Where to begin?

I have watched a lot of television in my 43 years…and I mean A LOT. I have watched a lot of movies, read a lot of books, listened to a lot of music, read a lot of plays and poetry and feel somewhat informed about the act and art of creativity. So it is not without a certain amount of albeit amateur knowledge that I feel confident in saying the new British television series Sherlock may be the best television series ever made. I mean it…ever.

The premise is simply to take Arthur Conan Doyle’s incredible character Sherlock Holmes and bring him into modern day London. It is virtually identical to the original stories in every other way.

It is a brilliant combination of all that television/movies can be – the marriage of visual, written and musical art into one finely tuned masterpiece. The casting of the characters is flawless and the performances of the actors are very good – especially that of Benedict Cumberbatch (best name ever BTW) as Sherlock Holmes.

The writing is exceptional and maintains a high level of tension throughout while allowing for the humour of the relationship that is Sherlock Holmes and Dr. John Watson.

It may be hard to believe but the cinematography and the film editing are good enough to almost be considered legitimate characters. One of the reasons the show works as well as it does is that it seems to be complete uncompromising for the sake of its art. For instance the series is only three episodes long…and each episode is 90 minutes. Nobody does that…nobody but the creators of Sherlock which suggests they did it because they had to in order to make it work. The chose to ignore some pretty standard conventions and this bodes well for the future as the BBC has confirmed its renewal.

All that to say you are only hurting yourself if you don’t watch it – it is that good.

I should also say that while I enjoyed the Robert Downey Jr./Jude Law take on Holmes as an action hero its luster is significantly reduced by this brilliant new take on the detective.