{ Contributes }

Monday, January 16, 2012

I've Been Sherlocked.

Intelligent. Clever. Curiously charming.


If you have been living in the dark (or America), you have probably missed one of the most phenomenal 90-minute dramas to hit television in the pass two years. BBC's Sherlock offers both an intriguing and refreshing twist on Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's beloved deductive detective. Written by Steven Moffat and Mark Gatiss (both Doctor Who writers), Sherlock brings Sherlock Holmes (Benedict Cumberbatch) and John Watson (Martin Freeman) into the modern age, putting technology like GPS, advance forensic science, and iPhones (oh so many iPhones) at their disposal for solving mysteries.

Originally airing in 2010 for both countries (season 2 just finishing in England and scheduled for May for America), the series was inspired by both Moffat's and Gatiss' love for the classic stories. However, Gatiss felt that staying within Holmes' original era would risk losing views due to Sir Conan Doyle's stories being "too reverential and too slow". The pair decided to reboot both Holmes' and Watson's, feeling that a current setting would not only be more entertaining but also to give both writers an opportunity to add their own semi-noncannon twists to the stories; somewhat creating their own Sherlock-timeline while still modernizing the classic works. It is very easy to see each each of the six episodes were influenced by Sir Conan Doyle's works but each one has its own unique charm as current technology it put into play. We constantly find Sherlock in forensic laboratories, using the internet, and relaying information to-and-from other characters via texting like the average person today.