This two-hour version of a Sherlock Holmes story that has been embellished with a number of new ingredients and sub-plots taken from other works of literature (most notably, the mad wife from "Jane Eyre"), is an extravagant waste of time for the viewer.
I came upon this after the first ten minutes and from then on tried to make sense of the proceedings. This was nearly impossible until I watched at least an hour of it to get to the main thread of the story. Even then, the plot is all over the place with rambling, incoherently staged scenes that seem to lack any sense of continuity. It's as if the editor had a jumbled mess on his hands and didn't know how to put the pieces of the puzzle together.
Of course, Sherlock has no such problem. With the thinnest of hints, he manages to solve the entire case using implausible practices. The weird underpinnings of the story are too improbable to bear much scrutiny.
Let's just say the settings are fine, the atmosphere proper and the acting is first rate except for Jeremy Brett who seems to be giving his all to an overbaked role that makes Sherlock Holmes look as though he needs a lot of clinical care. Brett looks pale and distraught most of the time, clearly not in the best of health with his asthma hurting his ability to draw his breath at times. Too bad he had to waste so much energy on a badly constructed episode that seemed endless.
I came upon this after the first ten minutes and from then on tried to make sense of the proceedings. This was nearly impossible until I watched at least an hour of it to get to the main thread of the story. Even then, the plot is all over the place with rambling, incoherently staged scenes that seem to lack any sense of continuity. It's as if the editor had a jumbled mess on his hands and didn't know how to put the pieces of the puzzle together.
Of course, Sherlock has no such problem. With the thinnest of hints, he manages to solve the entire case using implausible practices. The weird underpinnings of the story are too improbable to bear much scrutiny.
Let's just say the settings are fine, the atmosphere proper and the acting is first rate except for Jeremy Brett who seems to be giving his all to an overbaked role that makes Sherlock Holmes look as though he needs a lot of clinical care. Brett looks pale and distraught most of the time, clearly not in the best of health with his asthma hurting his ability to draw his breath at times. Too bad he had to waste so much energy on a badly constructed episode that seemed endless.