The Review:
Sherlock Homes enters the twenty first century in style with this dark comedy detective series. The first season consists of three 90 minute episodes, a very different approach to a TV series that I have only seen once before in the first season of “The Lexx”, which starts with four 90 minute episodes. The story has lost none of it’s charm with the modernized setting, in fact I felt like I was watching one of the historical shows one more than one occasion.
The writers have some fun with those fans that have hinted that Homes and Watson were a gay couple in the first episode before stating for the record that while there is nothing wrong with being gay, Watson is a ladies man and Sherlock,… he is too married to his work to even consider sex with anyone.
The story also paints both characters of being socially dysfunctional and defiantly suffering from one or more mental disorders that push them to crave the dangerous thrills of crime fighting. They also start out with Sherlock having a hostile relationship with the police, and only with Dr. Watson’s diplomacy does he begin to be trusted, if still hated by most officers.
Homes and Watson also do a great job of acting like an old married couple, right from moment one. This is not even lost when love interest Molly Hooper is introduced.
Over all the series is amazing and I quickly got caught up in the show. Episode 3 was not quite as good as the first two, I felt it was just too predictable for a show that set up such a smart start. So I give Season 1, 8 out of 10.
- Episode 1: A Study in Pink – Dr. Watson, returning from Afghanistan after being wounded in battle is depressed and irritable. A friend introduces him to Sherlock Homes, an eccentric researcher and self appointed police consultant detective who is looking for a person to share the cost of a London flat. Before Watson realizes what he is gotten himself into, he is dragged onto a crime scene, abducted and bribed by a mysterious man claiming to be Sherlock’s Arch Nemesis, and his new flat is ransacked by the police on a drug raid. The entire time, his new flat mate can only think about a series of suicides that seem to be connected.
Watch A Study in Pink…also in [HD]
- Episode 2: The Blind Banker – An old school mate of Sherlock hires them to find out who vandalized his bank and more important how they got past the banks security. Sherlock and Watson soon discover that this simple vandalism case is really a multiple murder involving an international international crime syndicate.
- Episode 3: The Great Game – Sherlock’s Brother Mycroft begs him to solve the unexplained death of a man that might have stolen top secret plans to a new rocket system. Sherlock, bored with simple cases, has no interest and turns him down flat. Instead he focuses on a bomber that is kidnapping people and planting explosives on them, and then forcing them to make calls to Sherlock Homes to solve other cases in time limits or the bombs will be set off. Watson is sent out to solve the Rocket case on his own, but is constantly interrupted to run errands for Sherlock.
