A new home for Holmes

TV REVIEW:Sherlock Sunday, BBC1; Skippers Sunday, RTÉ1; Bombings Tuesday, RTÉ1; RTÉ News Daily, RTÉ

MY TELEVISION OF choice is a good old medical drama, but fans of hospital-based shows have been short-changed in recent times. Even

Grey’s Anatomy

has descended into irritating schmaltz. Fabulously edgy characters such as Cristina Yang have been scripted into love-sick whiners and Derek “Dr McDreamy” Shepherd has become such a bore, I was sorry they didn’t kill him off in the recent season finale.

Thus, those in search of undemanding entertainment but wishing to avoid the dregs of reality TV find themselves heavily dependent on crime. Here, too, the drama is brittle as producers run out of gimmicks on which to hang a whodunnit. An irresistible impulse is to create odd characters on whom the regular police must call to solve difficult murders. New Trickstakes old codgers out of retirement to crack cold cases; Lie to Me's Tim Roth uses applied psychology to identify liars; Patricia Arquette is a psychic in Medium; The Mentaliststars a hypnotist; Criminal Mindsfeatures an unfeasibly well-resourced team of FBI profilers; and don't forget the pathologists in Silent Witnessand forensic experts in the ubiquitous CSIfranchise. Only Law and Orderdefends the concept that your average police officer is capable of solving crimes.

The pressing need for new angles was presumably, and therefore somewhat ironically, behind the resurrecting of an old character, Sherlock Holmes, for BBC's Sherlock. Holmes is a wonderfully complex character and one of the first external consultants, required by a police force presented as unfit for purpose – an early conspiracy against the public sector.

We’ve all seen one too many versions sporting tweed capes and pipes to get interested all over again. So the BBC took Arthur Conan Doyle’s obnoxious savant, knocked 20 years off his age and kicked him into modern times. The stroke was casting the exotically named and odd-looking Benedict Cumberbatch as the younger, snappier and decidedly modern Sherlock Holmes.

We meet him through Dr Watson, who is also much younger than previously portrayed. This medical sidekick is played by Martin Freeman, whom you might remember as Tim in The Office(the one who was in love with Dawn, the receptionist). Here we see him returned from Afghanistan, shell-shocked, depressed and living in sheltered housing, thus accounting for his ending up flat-sharing with Holmes. For only someone in desperate circumstances would agree to live with the arrogant private detective.

In keeping with the original, this Holmes is imperious and overbearing. He is outrageously rude but his intelligence, observational skills and powers of deduction render him indispensable to a police force at a loss when a series of suicides are revealed as ingenious murders.

It’s a bit of a risk to make Holmes so thoroughly dislikable. I’m accustomed to his type since I’ve worked in technology companies and meet characters like him all the time – super intelligent and convinced the rest of us are idiots. The writers make a point, then, to introduce some wit into the script and the result is a smart, fun ride through this well-paced show.

There were two jarring moments though. The psychosomatic limp of Dr Watson clears up instantly when he’s required to give chase to the villain. It was a bit obvious and too early in the hour to convince.

More disappointing was when the murderer challenges Holmes to an intellectually based duel. He shows him two capsules. One is deadly, the other safe. He offers Holmes one of the tablets, but Holmes can choose the other if he wishes. Both will swallow simultaneously. The challenge for Holmes is to use his deductive methods to make the right choice.

Now, I’m not as clever as Holmes, but it seems to me that the logical thing is not to partake in the contest at all.

Worse, this is the set-up of a famous scene in The Princess Bride, the comedy fairytale movie from 1987. In it, the Sicilian criminal genius Vizzini is challenged by the mysterious Man in Blackto pick one of two apparently identical drinks, one of which is poisoned. The story is hardly obscure and the reference so obvious that as Holmes pondered his options, a friend texted me with the infamous quote from the scene: "Never go against a Sicilian when death is on the line."

We never find out how clever-clogs Holmes would have chosen, because Watson shoots the serial killer. I hate cop-outs.

Still, despite the post-modern hell of the entire concept, the show is thoroughly enjoyable and I’ll be tuning in for more next week.

A NEW SERIESfollowing four fishing boat captains on their trips from Donegal, Howth, Castletownbere and Scotland began last weekend. Skippersshows how harsh life it is – physically, financially, emotionally – and one crippled with uncertainty. What size is each catch and what will it be worth? Anyone self-employed will identify with the financial insecurity. A job that pays a steady wage must seem like a fantasy to those who keep their fingers crossed that prices for their products will cover their costs. Like farming, fishermen live at the whim of global markets and consumers who take their produce for granted.

Captain David Price’s crew is Egyptian, because Irishmen, sensibly, abandoned the job in the Tiger years in favour of work in the construction sector. In a sign of hard times, an unemployed plumber has joined the crew. Despite the hardships, there was something comforting in this account of decent men doing an honest day’s work.

Unlike other businesses though, fishing risks are not merely financial. The safe return of the crew isn’t guaranteed, and these strong men faltered slightly when describing family farewells before long voyages. They must ask their wives to endure a lonely life.

I admired the maturity of Anna, Captain Ross Callan’s wife, as she described domestic crises that had to be endured alone. Once, pregnant and out driving with her toddler, she crashed her car. Weeping, she managed to contact Callan at sea. His indignant response was “What do you want me to do about it?”

To her at the time, and to us now, his reaction was pretty brutal. Looking back she was able to see that he was just as upset and panic stricken about the accident, but his physical inability to be with her prompted the retort. She was some woman that, despite being in distress, she was able to put herself in his shoes and, when others might have walked, hunkered down for the long haul. A life lesson for us all there.

There’s no easy way to make a living, but this is a tough job. I’ll appreciate my fish a bit better in future.

THE SERIES REMINDING us of atrocities during the Troubles, Bombings, is solid television. This episode recounted the assassination of the British ambassador to Ireland, Christopher Ewart-Biggs, in June 1976. An interesting angle was the story of his Irish driver, Brian O'Driscoll, who survived the bombing.

I regret to say that I behaved just as television producers feared. After a short time, trying to absorb the reality of these horrible murders, it had an inevitable effect – I guiltily flicked over to the satellite channels. Fictional crime is much easier to bear than the real thing.

Headline delivery; newsreaders in the spotlight

I appear on television occasionally and have learned to accept the reality that a woman’s authority can be fatally undermined by a bad hair day or poor choice of jacket. Men can throw on a boring suit and no one will pass any remarks.

I've considerable sympathy, then, for the female newsreaders of the Nine O'Clock News. Anne Doyle, Eileen Dunne and Una O'Hagan are authoritative and professional anchors. Their mere existence is almost miraculous in a world where female newsreaders over 35 are often booted off-screen by youth-obsessed executives.

So it’s a consistent source of irritation that the producers have designed a set that impairs rather than flatters their appearance. The desk is too high, the camera is too far back and the chair is clearly unsuitable. The result is that they appear to slouch into their chairs, which crumples their clothes and, depending on the choice of jacket, sometimes creates the illusion that the desk is supporting their bosom. A television screen provides an unfortunate frame for the untidy result.

On Sky News, the camera is much closer to the newsreader, taking in only head and shoulders. It’s a much neater shot and does more justice to women, irrespective of age.

Bernice Harrison returns next week