Sherlock Holmes is back and on PBS in the US, after having been on BBC in England some time ago. Created by Steven Moffat (who is in charge of Dr. Who now) and Mark Gattis, this version updates Sherlock to modern day England. I’m running late on reviews, since Episode 1 was shown a week ago and Episode 2 was last night. Each episode is 90 minutes and there are only 3 episodes this season, although future seasons have been planned. So, how was Sherlock?

Sherlock Holmes (played by Benedict Cumberbatch) is a consultant to the police when they get in over their heads. At the start of the episode he gets  new roommate, Dr John Watson (played by Martin Freeman who was in the British Office, The Hitchhikers Guide movie and soon to be Bilbo Baggins in The Hobbit) as an ex-Afghanistan war veteran who hasn’t quite adjusted to being back in London. Sherlock is called in to help the police in a strange string of suicides, where the victims take poison apparently willingly with no evidence of foul play. When the latest victim leaves a message, Holmes is brought in to investigate. Meanwhile, Watson has a leg injury that everyone (and I do mean everyone) thinks is psychosomatic and a self-described arch-enemy (played by creator Mark Gattis) of Holmes has asked Watson to give him report s on Holmes.

What I liked about the show is that not everyone likes or trusts Holmes. One police officer is worried that Holmes will get bored solving crimes and start committing them. And it’s shown that even the police that use Holmes don’t completely trust him. Also, the writers show Holmes as a extremely attentive genius without resorting to the usual idiocies (such as it’s a murderer is found by identifying mud that is only in one location in England). The way the director shows how Holmes makes his deductions is clever and well done. But, at least in episode 1, I didn’t like the bad guy (although I did like how he played with Holmes’ ego). The bad guy seemed fairly silly (although there was a Princess Bride reference to his murder technique) and the way his story ended seemed a little too pat.

Overall, it’s a well done and fun series that looks like it will be a short, but interesting story to watch. Recommended.