Sherlock: Season 2 [Blu-ray]

While Season One of BBC's SHERLOCK was insanely entertaining, incredibly intelligent, and remarkably well-acted, just three episodes wasn't enough. Steven Moffat and Mark Gatiss did an extraordinary thing with the iconic tales of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle: They MODERNIZED it. While that isn't a particularly remarkable thing in and of itself, what REALLY is extraordinary about this series is that the modernization WORKED flawlessly.This season (which just ended last night in the U.S. being broadcast on PBS with some rather controversial editing since apparently eight minutes of each episode had to be chopped off to make room for PBS advertising) was not just better than the first season, it was more involving from a character standpoint. We got a much better glimpse into the souls of Sherlock Holmes (the wonderful Benedict Cumberbatch, who is rapidly becoming one of the hardest working men in Hollywood as well) and his faithful companion Dr. John Watson (the equally great Martin Freeman). The wonderful thing that this show has done since its inception has been to not marginalize the friendship between Holmes and Watson, but also not marginalizing Watson himself. While he is in constant awe of Holmes' remarkable deductive skills, he's also his own man and not the plump, blundering buffoonish character of old adaptations, and he makes important contributions to each case.This season does only give us three more episodes, but each episode is essentially one feature-length film. The first episode is the best of the entire series yet, "A Scandal In Belgravia", which introduces this incarnation of Sherlock Holmes to the character of Irene Adler, who casual fans of the detective have seen as portrayed by Rachel McAdams in both of the Downey Jr./Law SHERLOCK HOLMES films. She is originally, as portrayed in Guy Ritchie's entertaining films, an American who moves to Europe and becomes a "courtesan" who is something of a foil and love interest for Holmes. In this episode though, Adler (Lara Pulver of MI-5) is a dominatrix who has enough secrets on her mobile phone to practically bring down the entirety of England. She enters into something of a game of obsession with Holmes. This game does bring other players, naturally, and soon Holmes is looking at something much larger. Cumberbatch and Pulver bring a very heightened sense of sexual tension to their scenes together, as Holmes feels something more for this woman than for any other woman in his life. Although, I have to say that arguably my favorite part in this episode is where we see how strong the bonds are between Holmes and his maternal landlady Mrs. Hudson (the wonderful Una Stubbs). The message is clear: Don't mess with the friends of Sherlock Holmes.Then comes "The Hounds of Baskerville", which is the least of this season. A troubled young man comes to Holmes and Watson with the tale of a gigantic hound that killed his father years before in the countryside area of Dartmoor. At first, Holmes is astonishingly bored with the idea of this case, but something the young man says specifically pricks up his ears and the game is afoot. Also in Dartmoor is a government research facility called Baskerville, where apparently many secret experiments are being done, including genetic research. Could there be a military experiment of the creation of a huge dog? Is the explanation more complex even than that? There were many things to love about this episode, with one of my favorite moments being that of Holmes trying to quit smoking and references a "seven percent solution", but this was the only episode when I felt like I was ahead of Holmes and exactly what was happening and how it was happening. It still works and it is still very entertaining, particularly Cumberbatch's performance as he first truly feels the effects of fear and panic for perhaps the first time in his life.Finally, we have "The Reichenbach Fall", which is a reference to the final confrontation between Holmes and his arch-nemesis James Moriarty. This episode, like the finale of the first season "The Great Game", is extremely dark and foreboding, as well it should be since you can't really have a light-hearted take on the mental combat between Holmes and Moriarty (played with flamboyant and psychotic relish by Andrew Scott). There's nothing I really want to say about this episode that can do it justice, but it's incredibly smart, incredibly tense and incredibly disturbing.The other thing that the show has been so brilliant at doing is giving a more realistic (and more modern) take on the friendship between Holmes and Watson. It never tries to imply that they are more than friends, but the hordes of readers and critics of the Holmes/Watson partnership over the decades have done enough examinations of their own to come to the illogical conclusion that Holmes and Watson are lovers. These people are repeatedly poked fun at via the voice of Watson as he reads or hears or sees people who see the two of them as lovers, which is a bit of a running gag throughout the season, and Freeman plays it perfectly with just the right mixture of offense and incredulity. The other primary relationship here is that of Sherlock's relationship with his brother Mycroft (played by Mark Gatiss). Their relationship is strained beyond repair, but there's something touching about Mycroft's concern for his younger brother while at the same time, as in "A Scandal in Belgravia", where Mycroft knows his brother's incapability to work within the confines of normal society.It's always a joy to see a program about extremely intelligent people that is created by extremely intelligent people. While I've never been a fan of DOCTOR WHO, I was extremely impressed with Moffat's updating of the Jekyll/Hyde tale in the series JEKYLL with the great James Nesbitt.SHERLOCK will have "competition" soon on U.S. television as the upcoming CBS series ELEMENTARY with Johnny Lee Miller as Holmes and Lucy Liu as Watson (?) in yet another update, but apparently with the added attraction of doing some gender-bending. If this is anything like all the other procedural mysteries on CBS, it will probably be hugely successful from a ratings standpoint, but will be a massive creative failure. But it might well get people interested in this series, and that might just be good enough.

