Surveying the post-millennial Sherlock Holmes: A case for the great detective as a man of our times

Abstract

This article analyses the three most recent sets of Sherlock Holmes adaptations: the Warner Brothers film franchise, the BBC series Sherlock, and the CBS series Elementary. Asserting that the questions surrounding Sherlock Holmes adaptations, namely, why do they appear so frequently, and what qualities have they evolved to remain relevant since they began appearing on screen in 1901, should be fundamental to the field of Adaptation Studies as a whole, it seeks to interrogate the fresh conceptions of the character as he is made to appeal to a 21st century viewing audience in these adaptations. This interrogation shows that though they differ in several ways including genre, medium, setting, and target audience, taken together, these adaptations offer not only unique interpretations of the character, but a surprisingly uniform vision of how this hero of page and screen has evolved. It considers how that uniform vision is manifested in the various executions of each show's particular vision and concept as well as how they are all motivated by the same drive to make a viable Sherlock Holmes for today's audiences. It specifically focuses on the transition of the character from traditional detective fiction hero to a more complex postmodern antihero and how this transition is fundamental to the character's journey into the 21st century. © The Author 2013.