Welcome to Guy Ritchie's Ministry of Undistinguished Sleuthing, aka Young Sherlock – a rollicking adventure that's actually quite a bit of fun, unless you were expecting an "authentic" Sherlock Holmes story.
Firstly, Arthur Conan Doyle purists should note, this is decidedly non-canon.
In fact, it hardly even bears more than a similarity in name to the Young Sherlock books by Andy Lane upon which this series is supposedly based.
While those YA books started out with Sherlock as a 14-year-old, this "adaptation" thrusts a conflicted, troubled 19-year-old Sherlock (played by Hero Fiennes Tiffin, the After movies) upon us.
Saddled with enough family baggage to sink an ocean liner, young Sherlock gets a chance to redeem himself for assorted angst-fuelled misdeeds when older brother Mycroft (Max Irons) gets him a lowly position at Oxford University.
While Sherlock soon ingratiates himself among certain professors and quickly becomes fast friends with scholarship student James Moriarty (Donal Finn, Wheel Of Time), his days at Oxford may be numbered when priceless scrolls belonging to visiting Chinese princess Shou'an (Zine Tseng, 3 Body Problem) are stolen and the finger of suspicion points directly at him.
All this barely covers the first of eight episodes, with the story getting increasingly convoluted and improbable as the trail winds uncomfortably close to the Holmes family, culminating in a reunion that is by turns touching and touched (as in "touched in the head").
The promo material for this show says it was "created" by Matthew Parkhill (Thandiwe Newton's Rogue), being loosely inspired by Lane's books, and "developed" by Ritchie and screenwriter/playwright Peter Harness (Wallander). Come again?
Anyway, it bears more of Ritchie's hallmarks, being irreverent both in style and regard for its beloved principal character and the lore.
Having Moriarty and Sherlock meet as teenagers is a clearly cheeky thumbing of the nose at Doyle's works, where the two only met late in their respective careers. Having one of Sherlock's most famous quotes reattributed to Moriarty is, well, icing on the cake into which Ritchie gleefully shoves our faces.
Ironically, part of Lane's focus in his books was reportedly to address the "wrong" of Barry Levinson's 1985 Young Sherlock Holmes movie, which had Sherlock and John Watson meeting as youngsters.
Well, never let it be said that Ritchie ever let anyone else's intentions get in his way of telling a story.
The pros of this impudent approach: the adventure, and mystery, are compelling and the pacing is fairly breathless, about 70% of the time.
The cons: the other 30% is a protracted, boggy stretch around the middle when it all becomes about Sherlock's mother Cordelia (Natasha McElhone), father Silas (Joseph Fiennes, the lead actor's uncle) and the mystery surrounding little sister Beatrice's (Purdy Hughes) death over a dozen years previously.
Also, aside from the contempt towards its source, Young Sherlock's biggest problem is – well, young Sherlock.
Perhaps it's the shambolic nature of this teen Sherlock that compounds Tiffin's not-terribly-convincing turn as the consulting detective in his formative years.
It could also be that he's simply overshadowed by most others on the screen: Finn's mercurial, nuanced Moriarty, McElhone's troubled but resourceful matriarch, Tseng's determined and driven princess, Uncle Joe's manipulative patriarch, even Colin Firth as pompous aristocrat Sir Bucephalus Hodge, a prime candidate for inclusion in any contemporary revival of Monty Python's Upper Class Twit of the Year sketch.
Still, there's enough on display here to instil some confidence that future adventures of this ascendant sleuth should see a more confident (if even more deeply scarred) Sherlock, though that's also presuming that Ritchie can serve up a little more detecting, and a lot less reacting.
All eight episodes of Young Sherlock are available to stream on Prime Video.
Summary:
However improbable ...
