derakhshani - Inquirer Staff Writer
Phliadelphia Inquirer
October 21, 2010
He's already graced the screen, large and small, more than 200 times, so the news that the BBC planned to bring Sherlock Holmes to TV again didn't exactly inspire confidence - especially in the wake of last year's underwhelming Sherlock Holmes-meets-Die Hard action film from Guy Ritchie and Robert Downey Jr.
But five minutes into the BBC's miniseries, Sherlock, which will premiere Sunday on PBS' Masterpiece Mystery!, and the whole household was weeping with joy. Even the cat was moved.
(Sherlock will air in three feature-length episodes Sundays through Nov. 7.)
Created by Steven Moffat and fellow Doctor Who writer Mark Gatiss, Sherlock is by far the best Holmes adaptation since fan favorite Jeremy Brett inhabited the role in Granada's series in the '80s and early '90s.
And all this, despite - or perhaps, because - the new Sherlock is set in the 21st century.
Moffat dismisses purists alarmed at the idea of a laptop-toting Holmes who communicates by text on a top-of-the-line PDA - and whose adventures are chronicled not in Strand Magazine, but on a blog.
"We were confident - well, as confident as you can be - that we had a unique take on [the story] and we could do it well," he says.
"The question isn't 'Why update Sherlock Holmes?", the question should be 'Why not?' "
After all, he says, Basil Rathbone's famed Holmes film series was set during WWII.
"If you set it in the Victorian era, you'll inevitably prioritize the costume drama . . . and lose the story," he says.
Sherlock's badly socialized eponymous hero is played by Benedict Cumberbatch (The Last Enemy), whose inspired performance nicely balances the towering stature and equally impervious British reserve of Rathbone with the more maniacal, neurotic fervor invested in the role by Brett, who suffered from bipolar disorder in real life.
Cumberbatch says he grew up watching the Granada adaptation with his mother, actress Wanda Ventham, who was friends with Brett.
"We would watch it together and I would be glued. . . . I was probably too young to understand the sophistication of what was going on."
Cumberbatch eats up the role. When we first meet him in the pilot, "A Study in Pink" (a loose adaptation of Doyle's A Study in Scarlet), he's vigorously hitting a corpse with a switch - to study postmortem bruising.
Accused of being a psychopath in another memorable scene, Cumberbatch's Holmes explains that he's actually a "high-functioning sociopath."
Yet, perhaps more than most previous versions, Sherlock isn't a "one-man show," says Cumberbatch, but a story about the growing friendship between Holmes and his closest (his only?) friend, retired Army doctor John Watson (Martin Freeman), who was wounded in action in Afghanistan.
Freeman and Cumberbatch, whose characters first meet in the pilot, are electric on screen.
"Chemistry is so mysterious," Cumberbatch says, almost rhetorically, "it just happened with us."
Moffat says he auditioned dozens of actors before he found Cumberbatch's match in Freeman. "Watson is not a genius, but he is the first man that a genius would trust . . . incredibly competent and a truly good man," he says.
"A heart to Sherlock's brain."
The cast is rounded out by Rupert Graves as the oft-exasperated Detective Inspector Lestrade and show cocreator Gatiss as Sherlock's brother, Mycroft.
Gatiss lends a lovely edge of menace to his Mycroft, a high-ranking member of Britain's secret intelligence services. He's all cloak and dagger - and gun - with Watson, but regresses to an angry, jealous toddler when he's around Sherlock.
"We departed from the stories (with Mycroft)," Moffat says. "We didn't want Mycroft to be just a fat, lazy version of Sherlock."
For all the changes, certain things remain eerily constant, says Cumberbatch, referring to Watson's backstory.
"(The original) Watson was wounded in battle in Kandahar (Afghanistan) in the 1800s," he says, "and we're there again in 2010."
Let's not forget Sherlock's archenemy, Professor Moriarty. His dark, mysterious presence is felt in the first two episodes, but you'll have to wait to see him.