what can i say? it's the single most outlandish, questionable notion ever to ultimately pay off!!we Sherlockians tend hear much about what's supposedly essential. we're told, for instance, that it's utterly vital that it take place on the proverbial "foggy night in Old London Town"...even though the only major fog Conan Doyle wrote, in THE HOUND OF THE BASKERVILLES, was way out in the country! we're told how he absolutely must wear that Inverness-and-deerstalker ensemble...even though Doyle had nothing to do with that; it was illustrator Sidney Paget's contribution. (and the focus of a priceless inside-joke, by the way.) we're told how absolutely imperative it is for something somewhere to be "elementary my dear Watson"...despite the fact that that little catchphrase, on top of being rather onerous, technically sprang from Hollywood. well, looks like the Victorian England setting wasn't exactly mandatory, either.i don't expect SHERLOCK to put any of that persnicketty snobbishness to rest, but it should more than convince the open mind of the dangers of such snobbery. the truly preposterous notion of updating the Great Consulting Detective works because creators Steven Moffat and Mark Gatiss knew which elements were indeed indispensible. (by the way, i'm sure i'll be accused of being biased toward the series by those who recognize Moffat as the current leader of my all-time favorite tv series, DOCTOR WHO. well, maybe, but i was just as much biased by the fact that Sherlock is my all-time favorite literary character.)ironically, Benedict Cumberbatch is not only a thoroughly faithfull portrayal of Our Hero, he may be the single most faithfull in years. one of Moffat's goals way to sidestep the cliche' of Sherlock and Dr. Watson being in their 40s or 50s and depict them as Doyle wrote them, young men when they met. this makes room for completely Canonical ideas and nuances that would be cancelled out if they were played by the usual middle-aged actors. we get to see the charactes develop, rather than act on the assumption that they were born into the characters we recognize and remember. THE HOUNDS OF BASKERVILLE, for instance, features a poignant subplot in which Sherlock deals with his very first bout of doubt, confronts (ostensibly for the first time) the possibility that he is fallible. yu won't get that sort of thing from Rathbone and Bruce or Downey and Law. or even Brett and Burke/Hardwicke, really.the three stories as well are a bit outlandish...and quite compelling largely for that very reason. i'm not sure if it takes more imagination or gumption to turn Irene Adler into a dominatrix, or convert THE HOUND OF THE BASKERVILLES from a haunted house story to a tale of an army base shrouded not in fog but conspiracy theroies. as for No. 3, which i was particulrly looking forward to because it's based on one of my very favorite adventures, "The Final Problem," it's embellishments actually managed to add a degree of dimension (not least of which via Moriarty's convoluted schem to discredit Our Hero). i must admit that i wasn't sure about actor Andrew Scott and his exaggerated "homo" take on the Napoleon Of Crime...but i have to admit that he ultimately creeps me out and then some.(as it happens, the DVD of SHERLOCK HOLMES: A GAME OF SHADOWS finally turned up just before i wrote this. check out Jared Harris' more conventional Moriarty as well as Scott's hammed-up version, and tell me if you'd like to meet either down the proverbial dark alley on the proverbial dark night.)one of my favorite lines from a Sherlock movie is, ironically, from the parody WITHOUT A CLUE. the plot concerns a Watson who is himself a crime-solving wizard, but who, for fear of how it might reflect on his professional standing, created a fictional cipher to take the credit. the ploy backfired, and public interest in this Sherlock Holmes ultimately led him to hire a drunken, out-of-work actor to portray his creation. early in the film, after a spat and subsequent separation, "Holmes" chides Watson: "you might've created me, but now Sherlock Holmes belongs to the world." that could well be the single most succinct description for art in general that i've ever heard. (well, successful art, anyway.)SHERLOCK neatly exeplifies what the world can do with the art it owns, provided it's handled by owners who understand it, appreciate it, LOVE it. and so does WITHOUT A CLUE, for that matter.

