Young Sherlock isn't a prequel to Guy Ritchie's revisionist take on the iconic detective, but you wouldn't guess it from the aesthetic or style.
Ritchie is the producer and part-director, and lead actor Hero Fiennes Tiffin tries a bit too hard to emulate Robert Downey Jr. for the first few hours. For all its charm, Young Sherlock is at its worst when it tries to be something that it isn't.
But then, slowly but surely, the series finds its footing. At that point, it takes off with such confidence that I couldn't help but wonder where the opening jitters came from. This is a smart, stylish, sexy, and fun show that deserves the broadest audience possible.
A huge part of that charm comes from the leading duo of Tiffin and Dónal Finn, who play Sherlock and Moriarty. They have an easy, believable chemistry together that breathes life into a familiar pairing. Every time you think you know where the story goes next, Young Sherlock finds a way to surprise. On a meta-level, knowing where their destinies lead gives the story an unexpected air of melancholy. In a kinder world, they'd be lifelong friends out to solve crime and cause mischief.
That impish nature extends to every facet of the series. Watch, for example, how slyly it introduces a deerstalker-wearing and pipe-smoking detective who couldn't solve a crossword, let alone a crime. When Sherlock loses himself in his vivid imagination, Moriarty joins him on equal footing, as the two play out potential solutions to their problems.
Tiffin deserves credit for taking on a difficult role overshadowed by Robert Downey Jr.'s presence. Once he finds his own voice, Tiffin discovers elements of the character that feel fresh and timeless. He's just on the right side of smug to be charming, and just vulnerable enough to be likeable; a balancing act that's far harder than it sounds.
But it's Finn, as Moriarty, who proves the real discovery. Moriarty is an outcast in a society built on exclusion and hierarchy. Even if he's almost always the smartest man in the room. Finn plays the part with barely contained fury at a broken system, a man so used to solitude that when he meets Sherlock, it's both intoxicating and terrifying.
Here, Sherlock and Moriarty are almost brothers or even more. Two sides of the same coin, so similar that intimacy is too small a word for it. Whenever the duo takes over the screen, Young Sherlock is so furiously entertaining that you don't ever want it to end.
If there are issues, they're almost exclusively due to pacing and an over-reliance on Ritchie's prior films. It's 15 years since A Game of Shadows, and I doubt we'll ever get another film in the series. Callbacks and visual cues to a film most vaguely remember feel self-serving and pointless. Especially when the rest of the series is this rich and textured.
Luckily, these issues don't last. By the end of the second episode, Young Sherlock forges ahead to craft an identity of its own. By the end of the season, it has proved itself an uncontested success. It provides a mystery worth obsessing over, a cast you want to spend time with, and a promise of further adventures that can't come soon enough.
You can't ask for much more than that.
