The greatest actors don’t just pretend to be a character — they actually become that character, so perfectly embodying a fictional persona that their performance transcends mere acting. And that’s exactly the kind of performance given by British actor Benedict Cumberbatch in the BBC’s smartly-written, modern update of the famous Sherlock Holmes detective stories.
Cumberbatch truly is Sherlock Holmes, and he was a delight to watch in the first season of the BBC’s “Sherlock.” And the good news for fans is, the second season of the show (which just finished airing on PBS) also is excellent.
“Sherlock” takes author Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s detective and transplants him to modern-day London. Cumberbatch’s Holmes serves as a “consulting detective,” aided by his friend Dr. John Watson (Martin Freeman), who also blogs about Holmes’ adventures. The second season of the show updates several of Doyle’s most famous detective tales, having Holmes cross paths with the elusive femme fatale Irene Adler, investigate the “hounds of Baskerville,” and puzzle over Moriarty’s “final problem.”
However, the show doesn’t just take these classic stories and set them in the present day; script writers actually completely re-imagine the tales, taking cues from Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s original writings and coming up with entirely new mysteries (in other words, even if you’ve read the original Sherlock Holmes stories, you won’t necessarily be able to predict how the episodes will turn out).
In episode one, “A Scandal in Belgravia,” the British government is trying to gain control of compromising photos and other secretes Irene Adler has stored on her cell phone. In episode two, “The Hounds of Baskerville,” Holmes and Watson help a young man who claims to have been attacked by a gigantic hound. Though it is rumored a monstrous dog escaped from the Baskerville military research base, which may or may not be creating mutated creatures, what is actually going on may be something even stranger and more sinister. In the final episode, “The Reichenbach Fall,” Moriarty commits what is called “the crime of the century” and simultaneously breaks into the case where the Crown Jewels are kept, the vault at the Bank of England and the Pentonville Prison, and then mysteriously just allows himself to be caught. The episode culminates with a showdown between Holmes and Moriarty high atop a building: a confrontation neither one of them will walk away from unscathed.
I know it’s cliché to use the phrase “a part an actor was born to play,” but I truly think Cumberbatch was born to play Sherlock Holmes. He captures Holmes’ quirks and eccentricities and makes us care about the character, despite his flaws. He’s brilliant, but he has trouble interacting with people on a personal level.
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