Setting Sherlock Holmes in the modern day hasn’t always worked. While many might cite Basil Rathbone as their favourite, only the first two of his 14 films were actually set in the 19th century. The rest were set in the 1940s and gave Joesph Goebbels a run for his money. In the first of them he foils a Nazi invasion and tweely tells Watson in the final scene that while “there’s an east wind coming”, there will be a “greener, better, stronger land” once the wind’s cleared – pretty much exactly what the ‘yanks’ wanted to hear in 1942.
Fortunately, the excellent Sherlock, which is back with Benedict Cumberbatch and Martin Freeman again on board, is neither rancid propaganda or flaccid melodrama. It’s a modern day adaptation masterclass, particularly the second episode, ‘The Hounds of Baskerville’, a riveting reshaping of Conan Doyle’s finest hour/hound. But given that the final part of the three-episode season is entitled ‘The Reichenbach Fall’, will Holmes be back for a third?
Proving that even press releases can be mysterious, the first line of the promo for Girl Model, which claimed it “shows a rarely seen side of the fashion industry”, had me thinking it was going to be a feel-good hurrah about a regulated, responsible industry, not a depiction of exploited, soon-to-be bulimic, eastern European models two days away from prostitution should they say the wrong thing. Oh, and here’s the second line: “Ashley, an American former model, travels to remote Siberian villages to scout young teenaged girls for fashion shoots in Japan.” Good work. Keep up the appalling behaviour and we’ll carry on blindly keeping you all in nylon tights.
Elsewhere, Mixed Britannia (BBC World, Fri 20:30) looks at Britain’s immigration history; Mixed Up In The Middle East (BBC World, Sun 21:10) follows a British girl with half Arab/half Jewish parents who visits the Middle East for the first time; Chelsea vs Manchester United (Sun 16:30) and Liverpool vs Tottenham (Mon 20:55) are the pick of K6’s PL games; and in How to Lose Friends and Alienate People (DR HD, Tue 21:25) Simon Pegg demonstrates how making a US film can be the quickest way to lose friends and alienate people in your own country.
