A New Twist On The Classic Detective

Guy Ritchie’s new Prime Video series Young Sherlock has lived up to the hype, delivering us eight rip-roaring episodes of mystery and thrills in what looks likely to be the first of multiple seasons. The show presents us with a version of Sherlock Holmes that we’ve never seen onscreen before.

Whilst a teenage Holmes has been portrayed before in Barry Levinson’s 1985 movie Young Sherlock Holmes, this earlier rendering of the future master detective wasn’t the young miscreant with a penchant for swashbuckling action sequences that Ritchie gives us here. What’s more, Young Sherlock season 1 takes us deep into the twisted family dynamics of its titular antihero.

The series serves as a brilliant reimagining of Holmes’ origin story. Ultimately, though, it still rests on the killer combination of spell-binding murder mystery and youthful adventure, much like the Sherlock Holmes movies starring Robert Downey Jr. that Guy Ritchie previously directed. With so much going for the show, it’s hardly surprising that Young Sherlock is a spectacular streaming success.

Guy Ritchie’s Young Sherlock Is Prime Video’s Best New Crime Thriller

Debuting as a crime thriller on Prime Video isn’t easy, especially if you’re going down the route of a detective show. Amazon’s streaming platform features many of the best detective series anywhere on television. But Young Sherlock has some not-so-secret weapons with which to overcome the competition, including a wholly new perspective on one of the all-time great literary characters.

It helps, too, if this perspective is developed by a specialist thriller writer like Matthew Parkhill (the creator behind shows like Deep State and Rogue), based on a lively and accessible modernization of the character in question by an accomplished author like Andrew Lane. Lane’s Young Sherlock Holmes novel series directly inspired Prime Video’s best new crime show.

Then, of course, there’s veteran crime genre director Guy Ritchie, who’s a master of fast-paced, thinly-sliced scenes which seamlessly blend characterization with action and dialogue. Completing the picture are fine breakout performances from Hero Fiennes Tiffin and Dónal Finn, as well as standout supporting contributions from established stars Joseph Fiennes and Colin Firth.

Young Sherlock Gets Better With Every Episode

Natascha McElhone as Cordelia Holmes in Young Sherlock

As its first season progresses, Young Sherlock just keeps getting better and better. The show starts as it means to go on, wasting no time in introducing us to the band of young adventurers at its core. Besides the young Holmes himself, there’s his older brother Mycroft, the enigmatic Princess Gulun Shou’an, and an entirely original adaptation of James Moriarty.

Where it needs to, Young Sherlock makes skillful use of flashbacks to fill in the blanks, but it generally immerses us in the moment, unfolding its cleverly formulated, many-layered mystery at breakneck speed. It also manages to kill two birds with one Holmes, by initiating us into Sherlock’s troubled backstory at the same time as solving its crimes.

The Holmes family is more intimately entangled in the crimes the young protagonist comes across than he could possibly have predicted. By the time we get to the end of Young Sherlock season 1, we see Sherlock Holmes in a more heroic light than ever before, because of the trauma he’s clearly had to go through while coming of age.

How Young Sherlock’s Season 1 Ending Sets Up Season 2

Young Sherlock still featuring Sherlock and Moriarty wearing hats.

Although Young Sherlock season 2 isn’t confirmed just yet, the prospects for the series are looking very good in the weeks following its release. It’s been a massive ratings hit and a major critical success so far, so it’s surely only a matter of time before a second season is announced.

As if anticipating the show’s success, Young Sherlock season 1 finishes by setting up a subsequent storyline in which young scholar James Moriarty, the best friend of the teenage Holmes, effectively betrays him by holding onto a deadly secret. It isn’t just Sherlock’s origin story that’s being told here. We’ll also learn how Moriarty comes to be Holmes’ ultimate nemesis.