A friend of mine recently began a campaign to get as many friends as possible to watch the BBC crime drama, Sherlock. She practically took up a part-time job of promoting the show and having viewing parties to ensure that her friends were indeed watching. Since this friend has proved herself to have great taste in television, I went along to one of these viewing problems parties to see for myself what the big deal was.
The show is a modern day remake of the Sir Arthur Conan Doyle detective, Sherlock Holmes, and his friend Dr. John Watson. Described as "A New Slueth For The 21st Century," the show follows Sherlock Holmes (Benedict Cumberbatch) as he works with Scotland Yard's detective Lestrade. Watson (Martin Freeman) is an Afghan war veteran who immediately forms a partnership with the sociopath Holmes, despite being advised otherwise by a Scotland Yard officer. Just as before portrayed, the duo work together to determine who and/or what is behind some of London's biggest crimes.
The show just finished airing its second series on BBC and is renewed for a third, and potentially final season, to air in 2013. The first series, which consists of three, one and a half hour episodes, is available on Netflix. The second series will air in America on PBS in Spring 2012. The benefit of having less episodes per series is that the content is concentrated rather than dissipated, and thus you are forced to pay attention to the details.
I hate to sound un-American, but the British really are much better at creating series that are thoughtful, intelligent, and captivating. Add to that the fact that British actors are just on a totally different level in terms of skill and character development, and it becomes very obvious that this show is well deserving of the 2011 BAFTA award fro Best Drama Series.
Check it out! And, if you are fans of The Lord of the Rings, get excited because both Cumberbatch (Holmes) and Freeman (Watson) will be in the new Hobbit films. Of course, Freeman might already be familiar to some for his role as John, the porn photo-double, on Love Actually.
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