I'd like to start off with a disclaimer. Although I have consumed quite a bit of Conan Doyle's original work, I am by no means a Sherlock Holmes expert. I have read at the very least: A Study in Scarlet (the introductory story where Watson and Holmes meet), The Hound of the Baskervilles (a book length Sherlock story), A Scandal in Belgravia (the story that introduces Irene Adler aka the woman), and a few others whose names I cannot recall at the moment. I know a bit more about the character quirks of our favorite sleuth than someone who has consumed a similar amount of these works might because my dad's friend was super into Sherlock Holmes and used to write fanfiction about him. This meant that he would talk with my dad about the detective in front of me and I would pick up tidbits that I hadn't gleaned from my own reading. I have also watched many adaptations. We used to watch the Masterpiece Theatre adaptations starring Jeremy Brett as the titular detective when I was a child and I know more stories from this adaptation than from reading the original books, although my father owned The Complete works of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and I reread my favorite A Scandal in Belgravia about a half-dozen times when I was a kid.
That being said, I do remember quite a bit about what I did read from the original and I was able to recognize little easter egg nods to it as well as appreciate the ways in which Sherlock became its own story entirely. The first element I'd like to discuss is the characters.
In the original, you don't get much insight into Sherlock's actual character because you always see him through the lens of JohnWatson. Now, I'm not saying that John is necessarily an unreliable narrator, but he's definitely not as observant as Sherlock. Watson always views Sherlock with this kind of respectful awe, but he also notes that he's different. In one of the original stories, Watson notices that Sherlock lacks some knowledge that is common knowledge to other people simply because he deems it unimportant. Sherlock tells John that his brain is like an attic and it can only store so much stuff so he throws out extraneous knowledge. The line in the show is updated to "My brain is like a hard drive, it only has so much space so I delete unnecessary files." Little things like this made the show for me.
Throughout the show Sherlock refers to himself as a "high-functioning sociopath" correcting a police detective who likes to call him a psychopath. I like the little details about Sherlock's character that remained the same and he does seem like he might be asexual although I know there are a lot of people who ship him with John. I'm not denying that the two have an amazing friendship and great chemistry, but I think Sherlock works better as an asexual character. However, Sherlock is shown to care deeply about the people he holds dear, which isn't common in people with sociopathy. When they are threatened, for instance, he allows his reputation to be tarnished to keep them safe. I would say Jim Moriarty is more of a sociopath/psychopath.
Sherlock is a good actor. He often changes his tone and inflection to elicit a response from others, whether that is anger and outrage or sympathy. He does this in order to learn things he has yet to observe or things he can't figure out from the information that he already has. All these little facets of Sherlocks character are nuances that the show added because it was necessary to flush out his character a little bit more than oddly brilliant detective who gets bored and does drugs or plays the violin to keep his brain busy.
John's character is also flushed out a bit in the series. He is an adrenaline junky, which explains why he hangs around Sherlock. This added element to his character elevates their relationship a couple notches from what it was in the books. No longer is Watson a passive observer, he invites the danger and he loves the chase.
In the first episode John kills a man who is trying to manipulate Sherlock into taking a poison tablet. So the case, A Study in Pink is a modernized version of A Study in Scarlet. A woman is found in an apparent suicide one of a string of similar cases which no one seems able to link. She has scratched a message into the wood with her fingernails, not an easy task. It is Rache which someone observes is a German word, but Sherlock, based on other clues, decides it is a name she didn't get to finish writing. He takes in the entire scene and asks where her luggage bag is. This is because he can tell from the splash that she had one and that she doesn't appear the type to leave it somewhere. He looks around and finds it in a dumpster. Her phone isn't in it. She planted it on her murderer. So Sherlock is able to meet with the man who has been murdering people and he explains what he's been doing. He has two identical pills, one contains poison, the other is harmless. He lays them out in front of the victim and has them choose one. Sherlock asks him what happens if he doesn't choose. The man draws a gun, which Sherlock immediately recognizes as fake. He tells the man to shoot him, calling his bluff. But the man is trying to goad Sherlock into playing anyway. John figures out what Sherlock is doing and traces him, but he goes into the wrong building and ends up in the building next door to the one Sherlock and the murderer are in. Just before Sherlock can take the pill, the man is shot.
After the police get there, Sherlock privately observes to John that the man who did the shooting must have been in the military, indicated that he knows what Watson has done and he doesn't intend to tell. This cements their friendship which is a large part of the show and a driving element of what makes it so good. Many of the elements of this show, the unexplained deaths, the carving of a message from one of the dying victims, etc, were in the original story. The cool thing was how they modernized the story to fit modern times. Sherlock and John's first meeting is a prime example of this. In the book, John has just come back from the war and he is looking for an apartment but doesn't seem to think anyone would be willing to share the expense with him. The friend he is talking to tells him he is the second person to say that two him today. The first person being Sherlock. It plays out exactly like this in the show as well. When John meets Sherlock, Sherlock asks him "Iraq or Afganistan" in the original it was something similar, but I'm pretty sure it was two places soldiers were commonly stationed at the time and I don't remember exactly which places they were. John reasons that someone must have told Sherlock about his military service, their mutual friend perhaps. Sherlock instead tells John everything he has observed about him including from his phone (in the story it was his watch) when he borrowed it briefly, and everything is spot on.
