For the fans of Sherlock Holmes

[awp101]

Today (22MAY) is the 152nd birthday of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle.

Also, the new series the BBC started in 2010 is well worth watching IMO: Sherlock. My local PBS station has been showing one every other Sunday or so. I've only caught the majority of 2 episodes but they were really fun to watch. I think there's only been 6 episodes over 2 years with another "season" starting next year IIRC. Each story is new but has ties to one or more of the original ACD stories and the writers really had fun with Moriarty's character (the ring tone on his cell phone is Stayin' Alive ).

[jager3]

Thanks for the info; big "Sherlock" fan here! I have all of Conan Doyle's works. My favorite actor that played Sherlock was Jeremy Britt. Robert Downey jr has also done a very credible job on the Sherlockian theme as of late.

[alnitak]

I also like the new show. My daughter and I watch it.

[Washita]

Too bad the new series has almost nothing in common with Conan Doyle's stories. I watched The Hound of the Baskervilles recently, & found it disappointing to say the least. The old Basil Rathbone movies were actually closer to the originals, & they hardly resembled them at all. I've DVR'd a second episode but probably won't watch it.

PBS had a Sherlock Holmes series some years back that were taken directly from the books, and it was excellent. The star, Jeremy Britt, sadly now deceased, was perfect in the title role. He even looked like the Holmes drawings in the original Strand magazine series. And the setting was England, ca 1890. I think this series might be available on Netflix.

[piller]

I have seen a couple of the ones with jeremy Britt, and he was excellent as Holmes. In the books, Holmes was a bit of a strange person, but he certainly was entertaining. I would have liked to meet Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and see what he was like.

[DPris]

I started reading the Holmes stories over 45 years ago.
Cannot sit in the same room when my wife watches that new BBC abomination.

The appeal of Sherlock Holmes for me has been & always will be in large part the period background for the stories.
Take Holmes & Watson out of that background, and you remove a good part of what makes those stories what they are and Holmes who he was.

The Rathbone series diluted the atmosphere to a degree, but I enjoyed them as a kid & still do, because they retained most of the feel of a period piece, and I liked the portrayals of both lead actors.

The Bretts were the best, except for those episodes directed by people who tried to be cute & artsy with camera setups.

I can't bring myself to watch the Downey blockbusters at all, Holmes was not an action hero & the portrayal just isn't "Holmes".

Placing Sherlock Holmes in modern times is ridiculous for me.
Call it The Adventures Of Insipid Jones, or even George Holmes & Gynecologist Bill Watson Save The World, if you have to borrow the original stories for an out-of-time and out-of-place modern TV series.

Even the little half-hour B&W series of the late 1950s was better done.

I have, by the way, been to 221B Baker Street in London & have a letter from Sherlock Holmes' secretary in 1975 framed here in the office.

LONGTIME Holmes fan.
Denis

[2571]

How did Jeremy Brittt die? Did he off himself?

[jager3]

I read somewhere that he had cancer and even did the last couple of his episodes knowing they would be his last. The last episode I saw of that series featured his brother, Mycroft, and the good "doctor" solving a case in his absence (not quite up to Britt's standards, I might add). Like Basil Rathbone, before him, Jeremy Britt did his best to capture Conan Doyle's description of Sherlock's "oddities" and genius.

[Barcelona Rick]

I too am a big Holmes fan but I just cannot warm up to the new series on PBS. Now I see that CBS (I think) has a series coming with Lucy Lui as Watson......I do think she is cute and enjoyed her on Southland as Officer Tang but that is really pushing the envelope. PBS with a gay Sherlock and now a babe Watson.....Rathbone and Brett would roll over in their graves.....

rick

[olyinaz]

I've seen two of the new PBS "Sherlock" episodes and thought they were good. I thought that the modern adaptation was an interesting twist that they'd done well (the shows look as if they're produced by the same people who do "House" on American TV) but I didn't catch anything about him being gay - that would have turned me off big time. So you've probably ruined it for me now!!

Just proves that Hollyweird doesn't have anything on London.

Edit: Google is our friend: http://www.digitalspy.com/british-tv/s1 ... t-gay.html

So the character is NOT intended to be gay. The comments at the end of the news article make me ill however.

Oly

[guido4198]

I'll look for the new one. Thanks for the heads-up.
I thought Basil Rathbone was an excellent Holmes....Jeremy Britt also. Britt captured that "quirky" factor best, without being comical or too silly.

[Streetstar]

I'm not much for British television, but i thoroughly enjoyed the recent Robert Downey movies

[JB]

For me nothing compares to the original Sherlock Holmes short stories. Movies are great, but the original written text is darn hard to beat.

[DPris]

Absolutely!
Denis