Day 49. 128 pages, 62,495 words.

Well, turns out the new Sherlock was still on Netflix even though it wasn’t on our watchlist, so I quickly added it there just in case (and you know what? Battlestar Galactica was there too, so I added that as well and I have no idea why everyone was making me think these shows were gone), and we started to watch it last night.

So far we’ve only watched A Study In Pink (heh), so I’ll be doing my best to avoid spoilers insofar as that idea has any meaning in a reboot of a hundred-plus-year-old set of stories. And we enjoyed the feature-length pilot episode through a joyous evening of Wump coughing herself to a vomiting fit, poor little mite. Fortunately Toop, who is also sick, has dealt with it in the way she’s found effective in all situations – by eating a lot and sleeping like a coma patient.

Anyway, it was good. The show, I mean. A nice modernisation of the classic story. I was dubious about a 21st Century version of Sherlock, but it seemed to work. I liked the recreation of the ‘Watson’s pocket-watch’ scene, and I liked the way his deductions were spelled out – literally – in the air. Very nice.

I also liked the touch of Guy Ritchie music throughout. Nice little surreal bit of meta-continuity, and seemed to work just as well in the modern day as the late 19th Century setting. Watson was nicely cast, it’s good to see Freeman getting a role where he has a bit of spine for once, even if it’s Watson-spine. Beautiful to see him immediately falling in love with the female NPCs, too. Or currently-NPCs.

I figured out Mycroft from the start, the ‘archenemy’ red herring was a bit crass but he’s well cast too, nice to see Moffat got Professor Lazarus back for that. Oh, the circle of British entertainment goes around and around. And Cumberbatch is a way more convincing Holmes than Khan.

Cool stuff.

Sad, though, that Watson could be a veteran of the Afghanistan war in both versions.