Young Sherlock

The show turns Victorian England on its head, infusing it with modern energy while offering an intricate mystery anchored by singular characters and extraordinary circumstances.

This is a grand adventure and cracking good mystery awash with gaslighting, brawls, murders, red herrings and a secret society. Better yet, it provides a better understanding of how the past and Sherlock’s dysfunctional parents (played by Natasha McElhone and Joseph Fiennes — Hero’s actual uncle) and his ardently disappointed brother Mycroft (Max Irons) ushered in Sherlock’s anxiety and neuroses.

While Young Sherlock is certainly stylish, it doesn’t forsake substance for that style, setting up Sherlock Holmes’ first big case in a way that digs into the characters of Sherlock, Moriarty and others that are familiar to Holmes fans.

It’s pulpy and nutty and preposterous, mostly in a good way. .... All eight episodes premiere at once, the better to binge them, and having stayed up until 2 a.m. doing just that, I can tell you it’s not hard, and hard not to do.

Though it's far from the most loyal adaptation, what Young Sherlock lacks in accuracy to the source material, it makes up for in pure entertainment. It's not fancy or pretentious; it's just having fun and takes you on the ride with it.

Devilishly clever things are afoot in this YA origin story as Mr. Holmes (a dashing Hero Fiennes Tiffin) rethinks his juvenile antics as a rebel hothead at Oxford and starts reinventing himself as the world’s greatest detective.

The "eight-hour movie" aspect of this season is regrettable, and Sherlock himself often gets lost in the shuffle of what's basically an ensemble adventure, but Young Sherlock has good chemistry, energy, and synergy.