Bringing back to life

My primary grievance against my favourite authors has always been that most of them chose to limit their creative output when it came to their most memorable fictional characters. Every Wodehousian fan will wish there were more Jeeves and Wooster stories to chuckle at and I was quite depressed when I finished the last of the Potter books. It was no different for me with everyone’s favourite detective Sherlock Holmes. Of course, you can keep going back and re-read the canon and watch Jeremy Brent in the BBC adaptation, but there can be no encore when it comes to bringing the character back to life, is there?

So, I have really relished the BBC television series “Sherlock” where Benedict Cumberbatch plays the detective and Martin Freeman plays the re-invented side-kick John Watson. And talking about re-invention, that is the best part of this series for me. It is easy to make a spoof and a commercially sound strategy to borrow a few references to colour your own stories, but it is an entirely different matter to re-invent the characters in a modern day setting and employ numerous canonical references that the fans would appreciate and enjoy. And here is a stellar job on that score.

Holmes continues to be a scientific practitioner of the art of detection; he now has smartphones (an Iphone by the way…hmmm…fodder for a good argumentative discussion) and more advanced forensic tools to aid him. Watson is a tad smarter and at times leaves you thinking that he is in love with Holmes – Mr Milk, take a bow ! But the best of all, I have found one of my favourite villains till date in Andrew Scott’s Moriarty. You got to watch the second season to really enjoy his portrayal.

And guess what, as all good things in life and fiction, there are just three episodes to each of the first two seasons. Best chance for even the non-Holmesians amongst my friends to catch up on some quality drama.