TV Pick of the week: Sherlock: A Study in Pink

Benedict Cumberbatch's Sherlock is a modern detective firmly grounded in the past. Photo / Supplied

The bare forearm of Sherlock Holmes stretches up ominously: his fist is clenched, his sinews taut, but there is no illicit substance on view, no tourniquet; instead, beige nicotine patches line his pale skin. This is a modern Holmes, inside a modern 221b Baker Street.

"This, Watson, is a three-patch problem," the great detective announces from his armchair; not the knotty "three-pipe problem" of Arthur Conan Doyle's original.

Starting the first of his three 90-minute movies this Sunday on TV1, after high ratings last year in Britain, Sherlock is a re-imagining of the Doyle stories, with Benedict Cumberbatch in the title role and Martin Freeman as his Watson.

Resembling a cross between Withnail and I and The Bourne Ultimatum, there is also a hint of Doctor Who about the drama; hardly surprising, since it's by Doctor Who writers Mark Gatiss and Steven Moffat.

For Gatiss, the idea for Sherlock germinated on the train journeys he and Moffat shared between London and Cardiff, where Doctor Who is filmed.

"It came up that we were both huge Sherlock Holmes fans," he explains. "What appealed to us about the idea of doing Sherlock in the present day is that the characters have become almost literally lost in the fog," he says. "We wanted to get back to the characters and to why they became the most wonderful partnership in literature."

Casting Cumberbatch as Holmes was a natural decision and Freeman's dependable, capable Watson unlocks this modern Holmes, a man who now describes himself as "a high-functioning sociopath".

"It's important that Watson is not an idiot, although it's true that Conan Doyle always took the piss out of him," said Gatiss.

For 43-year-old Gatiss, the "lightbulb moment" came when he was speaking to the Sherlock Holmes Society of London and discussing how the original Watson was invalided home after serving in Afghanistan. "It is the same war now, I thought. The same unwinnable war."

His Sherlock still has an arch-enemy and a clever brother, plays the violin, has a landlady called Mrs Hudson (Una Stubbs), and a police colleague called Lestrade (Rupert Graves).

Many of the modern updates involve technology. "Holmes used to send cables and now he texts and has a website. He is using the tools of his age, just as he did then."

Clues are displayed on screen, in the manner of a video game, and Watson's dispatches to the Strand Magazine are replaced by a blog. But there are, Gatiss conceded, "immutable" elements of the Holmes stories, such as the hound of the Baskervilles and Moriarty. "These things go together like Doctor Who and the Daleks."

When: Sunday, 8.30pm
Where: TV1
What: Flash forward for the Baker Street boys

- TimeOut / Observer