For the sake of completeness of my Holmes project, I watched a couple episodes of this.
The fancy is that Holmes is placed 200 years in his future. The future setting allows the animators to use all sorts of visual shorthand for sets and situations. The appropriation of Holmes allows the writers existing stories that can be reduced to skeletal plots. These two devices were likely important to the decision to go, as they would greatly reduce costs.
This was inspired by Sherlock Holmes in the 23rd Century (of the decade before), an even cheaper production with even more abstract notions of a future.
When characters and story structures reach this level of reuse, like Frankenstein, it is because they have such power that all one has to do is reference them by sketching, and the viewer fills in details.
The amazing thing is the ends of the thing. The production itself is the scantiest, cheapest thing possible and the external reference is one of the richest.
The fancy is that Holmes is placed 200 years in his future. The future setting allows the animators to use all sorts of visual shorthand for sets and situations. The appropriation of Holmes allows the writers existing stories that can be reduced to skeletal plots. These two devices were likely important to the decision to go, as they would greatly reduce costs.
This was inspired by Sherlock Holmes in the 23rd Century (of the decade before), an even cheaper production with even more abstract notions of a future.
When characters and story structures reach this level of reuse, like Frankenstein, it is because they have such power that all one has to do is reference them by sketching, and the viewer fills in details.
The amazing thing is the ends of the thing. The production itself is the scantiest, cheapest thing possible and the external reference is one of the richest.