The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes
Critique • Quotes • Text • Sherlock Holmes at the movies
First editionFirst publication
1892
Literature form
Story collection
Genres
Crime, mystery
Writing language
English
Author's country
England
Length
Twelve stories, approx. 94,000 words
Terence Rigby and Tom Baker, as Watson and Holmes, stalk the hound of the Baskervilles in 1982 series.
Sherlock who?
The Hound of the Baskervilles (1982): Television miniseries, four half-hour episodes; director Peter Duguid; writer Alexander Baron; featuring Tom Baker, Terence Rigby, Nicholas Woodeson, Christopher Ravenscroft, Kay Adshead
Tom Baker sounds like an interesting choice to play Sherlock Holmes, having made his reputation as an eccentric, quick-witted—and most popular—lead in the British Doctor Who series.
But his spell as the detective in The Hound of the Baskervilles miniseries, about a year after his run as the time-travelling Doctor, is a stodgy affair.
The series, scripted by novelist Alexander Baron, is relatively faithful to Arthur Conan Doyle's tale, featuring most of the dramatic and atmospheric scenes from the novel. But it never goes any further to intrigue or entertain beyond its well-known original subject matter.
Baker and cast mate Terence Rigby fail to elevate the iconic sleuthing team into interesting characters. Even the Sherlockian set pieces of the detective showing off his skill of deducing peoples' identities from inanimate fall flat. If anything Holmes's own character comes across as haughty and gruff by turns. Rigby has been praised for his performance as the unflappable Watson, who carries much of the plot of Hound, but at times his doctor seems distracted and overall he fades into being a stolid nonentity.
Making for an equally pallid villain is Christopher Ravenscroft, best known as a detective in British TV's Inspector Wexford Mysteries. Near the end of The Hound of the Baskervilles, Holmes calls Stapleton the most dangerous man they have ever hunted down, a claim that sounds exaggerated even in the novel but ludicrously hyperbolic when repeated in this adaptation.
Some early scenes from the 1982 miniseries of The Hound of the Baskervilles.
The characters all speak in emphatic stage voices as though trying to project some energy into the scenes that nonetheless fall flat.
They aren't helped by static camera work—giving the impression of a filmed theatrical performance. Hard to believe this was shot in the 1980s.
Still if you just want a version of The Hound of the Baskervilles to refresh your memory of Doyle's storyline without a lot of revisions or additions, you likely won't be disappointed with this adaptation.
— Eric
Critique • Quotes • Text • Sherlock Holmes at the movies
1922, 1929–1933, 1931–1937, 1939–1946, 1954–1955, 1959–1984, 1962–1992, 1965, 1970, 1975–1988, 1976, 1979, 1982, 1984–1994, 2000–2002, 2002, 2002b, 2009–2011, 2010–2017, 2012–2019, 2015
See also:
Buy the book:
The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes
Sherlock Holmes: The Complete Novels and Stories
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