New Russian Sherlock Holmes TV series

[Boton]

OK, succumbed to the temptation to watch another one last night while the hubby was out on a consulting job.  I watched "Baskerville Hound."  Literally, if you watch only one episode of this version of Sherlock Holmes, this is the one to watch.  And here's why (but I'll spoiler tag for anyone who wants to experience the jaw-dropping dumb-squizzledness in real time as they watch):

 

 

The episode features Holmes returning from a three-year, post-Reichenbach hiatus, John Watson and Mrs. Hudson married, John Watson almost beating the crud out of Holmes when he returns disguised as Mycroft, drunk Sherlock!, Lestrade almost beating the crud out of Holmes when he reveals his return, the entire plot of the Bruce-Partington plans including West and the trains and the track points, Irene Adler, a flashback of Irene and Holmes making love (very PG), Irene dying at Moriarty's hand, Holmes shooting up the wall of crazy (emblazoned with a drawing of Moriarty's face), Moriarty's return, a plot to assassinate the Queen, Moriarty and Holmes sitting on the edge of the clock face of Big Ben essentially arguing about who's smarter, Moriarty committing suicide, the Queen visiting Holmes, and a hound named Baskerville!

 

 

I got done watching that and muttered, "well, that about covers it, doesn't it?"

 

I swear, whoever wrote these scripts had an old, English-language copy of Conan Doyle and had seen the entire Sherlock series once, illegally, on a grainy bit torrent site when he decided he needed to write a Sherlock Holmes series.

[SherlockedCAMPer]

I'd agree with a dose of laughter as I read it.

[Pawse]

How would you compare / contrast it with the newer Russian show (assuming that you've seen any of the episodes linked to in this thread)?

The 221B Baker Street one is the newer one? :o Haven't actually seen it yet, but since I got the Vasily and Vitaly one, I watched that - amazing! Love it!

[Mateos]

I'm going to be a terrible digger, but I find this series really interesting, especially when it comes to the interpretation of Holmes and Watson. Watson comes back from the war, so his physical strength, energy, agression and simply his masculinity is very natural. Even if he was only a doctor in Afghanistan, he needed to meet tough conditions of the war, so that's exactly how I imagined Watson. It's quite contrasting to with BBC's Watson who is a bit weaker and mixed-up, because of his PTSD. Of course, that's completely understandable - Russian Watson is very Russian, BBC's Watson reflects nowadays soliders after their return to home.

More fascinating in this Russian version is Sherlock who is definetely weaker than Watson. In fact, he is a doormat (I hope that's a good English word to describe his behaviour) and it's Watson who teaches him how to fight and how to be a real man. It's contradictive to the original Doyle's hero, but for me it's really funny and I like it. 

[Pav Krum]

Does anyone know if this Sherlock book is any good? Seems to be new

 

https://www.amazon.com/dp/1520969465/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1490985034&sr=8-1&keywords=Sherlock+The+Last+Gambit

 

 

[Carol the Dabbler]

It was just published (independently) today, so of course there are no reviews yet.  However, Amazon allows us to look inside the book, so I can offer a few observations:

 

Although the title is Sherlock: The Last Gambit, the book has little similarity to the BBC television program Sherlock other than the use of several Conan Doyle characters -- or in this case, their namesake descendants.  Oddly enough, even though the book is set in the fall of 2001, the language has a Victorian flavor, with the main characters addressing each other as "my dear Holmes" and "my dear Watson."

 

The author is apparently Russian -- there is no copyright as such, other than an appeal to respect "the heritage of the Russian culture."  As the back cover points out, "the genre of this book is called 'mystical-philosophical political detective story,'" which describes the tone very nicely.

 

 

[HerlockSholmes]

Hi all,

The Livanov/Solomon Holmes series was very good, spoilt slightly by poor subtitles. Livanov was Margaret Thatchers favourite Holmes! It's not lucky to play Watson in a Russian tv series though. Vitaly Solomin died of a stroke in 2002 (Livanov is still alive and in his 80's) and Andrew Panin, who I thought stole the show in the newer series, was found dead on the floor of his apartment in Moscow in 2013 with an unexplained head wound! I don't know whether they will do another series with a different actor. I don't know how popular the series was in Russia?