There are some characters that were added. Anderson, who is a pithy side character always exchanging jabs with Sherlock. Anderson works with the forensics branch of homicide investigation. The chief inspector has the same name as the one in the stories, Lestrade. His character is way more nuanced in the show, though. In the stories, he's kind of an idiot. In the show, he's just in over his head. There is also the added character of Sally Donovan, a deputy inspector who dislikes Sherlock and warns John that he should stay away from the man. Donovan is a chief player in Moriarty's eventual scheme to bring Sherlock down, but she doesn't do it intentionally. She just leaps to the conclusion that Moriarty has guided her towards. We don't see much of Donovan in the last two seasons, if I recall. Perhaps that is because she served her purpose.
The character of Molly Hooper is an added character that I thoroughly enjoyed. I believe she is supposed to be a fan self-insert type character. She is a mortician who has a huge crush on Sherlock. Despite all his observational abilities, he seems completely oblivious to this fact. It is through this crush that we see how Sherlock's use of his skills can hurt the people around him. For instance, he observes that he thinks the man she is dating is gay (it turns out to be Jim Moriarty in disguise, so only kinda gay) I mean there is a certain homoeroticism to his relationship with Sherlock. In another instance, Sherlock observes that Molly has taken extra care with one of her Christmas presents and muses that she must have found herself a new boyfriend, she runs away and Sherlock sees that the name on the present is his own, but it is not until the very last season that this comes to a heartbreaking climax. I will not spoil it for those of you who may not have seen it, but it is totally worth the watch if only for this moment.
Now we come to the character of Mary Watson. As anyone who has read the stories knows, Mary Watson does not live long. She is killed at some point, so I knew when her character was introduced that this was the probable inevitability. So Mary is introduced in the first episode of season three. Everyone thinks Sherlock is dead. Watson has moved on, he is dating someone. Sherlock shows up at the restaurant where he is about to propose to the woman and disguises himself as the waiter. John doesn't notice at first and when he does, he goes ballistic. Sherlock let him think he was dead for two whole years, there's a lot of anger there. So after getting kicked out of the restaurant for having a fist fight, then another place because John attacked Sherlock again in the middle of his story of what happened. Mary tends to their wounds and calms John down. Then, John proposes and Mary says yes.
Mary Watson has to be the best development of a character who, in the stories, was just a distraction, into the most nuanced and beautiful character that the moment she dies rips you in half. I loved her character. I loved that Sherlock ended up loving her (in a completely platonic way of course) despite the fact that she kept secrets. It could be argued that all of the people Sherlock cares deeply about have some hidden side to them. Mrs. Hudson has some kind of a shady past connection to a drug cartel. John is an adrenaline junkie. And Mary, Mary is an assassin. Or, at least, she was. This doesn't come out until after the wedding. I love how Sherlock reveals how much he cares about John in his best man speech despite trying to catch a killer who has somehow infiltrated the wedding and is gunning for one of the guests. It's great character development to show flashes to Sherlock standing speechless as he explains all the ways he thanked John for the offer, but he finishes by saying "it turns out I had said none of this aloud".
Okay, so lets talk about the villains. Of course you all know the big bad Jim Moriarty (James in the original stories). He stays mostly behind the scenes in the first few episodes, only coming out to play in the last episode of the season where he has Sherlock complete a series of puzzles culminating with him kidnapping John and threatening his life. Sherlock gives in to Jim's demands and rescues John just in the nick of time from the bomb that is strapped to his chest. As the series continues it turns out that, just as Sherlock is what they consider a consulting detective, Jim is a consulting criminal. He has his hand in every pie and he just loves playing with Sherlock. Jim is the perfect foil to Sherlock. He is brilliant and there is no limit to what he is willing to do. The rooftop exchange between the two of them and Sherlock's subsequent conversation with John is some of the best writing I've seen in a drama series ever.
Besides for Jim, there are minor villains. Irene Adler (who is more of a grey character than all out villian) who bests Sherlock, but perhaps also has feelings for him. She ends up being on Moriarty's payroll as well, but the culmination of her character arc was brilliant. Since the story with her character in it is the one I read the most growing up, and my favorite Sherlock story of all time, I was super interested in how they were going to portray her character. I loved that they made her a dominatrix and that she chose to greet Sherlock naked for their first meeting to confuse him. Everything about her arc was done brilliantly and I really appreciated how they modernized it.
Magnussen was a villain only brilliant in that he was thoroughly detestable and the only qualm the audience has with Sherlock killing him at the end of season three is that he is going to face some kind of consequence for doing it. You see, Magnussen is the reason that Mary Watson's secret comes out, and he is blackmailing her with it. To protect her, Sherlock meets with Magnussen and learns that he doesn't actually have physical copies of the documents he's using to blackmail her, they are filed away in his brain. In other words, the only way to destroy them is to destroy him. So Sherlock does what he needs to to protect the people he loves. Because Mycroft is basically one of the highest people in the British Government, he is able to make it so as long as Sherlock leaves the country he doesn't face charges. Sherlock gets on a plane and the season ends with all TV screens playing a video short with Jim Moriarty's face saying "Did you miss me?" on loop. They decide not to send Sherlock away after all.
Other notable villains: the driver from A Study in Pink, the tribute to HH Holmes, and Sherlock's sister Euros. I'm not really going to talk about these villains much as I've already written a pretty long post, but they are all interesting in their own right, especially Euros.
Sherlock is one of the few pieces of media that I would say improved on the source material. It is, without a doubt, the best adaptation of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's character that I've ever seen. It is brilliantly acted. The writing is excellent. I thoroughly enjoyed the character development and the dialog. All the plots are nuanced and well executed. It is just a brilliant piece of work. I'd like to see more, but it's at the point that I don't want them to ruin it by making more.
Thanks for reading, tune in next time as I compare Good Omens the mini-series to the book by Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett.
