Mostly, they are in the form of the friendship between Holmes and Watson. ![]() The series also possesses a number of other charms. He is the perfect partner to the detective. He is a man of many talents: the expert fighter that Holmes is not (allowing him to come to Holmes' aid on numerous occasions), brave, loyal, resourceful, and also possessing all that worldly skill that Holmes seems to lack. No longer does he occupy the backstage: rather than being either chronicler or simple foil for Holmes, he is a character in his own right, and perhaps even a more heroic one than Holmes himself. In sharp contrast to Holmes, this version of Watson is a magnificent portrayal. Certainly, he also has the deductive and analytical qualities of the great detective, but there the similarity seems to end. He fails to be taken seriously by the police on a number of accounts, gets blackmailed, kidnapped, and buoyed about by political machinations, has no fighting prowess to speak of (one remembers that Holmes is canonically an expert boxer), and requires Watson's constant assistance (and rescue). One of the great fascinations of Holmes' character has always been his flaws, but in this case, it is difficult to perceive the venerable figure of the detective through those flaws. However, one gets the sense that, in this version, he is perhaps too flawed. The second appears to be more original, but contains hints of "The Naval Treaty." Both plots are, unfortunately, rather sub-par.In the first, the mystery ranges from too convoluted to be interesting to too exact an adaptation of the canonical mystery to be interesting the second is not even a mystery itself but rather a complex political machination of which Holmes is the victim (and in which, to my great disappointment, the great Irene Adler is reduced to a bargaining chip in order to manipulate Holmes).Īs for the characters themselves: this version of Holmes seems to have taken after the recent trend of shedding Holmes of his austerity, to portray him as young, frenzied, idiosyncratic, and deeply flawed. The first episode adapts "The Adventure of Black Peter," mixed with a much watered-down case of blackmail a la "The Adventure of Charles Augustus Milverton" (though unfortunately without the eponymous character). As such, the first episode begins with the first few paragraphs of A Study in Scarlet, then throws the viewer straight into the action, with a murder - forcing our noble doctor to meet the great detective over a different kind of corpse than the one Holmes was canonically beating when introduced to Watson by Stamford. Unfortunately, this particular version is below the mark of the greatest adaptations of the Canon, past and present.Įach episode begins with great fidelity to the Canon, in the form of a recitation by Watson of lengthy paragraphs from the relevant stories. Along with the characters of Dumas and Stevenson, he is one of those heroic figures whose stories every child has read and whose adventures have been incarnated in excellent film adaptations. It is not a surprise to see another adaptation of Holmes in the Russian language: Holmes is a popular figure in Russia and the nations of the former Soviet Union. There is hardly the space here for a lengthy review, but, with my ability to watch the series in my native Russian language, I feel that I must be the messenger that provides however short a review. ![]() The series aired recently I have so far caught the first couple of episodes (both two-parters that run for 90-minutes). To be added to that list is a new Russian adaptation, titled quite simply and eponymously Sherlock Holmes. Though Sherlock Holmes adaptations have never been lacking in this world, there seems to have been a particularly great upsurge of them in the past handful of years.They need hardly be named - Guy Ritchie's Sherlock Holmes films, the BBC's Sherlock, and CBS' Elementary are all of recent and not-so-lamented memory.
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