Brief Story Line
Set during 19th century London, young & intelligent Sherlock Holmes (Hero Fiennes Tiffin - The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare, The Loneliest Boy in The World etc) was getting into so much trouble that his older brother Mycroft (Max Irons - Crooked House, Condor TV series etc) decided he should go to Oxford. Meanwhile their mother Cordelia (Natascha McElhone - The Secret of Moonacre, Halo TV series etc) had been in asylum for many years due to incident during Sherlock's childhood years, and their father Silas Holmes (Joseph Fiennes - Shakespeare in Love, The Handmaid's Tale TV series etc) was always away on business trips.
In Oxford, Sherlock met with the rebellious but brilliant scholarship student James Moriarty (Donal Finn - The Wheel of Time season 2 & 3, The Uprising etc) and became very good friends. However, their happy time was disturbed when an important scroll brought by Princess Shou'an (Zine Tseng - 3 Body Problem TV series) was missing and both Sherlock & James were suspected as the culprits. Mycroft's boss Sir Bucephalus Hodge (Colin Firth - The Secret Garden, Bridget Jones films etc) demanded the scroll to be found as he wanted to maintain good relationship with the Chinese. Things gotten worse when the case escalated to murder with Sherlock became the main suspect. As he tried to prove his innocence, Sherlock must race against time to catch the real murderer before anyone else was killed.
So how would the story conclude? You could find out in this series.
End of Brief Story Line
You know I had high hopes of this series as I read several articles headlines praising its quality. And with the beloved character told from his younger days, it made me really excited. However, somehow it was not up to the level that made me view this as a very wonderful series. Although there were plenty of positives, but somehow I felt it could be better. Anyway the series started off brightly with the introduction of young Sherlock with his smart mouth that got him into a lot of trouble, but clearly having high intelligence and strong memory. His immediate friendship with James was also fun to watch, reminded me a lot with other series with future nemesis who started as best friends (Smallville, Merlin to name a few). But things became interesting when the scroll was missing with both Sherlock and James worked together using their strong deduction ability.
Thing is though, the character of Shou'an was not exactly my favorite. Although she was able to counter Sherlock, but personally I think she was not that well written and came on as difficult to like. But her fighting capability was quite admirable and added the entertainment value especially in one of the latter episode. And yes, there were some actions involved here which was likely to give stronger appeal to the younger audience who was also looking for some intensity. The characters that I liked a lot in here were Sherlock's parents both wonderfully portrayed by Joseph Fiennes and Natascha McElhone. Colin Firth also provided some humorous scenes despite his appearance was rather limited. As much as I like Hero and Donal here, I thought they looked too mature to play some 19-20 year olds going to Oxford. And in case you are wondering about the surnames of Fiennes, they were indeed related in real life with Joseph being Hero's uncle.
Aside from the names I mentioned above, there were also other people who were part of the main cast such as Numan Acar (Aladdin, Homeland season 4 & 8 etc) as Esad Kasgarli and Holly Cattle (Rivals TV series etc) as Sir Hodge's subordinate Edie. Funny thing that during the opening credits, only the people who appeared in the episode whose names were shown. In addition there were some support cast like Scott Reid (Still Game TV series etc) as Constable Lestrade, Ravi Aujla (Kandahar etc) as Professor Malik, Iris Li (Kopitiam Days etc) as Mei Yi Liu and several others. Oh I also noticed that the series was inspired by the Young Sherlock novels written by Andrew Lane which from what I read started from his adolescence years and had different story from the series. The series itself was developed by Peter Harness (writer of Wallander and Constellation TV series etc) together with the well known Guy Ritchie (Fountain of Youth, The Gentlemen etc). He himself directed the first and second episode (no wonder there was a strong feel of his style there).
Although all 8 episodes had the word "case" in their titles, but it was not exactly a case but more like mysteries with one major case which connected them. It also combined some actions and a little bit of adventure. I also felt that the first half was rather light but the second half was darker. The sixth episode was uniquely fun and the seventh was probably the best with a major shocking twist. While the finale was pretty good, I did feel there was an oversimplification resolution on the important character which felt rather uncharacteristic and hard to believe. Btw, there was a mid end credit scene in that episode. Until the time I wrote this series, there was no indication yet if it is going to be renewed. I guess they need to make sure it won the hearts of audience and critics. And from what I could see, it looks promising with the series becoming global hit and critics seemed to be impressed as well.
Overall this was still an interesting series. The cast were mostly brilliant in their roles, the dialogues were very sharp and smart, the mysteries were interesting and there was even a major plot twist and some action. However, the uncharacteristic resolution during the final episode and a little bit inconsistent pace (sometimes very fast and hard to keep up, but few times slow) made me unable to be fully delighted with the series (unlike that Benedict Cumberbatch version of Holmes that was almost perfect for me). So if you want to see a fresh adaptation of the famous Sherlock Holmes during his earlier days, then I think you would love this like most people.
Mike's movie moments rating: 3.75 out of 5 stars
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