Creature of Mad Enthusiasms

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=00-3wOYBqGo

ETA: This. Show. Is. Perfect. Russian Holmes is totally my favorite 21st century Holmes!

New Russian Holmes has hit YouTube! http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=qVhk2NSY2Qk

Over on spiritcc's tumblr, there are links to the torrents (which I can't get to work) and downloads for the subtitle files (which I can).

Alerted by a comment in the previous post (thank you for the links!) I started looking for more information on the Russian series.

First, it isn't called 221B Baker Street - that was just the name of the first episode. Depending on where you look, it's called Sherlock Holmes, Sherlok Holms, or Sherlok Kholms.

Second, there are 16 episodes, but like the Sarah Jane Adventures, it takes 2 episodes to tell a story. What's being leaked to YouTube are two episodes combined, so there will be 8 episodes overall. (I really HOPE the person subtitling them and releasing them will continue!)

Third and finally, sadly this was the last project for actor Andrei Panin (Watson), who was found dead of a head wound last November. They apparently frankenclipped his last bits of dialog out of previous recordings and a new actor to complete the episode.

According to Wikipedia, the stories are:

-- 221B Baker Street
-- Rock, Paper, Scissors
-- Clowns
-- The Mistress of Lord Maulbré
-- The Adventure of the Musgrave Ritual
-- Halifax
-- Holmes' Last Case
-- The Hound of the Baskervilles

Y'all, if you have not seen the first episode of 221B Baker Street (the new Russian Holmes), I can't recommend it enough. It's set in Victorian times - rare for a remake these days - which it recreates gorgeously but not nostalgically; you can almost smell the horse dung and raw gin. How Holmes and Watson meet is almost completely uncanonical, but the rest of the plot is basically a fusion of Black Peter and Charles Augustus Milverton, melded in a way that made them hold together more solidly than one would have expected.

What's so wonderful, aside from the visuals, are the characters. Holmes is young, energetic, determined, and somewhat over excitable. Watson is stolid, quiet, and somewhere between fascinated in him and ready to smack him one. I adore Russian Watson! He may just have narrowly edged his way to the top of my favorite Watsons.

To get the English subtitles, click the CC button on YouTube. http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=VzwBIvVwuOg