The 80s Young Sherlock Was A Doctor Who Clone

The 80s Young Sherlock Was A Doctor Who Clone

I watched the 80s Young Sherlock and can’t figure out why they tried again

Bowie: Interestingly enough a rumor states that much of the crew previously worked on Bowie and Elton John’s MTV videos – Public Domain

First off, Guy Richie’s Young Sherlock is not a remake of the 1980s one in the strictest sense. Richie’s show is adapted from Andrew Lane’s book series of the same name. The books were the last thing commissioned by the Conan Doyle estate before the character became public domain.

The 1980s version, also called Young Sherlock, was written by Gerald Flow, a writer who produced so little that I can’t even really categorize him as working in one particular genre. In fact, any backstory to its production is a mystery, and I can only assume neither Lane nor Richie ever saw it.

Which is bonkers because it attempts to do exactly what their series does: give Sherlock Holmes, one of the most enigmatic heroes ever, a backstory. Is it a good backstory? That’s an entirely subjective question.

Flow’s Sherlock is the son of a lord who goes on the run after incurring a large debt, leaving the future detective in the care of an uptight, moralizing aunt. To escape this dreary life, he spends his free time around the local doctor, whose eccentric personality and scientific curiosity encourage Sherlock to take his first case.

In my opinion, this is actually an inspired background because it delivers on the promise of how someone like Sherlock Holmes might exist. A teenager who hung around a rural doctor’s surgery would learn the fundamentals of forensic science, and the fact that he was raised by a strict moralizing aunt suggests why he might turn that skill to detective work.

The brilliance of Flow’s writing is that all of this is suggested instead of said outright. In fact, the only thing that’s told to the viewer instead of implied is the somewhat humorous revelation that Holmes future landlady, Mrs. Hudson, is the family maid.

The rest is simply implied by the circumstances that the hero is in during the first part of the story.

I know that well-known Holmes scholars over the years have put forward much more dramatic takes on Sherlock’s background, such as coming from an abusive, highly religious family or secretly being a crossdressing woman kept out of medical school, but Flow’s is mundane enough to work.

That’s the good of the adaptation; however, sadly, much more of it is bad.

While Flow’s ideas and worldbuilding are solid, the production is anything but. The series runs ten 24-minute episodes in the serial format, i.e., a cliffhanger at the end of each episode that leads into the next.

This style was made popular by Doctor Who; however, Doctor Who serials are six episodes at the most, and even those are reserved for complicated season finales. Young Sherlock wants to stretch a single serial of a single case, four hours long.

That leads to a production that is too long and needlessly complicated while still feeling unfinished. Extraneous plots, such as Mrs. Hudson’s love triangle or Moriarty appearing as a sinister highwayman, go nowhere and exist to justify time.

It would have made a hell of a lot more sense to produce two four-part stories with a continuing thread rather than a single case that makes you scratch your head in bewilderment.

It’s important to note that Young Sherlock came out right before Doctor Who got canceled for the first time, and I can’t help but wonder if the BBC was hoping that a recognizable character like Holmes might retire The Doctor gracefully.

After all, Holmes and the early Doctors were very similar characters, and a teenage Holmes would have appealed right to the audience of English middle schoolers who were Doctor Who’s biggest fans. The failure of this initial serial probably doomed what otherwise might have been a huge franchise.

But then Richie’s version would never have gotten made.

The 80s Young Sherlock is currently on Tubi in the US.