"A modern day adaptation of Sherlock Holmes?", we said. "That's utterly ridiculous! One of the main points of Sherlock Holmes is that he was a genius of the 1800s!" Well, I think it's safe to say that most of us were wrong. This is arguably one of the best adaptations of Sherlock Holmes thus far. There are simply too many things to compliment about this series of movie length episodes. The modern day Holmes idea seems to work perfectly. You'd think that it would fall flat, but the stories still make complete sense in the 2010s and so do the characters. Hell, we even have Watson coming back from the Afghanistan war, which is very similar to him returning from the Afghan war in the 1800s. The modern Sherlock seems to completely fit. In my opinion, Cumberbatch's Sherlock Holmes is quite different to the original and the other adaptations, but it still works and somehow seems like Sherlock. His Sherlock seems to be completely unique and fresh and amazing, but still be Sherlock Holmes as we know him. Benedict takes the role extremely well.

Of course, Cumberbatch's Sherlock isn't the only thing to applaud, we also have Martin Freeman's perfect John Watson, Una Stubbs' Mrs. Hudson, Rupert Graves' unique Greg Lestrade, Louise Brealey's new Molly Hooper (unique to this adaptation) and Mark Gatiss' wonderfully eccentric Mycroft Holmes. They all play their individual characters extremely well. Andrew Scott's James (or Jim) Moriarty is very different from the original. He doesn't stay in the background and isn't quiet and sinister. Of course, the original was hardly in the books, but we still knew the character. This Moriarty is very different. He's absolutely insane in the most hyper, childlike way. But this isn't a bad thing. Hell no. This character is one of Sherlock's crowning achievements. Most of us know and love him.

Each episode of this series offers genius plots with brilliant humour and drama. They all perfectly link with the stories. I'm not a fan of series three at all, as it changes a lot and I don't like the new direction and ideas, but the first two series were nigh perfect. I'd actually go as far as to say that those first two series are the best 2010s series and that The Reichenbach Fall (series two finale) is this millennium's greatest TV achievement so far, as everything ties in perfectly. However I have not got to series five of Breaking Bad yet, so I can't say this for sure.

The three writers, who each write one episode for each series, are also worthy of our applauds. They are: Steven Moffat, Mark Gatiss and Stephen Thompson. Each episode they have created includes great character interaction, amazing plots and well paced action. Each episode of the first two series are genius stories for all ages to enjoy. The directing is also great, with a similar style for all episodes until series three, but there have been too many directors to note. Paul McGuigan directed the entirety of series two, my favourite series, and has directed the most episodes by far, so I suppose he's worth noting. Each series only has three episodes, and they are from one and a half to two years apart from each other, but each episode is one and a half hours long with a genius twist on Conan Doyle's stories. We've went from an adaptation of A Scandal in Bohemia to an adaptation of The Final Problem, and they all fit perfectly with the originals and are great on their own anyway.

David Arnold and Michael Price compose the excellent music for this series. Some notable tracks include 'Pursuit', used in chase scenes, 'Opening Titles', which is unique and kind of speaks for itself, 'The Game Is On', which is a lot like 'Pursuit' but is used for other scenes, and the most heartbreaking, 'Prepared to do Anything', which is most notably used in the heartbreaking scene of The Reichenbach Fall. All of the tracks in Sherlock are wonderful and help illustrate the scene that they are used in.

Many complained about this series for many reasons before it aired, ranging from Steven Moffat (co-creator) being too busy on Doctor Who to concentrate on this to Sherlock Holmes being ridiculous on modern times, but we were certainly proved wrong. I was merely twelve when this first aired, and can honestly say that I knew nothing but the names of Sherlock Holmes and John Watson. This show made me love Sherlock Holmes as a whole. This is a high recommendation to anyone who hasn't watched it as of yet, because you'll no doubt enjoy yourself.