Good Night, Mr. Holmes

The final episode in the Granada Sherlock Holmes series. One of the best. A woman receives two human ears, buried in salt, in a cardboard box for Christmas. Only Holmes and Watson can relate all the facts and come to the correct conclusion. But we are not finished! We will be back in about two months as we research and explore Hercule Poirot , as we prepare to dig into Agatha Christie's greatest (...

A large diamond. A rogue sportsman. And Mycroft (in the form of Charles Gray) pairing up with Watson. The director Peter Hammond goes way overboard with facets as a metaphor, but the way this show combines the original story with the Three Garridebs was actually pretty effective.

Omertá. A landlady comes to see Holmes and Watson because she's got a lodger who will not come out unless it's to grab a tray and go back inside the room. Mrs. Hudson urges her on, and Holmes agrees to take the case. The Mafia is involved. But who is in the landlady's room?

Russians! Nihilists! 140 different kinds of tobacco ash, and suffragettes! Coptic Christians! And a massive, really awful marital betrayal.  Rachel and Laura go long on this episode because it deserves it. It's one of the rare good ones in the latter days of this series.

Culverton Smith is manipulating his cousin and ensuring his death and societal destruction. Baby Hugh Bonneville and Susannah Harker turn this episode into a suspenseful saga of addiction and deception.

Thankfully, the Granada crew rescued Steve Dixie from the stupid racism that Conan Doyle saddled him with. Nonetheless...Mrs. Maberley is trying to get to the bottom of why and how her son really died. As weird as this episode was, it's better than what's gone before.

We were very mixed up about who the biddies were and who the twins were and also none of this should have ever happened. Happily, Hattie comes out on top, owning the manor house that she loved so much from a distance. And I guess that's what counts.

Wait, no, we were wrong - THIS is the show's worst episode ever. Another two-parter, this is the story of (we think? we're 45 minutes in and it's not really clear) a man who married a woman who disappeared right after the wedding. from a Reddit comment: Just watched Granada’s “The Eligible Bachelor” and am sitting here wondering what I just watched. It’s completely bonkers. Words fail us, and yet...

It starts in flames. Turns out, those flames destroyed the set - and the manor house - entirely. This is Granada's attempt to put Holmes against a vampire - could have been great, turns out it was...well, a mess. We discuss. Part two of two.

It starts in flames. Turns out, those flames destroyed the set - and the manor house - entirely. This is Granada's attempt to put Holmes against a vampire - could have been great, turns out it was...well, a mess. We discuss. Part one of two.

The slimy, oleaginous Charles Augustus Milverton meets his well-deserved end. Second of two parts.

We're dividing this episode in two because it was a TV movie. A seminal encounter between Holmes and Charles Augustus Milverton - played to perfection by Robert Hardy. 

Monkey glands! A more-than-midlife crisis! And the horrors of animal trafficking, which still continues today. The greatest primate actor of all time (Peter Elliott), and the immortal words: "If inconvenient, come all the same." Holmes and Watson aim to rescue more than one young woman from the fragility of the male ego.

A wife-murder in the Alps - apparently, it's called uxoricide. No wonder it hasn't caught on. Followed by a porcelain collection, and a collection of...women. Come for Sherlock Holmes, stay for Laura's encounter with Gene Simmons from KISS, who also has a collection of women.

Australians - and baby James Purefoy! We love this show because it introduces us to the nascence of our favorite actors. A man is lying dead by a lakeside. A gamekeeper talks too much. Star-crossed would-be lovers - and a forgotten past. It's too good, too delightfully grotesque.

Another horse racing mystery! But there's a baby Jude Law, some beautiful egg cozies, and yes - a man taking advantage of his sister's fortune. And a disguise! It's Gothic mystery at its best here.

A Brazilian wife, a blameless governess, and a whole lot of rhododenrons - Rachel and Laura unpack Winchester Prison, the Huguenots, and Cheshire vs Hampshire. 

The second part of the Richard Roxburgh Hound of the Baskervilles. So good. Definitely better than the Granada version.

A deeply unsatisfying episode by Granada - who knew that women had the ability to do what they wanted, when they wanted?  Lady Frances Carfax has disappeared from a hotel in the Lake District. So many men are deeply concerned.

We're comparing the Richard Roxburgh version of Hound of the Baskervilles to the Jeremy Brett version. Roxburgh is a very different actor, and the story is told in a different way as well - leaving out the Lankford family entirely, and focusing more on wide panoramic shots of the moor. Sir Henry is not the son but the nephew of Sir Charles. And a host of other differences that true Sherlockians wi...

Holmes reveals himself to Watson and Mortimer, and introduces his only attempt at cooking - a cold stew that even Watson refuses to eat. Is Beryl Stapleton who she says she is? What happens to her brother as he runs through the moor at night? Why is the dog green?

"Mr. Holmes. They were the footprints of a gigantic hound!" With that statement, Holmes and Watson - mostly Watson - are off to Dartmoor. A horrific, large, possibly supernatural dog is haunting the moorland, and Sir Henry Baskerville is the probable target. Is the moor truly haunted? 

We'll never know who Bruce Partington was, but his plans for a secret submarine are the sole concern of this episode. Holmes becomes a submarine expert, Mycroft is bestirred from his usual rounds, and absolutely nothing is as it seems apart from oysters being in season.

A cartography aficianado, a Spanish visitor (because we can't have an ACD story without the othering of the...other), and a rather sinister Inspector Baynes - and a spirited pair of children - bring Holmes and Watson to Surrey, where they have to solve a distinctly Iberian mystery.

A prominent raceshorse with a magnificent pedigree is missing. His trainer is dead. And...a guard dog didn't bark. The curious incident of the dog in the nighttime provides the essential clue that allows Holmes and Watson to solve the case.