If there's one complaint about Sherlock, it's over it's hero's name: Holmes has always been addressed, by everyone including Watson, by his last name.
Here, he's just Sherlock.
Holmes ought to remain Holmes!
There are few moments in movie history quite as exhilarating as hearing an excited or baffled Watson exclaim, "Holmes!"
TV: Cumberbatch brings hipster touch to PBS' 'Sherlock'
By Rob Owen - Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
October 20, 2010
Let the movies have Robert Downey Jr. as Sherlock Holmes.
PBS's "Masterpiece: Mystery!" has a new Sherlock of its own: the fantastically named actor Benedict Cumberbatch. He debuts as the new Sherlock Sunday night at 9 in "A Study in Pink," the first of three "Sherlock" episodes airing in this time slot through Nov. 7.
Cumberbatch's Sherlock has a vampiric look by way of Mick Jagger. He's a self-absorbed, suffer-no-fools Sherlock with a touch of hipster style.
"Serial killers!" he exclaims with glee as the police come to him to request help on a case. "There's always something to look forward to. I love it!"
"A Study in Pink" serves as an origins story that depicts the meeting of Sherlock and Dr. John Watson (Martin Freeman, Britain's "The Office"). The new series is written and produced by Steven Moffat ("Doctor Who") and Mark Gatiss ("The League of Gentlemen"), and it is hugely entertaining. Viewers who dismiss PBS programs as boring or stuffy risk embarrassment if someone should use "Sherlock" as defense Exhibit A.
In this iteration, Watson is a former army doctor who was wounded during service in Afghanistan. He proclaims that "nothing ever happens to me" -- just before meeting Sherlock, who turns his world upside down.
When Sherlock meets Watson, he rattles off all these details about the doctor's personality derived by Sherlock's keen observational skills. When Sherlock puts these skills to work, words representing his observations materialize on screen and then disappear.
The plot of the premiere finds a string of serial suicides, which, of course, turn out to be murders. Through the course of his investigation, viewers get a sense of just how odd this Sherlock is. He applies three nicotine patches to his arm to help him think. His monologues often bring to mind serial killer Dexter Morgan of Showtime's "Dexter." And his lack of social skills and decorum is both astounding and used to strong comic effect.
"You're an idiot," he tells Watson before realizing Watson may be hurt by this appraisal. "No, no, don't mind that. Practically everyone is."
This Sherlock's sexual identity, like Sheldon (Jim Parsons) on "Big Bang Theory," remains nebulous. Watson is mistaken for Sherlock's husband several times -- Watson is straight -- and Sherlock never clarifies his own attractions, saying only that he is married to his work.
Tonight's premiere has a zippy energy that can be attributed to the writing and Cumberbatch's riveting, gonzo performance. He plays Sherlock as authoritative and arrogant but also with a hint of excited madness that makes for an engrossing new take on this classic character.
Game is on for Benedict Cumberbatch, Martin Freeman in zingy new 'Sherlock'
By John Crook - Zap2it
October 20, 2010
In the annals of TV programming, the notion of taking Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's iconic Victorian sleuth Sherlock Holmes and plopping him down into modern-day London may sound like a train wreck waiting to happen. That's the very concept, however, at the heart of "Sherlock," a new "Masterpiece Mystery!" series that begins a three-week run Sunday, Oct. 24, on PBS (check local listings).
And expectations be hanged. This thing not only works, it does so thrillingly. Series co-creators Steven Moffat ("Doctor Who") and Mark Gatiss ("The League of Gentlemen"), both self-professed "Holmes" geeks since childhood, have adapted Conan Doyle's original stories with great affection, imagination and flair, incorporating today's cutting-edge technology into the mysteries. And they've found two extraordinary actors, Benedict Cumberbatch and Martin Freeman, to be their Holmes and Watson for the new millennium.
