Sherlock, series 1 (2010)

Like most people, I’m annoyed by Hollywood’s current tendency to remake, reboot or sequelise pretty much every major property they can find, as opposed to developing new ideas. But I’m not ideologically against this process, because occasionally it produces something worthwhile. In 2007, the BBC broadcast the six-episode miniseries Jekyll, a reimagining of the classic Robert Louis Stevenson novella. Set in (then) contemporary England, it is a bit uneven and sometimes a little too campy and has a few rather bonkers plot twists towards the end, but overall it’s very watchable. Last year, Jekyll‘s writer Steven Moffat (who is also currently showrunner for Doctor Who) and the BBC reunited for another transposition of Victorian literature to the 21st century: Sherlock.

I quite like the Guy Ritchie-directed Sherlock Holmes starring Robert Downey Jr and Jude Law, but I recognise it for what it is: mindless entertainment owing more to modern superhero flicks than to old-fashioned murder mysteries. So I’m glad to report that this television version blows the movie out of the water. Not literally, thankfully; unlike the film, there aren’t many explosions to be found.

The series’ first episode spends less than 15 minutes on introducing Holmes, Watson, Holmes to Watson, and the two to the case at hand, sticking fairly close to how Doyle originally did it. The cores of their characters and their circumstances in life have not been changed: John Watson is an army doctor recently returned from a war in Afghanistan(!), and Sherlock Holmes is a brilliant but abrasive loner who needs someone to share an expensive flat with. Detective Inspector Lestrade also features occasionally, and unlike his usual depictions, he’s fairly useful for and respectful to Holmes (if not exactly competent).