I have always had a fondness for detective fiction in one guise or another, I have read all the Agatha Christie books be they Miss Marple or Poirot, I have read lots of modern detective fiction but the one that has always had a special place in my affections is Sherlock Holmes.

I remember growing up watching the Basil Rathbone Holmes with my dad, one of the few programmes he watched that interested me. Then Jeremy Brett took over the deerstalker, and around the same time I first read the Holmes Sir Arthur Conan Doyle created on the page.  The thing that has always appealed to me about Holmes was the fact that he is very much a flawed genius, his knowledge of the criminal mind and obscure poisons of course are fascinating but also the fact that he was very much a dangerous person in his own right.  He mixed with the lowest of the low, took illicit substances and of course the very fact he had no interest in the opposite sex makes him even more appealing, after all everyone loves a challenge and the cracks caused by the infamous Irene Adler AKA The Woman showed that despite his pure logical approach to life, he was still flesh and bone in the end.

That is not to say I ever fancied Sherlock, after all he was always played by, what were to me old men, no rather it was the Holmes on the page that seduced me until Hollywood decided that he needed a new face.  Enter Robert Downey Jnr.

I did actually quite like his portrayal of Holmes sadly his Watson did not grab me and the stories that Hollywood created for him failed when held up again Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s stories.  So we fast forward to a couple of months ago and I finally decide to see what all the fuss is about with this new updated Sherlock that every one is talking about.

I expected to hate it, I didn’t like Benedict (insert whichever derogatory version of his name amuses you here), Martin Freeman was either a Hobbit or the porn star from Love Actually depending which mood I was in.  So you can imagine my complete shock when I loved it.

Not only are the modern takes on the stories perfectly adapted but the acting is superb and I have to confess I have developed a little bit of a crush on Sherlock (not Benedict though), intelligence is sexy, as proved by Jane Austen with Mr Darcy a little bit of arrogance can be sexy. My only complaint is I am certainly left wanting more.

I struggled with myself over choosing a clip, I am aware that there may be some people out there who have not watched this new series or possibly the show at all, so I picked an excerpt from the first episode of the second season, hopefully if you have not seen the show at all it will tempt you into looking it up either on your own TV stations or maybe Netflix.