Sherlock Holmes

Splendid television series about Arthur Conan Doyle's master detective. The series was catapulted by an intense performance by Jeremy Brett, who was a true vision and David Burke as the first Dr. John Watson. The role would later go to Edward Hardwicke, the son of actor Sir Cedric Hardwicke. The series was quite popular in the states as well as in England. Each episode was well paced and about 90 percent of the time faithful to Conan Doyle's literary works. It took chances. It took risks and it was successful. For Brett, it was the character he would be remembered for. Thank God for him...he played the part masterfully.

Jeremy Brett is by far the best Holmes to date and his passing is truly a great shame. All of his representations of Holmes should not be missed. The rest of the cast are excellent. The sets and costumes are supurb as well.

This is a Sherlock Holmes series that is absolutely faithful to the original stories. The excellent cast with Jeremy Brett in the lead leaves no wishes open. Many roles were given to icons of British drama and cinema, such as Charles Gray, Eric Porter, John Castle, Joss Ackland and Eric Sykes. Others went to upcoming stars of the late 80s such as Marina Sirtis and Natasha Richardson. The mise-en-scene was certainly not only developed true to the books, but it was also inspired by Sidney Paget's drawings, which were published together with the early stories in the "Strand Magazine" from the beginning of the 1890s onwards. Compare, for example, the King of Bohemia, who faces Holmes as a masked stranger, or the struggle of Holmes and Moriarty at the Reichenbach falls in Switzerland.

This series is a true masterpiece of television.

If you are going to buy one Conan Doyle DVD let this be it. If you're going to watch a single episode, let it be The Crooked Man.

For this is as good as it gets. We have a glorious incarnation of Holmes and Watson here. Brett's Holmes - cantankerous, affected, whimsical, rude, arrogant, precipitous, charming - can only have been drawn from the deepest possible understanding of the text. There have been similar efforts along the same lines, though none so successful. No other Holmes has come close to Brett's portrayal of the brilliant but obsessed mind, teetering on the knife edge dividing madness and genius.

Brett's portrayal of Holmes is enough to lift this series above any other. But Granada (who are damn good at this sort of thing when they try) have nailed the two other vital essences of the stories and this makes their achievement unique.

Firstly we have a totally new take on Watson, a brisk, wonderfully intelligent man of action, a fearless fellow crime fighter and stalwart support. As David Burke leads Holmes round the Aldershot camp in The Crooked Man, you understand exactly what Holmes found appealing in the bluff ex-soldier, who chronicles his victories, appreciates and learns his methods and soothes his clients when Holme's interrogation causes offence. This is new and unsurpassed. I prefer Burke's to Hardwicke's more thoughtful Watson. Both are top drawer character actors with fantastic credits, but for me, Burke has an impulsiveness and breezy candour that gives his Watson extra light and colour. Hardwicke, in the later series, does a lot more to suggest the difficulty of living with a man like Holmes.

An even more significant achievement is the recreation of the deft energy, economy and speed with which Conan Doyle transports his audiences into the heart of Victorian London. Only Dickens did it with anything like the same authority and style. Lovers of the fantastic Sydney Paget illustrations will recognise his work everywhere in the props and scenery. Many of the more famous illustrations are lovingly recreated, but this is really about the chemistry of detail and pace. Granada have the formula just right. So perfect in fact, that when they try to extend it to feature length, it fails, just as Conan Doyle failed in his own attempts to extend the format to novel-length stories. The longer pieces are again, the weakest of the set.

If this disk doesn't fill you with delight, go back to the text, read again and look again, or you risk undervaluing one of the greatest achievements of TV drama.

Sir Arthur, I'm sure, would have been both delighted and impressed.

When I started reading the Holmes canon in grade school, I was struck by the character of Holmes. He was obnoxious, priggish, intolerant of anyone who was beneath him intellectually (which is almost everyone but Mycroft) and anti-social. Dr. Watson was a more well-rounded character. A doctor trained at Edinburgh (which was stringent in Victorian times), a soldier who undoubtedly performed surgery under fire, wounded (twice) and a fine lad with the ladies. It was clear Holmes needed Watson to operate in society. Without Watson, Holmes would have been a freak. But in movie versions I caught later (such as the otherwise fine Rathbone/Bruce pairings, and perhaps most egregiously in Bernard Fox's Watson opposite Stewart Granger's Holmes) Holmes appeared to be Watson's keeper; or, as with Howard Marion-Crawford, Watson was the officious Britisher to a more cosmopolitan Holmes. Even as late as "Crucifer of Blood", Richard Johnson's Watson is something of a dunderhead. Some of this scurrilous misinterpreting of Watson was chipped away by Colin Blakely in "The Private Life of Sherlock Holmes", a misfired comedy; and some in "Murder by Decree" by James Mason's Watson, who, while not as incisive as Christopher Plummer's Holmes, is only dunderheaded on the exterior, and who proves he can take care of himself. But with the advent of the Jeremy Brett "Sherlock Holmes", David Burke's Watson, while still not an intellectual rival to Holmes (who is?) is competent, athletic, courageous, and more of a partner to the great detective. One senses that Holmes needs Watson to operate in society, and Watson needs Holmes as mental stimulation to take him out of his dreary medical practice.

"The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes" is the finest adaptation of the Holmes canon yet. Taking a few liberties (such as giving Watson some of Holmes' lines or putting Moriarty in "The Red Headed League") it nevertheless presents a superb Holmes (Brett) and a Watson who, for the first time, is an invaluable colleague.

"The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes" is a must for any Holmes fan and a great introduction to anyone who doesn't want to read the stories but wants to see a Holmes close to the original as possible. (Though I was disappointed Burke didn't return in the "Return of Sherlock Holmes" series, Edward Hardwicke continued the tradition of an accomplished Watson, but also giving him a mellowed flavor like fine old vintage wine).