The series opener, "A Study in Pink" (fans will recognize it as a riff on "A Study in Scarlet"), wastes no time in chronicling how eccentric, socially inept genius Sherlock Holmes and doctor and Afghanistan war hero John Watson meet and become roommates in Holmes'cluttered flat at 221B Baker St. They're still getting to know each other when they are swept up into Holmes' latest baffling case, in which a series of suicides sweeps London. The police are puzzled because the diverse victims seem to have swallowed poison capsules voluntarily, but Holmes gleefully seizes on the truth of the matter: "We've got ourselves a serial killer. I love those!"
By the time the 90-minute mystery has reached its climax, Holmes has solved the case, found and confronted the killer, and made a revelatory discovery about Watson that seals their friendship forever.
"That's an incredibly moving moment, isn't it, because you realize that these are two men who are now bonded for life," Cumberbatch says of his and Freeman's characters. "Sherlock is the drug that Watson has been missing, because he provides that action edge that Watson craves now that he is back from the war. It's very touching, although both men handle it in a very 'English' manner."
While the cases are very clever and satisfying in their own right, make no mistake, the relationship between this Holmes, a borderline sociopath with clear symptoms of Asperger's syndrome, and Watson, with his down-to-earth humor and innate sense of duty and loyalty, is what gives "Sherlock" its heart and soul.
For Freeman, the masterfully deadpan comedy actor who "unofficially" has been cast as Bilbo Baggins in the upcoming big-screen adaptation of "The Hobbit," this new incarnation of Dr. Watson was close to irresistible, since the character is multilayered and far more than a mere foil to Holmes.
"I don't think I would be interested in just playing a 'sidekick,' but this version opens through the eyes of John Watson, who has just returned from Afghanistan, and we meet Sherlock via Watson," Freeman explains. "I liked that, because while Sherlock is still the main guy, this gives Watson so much more of an equal footing.
"John has been back for a while, and he's completely rudderless, aimless, and all of a sudden he meets this extraordinary person who takes him on dangerous adventures involving guns and murder and stuff, which absolutely appeals to John. He's a career soldier and doctor, so he is very much at home in life-or-death situations. What I found interesting is that in any other situation, John Watson would be the alpha male, the main guy, which just underscores how extraordinary Sherlock is. But John also saves Sherlock in a way. They give each other a sense of purpose."
In fact, as Jerry Maguire might put it, they complete each other, because whereas Holmes gives Watson an adrenaline rush, Watson keeps his cerebral friend grounded, often reminding him that the people they encounter, including bereaved survivors of murder victims, are not, in fact, merely pieces in a fascinating puzzle to be solved.
Perhaps it's not surprising, then, that the writers get some witty mileage out of having people, including their landlady Mrs. Hudson (Una Stubbs), mistake the pair for a gay couple, especially since Holmes at one point tells Watson that girlfriends are "not really my area."
That line has led some British viewers to leap to the conclusion that this Holmes is gay (Freeman's Watson is clearly established as straight), but Cumberbatch says that's simply not true.
"Holmes is very ambiguous in terms of modern standards of pigeonholing what a person's sexuality is, but I think it's because he really is not interested," the actor explains. "He's utterly asexual at this point in time, and there really is not a sniff of him being attracted to men at all. When he says girlfriends are not his 'area,' he means that he doesn't do relationships. That doesn't mean that he hasn't done them; he just doesn't do them at present.
"A lot of people are fixated on this idea that he fancies Watson for something beyond a platonic friendship, but it isn't. They do love each other. Of course they do. And in an odd way they need each other, but it's not a love story in that sense. Sherlock is a workaholic, and his obsession is work. I think perhaps in the past female intuition and logic have been the one stumbling block, the weak link in his armor, and for that he is always on his guard."
When "Sherlock" premiered in the United Kingdom, it was a massive success, stunning even the show's creative team.
"The Sherlock Holmes Society of London came to a screening, and you have an impression that they're going to be incredibly fossilized in their opinions, and they absolutely adored it, because we tried to be very, very true to the original characters, and there's so much in there for real die-hard fans to like," says Gatiss, who also plays a key supporting character who is Holmes' frequent adversary and whose name begins with an M. "But for us, it's about getting back to the characters as written, rather than about the trappings of Victoriana."
