Modern Day Takes on Sherlock Holmes from the BBC and CBS

March 25, 2012 by

Last year the BBC came out with a new take on Sherlock Holmes starring Benedict Cumberbatch as Holmes and Martin Freeman as Dr. Watson. They set these 2 in present day London and have Holmes use the same skills as in the books, just in the 21st Century. The first "series" (season) of "Sherlock" was 3 one and a half hour episodes and it had its ups and downs, but it was very interesting to see Holmes working in today's world and dealing with technology like cell phones and the internet. It is definitely worth checking out if you have Netflix stream (you can see it here). Here's the BBC site for the show.

Here's a review of the series from Slant Magazine:

…it's impressive that Steven Moffat and Mark Gatiss, the creators of Sherlock, have chosen such a gimmick-free approach to their series. It may be a contemporary update, but they have simply, and very successfully, lifted Doyle's characters out of the Victorian era and dropped them unchanged into present-day London. There are a few obvious differences: Dr. John Watson, Holmes's best friend and chronicler, is now a blogger, and while the modern-day Holmes has access to multiple new technologies, including the Internet and GPS, they are only in service of his greater observational gifts. Then there are elements that only seem to be modern but are, in fact, references to the original stories, such as Watson's past as a military doctor wounded in the war in Afghanistan. This is directly from A Study in Scarlet, the novel that brought Holmes and Watson together, and the basis for the first episode of Sherlock.
 
True to the character as written by Doyle, Holmes (Benedict Cumberbatch) is arrogant and self-absorbed; it's unclear whether he's solving crimes in order to prevent more crimes from happening or solving them to prove his own superiority. Cumberbatch achieves a kind of blankness in his performance, making him in no way lovable. As he says of himself at one point, he's a "high-functioning sociopath." Martin Freeman (from the original U.K. version of The Office) is terrific as Watson. He plays the role very straight, using his deadpan comic gifts to portray Watson as the solid, silent type, and fortunately, there's not a hint of Watson as a dimwitted fool, popularized by the Nigel Bruce's Watson in the Hollywood films of the 1930s and 1940s.
 
Here's the trailer for season 1. Season 2 is playing in the UK right now. The DVD should be available soon in the U.S.

The BBC series has been such a hit that CBS has started a version of its own:

In fact, Sherlock was so successful that CBS began developing a modern Sherlock Holmes to call its own, Elementary. Two weeks ago, Johnny Lee Miller (Eli Stone) was cast as Sherlock himself. Today, not only do we have plot details, but we also have our John (or should we say Joan?) Watson — and her name is Lucy Liu.

Here's the first pictures of Liu and Miller as Watson and Holmes walking through New York City.

This has annoyed the one of the creators of the BBC version who is worried it could have a negative effect on Sherlock Holmes brand:

“The bigger problem for us with Elementary is, what if it's terrible? What if it's awful? Then it degrades the brand. If there's this completely unrelated rogue version of Sherlock going around and it's bad, it can be bad for us.”

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