Sherlock This series is difficult to write about, because it flew so high at the beginning, re imagining Holmes as a troubled but brilliant modern detective and Watson as a haunted but loyal man of action, in episodes promising to be re-interpretations of classic stories in an era of high technology. But it has fallen so low, riddled with the writers' own personal manias, and Steven Moffat's decision to twist his narratives (no longer 'stories' in the conventional sense), to redesign Holmes as a troubled and alienated super-hero wandering aimlessly through visual gimmickry and spectacular effects. The third episode of Season 3 is especially appalling. The moment towards the end when Sherlock shouts "I am not a hero, I am a functioning sociopath!" was so painful, I still can't get it out of my head. That moment surely has nothing to do with the character of Sherlock Holmes, the all-too-human hero (which he most certainly was) created by Conan Doyle, but it defines how Moffat and his team understand *their* character, 'Sherlock,' and perhaps how they understand their audience as well. Given the popularity of this show, apparently many young people do not want exceptional humans capable of resolving difficult problems, they want sick people with friends in high places who can thrash the arrogant and get away with it.

There will certainly be a Season 4, and we can easily predict that it will be on a grand scale visually, and utterly impoverished of any good ideas or decent story telling. Moffat is no longer interested in storytelling, he wants to build a post-modern mythology much we are seeing in the Marvel Comics films.

But Conan Doyle didn't write for comic books (or myth), he assumed an audience of literate, reasoning adults; and the best of the films based on his stories have always assumed the same audience, and delivered proper variants of some of the best stories written in the English language. It's too bad Moffat has chosen a different course.

Note: There are currently four series of films attempting to revise the canon of Conan Doyle's brilliant Victorian detective for the 21st Century. One from the UK (Sherlock, for TV), one from the US (Elementary, for TV), one from Russia (Sherlock Homes, for TV), and the internationally produced films of Guy Ritchie, starring Robert Downey. Notably, each involves a radical re-envisioning of the character and his place in the world. We may have reached a point in history when filmmakers simply cannot give us the Great Detective as he was imagined by Doyle and played (with variations) throughout the 20th Century. Rating the 4 series: Sherlock Holmes (Russia): 9 of 10, with strong stories and a believably proletarian nerd Holmes. Sherlock (UK): 6 of 10; excellent first season has been betrayed by Steven Moffat's flashy showmanship until the stories are incoherent now (Season 3), the characters no longer likable, the focus almost completely lost. Elementary (US): 4 of 10; the redefined Holmes, a nervous, unsympathetic recovering drug addict, is not without interest, and any show with Lucy Liu in it gets the benefit of her quiet but charismatic presence and talent. But basically, this is just a routine American police procedural with a gimmick. I doubt that Hollywood can do anything else. Sherlock Holmes (Ritchie/Downey): 1 of 10. This series lacks any coherence in its stories or continuity. It's just a series of set-pieces with running around, fist fights, explosions, and campy jokes.