I have always loved Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s stories about Sherlock Holmes. I read them as a child, have always been fascinated by them. Apparently they fascinate other people, too, because TV dramas based on the characters abound. While I love to see the stories come to life in this way, sometimes it really annoys me. Because I am a purist when it comes to books. The movie/TV show should tell the same story as the book. And it rarely does.
The Sherlock Holmes movies with Robert Downey Jr. are full of bawdy humor and we don’t see Holmes at all.
The BBC drama series Sherlock transforms an eccentric man into a sociopath*.
I recently watched a few minutes of the new CBS show Elementary. I was so bored I turned it off.
The real Sherlock Holmes is a gentleman. He is kind to the people he meets (or at least the ones that are not criminals). He is undeniably an eccentric character, but we see that eccentricity in private, not publicly. Whatever happened to the man I grew up admiring? I suppose he is not to be found.
*As it happens, I really really enjoy BBC’s Sherlock. I just think the character, while bearing marked similarities to Conan Doyle’s Holmes, is not the same man.
Dramatic Lyric 