Murder Rooms

The Dark Beginnings of Sherlock Holmes

Dir: Paul Marcus, others, 2001, TV (8.2*)

The Sherlock legend continues in a series of films that portray author Arthur Conan Doyle’s beginnings as a doctor (Charles Andrews) who becomes interested in the new science of forensic crime investigation, at the tutelage of his college professor, Ian Richardson as Dr. Joseph Bell, the surgeon who taught Doyle both medicine and forensic investigation. Since these are really about Doyle himself, the stories are more realistic, yet we also see much of Sherlock’s character in Doyle himself: he experiments with new medicines on himself "rather than make my patients the guinea pigs", as do his colleagues, who also give free exams but use medicine prescribed for profit. These are very intelligently written and filmed, and will please all fans of the PBS series featuring Jeremy Brett as Holmes. The 90 minute episodes (on two discs) include: The Patient’s Eye, The Photographer’s Chair, The Kingdom of Bones, The White Knight Stratagem.