Sherlock 1/3 – A Study In Pink

Sherlock Holmes, reinvented in the 21st century! Produced and written by Steven Moffat, the same guy who did Coupling and Dr Who, that’s really about all you need to know to watch this.

Also, it’s Sherlock Holmes! I love Sherlock Holmes! I’ve read all his stories and then some. And I loved the Guy Ritchie remake with Robert Downey Junior, so am definitely curious to see what BBC and Steven Moffat come up with – a 3-part mini series based on Sherlock Holmes in the modern day.

My comments below…

‘A Study in Pink’ is a riff taken off the first Sherlock Holmes story ‘A Study in Scarlet‘. Several other familiar elements crop up too, like the house being in Brixton, the choice of pills, and the writing of ‘Rache’ at the crime scene, though in this case they turned it around and ‘Rache’ was actually ‘Rachel’ instead of the German for ‘revenge’. Read a little more about what the creators were thinking about here. I loved being able to catch these little details, and I think they did a pretty great job of updating Victorian Sherlock to modern day Sherlock and not just copying wholesale.

Sherlock Holmes seemed a little young to me at first, but they really do capture the essence of Sherlock very well. From the eternal mess and the slightly maniacal qualities of Sherlock quite well. We know him from the books and from Watson’s perspective as a genius, but he was also one odd fellow, and it’s interesting to realize that he is also regarded as possibly devious enough to be the criminal rather than the detective.I think the really got the character down pat – easily bored, mind moving at breakneck pace, able to deduce Watson’s history at a glance.

He’s a consulting detective with his own website (that he talks about in the show, whih you can see here). It features some other cases and how he solved them, though not the case featured on the show (that’s for Watson to blog about). I wish the other casefiles were active links! I would like to know more about the Killer Cats of Greenwich and the Man with Four Legs!

John Watson is also an interesting character. We start off the story with him, and while at first blush he seems to be a Afghanistan war veteran still recovering from the war, we realize he’s a much deeper character than that, with him being the one to pull the trigger on the serial killer at the end, in essence saving Sherlock from falling victim to his one weakness – his aversion to boredom. I like that while he’s kinda adrift and using a cane to get around at first, he’s running through the streets of London like nothing’s wrong once he’s in league with Sherlock.

Also, as part of his Post Traumatic Stress Disorder treatment from the war, Watson is now keeping a blog! How’s that for 21st century memoirs! You see the episode summary from Watson’s POV as per the original books (cool touch) PLUS, modern day style, you also get to see comments that the various characters leave on his blog, including that of his Landlady and his lesbian sister ‘Harry’. I like that his whole blog starts out reluctantly, with placeholder posts and stuff, very realistic.

And Mycroft. AWESOME. I honestly thought (and I suppose that was the intent) that he was supposed to be Moriaty. Now we know that Moriaty will play a part in his mini-series, I can’t wait to see him make his appearance. I can’t believe this awesom sounding show is only going to be 3 episodes long!

I love that Lestrade is kinda how I always pictured him, and they introduced 2 other characters – the ‘anti-Sherlocks’ if you must. The skeptical investigator who honestly thinks Sherlock is going to turn into a mass murderer and warns Watson to stay away from him, and the lead CSI guy, who hates Sherlock’s guts. Funny Sherlock would refuse to wear the paper suit and ‘risk’ contaminating the evidence, given that Sherlock was a forensics pioneer of sorts in the books!

I really like the way they incorporate modern technology into the story. Unlike most TV shows where they will show the phone screen, Sherlock does it in this uber modern way – simple white text that appears next to the characters. Especially the bit at the press conference where Sherlock msgs all of them ‘wrong’ ‘wrong’ ‘wrong’. They also use this same technique to showcase Sherlock’s thought process, as you see his deductive process. Overall, the way they film this show is quite different from the slightly kitschy/low budget BBC style that we’ve seen in previous shows like Dr Who, Coupling and Torchwood. Somehow, it doesn’t look anything like American TV, I’m wondering if it’s about the way the story is told, or about the way it’s filmed – I’m still figuring that out.

Overall, I think the show is fascinating, and I can’t wait to see more of it! It’s definite