Sherlock Holmes and Doctor Watson (TV 1980) - the forgotten series.

[stuartfanning]

Produced in 1980 and starring Geoffrey Whitehead as Sherlock Holmes, Donald Pickering as Doctor Watson and Patrick Newell as Inspector Lestrade, this 24 episode series has been largely forgotten. Apart from in Italy it has never been released on VHS or DVD. Luckily for us episodes have been placed on YouTube, so use the link below to check them out.

 

[Arcadia]

I had to laugh at the fuzzy video quality at the beginning ... my, how times have changed. Anyway, interesting! I note we have a fairly youthful Holmes here. And blond! Has there ever been a blond Holmes before?

[joanneta1]

This was the best series ever to introduce my students to Sherlock Holmes: a co-production with Polish television, it included Workbooks to each VHS video released: I made a lot of my students Sherlock Holmes fans just by making them study the language therein. My favourite is the one with the baby, way ahead of its age: the sleuth and his faithful chronicler having to take care of her; and the one with the black candles, so reminiscent of The Devil's Foot! I still have some of the workbooks and the videos, and the music was singularly good!

[softmachine]

how interesting!! Must set aside some time to watch this fully!

 

many many thanks for posting about this!

[Nick_Hopkins]

Thanks for posting about this.

 

I really enjoyed the first episode. Geoffrey Whitehead is a fine actor and it was interesting to see Patrick Newell (later Blessington in Adventures of course) as Lestrade.

 

I am interested to learn there were workbooks published (in Polish I presume?).

 

It's a shame that this series has been forgotten over the years.

[Arcadia]

Yeah, I'm looking forward to this one, still on my watch list ... aghghgh, so much to see, so little time!! :(

[Inge l-w]

That was an interesting series, because it created new cases while respecting the original ones. And MacMillan was an English publishing firm, so the workbooks were for foreigners who were learning the language, definitely not in Polish.

[Nick_Hopkins]

That was an interesting series, because it created new cases while respecting the original ones. And MacMillan was an English publishing firm, so the workbooks were for foreigners who were learning the language, definitely not in Polish.

 

Thanks for the additional information. I presume that they are pretty scarce nowadays.

[Pawse]

Surprisingly, one I didn't know was filmed.

[HerlockSholmes]

This series is now available in a German box set. The booklet that comes with it is in German (naturally) but it's well worth getting. I've seen the series before but I haven't watched this box set yet as my DVD player is broken!

[Carol the Dabbler]

Are the German DVDs dubbed in German?

[HerlockSholmes]

Are the German DVDs dubbed in German?

No, I emailed and asked the question first. The website on the case is www.fernsehjuwelen.de.

It's a 4 cd set, I think that I paid around £35.

 

I haven't watched them yet (although I've seen the series before) because my DVD player is bust and I wont be getting a new one until October so I can't comment on the quality.

[Carol the Dabbler]

Come October, be sure and let us know what you think of it!

[HerlockSholmes]

Will do Carol