Bendict Who? The consummate TV Sherlock Holmes (Jeremy Brett) returns with his loyal friend Doctor John H. Watson (Edward Hardwicke) in another series of fighting the foes of civilization.
Unfortunately, the ravages of time and illness have taken their toll on Brett. He looks bad (accentuated by the incessant close-ups). Somewhere in the middle of "The Return of Sherlock Holmes" Brett began sounding like he had a permanent head-cold. That's gotten a lot worse.
The big take-away from this series is "The Boscombe Valley Mystery." It's almost like the glory days of the first two series. "The Disappearance of Lady Carfax" with guest stars Cheryl Campbell and Michael Jayston is acceptable, despite the changes to the story, the exreme downer ending, and the fact that Holmes spends the first part of the story playing with toys. "Shoscombe Old Place" sticks closely to the story but the Charles Augustus Milverton-based "The Master Blackmailer" is only good for a welcome appearance of Colin Jeavon's Lestrade, which is as iconic as Brett's Holmes. "The Last Vampire" marks a nadir not only for this series but the entire Brett/Holmes era. The other episodes, while not so dreadful as "Vampire," are unremarkable.
Jeremy Brett's reign as Sherlock Holmes was welcome from the start and Holmes/Watson fans rejoiced. But Brett's unfortunately failing physical and mental facilities (a sad story worthy of a TV movie of the week) unfortunately wrecked our hopes. By the final series, Charles Gray's Mycroft was picking up too much slack.
Too, the stories were given too much licence and produced weird anomalies.
"The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes" with Brett still stands as the best Sherlock Holmes series I've ever seen and "The Return of Sherlock Holmes," despite the changed Watson, while only occasionally touching those initial Olympian heights, is quite good. By "The Casebook of Sherlock Holmes" the whole shebang was unraveling. What a shame.
The best few episodes still stand up as first-rate Holmes. The rest . . . Oh, the humanity!
Unfortunately, the ravages of time and illness have taken their toll on Brett. He looks bad (accentuated by the incessant close-ups). Somewhere in the middle of "The Return of Sherlock Holmes" Brett began sounding like he had a permanent head-cold. That's gotten a lot worse.
The big take-away from this series is "The Boscombe Valley Mystery." It's almost like the glory days of the first two series. "The Disappearance of Lady Carfax" with guest stars Cheryl Campbell and Michael Jayston is acceptable, despite the changes to the story, the exreme downer ending, and the fact that Holmes spends the first part of the story playing with toys. "Shoscombe Old Place" sticks closely to the story but the Charles Augustus Milverton-based "The Master Blackmailer" is only good for a welcome appearance of Colin Jeavon's Lestrade, which is as iconic as Brett's Holmes. "The Last Vampire" marks a nadir not only for this series but the entire Brett/Holmes era. The other episodes, while not so dreadful as "Vampire," are unremarkable.
Jeremy Brett's reign as Sherlock Holmes was welcome from the start and Holmes/Watson fans rejoiced. But Brett's unfortunately failing physical and mental facilities (a sad story worthy of a TV movie of the week) unfortunately wrecked our hopes. By the final series, Charles Gray's Mycroft was picking up too much slack.
Too, the stories were given too much licence and produced weird anomalies.
"The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes" with Brett still stands as the best Sherlock Holmes series I've ever seen and "The Return of Sherlock Holmes," despite the changed Watson, while only occasionally touching those initial Olympian heights, is quite good. By "The Casebook of Sherlock Holmes" the whole shebang was unraveling. What a shame.
The best few episodes still stand up as first-rate Holmes. The rest . . . Oh, the humanity!