Reinvention of 'Sherlock'

Sherlock Holmes (Benedict Cumberbatch) © BBC

Benedict Cumberbatch is the most current incarnation of Sherlock Holmes. He stars in the  BBC Wales and WGBH Boston co-produced Masterpiece Anthology TV Series,  Sherlock, which first aired on BBC and then PBS (in America), this past summer. The project is a collaboration between Steven Moffat and Mark Gatiss (both also write on Doctor Who).

Benedict Cumberbatch is not new to the detective genre.  He has appeared in the Marple Series (Marple: Murder Is Easy), previously, as well as having starred in numerous films, including, Amazing Grace and, more recently, Atonement.  He is a theater trained actor first, having a myriad of theatre credits to his name.

What makes this 'Sherlock' unique is that instead of setting it in the Victorian Age, Moffat and Gatiss have completely reinvented Sherlock and landed him right in the middle of the 21st century.  Sherlock is still rash and meticulously asocial-Sherlock even calls himself a "highly functioning sociopath".  There are implications that he may have some kind of drug addiction (which is not new), though his smoking pipe is ousted for the more updated, nicotine patches.  In this series, Sherlock dresses like he came straight out of a GQ ad.  He wears thick tweed overcoats and patterned jackets and scarves.  It's not surprising, then, that after the show first aired, Savile Row and major clothiers in London noted a dramatic increase in sales of  tweed and patterned styled frocks/overcoats and scarves, similar to the ones that Cumberbatch wears on the show.

This Sherlock makes no apologies for using 21st Century technology. He loves texting and does it as a means of contacting Watson (Martin Freeman) and numerous other characters. He also uses blogging and other means of deducing evidence in what he calls "the science of deduction".  

Dialogue too is modernized.  So instead of "the game is afoot" we get "the game is on".  And so, my friends, the game IS on.

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Sherlock returns for a second season with 3 (90 min long) episodes in the Fall of 2011. Word is mum on what the episodes will revolve around, but Steven Moffat  told The Guardian, "You can have three words to work from: Adler, Hound, Reichenbach. Those are your clues." Gattis has confirmed on Twitter that filming for the 2nd season will begin in May.

****You can read my full review on the first episode Study in Pink coming soon***