TV-14, 88 min.
Director: Paul McGuigan
Writers: Steven Moffat, Mark
Gatiss (series creator), Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (works)
Starring: Benedict
Cumberbatch, Martin Freeman, Rupert Graves, Una Stubbs, Louise Brealey, Vinette
Robinson, Philip Davis, Mark Gatiss
The truly great thing about
the British television series “Sherlock” is that each episode is basically a
movie length modern adventure based on one of the Arthur Conan Doyle mysteries of
Sherlock Holmes. As such, I feel compelled to review each episode individually
as I watch them. Don’t worry too much about that, since there are only three
episodes per season of celebrated show.
“A Study in Pink” is the
first released episode of the series. There was a pilot episode that has not
been aired, and probably won’t since this episode covers much of the same
material that the pilot supposedly does. That would be the introduction of the
characters of Dr. John Watson and Sherlock Holmes. Watson, as played by Martin
Freeman of the British version of “The Office”, is a former Army medic who
suffers from some form of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder from being wounded in
the war in Afghanistan. Holmes is very much the social pariah that he’s often
portrayed as. Some law enforcement colleagues describe him as “a psychopath”,
which Benedict Cumberbatch is quite capable of making us believe.
Like the recent American
take on Holmes, “Elementary”, the show places as much emphasis on the
relationship between Holmes and Watson as it does on the case. Watson is better
developed here, which makes him slightly more interesting that Lucy Liu’s
Watson. Although, her’s is plenty interesting too.
The episode takes its title
and many of the details from Doyle’s very first Holmes novel “A Study in
Scarlet”. The basic backgrounds of Watson and Holmes, their meeting, and the
basic details of the case they find themselves on are the same as in the novel.
Of course, the story has been modernized and utilizes modern technology in a
particularly interesting way that redefines the way our fictitious detectives
can examine a crime. Texting plays a major role in the telling of the story. The
way director Paul McGuigan chooses to express these texts to the audience is
innovative and helps move the story along more efficiently.
McGuigan chooses a similar
photographic devise as the texting to express the way Sherlock examines a crime
scene. We see words superimposed over the clues as Sherlock observes them. This
puts the audience in a different mindset of examining what we’re seeing on the
screen as well. It’s rather invigorating as a viewer.
No comments:
Post a Comment