While other 14-year-olds were successfully chasing girls, I was wearing a hat from London and trying to learn Sherlock Holmes’ deduction techniques.  This is a thing.  This is a thing that happened.  Anyway, here is the review I did a couple of years ago when I first saw England’s “Sherlock.”  I was slightly enthusiastic in my praise.

++++++++++

This … this is a *TV* show?! One episode of Britain’s “Sherlock” is more entertaining than most feature films I’ve seen lately — thanks to high-production values, and incredibly good acting, writing and directing. The first “season” (the Brits call them “series”) is easily a perfect 10.

To give you an idea of how good a show this is, I was hooked on it in under five minutes. (I can’t even say that about “Battlestar Galactica,” which took me a couple of episodes.) I was at a friend’s house and saw Holmes’ first confrontation with his arch-nemesis and apparent equal, James Moriarity in the closing minutes of the final episode. After seeing other bits and pieces (I had stuff going on that night), I renewed my Netflix Streaming subscription just to watch the whole show.

A caveat – I’ve been a Sherlock Holmes nerd since before I was even a sci-fi nerd, and that’s a looooong time. I was introduced to the short stories (and various film adaptations) at age 14 by a bibliophilic uncle, and I was a nut for it. It honestly isn’t as pathetic as it sounds – people who’ve never read the stories don’t really know how dark they were. Holmes fought monsters, assassins, poisonous snakes, and the goddam KKK. Sherlock Holmes was never Miss Marple. People don’t realize that. I even had a genuine deerstalker cap from London, and tried to practice the deduction techniques that Arthur Conan Doyle described in his stories. I sucked at it. (Okay, maybe all this actually is pathetic.)

But this show is awesome, seriously. Benedict Cumberbatch is a great actor, and is perfect as a younger Holmes transplanted to modern London. He has the look (and height) of the literary character, and a great voice for him. The (fantastic) script for the show can’t lend itself easily to line delivery — lots of exposition and jargon that need to be delivered quickly and naturally, but with enough interest and enthusiasm to arouse interest in the viewer. Cumberbatch is terrific. He doesn’t stumble once. And his rapid line delivery (coupled with a lot of fast directing) keeps the momentum going in a show that can easily get bogged down in jargon and detail. Martin Freeman (is this the same guy playing Bilbo in “The Hobbit?”) as Watson is also perfect as an exasperated, everyman foil.

Again, the writing is damned good. Basically, you’ve got all the magic of the original stories (including countless Easter eggs and homages), combined with a police procedural like “CSI,” with a darker tone that reminded me a little of “24.” (Any show that reminds me of “24” is automatically good.) The plot and character dynamics actually remind me of “The X-Files.” Each episode features ordinary people as minor characters, thrust into a violent mystery. They’re then aided by two protagonists – one with unusual investigative methods, and one a straight-man foil with whom the viewers can identify.

The directing reminded me of Steven Soderbergh, which is also a very good thing.

My only quibbles are almost negligible. One, I do remember the Holmes from the stories as being a reasonably nice guy. (Or at least my teenaged mind read him that way.) He was aloof but ultimately kind. And films like “The Seven Percent Solution” (1976), the amazing “Murder By Decree” (1979), and “Young Sherlock Holmes” (1985) conveyed this well. Here, Holmes actually doesn’t seem terribly nice. He visibly cares nothing for the victims of crimes, and is a “consulting detective” only for the intellectual stimulation. Holmes describes himself as “a high functioning sociopath.” He tells Watson he doesn’t bother with empathy or compassion because they simply don’t help him solve the crime more quickly. Watson calls him on this a few times, in scenes that were meant to bring depth and moral ambiguity to the character.

Well, that’s fine … it seems like good screenwriting. But it does present the writers with a question: if Holmes is truly a sociopath … why is he not Moriarity? I got the sense that if Holmes were questioned, he would probably reveal himself to be a moral nihilist. (It’s possible I read too much into things.) So … why isn’t he a bad guy? Why does Watson even trust him? Why not perpetrate the crimes instead of solving them?

My other quibble is also small – the musical score. Here we have a great example of a dark TV show. And yet … Holmes’ theme throughout the episodes is … a charming little ditty. I think that’s a harpsichord playing. Whatever – it hampers the mood and tone, and I hope they get rid of it for the second season. But it’s not a big deal. I actually found the theme music for “The X-Files” pretty annoying early on, but it never prevented me from enjoying the show.

Quick note – a “season” here is only three episodes, each of which is an hour and a half, so anybody buying the DVD should keep that in mind.