'Sherlock Holmes and the Leading Lady' is pretty decent and is the better Christopher Lee/Patrick MacNee Sherlock Holmes adaptation, the other being 'Incident at Victoria Falls'. It's not one of the worst either, it is better than all the Matt Frewer films (particularly 'The Sign of Four') and also much better than the abominable Peter Cook 'The Hound of the Baskervilles'. There are better Sherlock Holmes-related films/adaptations certainly than 'Sherlock Holmes and the Leading Lady', the best of the Jeremy Brett adaptations and films of Basil Rathone fit under this category. Furthermore, interest in seeing early films based on Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes stories and wanting to see as many adaptations of any Sherlock Holmes stories as possible sparked my interest in seeing 'Sherlock Holmes and the Leading Lady', especially with such an interesting idea for a story and Christopher Lee makes anything worthwhile. So would naturally see any Sherlock Holmes adaptation that comes my way, regardless of its reception. Also love Basil Rathbone's and especially Jeremy Brett's interpretations to death. Sherlock detectives will deduce a possible significance from this being the only one of the 13 episodes to use an original title without any alteration.īut even if the worst were to happen, fans of this super-intelligent and hyper-entertaining show – which reached new heights of action and emotion in The Six Thatchers – will note that Conan Doyle, after his Final Problem, had to bring the character back by popular demand.Am a huge fan of Sherlock Holmes and get a lot of enjoyment out of Arthur Conan Doyle's stories. Ominously, the last episode in this run, which airs on 15 January, is called The Final Problem – the name of the Conan Doyle story in which Holmes dies. Moffat and Gatiss told the same press conference that they were unsure if the remaining cast could be united for future series. But soon afterwards, it emerged that the context was uncanny: the actors had actually separated shortly before filming. It’s unclear how Gatiss specified the sound in the script but, for King Lear, it was written as the hardest line in theatre: “Howl, howl, howl, howl!”ĭuring a Q&A session after a premiere screening on 19 December, Freeman and Abbington discussed the weirdness of a real-life couple acting the tragic end of a relationship. And with Mary taking a bullet meant for Sherlock, Martin Freeman’s Watson let out an extended, escalating, animalistic moan. And thanks to the dramatic impact achieved by director Rachel Talalay, the murder of Mary matched the death of M in Skyfall.Ĭonfronted with a dead friend, her widower and their motherless baby, Cumberbatch’s face (mainly required to remain blank) painted a picture of pain and confusion. The episode felt very Bond overall – Holmes has never done so much running towards or away from explosions. A new sub-plot involving the historical decisions of a villainous woman in Whitehall also logically seemed to lead to Thatcher, but the script again opted to give the BBC press office a quiet holiday. In one respect, Gatiss has even depoliticised the original, which is filled with references to immigrants and refugees, “the outcasts of Europe”. But the point, as Sherlock immediately realises, is that the vandal has no political motivation: he’s looking for something hidden inside a head. Here, the French emperor’s replacement with the former British prime minister has led to some muttering about the BBC’s supposed leftwing bias. The Arthur Conan Doyle story on which Gatiss based his script has busts of Napoleon being smashed by an intruder. But although the franchises have to some extent overlapped, both tending towards tragicomic love stories, viewers knew that as Amanda Abbington lay slain on the floor she would not shimmeringly regenerate into another actor. Sherlock co-creators Steven Moffat and Mark Gatiss also work on Doctor Who, which was awarded the other prime seasonal slot on the BBC on Christmas Day.
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