Mysterious Piano in the Oaks
This past week, I watched the new BBC TV series Sherlock, episode The Blind Banker. Also, I read the two original A. C. Doyle Sherlock mysteries that inspired this episode: The Dancing Men and The Valley of Fear. You can download both free from The Gutenberg Project.
I have been a fan of Sherlock in TV and movies since I was way young. This new series is no exception. At first, I was a little leery because BBC was placing Sherlock in a modern London setting with iphones, subway systems, and deep-fried pickles. But it works. I love the snappy remarks back and forth between Watson and Holmes. I also love the sexual ambiguity that everyone places on Sherlock’s character, adding that extra layer of mystery and another coating of tension to his relationship with Watson.
I won’t give anything away here, but in short The Blind Banker concerns a cipher and a Chinese secret society. There are, of course, murders. This episode takes the idea of a cipher with strange characters from The Dancing Men and the idea of a deadly foreign secret society from The Valley of Fear. Other than that, they are not alike at all.
And I was perfectly OK with that. I never read the complete works of Sherlock Holmes, never fell in love with the original stories as many fans had. Yet I absolutely fawn over A. C. Doyle for creating a character that future authors and artists can recreate and fill in the numerous blanks. I think this new series has done a spectacular job of taking the essence of Holmes and Watson, yanking them into the 21st century, and giving us new mysteries in the original style to mull over.
Yeah! I just re-watched A Study in Pink last night (I’m always late to the party). I thought it was funny that they reversed the meaning of “Rache”; not the German word for revenge, don’t be ridiculous. It can only be a woman’s name.
What struck me this time was the quality of friendship that develops between them, and I think that’s one aspect that carries over well between the modern and the original stories.
The series is extremely well written – you can tell that everybody invovled is an enthusiast of the original stories and updated the clues and solutions for the modern era. It is also very stylish like the way they’ll flash up text on screen, the set design etc. but as you say the main point of interest is the friendship between Sherlock and Watson. Cumberbatch and Freeman make a good double act.
Out of all of the stories created this was my favourite.
Well said, nrlymrtl, I love this series too! It’s just close enough to the originals. It is also a fresh and exciting show.
Just a note for Sherlockians – have you guys come across the Save Undershaw campaign (http://www.saveundershaw.com/)? Arthur Conan Doyle’s former home is under threat of being redeveloped into flats, and a friend of mine is heavily involved with trying to save it.
I started reading Sherlock Holmes after watching both mini-series on the BBC (yes, and I mean the REAL BBC). A friend recommended reading them after we were talking about the series, because he said that while they changed things significantly between the books and the series, they kept enough small bits of allusion to make Doyle geeks giddy.
I haven’t really gotten too far into them yet, as I’ve got a lot on my plate right now with three weddings in a month and failing miserably at studying for my Life in the UK test. However, I did read A Study in Scarlet. I really enjoyed it, especially the part about the Mormons. Wow, I was very impressed with the ability to keep me that engaged in a book. I was really confused because I had taken a bit of a break in the story between the part when they catch the killer and the part where they are in America, and I thought it was a completely different story, until they flashed-forward and they were explaining why he was hunting those two people. It was engaging!
I’m looking forward to reading more (after the test most likely, but we’ll see). I do like how since it’s not one long novel, I can hop back to the individual stories after reading a bit of them. I never really expected it to be that good either. I guess I just remember some of the “old” books I had to read for English classes that put me off of reading some of the classics. However, as an adult, I feel like the ones I’ve read I’ve managed to really like, so perhaps there is hope for me yet. Too many books, and not enough time!
Oh, and just in case people didn’t know (which I assume they do), one of the two guys that develops Sherlock also is the head writer for the two most recent series of Doctor Who (with Matt Smith as the Doctor). I definitely see a small connection between The Doctor and Sherlock in the way they speak and the dialogue, which I find quite amusing. I almost see Sherlock as The Doctor without a TARDIS (and sonic screwdriver).