Sherlock - die Serie

outpostskaro.com schrieb:

The original idea behind Sherlock was a much longer series of one hour episodes, and to prove it could be done, Steven Moffat and Mark Gatiss created and filmed a pilot episode a few months before the three part 90-minute films came about.

Fortunately for them, the BBC wanted a reshoot and a new format, so this one hour version of A Study In Pink was surplace to requirements. It finds its way, though, onto the DVD Boxset, available from 2Entertain.

It is an oddity, that's for sure, and shows a different version and, more importantly, vision, to the one we got to see - and what will no doubt be known, soon, as "canon" - and the interest isn't really on what happens in it - as the story remains at least in the first two acts the same - but more what doesn't.

The biggest "doesn't" is the lack of Paul McGuigan as director. Goky Giedroyc has director duties in this pilot, and, despite working on Blackpool shows a distinct lack of flair for the visuals which made the real Study In Pink so great. It's a straight forward point-and-shoot affair which is someway stunts the actors performances. There is that effect-de-jour of "bullet time" seen in things like The Eleventh Hour and of course McGuigan's ASIP but this seems to be in the script rather than an innovation. It isn't badly directly, but it is much flatter. There are none of those nifty on screen graphics for instance.

Cumberbatch comes across much more personably in this version, however, much less "Brett", and this will be a matter of taste whether you like that or not. Freeman is much as he was, although the extra half hour does bulk out his story and gives him more to do, and the ending makes more sense in the aired episode.

The final act is one of two things - much longer, for a start, and it makes much more sense, with the original version taking place in Holmes' flat and having him drugged it misses out that whole "chasing the cab" scene - but in return adds the fact that Holmes knows almost immediately that the killer IS a cabbie.

All in all this isn't a bad episode - if we had got this instead of what we got we would have though "yep, that's ok that," but comparing the two is a difficult thing to do because it invariably means criticising the original simply because McGuigan's aired version is richer, cleverer and better in everyway.