Sherlock Holmes and the Baker Street Irregulars

This is simply a boring and tedious attempt to flesh out the Baker Street Irregulars. The characters are all stereotypes with the mystery being painfully obvious. The use of Irene Adler will be inconsequential to non-Holmes fans, and annoying to Sherlockians. Poor use of a canonical character.

Jonathan Pryce does his best with a weak script, but I would love to see him try again with a stronger project.

Sherlock Holmes & the Case of the Silk Stocking

Awful. What a great opportunity wasted. The only reason that I did not give this disc 1 star is that I thought the performances were well done. The creators of this show clearly have not read the Holmes canon and just have mapped a "regular" mystery onto a Holmes story. The concept of Mrs. Watson being brought into the "team" of Holmes of Watson is an admirable one, but not with the character being such a rebel... that would have been abhorrent to Watson (Holmes would have loved it, though.) The mystery and the MO (of both the detectives and criminals) are lame. Taken straight from a regular network show instead of utilizing the time period for something interesting. A wonderful opportunity to attempt something post-Brett simply squandered by poor writing, directing and producing. If producers want to use an old or rejected CSI script, please don't drag Mr. Holmes into it.

The Dark Beginnings of Sherlock Holmes

It's not really a Holmes story but I would consider it part of the Holmesian genre... This very well-made, very fun BBC mini-series has a young Arthur Conan Doyle teaming up with his mentor Dr. Joseph Bell (whose methods of observation and deduction for patient analysis were the basis for Sherlock Holmes) to solve various murders.

The acting and writing are quite strong, though most of the installments could be a bit shorter (most run 90 minutes, but could be 60 with ease.) There's a little bit of the Shakespeare in Love effect... where something happens and you think, "Ah, there's where THAT came from..." It's done with a light touch and it's not the point of the stories. If you're a fan of Sherlock Holmes, I recommend this series.