So if you're looking for the most exhilarating new mystery series of the 2010-11 TV season, look no further. The answer is elementary, dear viewers.
PBS' 'Sherlock' delivers satisfying trio of films
By Joanne Thornborough - Staff Writer
The Daily Journal
October 20, 2010
A number of classic tales are ripe for a modern-day reboot.
And in this age of 1,000 channels with a "CSI," "Law & Order" or "NCIS" on 800 of them, it's a wonder no one has ever bothered to reimagine the greatest sleuth of them all.
Until now, that is.
Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's creation is heading back to the small screen as part of "Masterpiece Mystery!"
The premiere season of "Sherlock" (debuting 9 p.m. Sunday on PBS) arrives with three 90-minute films airing Sundays through Nov. 7.
Starring Benedict Cumberbatch as Holmes and Martin Freeman as Dr. John Watson, the new series delivers in ways last year's Guy Ritchie big-screen adaptation didn't.
In short, the only way "Sherlock" could be even more perfect would be to cast Mark Strong (who was Lord Blackwood in Ritchie's film) in a recurring role. But barring that, this new series is pretty darn satisfying as is.
"A Case in Pink" begins as an origin tale of how Watson met Holmes.
However, there is more to the tale as a series of suicides -- involving the victims taking poison capsules -- has the police (including Inspector Lestrade) clutching at straws with Holmes, of course, offering his services as a consulting detective.
The investigation comes to a head when the body of a woman dressed in pink is found, giving Sherlock the opportunity to break the case wide open.
But at what cost?
A banker. A journalist. A curator. They all have one thing in common and it's up to Holmes -- with an assist from Watson -- to figure out what it is in "The Blind Banker." Meanwhile, Watson gets a temp gig at a clinic to earn some cash in order to do the little things, such as buying groceries and paying the rent. But the old boy finds it's not only the patients who have his attention.
"The Great Game" lives up to it's title as someone is going around selecting people to volunteer as human bombs in order to test the limits of Holmes' brilliant deduction skills.
The clock is ticking as Holmes and Watson race to save the lives of the innocent, as each puzzle puts another in danger.
A familiar name hangs in the air -- but could it be?
Created and executive produced by Steven Moffat and Mark Gatiss, who wrote "A Case in Pink" and "The Great Game" respectively, the duo show their affinity and respect for Conan Doyle's partners in solving crime. The interaction between Holmes and Watson has those same aspects, despite times when Holmes' gleeful love of the game, so to speak, leads to an apparent disregard for human life, forcing Watson to wonder with what kind of person has he gotten involved.
Cumberbatch is an inspired choice to play Holmes. He has a great look about him that separates him in the best ways from the pretty boy candidates that could have taken on the role had the series been crafted in lesser hands. Cumberbatch, more often than not, brings an intellect to his characters, though they tend to let their emotions rule as much as their head. Not so with Holmes, who for better or worse, is always thinking, always working out his next three moves.
Holmes' dry wit gives the character some humanity allowing Watson and Lestrade ( a slightly underused Rupert Graves) to find a way to relate to the man, not the brain.
Freeman has played the straight man before, most famously in the original version of "The Office" opposite Ricky Gervais.
Here, he gets to go darker and yet keep his humanity. Watson has been to hell and back via the war in Afghanistan. He's not afraid of a little action; in fact, he misses the war.
Like Holmes, Watson enjoys working out the puzzle -- even if he isn't nearly as good as his mate.
He's more than just the trusty sidekick. He's Holmes' link to humanity. He's his friend. Freeman brings the right mix of gravitas and humor to Watson.
He's far from being a stick in the mud and he's not afraid to lay into Holmes when necessary.
This update of the Conan Doyle tales is endlessly entertaining and ridiculously addictive. Seeing Holmes, Watson and Lestrade canvas contemporary London for clues and criminals, however, is more than just exhilarating.
