(Potential spoilers)
We watched the first series (i.e. season) of the BBC program Sherlock between May 28 and June 9, 2012. My wife heard of the show from one of the websites she frequents. The website showed Benedict Cumberbatch, who plays the title character, showing his iPhone that had a Union Jack sticker on the back. We had developed an interest in Sherlock Holmes after I read the novella and we both read the graphic novel of the first Sherlock Holmes story published, A Study in Scarlet (see earlier review). Sherlock is a TV show that portrays Sherlock Holmes and Dr. John Watson in present-day London. The first series was broadcast in the UK in 2010 and in the US after that. The second series had been broadcast recently on PBS very recently, in May.
We checked out the DVDs of Sherlock Season One from the Pierce County library system. A couple of months prior we put it on hold. I believe we were between number 30-40 in the holds queue and there were 10-15 copies available. After getting the email saying they were holding the DVDs for us, we picked them up (2 DVDs in one case) from the University Place branch on Friday, May 25. It took less time than we thought it would to work through the holds queue.
Sherlock Season One consisted of three 90-minute episodes on two DVDs along with two of the episodes with commentary, the original one-hour pilot episode, and a making-of film, Unlocking Sherlock. We watched the first 90-minute episode on Monday, May 28, Memorial Day. It was titled A Study in Pink and was modeled after the first Sherlock Holmes story, A Study in Scarlet. After we put in the first of the two DVDs the first thing showed was a trailer for the detective series Wallander starring Kenneth Branagh. I believe it is based on a series of mystery novels by a Norwegian author. There was a quick advert for Masterpiece Mystery. The show Mystery on PBS used to be a separate program from Masterpiece Theatre but they have since been combined, possibly for marketing purposes. Next was an ad for the cable channel BBC America. It was humorously narrated by a cartoon bobby or English police officer. He poked fun at everything he mentioned even the English accent. One checklist of things to mention included “mention Spice Girls.”
The episode A Study in Pink was very well-adapted and much of it was faithful to the original including Dr. Watson returning home from Afghanistan. It even includes a scene of Holmes beating a corpse with a riding crop, something alluded to in the original story. The case is not exactly the same and there are some interesting twists. The series leads, Holmes played by Benedict Cumberbatch and Watson played by Martin Freeman, are very good and have great chemistry in their awkward friendship between intelligent, eccentric, and relatively more normal, though not uninteresting. Cumberbatch really nails the role of Sherlock with all his eccentricities. He goes days without eating, can be cold and tactless, but can also put on an act when needed and has a sense of humor. The episode is fast-paced but I was still able to understand and follow all the action. There was also a lot of humor, especially generated by Sherlock. The episode is well-set in current times with characters using mobile internet and texting (with text appearing on screen). Rather than read an article by Holmes on detection, Watson checks out his website. Watson’s journal from the original is a blog. The supporting characters such as Lestrade, played by Rupert Graves and Mrs. Hudson, played by Una Stubbs are also very good. There are plenty of shots of modern London including the “Gherkin” building. The famous address 221B Baker Street looks perfect, though the street sign for it says, “Baker Street, City of Westminster.” Is Westminster part of London? Sherlock at one point uses the term “skip” for a dumpster.
We watch the second episode of Season One, The Blind Banker, on Saturday, June 2. This one was just as good as episode one. I learned another English term: chip and pin machine for the card reader at a grocery store. The episode also showed the Gherkin along with Trafalgar Square in London. The police headquarters had a sign identifying it as New Scotland Yard. The episode had some Asian characters and themes. A market sign in a London’s Chinatown scene listed the Philippines as a country from which the wares came. One character, Soo Lin, had the same name as a character in the Elvis film It Happened at the World’s Fair (see earlier review), though with a different spelling. I noticed some books they showed in an apartment included mystery novels by Dan Brown and James Ellroy. They also featured London A to Zed, the English Thomas Guide. We happened to have a mini version of the guide that my mom gave us for our trip to England in June 2004.
