A superb series, highly faithful to the original stories. I must give special praise to the art and production design, the casting and acting and the superb editing.
The stories are told faithfully and with superb attention paid to the costumes, sets and locations. The series is extremely immersive. The series wonderfully captures the simple yet enduring relationship between Holmes and Watson. You see the brilliance of the great detective, but also his anguish and depression when he feels there is no use or purpose for his skills. There are a couple of other recurring characters, Mrs Hudson The villains are often rich, powerful men, gentleman who are using their power for evil rather than good.
Not all the cases involve a murder, though most do. One centres around a jewel going missing and ending up inside a goose... The lifestyle of Holmes and Watson is to be envied really, they get to have these exciting adventures each week, Watson even gets to carry his old army revolver around with him, and even gets to use it in serval episodes, of course with total impunity unlike today.
Many of the stories though starting in London are not actually set there and take Holmes off to the stately homes of England. Of course it's much easier to film in a national trust property than trying to film in modern London trying to pretend it's still the Victorian times.
Most of the stories take place While most of the early to mid stories are excellent there is a period where several of the specials become very strange and surreal, more like an episode of Dr Who than Sherlock Holmes. There's very little deduction in these, far too much of Holmes experiencing supernatural premonitions. It just doesn't feel right.
Some of the stories are quite dark and twisted, The Dying Detective, the Illustrious Client, the Devils Foot all feature truly wicked and slimy adversaries.
My favourites include the Silver Blaze, The Dying Detective, The Priory School.
There is a bit of repetition in here, Holmes and Watson must chase down stolen government papers in two episodes. A couple of them are quite silly and not the best, one involving a man who turns into a monkey every night or something like that. Overall though the good far outweighs the bad.
The Blu Ray look amazing for something that was shot on 16mm film in the 1980s. A few of the final episodes are even 16:9.
The stories are told faithfully and with superb attention paid to the costumes, sets and locations. The series is extremely immersive. The series wonderfully captures the simple yet enduring relationship between Holmes and Watson. You see the brilliance of the great detective, but also his anguish and depression when he feels there is no use or purpose for his skills. There are a couple of other recurring characters, Mrs Hudson The villains are often rich, powerful men, gentleman who are using their power for evil rather than good.
Not all the cases involve a murder, though most do. One centres around a jewel going missing and ending up inside a goose... The lifestyle of Holmes and Watson is to be envied really, they get to have these exciting adventures each week, Watson even gets to carry his old army revolver around with him, and even gets to use it in serval episodes, of course with total impunity unlike today.
Many of the stories though starting in London are not actually set there and take Holmes off to the stately homes of England. Of course it's much easier to film in a national trust property than trying to film in modern London trying to pretend it's still the Victorian times.
Most of the stories take place While most of the early to mid stories are excellent there is a period where several of the specials become very strange and surreal, more like an episode of Dr Who than Sherlock Holmes. There's very little deduction in these, far too much of Holmes experiencing supernatural premonitions. It just doesn't feel right.
Some of the stories are quite dark and twisted, The Dying Detective, the Illustrious Client, the Devils Foot all feature truly wicked and slimy adversaries.
My favourites include the Silver Blaze, The Dying Detective, The Priory School.
There is a bit of repetition in here, Holmes and Watson must chase down stolen government papers in two episodes. A couple of them are quite silly and not the best, one involving a man who turns into a monkey every night or something like that. Overall though the good far outweighs the bad.
The Blu Ray look amazing for something that was shot on 16mm film in the 1980s. A few of the final episodes are even 16:9.