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Murder Rooms: The Dark Beginnings of Sherlock Holmes [2001]
![Murder Rooms: The Dark Beginnings of Sherlock Holmes [2001]](http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/516E01U-l3L._SL160_.jpg)
Our Price: £14.61 (subject to change)
Dr. Bell and Dr. Doyle, and the beginnings of Sherlock Holmes, with Ian Richardson and the production values to admire
Review date: 2007-06-07 Rating: 8 out of 10
When we last saw the great forensic professor of medicine, Dr. Joseph Bell (Ian Richardson), from the University of Edinburgh, it was 1873. He and his callow young medical student, Arthur Conan Doyle, had just solved a horrendous series of murders, but at great cost. The young woman Doyle had loved was the last victim and the murderer had escaped. It's now a few years later. Doyle has his degree and is trying to establish his own practice. Bell has chosen to become friends with Doyle, drawn by Doyle's eagerness to learn, his intelligence and his concern for the sick and weak. Bell also is touched by the knowledge of Doyle's great loss. He is sensitive enough not to comment on Doyle's physical change. Instead of a callow youth, Doyle, while still tentative in manner, now looks something like a Hollywood hunk. Where earlier Doyle had been played by Robin Laing, a fine actor but no matinee idol, now he is played by the handsome actor Charles Edwards. Bell and Doyle have become friends, something on the order of mentor and student, and Bell continues to help Doyle when mysteries arise. In Murder Rooms, four do.
This series of four 90-minute episodes has some of the greatest production values I've ever come across in British period dramas and mysteries. It must have cost a bundle to mount them and may account for Murder Rooms not being renewed for further episodes. We don't simply have dark, wet cobblestone streets, foggy nights and horse-drawn carriages. There are great dining rooms and entrance halls, a lavish banquet, Victorian velvet settees and well-groomed riding horses, lecture halls sided by carved, polished dark oak with seats filled by prosperous elderly gentlemen in evening clothes. There are cold autopsy rooms occupied by grey-green corpses with all sorts of scalpels and saws, jars and liquids, trays, tables, weights and drains. The costumes are detailed and look bespoke; even the beggars' rags look authentic.
But what of the stories? Are they good mysteries? I'm not as enthusiastic as I am about the sets and costumes. The proposition of the series is that Conan Doyle's great fictional detective, Sherlock Holmes, was patterned after Joseph bell. Bell is a clever, shrewd doctor who observes and thinks. He notices things. He'll use his eyes, his nose, his finger tips, not just his scalpel, to pry out secrets from a corpse. Much of this was evident in Dr. Bell and Mr. Holmes: The Dark Beginnings of Sherlock Holmes. This was the first program, available on a separate DVD. Dr. Bell led the way there, demonstrating and teaching the science of deduction to Doyle as he developed answers to murder. In the four episodes of Murder Rooms, two significant changes have crept in. First, the focus has shifted a good deal to Conan Doyle. He is the one who finds himself dealing with mysteries, and Bell is the one who shows up to demonstrate a solution. Because Doyle is now a handsome young man with a strong profile, the programs center as much or more on him and his situation as they do on the much older Ian Richardson. Second, the mysteries seem to me not to be so much clever puzzles as to be somewhat exotic events. We wind up dealing with mummies, Irish terrorists with an iconic sword, seances and dead loves, a fascination for capturing souls as a person dies, and a deus ex machina that depends on madness, tunnels and caves. I suppose the writers didn't have the time or the inclination to develop the sort of complex plot lines which would have taxed Sherlock Holmes...I mean, Dr. Bell...and so settled for next best; that, and the need to put forward Doyle as a more traditional, handsome leading character. Still, the production values and Ian Richardson save the series. Murder Rooms is fascinating to look at and Richardson provides enough dry energy to keep us interested.
There are four stories for us: The Kingdom of Bones, The Patient's Eyes, The Photographer's Chair and The White Knight Stratagem. For the most part, the acting features that solid, assured British manner which is such a pleasure to see. Some old friends we noticed include Ian McNeice, John Sessions, Crispin Bonham Carter, Warwick Davis, Annette Crosbie and Henry Goodman. The DVD transfer is very good.
Similar Products
- Dr. Bell and Mr. Doyle [2000] (REGION 1) (NTSC)
- Murder Rooms - The Patient's Eyes [2001]
- Murder Rooms - The Kingdom Of Bones [2001]
- Murder Rooms - The White Knight Stratagem [2001]
- Murder Rooms - The Photographer's Chair [2001]
Reviews
If your a fan of Sherlock Holmes you must get this.
Review date: 2007-03-16 Rating: 10 out of 10
This is a set of the four feature length adventures which followed the original one off Murder Rooms, following Dr Arthur Conan Doyle and his mentor Dr Joseph Bell who he used as the basis for Sherlock Holmes.
There are four adventures in total over the two discs, The Patients Eyes where a young woman is pursued and haunted by a cloaked figure, The Photographers Chair where victims of a Serial killer are found to have distinct markings, The Kingdom of Bones where an Eyptian Mummy is unwrapped to reveal a modern day man and The White Knight Strategem where two men with knowledge of a suicide are murdered.
There is a dark edge to these films hence The Dark Beginnings of Sherlock Holmes as the duo of Doyle and Bell use deductive reasoning to solve the mysteries. The two lead actors are wonderful, Charles Edwards plays Doyle a young Doctor, kind, honourable but emotional, unlike his mentor Bell played by the excellent Ian Richardson who keeps his emotional detachment and sticks to the facts, leaving no stone unturned or any loose thread.
If you are a fan of the Jeremy Brett, Sherlock Holmes series you must get this, as it is just as good. The four adventures are also available on individual discs but you don't need to get these as this is the same price as just one of them so its a real bargain and is ALL region and in widscreen.
Product Details/Specifications
Actor(s):
Amber Noble
Paul McNeilly
Claire Harman
Henry Goodman
Charles Edwards (VI)
Director(s):
Recording label: MPI Home Video
Manufacturer: MPI Home Video
EAN: 0030306811390
Binding: DVD
Number of items: 2
Format: Colour, DVD-Video, PAL,
Release date: 2006-06-27
Universal product code (UPC): 030306811390
Number of discs: 2
Aspect ratio: 1.78:1
Running time: 360 minutes
Theatrical release date: 2000
Language: English (Original Language)