Young Sherlock

While I have never been a diehard Sherlock Holmes fan, I do enjoy a new take on the famed detective from time to time. My sisters have always loved the Holmes mysteries, but I myself have never read them. The actual closest I got to being a Sherlock Holmes fan was during the worldwide Sherlock era starring Benedict Cumberbatch and Martin Freeman that ran from 2010-2017. Ther BBC Sherlock mania was insane, and people were in love with the modern-day London detective. 

Every several years Sherlock Holmes and Co. always make it back on the screens in some form or another and is usually met with some degree of success (Guy Ritchie's Sherlock Holmes films starring Robert Downey Jr. as Sherlock and Jude Law as Watson, BBC Sherlock series and the more fan-fic inspired movie series, Enola Holmes). Now, Guy Ritchie returns to Victorian London for a new interpretation to the streaming screen, but this time as a young, handsome...juvenile delinquent.

Based on the book series by Andrew Lane, Young Sherlock (played by the charming Hero Fiennes-Tiffin) starts off in prison. The last place you would think a future detective might be, but he's a 19-year-old with too much time on his hands. Clever maybe, but little to no common sense; the reason he's in prison in the first place. After several months behind bars (and actually doing quite well, considering) his older brother, Mycroft, strikes a deal with the government to get Sherlock out and sends him to Oxford University to work. Not like book and study work, but actual physical labor as a cleaner.

Not the most ideal, but it's not prison and at least it isn't Sherlock's family home where his childhood memories continue to haunt him. The death of his little sister, the admittance of his mother to an asylum and the absence of his father who travels. In spite of his best efforts to stay out of trouble while at Oxford, Sherlock always finds himself right in the middle of it; especially after he befriends, James Moriarty, a brilliant science major with a knack for mischief.  

When a lovely Chinese princess arrives at Oxford, unexpected events begin to stack up. A library break in and ancient scrolls stolen, a bomb at a party, murdered professors and all of which lead up to the last people Sherlock expected. His very own family.

All around I really enjoyed the show. Even though it has a slow start, once it picks up, you don't stop moving. Literally. This bizarre Oxford murder case tracks all throughout England, across ocean and in the heart of Paris (and its newest revolution), the ancient ruins of Constantinople and into the mountains of China. I don't think Sherlock Holmes ever traveled outside the British Isles, but it's a new interpretation too. 

The acting on all fronts was beautiful especially from the lead Hero Fiennes-Tiffin. Playing such an iconic character in his youth, when he is still growing and discovering who he is may be overwhelming. One cannot just take the former characterizations of Sherlock Holmes as an adult and expect him to be the same person when he was younger.

Sherlock is reserved and cut off, but childhood trauma caused that. He's smart but he hasn't reached his legendary intelligence and the science of deduction. All of the elements for him to become the Sherlock Holmes of 22B Baker Street are there, but he needs time and experience to reach them. And Hero was remarkable in his own portrayal as the shy, awkward, emotionally scared and starved young man, who is desperate to put the broken pieces of his childhood back together.