Murder Rooms: The Dark Beginnings of Sherlock Holmes

Recently I introduced Syd to the first episode of Murder Rooms. I hadn't watched it in quite some time and I thought it might be something she would enjoy.

In the year 2000, there really wasn't much to choose from as far as any new productions featuring Sherlock Holmes on film or on television. Although, he has always had his fans, the great detective was not nearly as fashionable as he is now.

This is what made Murder Rooms so special.

A joint production between the BBC and WGBH Boston (the local PBS station in these here parts) the series was originally broadcast from 2000 to 2001.

Although it is not technically a Sherlock Holmes series. It's a slightly factual/slightly fictional account of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's association with his Professor at the University of Edinburgh and mentor Dr. Joseph Bell. The man who would inspire Doyle to create his fictional detective Sherlock Holmes.

So, this was as close to a Sherlock Holmes series as we got at the time.

The series starred the late Ian Richardson (CBE) as Dr. Bell. Richardson had previously did an admirable job portraying Holmes in fairly weak productions of The Sign of Four and the Hound of the Baskervilles in 1983. So it seems fitting to have him as the genuine article.

As I mentioned previously, the series was not an entirely factual account of the relationship between Doyle and Bell. There was a great degree of artistic license taken to make the parallels between Bell/Doyle all the more similar to the relationship between Holmes and Watson. It seemed as though it was the fashion of the time to take this approach to docudramas. Both the films Shadow of the Vampire and The Cat's Meow were both films based on fact but a certain degree of "artistic license" in the way the facts were portrayed was taken.

But that doesn't take anything away from Murder Rooms being a great series!! Despite it's popularity at the time only five episodes were produced. It's a shame because it seemed like at the time of the last episode the series was really starting to pick up steam.

I think with all the new productions, Murder Rooms has become somewhat a forgotten gem. But like most rare gems, I think it's time that it gets rediscovered by fans.

If you're a fan of the Benedict Cumberbatch, Robert Downey Jr. or even the Jonny Lee Miller American series to a lesser degree, then I really think you should check out Murder Rooms. It's a bit more methodical and doesn't have some of the Iron Man type of excitement of some of the more recent Sherlockian endeavors.

However, in the case of the fictional detective that Bell would ultimately inspire Doyle to create, what has always made a Sherlockian style mystery captivating is good characterization and how they would ultimately solve the crime.

And Murder Rooms has that!