On Monday, June 4 we watched Episode 3: The Great Game. The episode was on the second DVD that had a trailer for the TV production of Charles Dickens’ Bleak House starring Gillian Anderson. Episode Three was more fast-paced than the other two and comprised several cases. A couple of them were based on the original stories The Bruce-Partington Plans and The Five Orange Pips. There are references to Watson’s blog of A Study in Pink. They have that discussion from the original in a Study in Scarlet about having essential knowledge and Sherlock not knowing that the earth revolved around the sun. Sherlock compares his brain to a hard drive rather than an attic from the original. Later he has Watson come with him because he’d be “lost without my blogger.” We were delighted to hear the term “answerphone” used and we learned the updated version of the Baker Street Irregulars: the homeless network. Along with all its action and suspense this episode has a lot of humor, especially at the beginning when Sherlock is bored.
On Thursday, June 7 we watched the 1-hour pilot that was the original version of A Study in Pink. It was fairly similar to the final version that we saw the week before. A couple of the actors were different or looked different. They did change the events of the case to fill out the 90 minutes from the 60-minute version. We also watched the “making of” film Unlocking Sherlock. We learned that Mark Gatiss, who plays a supporting role in the series is also one of the writers and co-creator. He and Steven Moffat both write for Doctor Who and came up with the idea while riding the train back from filming that series. Only Benedict Cumberbatch was asked to audition for Sherlock Holmes. He was their first choice. Of those auditioning for Dr. Watson, Martin Freeman had the best chemistry with Cumberbatch. We also learned the much of the series was filmed in Cardiff, Wales, though they do film many location scenes in London. The film company logo said Cymru, Wales.
We also watched episode 3: The Great Game with commentary on June 7. The commentators were co-creator Mark Gatiss and lead actors Benedict Cumberbatch and Martin Freeman. There were many comments on the clothes worn by the actors such as Sherlock Holmes’ dressing gowns and expensive suit. Martin Freeman talked about coming up with Dr. Watson’s wardrobe. I think either he or Gatiss used the term “pucker profession” during this discussion. Gatiss referred to Sherlock and Watson as “our heroes.” He mentioned that they actually used North Gower Street as a stand-in for Baker Street since the real Baker Street is very touristy now. Cumberbatch described the influence of other actors who played Sherlock Holmes: primarily (Basil) Rathbone and (Jeremy) Brett. He said he adopted some of the “catlike” actions of Brett’s Holmes. Gatiss had a theory that all actors who play Sherlock Holmes eventually go mad. They indicated that Johnathan Sessions played a small role in the Great Game. I remember him as an actor from the Gormenghast miniseries.
On Saturday, June 9 we watched episode one: A Study in Pink with commentary. The commentators were Mark Gatiss, Steven Moffat and producer Sue Vertue who is also Moffat’s wife. They described how they first got the idea sometime in 2007-2008. They were originally going to do six one-hour episodes, but after seeing the pilot, the BBC wanted them to do “three nineties” or a series of films similar to what was done for the series Wallander. They would comment on the filming and techniques a lot. One scene included a “hero shot of our hero” and they called Sherlock’s black jacket his “hero coat.” They even created the effect of two identical buildings because they couldn’t find two for a scene. One actor had to shave his facial hair from the pilot because he looked too much like a “baddie.” They mentioned references to the original story such as one to the Criterion where Watson and Stamford originally chatted. They also commented on the music. There was more about it in Unlocking Sherlock. We actually got the soundtrack CD before watching the DVD. At one point in the commentary they note the “violins of death” and the “Sherlock madness music” as opposed to hero music. They mentioned that there actually is no law allowing concealed weapons in England. At one point one of them missed a filming due to being stranded in L.A. by the Iceland volcano. They described actor Rupert Graves’ Lestrade as “brilliant enough to have his own series” but also paternal and “blokey.”
The three commentators, especially Gatiss and Moffat are big fans of the original Sherlock Holmes stories and earlier productions. They mention Billy Wilder’s “The Private Life of Sherlock Holmes” and the Rathbone film “Spider Woman.” They know all kinds of trivia such as Dr. Watson displaying an unframed picture at Baker Street and Sherlock’s quote “the curious incident of the dog in the nighttime” from Silver Blaze. At one they joked that Sherlock’s brother Mycroft has a “yo-yo weight problem.”
We enjoyed every bit of the DVDs of Sherlock Season One. My wife even started reading the original stories. We learned that the Pierce County library system also has Season 2 on DVD that came out this year (2012). We put it on hold but it will probably be a while. We started as number 164 in the queue for nine copies of the DVDs. We’ll be waiting and very much looking forward to our turn.
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