It's elementary.
The show, which stars Benedict Cumberbatch as Sherlock Holmes and Martin Freeman as Dr Watson averaged a very impressive 7 million viewers (28.5% share) in a keenly fought out time slot. ITV1 only managed 3.7m (14.5% share) with Taggart, BBC Two 3.1m (12% share) screening Coast and even Big Brother couldn't put a dent in the BBC's bumper day, only pulling in 2.2m (8.5% share) between 9pm and 10pm.
Martin Freeman as modern Dr. Watson
The Press Association
August 21, 2009
Martin Freeman is playing Sherlock Holmes' sidekick Dr Watson in a new TV series of the detective stories - and he's determined to breathe new life into the role.
The Office actor, 37, stars in an adaptation which moves the action from the Victorian streets to modern-day England.
But Martin said he didn't want to take too much notice of the likes of Nigel Stock, David Burke and Raymond Francis who have portrayed Dr Watson in the past.
"I think you can get into a lot of trouble if you try to hang your hat too much on what other people have done," he said.
"It's just not your job. Those people haven't done this script. We're not playing the novels, we're not playing the films, we're doing this script by Stephen Moffat and Mark Gatiss.
"To know about the other stuff is interesting and helpful, but we can't play that. All we can do is this. I'm just treating it like it's a new script and no one's ever heard of it before. That's hard, because you have to say 'Mr Holmes' and things, and when that comes out of your mouth, you hear 120 years of history right there."
'Sherlock' star 'threatened' by Ritchie film
By Morgan Jeffery
Digital Spy
July 9, 2010
Benedict Cumberbatch has admitted that he felt threatened by the success of Guy Ritchie's Hollywood film version of Sherlock Holmes.
The actor plays the famous detective in the BBC's forthcoming modern update Sherlock, alongside Martin Freeman as Watson.
"When the film came out, I did feel very threatened by its success," he told The Scotsman. "My friends were saying, 'It's really good!' And I went to see it, and Robert Downey Jr is amazing."
However, he revealed that he felt "horribly, schoolboyishly relieved" when reviews of the film "gave it a bit of a kicking".
A sequel to the movie is currently in development, but Cumberbatch insisted that he does not intend to compete with the big screen version of the character.
"Really, he's the most-played fictional character, so who am I to be precious about it?" he said. "I don't think we're in competition with it. The interest helps us, and we have great writers and this modern context. This Holmes is great, it's rip-roaringly funny, and yet utterly loyal to the spirit of the slightly bipolar, intellectual superhero."
Cumberbatch also explained that he had enjoyed playing the more physical aspects of Holmes in the show.
"Holmes was a good shot and a martial arts expert, and although he's very much of the thinking school rather than an action school, he is also supposed to be an athlete; which I enjoyed quite a bit."
Sherlock will air later this year on BBC One.
BIGPICTURESPHOTO
The Office star Martin Freeman finds his new role Elementary - as he plays Dr Watson in a new version of Sherlock Holmes
The Sun.co.uk
March 8, 2010
Martin, 38, and Atonement actor Benedict Cumberbatch, 33, who plays the famous detective, were filming scenes in the City of London.
Sherlock is a one-off BBC1 drama written by Dr Who executive producer Steven Moffat.
It aims to give a 21st century slant to the sleuth and sidekick Watson.
Martin is filming the TV role after a lengthy stint in movies, including Shaun of the Dead and The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galazy.
The new Holmes follows director Guy Ritchie's all-action film last year with Hollywood's Robert Downey Junior and Jude Law.
Back in the 1930s and 40s, Basil Rathbone (Holmes) and Nigel Bruce, offered a more sedate pace.
Sherlock is due to be screened later this year.