Once you discovered this series you can't stop watching it. Being each season made by few episodes, the waiting for next season to come has always been hard! What I love about that is that probably is the best and most accurate adapation of Sherlock Holmes, although being set in modern times and updated to contemporary sensibility and way of life. And yet it preserves the spirit of the novels and characters much more than other films (I think about horrible Guy Ritchie's films, that are just modern on the surface, but they all focus on special effects without saying nothing about chracters, places, settings, and the world behind those detections).It is a perfect series from any point of view, and the ability was to show how still great it can be even if they use smartphone and internet. Indeed, te brilliant thing is that they perfectly adapt original elements to contemporary world: so Watson's diary become a blog, Sherlock's ambiguity is not just a matter of homosexual attraction to Watson but a more complex question about him not belonging to the common people and world (which is a distinctive quality and also a damnation), and even the smartest direction ideas (like mobile texts popping up on screen, or some montage and editing cuts) are not just showing off but a way to make it appealing without betraying the true spirit of the books.It has the merit to having launched great actors who became stars (Benedict is truly great). The blu ray is incredibly good

I only finished watching these discs three days ago, but I'm missing them already! Like Season 1, this is a mini-series of three eighty-seven minute TV movies, based on stories by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle but reshaping them very freely. Up for re-imagining this time are Sir Arthur's A Scandal in Bohemia, The Hound of the Baskervilles and The Final Problem.The series continues to be an unalloyed pleasure. The writing is wonderfully ingenious in the way it contrives both to honour Conan Doyle's invention and to give us the pleasure of surprise by constructing enthralling new plots on Sir Arthur's robust foundations. And the acting, as before, is a joy. Benedict Cumberbatch and Martin Freeman must surely be at least as good a Holmes and Watson as any of their splendid predecessors; Moriarty is played superbly, Mycroft sublimely, Mrs Hudson delightfully - there are no weak links at all. Sherlock's heartbreakingly endearing pathologist is, in her way, as perfect as a Mozart sonata.The extras comprise commentaries and an entertaining nineteen minute behind the scenes featurette. The quality of the picture and sound are fine, if not quite the equal of the very best. But nothing should put you off buying this unmissable collection. After watching the stunning cliffhanger that concludes the final episode, I'll be spending many a happy hour wondering how on earth Mr Moffat and Mr Gatiss are going to solve the problem that they've set themselves in launching Season 3...!

Conan Doyle's great fictional detective is as appealing as ever in a clever and intelligent updating of the stories and themes. The pairing of Benedict Cumberbatch (as Sherlock Holmes) and Martin Freeman (as Dr John Watson) works a treat. Lively and visually stunning, with great performances even in minor roles, stunning cinematography and some great locations this is one of the BBC's greatest moments in decades - yes, for me even better than the return of Dr Who. Devised and written by Dr Who's Steven Moffatt and the always amazing Mark Gatiss (actor, author, director) best known for The League of Gentlemen, I get something new out of every episode each time I watch them. Supporting roles by Una Stubbs (a delightfully dizzy Mrs Hudson), Mark Gatiss (Mycroft at his most enigmatic) and especially the mesmerizing Andrew Scott as a psychotic Moriarty help add up to the most invigorating and original retelling yet of the Holmes mysteries. The music is also fantastic.

I saw both series of Sherlock on TV and found them compulsive viewing. I didn't really like the idea of bringing Sherlock Holmes into the present day, but once I saw one episode I was hooked. I didn't get the DVD of series 1 for quite a while, but saw it at a bargain price and got it. I watched it though in two sittings and after watching the first two episodes I immediately went on Amazon to order series 2. It didn't disappoint (I knew it wouldn't, as I'd already seen it on TV). Benedict Cumberbatch and Martin Freeman are just superb as Holmes and Watson, and Andrew Scott as Moriarty is one of the best villains of all time. The plots and dialogue are clever but there is also a wonderful strand of humour running through each episode. One of the most entertaining TV programmes I've ever seen and one I'll watch over and over again.

sherlock is great. action,fear,drama have been combined into one great series. it's wonderfull how all the peices of evidence finally peice together at the end of the episode. but one stood out for me,- the finale. it just kept building and building till........ i'm sorry i can't tell you the rest it would spoil it but what I can say is the ending very much like that of the italian job. your left wondering- was it this? or was it that? and that for me is the beauty of sherlock. it makes you think and watch hard. each case is wonderful in its own right. my only one critisism would be the lack of episodes (only three!) but overall this series is well worth the money- I strongly recomend you buy it if over 8.