Awaking on a seemingly ordinary Wednesday, I slovenly ambled through to my living quarters, pouring cereal and skimming the interweb as part of my morning ritual. I almost choked on my corn flakes on seeing that the BBC’s ‘Sherlock’ is to be reworked for American audiences with Jonny Lee Miller as Sherlock Holmes and the action being moved from London to New York. WTF?! The creation of Sherlock Holmes and the stories that accompany him are quintessentially English so just how will the wit translate to American audiences? Answer, it probably won’t.
Clearly the US television networks’ obsession of ‘reworking’ British television programmes shows no sign of waning and the question is why?! Americans do not understand the British way or their humour, this has been proven with shows such as Absolutely Fabulous, The I.T Crowd and Spaced. All well received here but didn’t make it past the pilot stage in the USA. The Office has enjoyed success in America but has anyone actually seen it? It’s completely different from the original UK version (which incidentally, I also hated).
Another thing, will Jonny Lee Miller be required to speak in an American accent and if so, why have they not just hired an American actor? It would seem that by getting a ‘native’, bosses hoped to pacify UK audiences, but judging on the reaction this side of the pond so far, it hasn’t worked. I have nothing against Jonny Lee Miller and while he has rather defected to US TV in recent years, I especially enjoyed his performances in Trainspotting, Plunkett and Macleane and most recently, The Flying Scotsman. I just don’t see how this series will remotely evoke the stories of Arthur Conan Doyle in the same was as the BBC’s fabulous effort has done. Time will tell if I’m wrong but precedent says I’m unlikely to be and it will just end up another UK to US failure left on the cutting room floor.