MASTERPIECE AND BBC WORLDWIDE ANNOUNCE DRAMA CO-PRODUCTIONS, INCLUDING NEW UPSTAIRS DOWNSTAIRS
Modern-Day Sherlock and Aurelio Zen mysteries starring Rufus Sewell also slated for production
Released by PBS
February 22, 2010
Brighton, England--February 22, 2010-- MASTERPIECE on PBS and BBC Worldwide Sales and Distribution, Americas have announced a major co-production deal that includes a new production, with the BBC, of Upstairs Downstairs--one of the most-loved and honored television series of all time. Upstairs Downstairs will air in the U.S. in 2011 as part of MASTERPIECE 's 40th anniversary season on PBS.
The deal also includes Sherlock, a 21st-century spin on Arthur Conan Doyle's classic Sherlock Holmes novels, and three Aurelio Zen mysteries, adapted from the best-selling novels by Michael Dibden set in Italy.
"I'm so proud of this particular group of programs," says MASTERPIECE executive producer Rebecca Eaton. "These three series say everything about what MASTERPIECE aims to be: iconic, rich with wonderful actors, witty, literate, and timeless. I can't wait to see them all."
"These three co-productions offer a new spin on well-known, treasured stories and we're thrilled to be working with MASTERPIECE to bring them to life," says Matt Forde, EVP Sales & Co-Productions, BBC Worldwide, Americas. "A valued, long-standing production partner, our past collaborations with MASTERPIECE produced a number of critically acclaimed, award-winning-series--a testament to the success of our partnership."
An enormous success worldwide, the original Upstairs Downstairs won seven Emmys during its run on MASTERPIECE THEATRE in the mid-1970s--including Best Actress for Jean Marsh, who will reprise her role in the new three-part series as Rose, the parlor maid. Dame Eileen Atkins, the co-creator of the original program, will also star. Screenwriter Heidi Thomas (Cranford) is setting the new Upstairs Downstairs in the same house at 165 Eaton Place in 1936, during the period leading up to World War II.
The thrilling new Sherlock series is a fast-paced, witty take on the legendary crime drama, now set in present day London and starring Benedict Cumberbatch (Atonement, The Last Enemy) as the eponymous detective. Martin Freeman (The Office UK, Hot Fuzz) plays his loyal friend, Doctor John Watson, and Rupert Graves (God on Trial, The Forsyte Saga) is Inspector Lestrade. Co-created by Steven Moffat (Doctor Who, Coupling, Jekyll) and Mark Gatiss (The League of Gentlemen, Crooked House), the iconic details from Arthur Conan Doyle's original books remain: same address, same names--and somewhere out there, Moriarty is waiting.
Rufus Sewell (The Eleventh Hour, Middlemarch, John Adams) will star as Italian detective Aurelio Zen in three episodes based on the popular mysteries by Michael Dibden. The series is being shot on location in Italy by Left Bank Pictures, the production company behind the acclaimed Wallander television series.
Upstairs Downstairs is a BBC/MASTERPIECE co-production; Sherlock is a Hartswood Films (Jekyll, Coupling) and MASTERPIECE co-production; Aurelio Zen is produced by Left Bank Pictures for the BBC in association with RTI (Mediaset Group), MASTERPIECE and ZDF with additional funding from BBC Worldwide, Ingenious and Lipsync.
About MASTERPIECE and WGBH Boston
MASTERPIECE is presented on PBS by WGBH Boston. Rebecca Eaton is executive producer. Funding for the series is provided by public television viewers. WGBH Boston is America's preeminent public broadcaster, producing such celebrated national PBS series as Masterpiece, Antiques Roadshow, Frontline, Nova, American Experience, Arthur, Curious George and more than a dozen other award-winning primetime, lifestyle and children's series.
About BBC Worldwide Sales & Distribution
BBC Worldwide Sales & Distribution is one of seven core businesses under BBC Worldwide, the commercial arm and wholly-owned subsidiary of the UK public service broadcaster, BBC (British Broadcasting Corporation). BBC Worldwide exists to maximize the value of the BBC's assets for the benefit of the BBC, and invests in programming in return for rights. The Sales & Distribution business negotiates, sells and distributes television programs to networks and secures co-production partners, in the Americas region.
