Penny Thoughts ‘13—Sherlock: The Blind Banker (2010) ****

TV-14, 89 min.

Director: Euros Lyn

Writers: Steve Thompson, Mark Gatiss (creator), Steven Moffat (creator), Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (works)

Starring: Benedict Cumberbatch, Martin Freeman, Una Stubbs, Zoe Telford, Louise Brealey, Gemma Chan, Al Weaver, Bertie Carvel, Paul Chequer

There’s a strange sense in watching “Sherlock” of a bygone era in television. Although Sherlock’s adventures have been modernized in these movie-length episodes, it feels like classic television. The introductions are often simpler and seem less dark than the nature of the crimes depicted. The television series “Monk” gave me the same impression. That series isn’t really a far cry from this one considering the mental handicaps/assets of the detectives.

This story starts off in a museum, with an Asian employee warding off advances from an insistent co-worker. Then, the story switches to Sherlock and Watson employed privately by a bank to discover how an intruder breached their security system. This seemingly unrelated story thread to the one which opened the episode eventually leads Sherlock to the Asian woman, who is in much more peril than from unwanted advances. While the bank is employing Sherlock to find the breach, its what the vandal did to the bank during the break-in that interests him.

I love they way Sherlock consistently goes off on tangents from the crime at hand to discover something deeper and darker than the initial crime identified. Sherlock sees in ways no one else does. This makes his mysteries different from your average CSI work. Nothing is quite as linear in the “Sherlock” mysteries as what we’re used to seeing on television. Watson is our anchor. He shows us that we aren’t crazy not to see what Sherlock does. “The Blind Banker” is in many ways, one of the more simple “Sherlock” mysteries, yet it gets there in a much different way than we’re used to.