Sherlock Holmes In The 22nd Century

I'd seen this 1999 Scottish tv series mentioned when I was looking up Sherlock Holmes on film and tv. I hadn't heard of it before. A couple of weeks ago I was at the Half Price Books and I noticed a copy of the 3 dvd set for 8 bucks. I wasn't finding that much I wanted and I had a 15% off coupon so that I thought I would take a chance. The series only has 26 episodes and they were done over two seasons. The story starts in past with Sherlock's final encounter with Moriarty and their plunge into Reickenbach Falls. They disappear into the mist and then we jump to the 22nd century where we join Inspector Beth LeStrade and her robot partner Watson. They meet up with Professor Moriarty who's really a clone with all Moriarty's memories. I'm not a believer that cloning could do that but I have no proof to support what I think. Beth knows that the body of Sherlock Holmes is in a honey filled coffin in the basement of New Scotland Yard. She has a scientist rejuvenate Holmes and he returns him to a young age. Holmes adapts quickly to the future and continues his role as consulting detective working for both New Scotland Yard and private citizens. Watson gets assigned to Holmes and they let the two of them stay in the original Baker Street apartments. It had been preserved in a museum.

That's Watson, Beth and Sherlock in the picture. Watson is wearing a human mask under his bowler. Beth is wearing her standard police outfit. I can't remember her ever changing clothes. She has the original Dr Watson's journals. The robot studies them so he's more Watson like. He starts wearing a big overcoat, you know, to go with his bowler. He looks nice. Less roboty. More importantly Watson helps Holmes adjust to the new world and the two of them work fairly well together. No robophobia from Holmes and there is an episode with anti-robot people in it. As for me I can't see who wouldn't like having a robot pal that's also a walking crime lab? The episodes are based on Doyle stories and some have the main elements of the original placed in a 22nd century setting. Many are hardly recognizable. If the original stories were instructions, some episodes skipped steps in the retelling. The Hound Of The Baskervilles is set on the moon but it's still got the hound. The Five Orange Pips has 5 orange pips and The Sussex Vampire has a vampire. There are a new set of Baker Street Irregulars. Street people who show up in several episodes. Moriarty makes several appearances and continues to get foiled by Holmes. The stories were average or slightly better, they moved quickly, there's some amount of detail but not too much. It's aimed at the younger set. The animation is kind of typical of tv, not totally great , nor totally awful, some parts work better than others. Some of the cityscapes look odd, especially the CGI river. You can take a look at the first episode below. There are more of them on YouTube. It gets a high score, 7.6, at the IMDb. Not quite that good in my mind but better than a 6 say. I wasn't sad I bought them after I watched them. I might get around to them again some day. I found Watson grew on me and I liked the relationship between the two main characters. I wish I had a robot pal.