REVIEW: ‘The Irregulars' (Netflix)
'The world is big enough for us. No ghosts need apply’ – Sherlock Holmes (‘The Sussex Vampire’)
I have put off writing this review several times as I find myself torn in my view of the latest version of Sherlock Holmes’ London. Having already alienated traditionalist Sherlockians with ‘Enola Holmes’ (see my review for details), Netflix have come round again with another production trampling even more over canonical interpretations of the master detective and his former army medic friend. In fact ‘The Irregulars’ breaks four out of the ten rules that I identified when talking about theatrical adaptations. Given this and the heinous misrepresentation of not only Holmes and Watson, but also Mrs Hudson and Inspector Lestrade (in fact only Tim Key’s Inspector Gregson, and to a lesser extent Jonjo O’Neill‘s Mycroft, bear any resemblance to their canonical personas), I should hate this production, but I somehow can’t bring myself to do so.
As with EH the focus is not on Holmes and Watson, but is instead on a group of troubled street teens who are manipulated into solving supernatural crimes for the very sinister Watson. There have been two previous television series focusing on ‘the Baker Street Irregulars’, the gang of street urchins used by Holmes as his ‘eyes and ears’ in the first two novels (and briefly in ‘The Crooked Man’) – the incomparable ‘The Baker Street Boys’, and more recently ‘Sherlock Holmes and the Baker Street Irregulars’. I enjoyed the new gang, led by the feisty Bea (Thaddea Graham), but found myself wishing that one of them, Spike (McKell David), was given more to do. There was also a good smattering of guest stars, including the aforementioned Tim Key, as well as Clarke Peters, Anna Maxwell Martin, Shelley Conn, Emma Cunliffe and Denise Black; and the locations included ones also seen in the Granada Sherlock Holmes and the 2009 Guy Richie film, as well as ‘The Fantasy Factory’ from ‘Doctor Who’ episode, ‘The Ultimate Foe’. (I have added several new locations to my list of future sojourns). I even didn’t find the too-modern musical score distracting.
Those are the pros, what are the cons ? Well an unrecognisably cruel Doctor John Watson, a too emotional Sherlock Holmes who believes in spirits, and a very uncanonical love-triangle being at the heart of the explanation for the seemingly random opening of a portal to another world/dimension, itself a trope I am tiring of. Holmes is absent for the first half of the eight episodes, and a flashback in Episode 5 briefly shows a much more canonical Holmes/Watson pairing, which I found just rubbed salt into the gaping wound. However, the events of the final episode may mean that any series two might not suffer from the same issues.
So, certainly not one for Sherlockian traditionalists, and I found myself wishing that the series had simply been ‘inspired by’ the Baker Street Irregulars, and that the two monstrous creations who drove the plot were not named Sherlock Holmes and John Watson. However, I would probably still watch a series two.
Rating: 
(3/5)
