After a staggering 17 months of withdrawal symptoms from the dashing yet aloof detective known as Sherlock Holmes(Benedict Cumberbatch) finally it is back on our screens, albeit for a mere three episode run sadly. Like a brief salubrious shot of adrenaline we are thrust back into the world of the striking detached detective and his faithful assistant whose fates hung in the balance in the last episode of the first series.
Let’s be honest here, if they were both destroyed in the first five minutes of the episode as was planned in the end of the first series, it would be a pretty short and uninteresting series so the assumption of their escape is not exactly a surprise. Therefore, anything that comes after the threat to their lives is going to be an anti climax when they do escape but rest assured that this is a short lived moment of disappointment as the episode slides back into intrigue once again.
Due to John Watson’s (Martin Freeman) blogging, Sherlock has become something of a celebrity, a status that he is not overly enamored with and he is less than pleased with the ‘boring’ cases that are being thrown his way.
Being called upon by his brother Mycroft (Mark Gatiss) to help ‘his client’ results in moments of mirth as Sherlock is practically kidnapped from his home in Baker Street, refusing to clothe himself and on John Watson’s arrival he is found wearing the sheet in which he was surrounded when summoned. In keeping with the difficult genius role he stubbornly refuses to put on his clothes but eventually relents, which considering that the nudity of Irene Adler (Lara Pulver) has drawn complaints, was probably for the best.
It has been a year or two since I actually read the Sherlock Holmes stories but I don’t remember Irene Adler being a dominatrix so perhaps this has been slotted in, so to speak, to please a modern audience that knows little surprise. There was a bit of nudity but there didn’t appear to be a shocking amount in my opinion, a lot of it was implied and this may be what upset the viewing public. You may think that a girl with what may be considered a salacious background wouldn’t interest Sherlock but her mischievous and wily nature serves to interest him more than any other woman – perhaps as she provides him with an unpredictable challenge that he hasn’t really seen in day to day life. Such a relationship in real life would be ultimately flawed and damaging but Sherlock doesn’t seem to live in ‘real life’ being such a genius.
Ultimately this show answers my question of ‘What would happen if Sherlock Holmes existed today?’ that I asked several years ago as a lot of Sherlock’s assumptions were based on things of which we have in diverse amounts these days – For example, when receiving a letter in the stories he would find out the letter writer based on the brand of paper which may be from some obscure place and the post mark. Paper these days is far more widespread and trying to track someone down from a brand may be somewhat tricky. Therefore, I like the fact that the writing team have taken these facts into account and based the puzzles on the good old fashioned basics.
As you can imagine, the story of ‘A Scandal in Belgravia’ doesn’t have a textbook happy ending for Sherlock and Irene Adler but their cat and mouse games culminate in a satisfying ending that will leave you with a wry smile on your face and begging for more...twice :)
No comments:
Post a Comment