It is without doubt true to say that some TV concepts should be left well alone. Some would never work for one reason or another (TV budget, time constraints, etc), some have been done to death in one form or another, still others were done perhaps just once before, but done so quintessentially, so perfectly, that any attempt to recreate or - I scarcely dare suggest - better the original will, by its very nature, contains the seeds of its own doom.
On the subject of such unworthy enterprises, we have the 'Contemporary Reimagining'. When it's done well, with respect to the source material and the audience, it can be turn out brilliant - consider, if you will, the Hollywood trend of turning Shakespeare or Brontë into 'teen drama'... going as far back as West Side Story. It can be good... but such instances are rare and precious.
Which, sadly, brings us to Sherlock - BBC1's Sunday evening detective drama, that brings Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's most famous creations to life in contemporary London.
Oh dear.
The concept alone should have had me running for the hills, but my morbid curiosity got the better of me, as it is wont to do. Between the catty portrayal of Holmes (light on inspiration, heavy on sarcasm and high-tech web wizardry) by the splendidly named Benedict Cumberbatch, an unlikely Martin Freeman as his Doctor John Watson (fresh from Afganistan, with a House-inspired psychosomatic limp and a convenient case of post-conflict trauma - cue 'flashback' scenes that made Afganistan look remarkably like one of the leafier suburbs of London), and Mark Gatiss not only writing (I'm sure he's capable of better) but turning up to play Sherlock's dubious brother Mycroft (with the subtle and possibly deliberately misleading implication that he might also be Moriarty), there's little to recommend this as a series.
I am a little surprised that a writer as good as Mark Gatiss would fall into the trap of alluding to homosexuality - as if any man who expresses no interest in women must be gay... even if he expresses no interest in men either. Furthermore, I am certain that toning down the nature of Holmes' addiction was a requirement of Aunty Beeb, rather than something Gatiss thought was a good idea (nicotine patches? Really? They couldn't have had him doing Cocaine in the pilot, at least?). However these details are made trivial, in the grand scheme of things, by a poorly conceived 'mystery', an unlikely killer, a sequence of discoveries that are more random and fortuitous than intuitive and logical, and a predictable denouement. Holmes himself is played more or less as he is seen by the Police - an arrogant sociopathic 'freak' - while those same Police quickly illustrate to the audience why Inspector Lestrade has to rely on Holmes so often - they are a bunch of useless, argumentative adolescents. Martin Freeman's portrayal of Watson comes across much like any other character played by Martin Freeman - another one who can do better, given the right material.
I suppose my potential enjoyment of anything Holmes will be forever tainted (not the right word, but I'm tired) by Jeremy Brett's version, which may never be bettered. Brett brought something to the role that no other actor has managed before or since - he had all the brashness and cold arrogance of Sherlock Holmes, and also managed the vulnerability of a semi-reformed addict, the ennui of a brilliant man with little to occupy his time save the occasional baffling crime, along with the seldom-seen humility of a genius who knew all-too-well that even he was fallible. When Jeremy Brett delivered his precise analysis of a character, be they client or foe, it sounded like observation and deduction. When Benedict Cumberbatch tried the same, it sounded somewhere between a shopping list and a bitchy put-down. Jeremy Brett could switch from calm and still to manic and animated with the barest hint of a facial tic in between... And, his quick and clever smile contained just the right component of sneer. Benedict Cumberbatch's Holmes is a dick.
Then again, how can one take Sherlock Holmes seriously if his partner will be documenting their exploits not for the newspapers, but for his Blog.
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