Guy Ritchie isn’t done with Sherlock Holmes yet. Having made two uncanonical movies on the Victorian-era private investigator and his Boswell, Ritchie now turns his attention to Holmes’s formative years.
Ritchie is one of the executive producers and directors of Young Sherlock, based on the Young Sherlock Holmes set of novels by Andrew Lane. Developed by Ritchie and Peter Harness, and written by Harness and Matthew Parkhill, the Prime Video series is an imagined origin story of Arthur Conan Doyle’s consulting detective.
Sherlock (Hero Fiennes Tiffin) is a 19-year-old mischief-maker, prone to being expelled from school and landing up in prison for misdemeanours. As a punishment, Sherlock’s brother Mycroft (Max Irons) sends him to Oxford to be a butler for the university’s dons.
There, Sherlock meets another young man who will serve as his partner in ratiocination. Not John Watson, but James Moriarty – the show’s most compelling idea.
Like Sherlock, James (Donal Finn) is still buffering, many years away from being a nefarious supervillain. The duo gets involved in a grand conspiracy revolving around the Chinese princess Shou’an (Zine Tseng), missing scrolls, attacks on the professors, including Bucephalus Hodge (Colin Firth), a growing pile of bodies, and a dangerous invention.
The eight-episode series doubles up as a Meet the Holmes drama. There’s the neurotic matriarch Cordelia (Natascha McElhone) and the distant father Silas (Joseph Fiennes). Sherlock hasn’t yet evolved into the austere, unfeeling genius. He’s haunted by guilt over the early death of his sister Beatrice. He’s sentimental about his parents. And while he is curious, intelligent and brave, with razor-sharp vision and uncanny memory, he takes a while to guess the truth that is staring him in the face.
Clues are chased, countries are cross-crossed and secrets are revealed over the course of hectic, action-packed adventures. The show is relentless in good and bad ways, explaining Sherlock’s deductions to the point of dumbing them down while also stretching the suspense over the identity of the villains.
There’s a lot of ground to cover in terms of characters and events. The cast includes Ravi Aujla as Kishore Malik from the University of Bombay, one of the Oxford professors who may be part of a world-ending plot. The show’s creators pile on the puzzles and twists, creating bloat that floats because of the entertaining set-up and strong performances from some of the actors, including Colin Firth, Natascha McElhone and Zine Tseng.
When the dust from the frequent explosions and bust-ups have settled, the character who emerges as the most memorable is James Moriarty. Deftly played by Donal Finn, Moriarty provides an excellent foil to Holmes, displaying early flashes of amorality and crooked charm while also proving his loyalty.
When the two first meet, they engage in a contest of cleverness. Some of the lines associated with Sherlock are supplied by Moriarty. The balance shifts after Sherlock’s family situation comes into the foreground. Away from the spotlight, Moriarty coolly flirts with the shadows and awaits his turn as Sherlock’s future nemesis.
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