Sherlock Holmes Adaptations

 Last weekend I went to see a local theater production of "The Hound of the Baskervilles" and I got so annoyed by the fact that it was basically an adaptation of Basil Rathbone and Nigel Bruce. It's a perfectly good version of Sherlock Holmes, but it wasn't what I wanted going into this play. And I am a little biased because I find the Rathbone/Bruce a little annoying in how much Watson is played as a dummy following Holmes the genius around. So here's a small collection of my thoughts on three different adaptations I'm most familiar with and like!

Elementary
This might be one of my favorite versions of the detective. Especially the first season with the big reveal of making Irene Adler / Moriarty the same person. It was endlessly inventive and creative while still being respectful of the source material. This particularly stood out because it started just after "Sherlock" did and fans were endlessly accusing it of being a copy.

The big standout through are Holmes and Watson themselves. I adore Lucy Liu in general and I thought she was amazing in this role. And Jonny Lee Miller captures so perfectly the chaos gremlin that is Sherlock Holmes. He does his best when Sherlock is going off of the rails a little, while Liu pulls him back in and delightfully enjoys occasionally heading with him to do something illegal. Their dynamic is so perfect. 

Sherlock
This one always has to come up, but you really cannot deny that this show opened a lot of people to the original Sherlock Holmes stories. The attention of the producers to detail gained a huge following as well, and I will absolutely give them credit for an incredible first two seasons + Christmas special. The rest was garbage.

The show really excelled when it took the original stories and airlifted them into the present. The first episode was a wonderful adaptation of "A Study in Scarlet" where all of the aspects were there, but changing it up for the modern era still left a lot of twists and turns in the case. I so wish they stuck to that but whateverrrrrr.

Benedick Cumberbatch is a truly spectacular Sherlock, and if he leans a little too much into the science robot aspect of Holmes he is played off very well with Martin Freeman as Watson. Half the mystery of the show is Holmes himself, which they are able to capture very well in this version. My complaints are numerous, but also you can tell from early on, the creators do not like women very much. Irene Adler is naked from the get go, everyone hates the female cop, etc. That aspect has me honestly scared to rewatch a lot of it.

The Guy Ritchie Movies
These movies were so fun! I also honestly think that Watson in my mind is Jude Law now for how well he captured that character in a Victorian setting. Robert Downey Jr. is also so fun as an absolutely off the walls Holmes that hyperfixates, drugs his dog, and in general is just unpredictable. He is most similar to Jonny Lee Miller, but he goes a step or two farther in that he is usually butting heads with Watson where Miller softens from his collaboration with Liu.

The two movies could have probably been more united, I didn't love the Moriarty portrayal and how he changes in his characterization. And then killing off Irene in the second one is just unforgivable to me, bring her back now! But it's such a delight to see Downey Jr go running off with Law right behind him.

Original Stories
The original stories have such an important space in my heart. I read them all over the course of a summer on the beach, they are short and fun to get through. Doyle hated them, but there is a reason they have endured. Holmes is fun and walks a fine line of being annoying, silly, and wildly intelligent. Half of the cases you cannot solve just from Watson's point of view, so there also isn't a huge expectation that the reader is able to solve it. 

There also are really fun side characters, again there's a reason Irene, Moriarty, etc are all in these different adaptations. The female characters especially, it's hard to think that Irene Adler existed back then as a independent lady adventuress. She's bold on her own and is "the woman" to Holmes (she is only in one case though and there's not much evidence they had an actual relationship). Moriarty is also only in one case with the purpose of killing Holmes off, which is still hilarious to me in that Doyle had to immediately bring him back. There are other cases though with independent women seeking Holmes' services, and one notable case that ends with an anonymous woman killing the culprit and Holmes letting her off of the hook. Not being an official part of the police lets him do that and Doyle knew how to use it.

It really goes to show how enduring these stories are, Holmes is something like the most frequently portrayed human character in media. And somehow there's many different versions of him, with wildly different personalities and preferences. But the friendship between him and Watson is always present and strong, really making any of these versions work. And that's kinda why this play grated at me, Watson can't have been an idiot if Holmes is dragging him around this way. All that to say, I love these stories and I will gladly watch different versions, but I sure do have opinions about all of them.