Sherlock season 3 started last night (for those of us in the U.S.), and instead of yet another review of what worked and what didn’t in the episode, I thought I might do a little piece about what I consider to be some of the most brilliant writing I’ve ever seen. No, this is not going to be a piece gushing over Stephen Moffat’s evil genius (at least not entirely). That’s not to say I don’t think he’s brilliant, but someone else was brilliantly writing the character of Sherlock Holmes before Moffat ever could have dreamed he’d be voicing the greatest detective of all time.
Sir Arthur Conan Doyle first introduced us to Sherlock Holmes in 1887… just a little bit before Stephen Moffat’s time. The character has been in 4 novels and 56 short stories. Each story that Moffat uses in his series is at least somewhat based off one of these stories.
*mild spoilers coming up if you’ve never read Sherlock Holmes and/or didn’t watch the S2 final of the most recent series*
********************************************************************************
For those of you still with us, you will remember that S2 ended with Sherlock faking his death by making it look like he jumped off a building. Like everything else in the series, this is a modern retelling of a story originally written by Conan Doyle. In the original, Holmes falls to his death from a waterfall instead, but the motive is the same… he must fool his enemies into thinking he is dead.
While the original stories were written by Conan Doyle, Moffat does a brilliant job translating everything into a modern setting. Does anyone remember the animated Sherlock Holmes series “Sherlock Holmes in the 22nd Century”? That, too, had Holmes in a modern setting, but with far less satisfying results. When I first heard about the current Sherlock series, I was skeptical that a modern version of Holmes could work. The only reason I gave it a chance was because Moffat was behind the wheel, and I had faith he would be true to the original content. Just like he did when taking over Doctor Who, Moffat took an old concept and continued its legacy. It can’t be a coincidence that two of the only things on television I look forward to with such anticipation are both written by the same man. I know there are people who will disagree with me and claim that Doctor Who has lost something since Moffat took over, but I believe he has done a fine job keeping the spirit of the show alive. I also find it amazing he is able to keep both series consistently good, even if there has to be a bit of space in between each new season. No matter how long I have to wait to get my fix, I always am satisfied in the end and will keep looking forward to each new moment until the last, which hopefully is a long time from now.
Sherlock S3 Ep 2 will air on PBS Sun, January 26th. You can catch up with S1 & 2 on Netflix Instant.