[claw-el]

One reason I like CBS’s Elementary’s depiction of Sherlock (maybe more so than BBC’s Sherlock) is because how Elementary treats Sherlock’s mental health and addiction recovery as central to the character. As great as Sherlock is at solving cases, he still struggles greatly to handle his own mental health and addiction recovery, which makes him more grounded to earth.

[PapstJL4U]

I think Elementarys Sherlock is closer to the book version. In the BBC version he is totally aloof of social connections and norms, but in the books it is pretty clear, that Sherlock is able to tranverse London society - he had many case with high society people before Watson was part of his life - he just dislikes it.

[arionmiles]

If you're looking for a portrayal closer to the books, I'd highly recommend Jeremy Brett's Sherlock Holmes produced by Granada TV from the 80s.

I don't think any actor has come as close as Jeremy Brett did.

[squigz]

I've not read much of Holmes, so I can't really speak to the original character, but I would point out that the "he can socialize, he just doesn't like to" bit is somewhat part of BBC's Sherlock too - look at the relationship he developed with the woman to get at Magnussen. It's an aspect of him they never really explored much beyond that though - you're definitely right in that he seems more incapable of it than anything else.

[zem]

I tried watching an episode of the bbc version and found it very off-putting, it was written almost as a caricature of holmes. elementary was definitely a lot closer in spirit.

[enlyth]

Also why I enjoyed House which is basically modern Sherlock Holmes in a medical setting

[claw-el]

The American series (House and Elementary) has the advantage of more seasons and episodes, which I think is sometimes required to showcase the challenges of drug addiction and mental health. The fact that these characters having to come back to face the same problem over and over again episode after episode is more true to the nature of the mental health problem itself.

BBC Sherlock has too little episodes to bring audience along a prolonged struggle with mental health.

[GJim]

> Sherlock’s mental health and addiction recovery

As I said downthread.....

In Conan Doyle's books, Holmes was a user of cocaine, not an addict.

This modern desire to portray Holmes as a drug addict says far more about our own times.

[papercrane]

When Doyle wrote most of the Holmes stories cocaine was a popular and novel new drug, it wasn't until later that it's risks became widely known. In one of his later stories, "The Adventure of the Missing Three-Quarter", Doyle portrays it as an addiction that Watson weaned him of, but is still concerned that his friend may fall back into.

"For years I had gradually weaned him from that drug-mania which had threatened once to check his remarkable career. Now I knew that under ordinary conditions he no longer craved for this artificial stimulus, but I was well aware that the fiend was not dead but sleeping, and I have known that the sleep was a light one and the waking near when in periods of idleness I have seen the drawn look upon Holmes’ ascetic face, and the brooding of his deep-set and inscrutable eyes. Therefore I blessed this Mr. Overton, whoever he might be, since he had come with his enigmatic message to break that dangerous calm which brought more peril to my friend than all the storms of his tempestuous life."

- https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/The_Return_of_Sherlock_Holmes...

[fidotron]

In the One True TV Holmes https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0086661/?ref_=nm_flmg_job_1_acc... this is even shown as a tension between Holmes and Watson, with Watson showing the modern view.

Of course Brett was in fact completely out of it for much of the filming on all sorts of things.

[Edman274]

A few things; one, even if it's not strictly speaking true that cocaine use always leads to addiction every single time, we know now better than in Victorian era England how often it does, and Doyle not having been a cocaine user may have lost some of the elements of how cocaine is addictive and what it looks like. I hate to say that there is some moral duty to show a protagonist using cocaine as having a problem with its use that needs to be overcome, but I do think it'd be strange too to keep what was effectively this SMBC comic (https://smbc-comics.com/index.php?db=comics&id=191) as Holmes' use of coke.

Secondly, the stories that mention coke use are all written from the perspective of Holmes' best friend, who we'd expect to be biased towards writing about his friend in a positive light. I don't think this is accidental. Watson quotes him effectively saying "I just do coke because life is so mundane and boring, and not stimulating enough for me" which is nearly the exact same justification and thought process used by like, every addict and if not a word-for-word quote, then at least very similar for Chris Moltisanti's justification of his own addiction to Tony Soprano.

It may not be an exact rendering of what was in the books but it is extremely natural modification to make, where otherwise we'd have flat Marty Stu character who is talking in ways that seem very consistent with at least problematic use and yet who's not addicted. "Our own times" have dealt with at least 100 years of coke addiction, 50 years of crack so maybe we're just not naive enough to believe that a guy who's saying "my friend just takes it when he's bored, but he's bored all the time because his mind is too sharp for this dull world" isn't a problematic user or addict.