"I've failed".
Granada's Sherlock Holmes, after a couple of yars' absence, is back for the '90s, a new decade and a new title. It's interesting that we begin with an adaptation of a later short story, written in 1911, and one clearly set after the the turn of the century- Suffragettes are mentioned, and the Boer War has ended, so it can be no earlier than 1902. Holmes and Watson are middle-aged, and it is no longer obviouly trues that Jeremy Brett and Edward Hardwicke are really too old to play their characters, wh would both have been aroung fiftyish.
There's also a hint that Holmes' faculties may be declining with age; he solves the case- and prevents poor Lady Frances from being buried alive- soon enough to save her life but too late to prevent what appears to be severe PTSD. His sense of failure and guilt is very much played up by the direction and the excellent performance of a mildly frailer-looking Brett.
The filming in the Lake District is breathtaking, and the early scenes, with Watson on holiday writing to Holmes. Lady Frances' delightful eccentricity in these scenes is in horrible contrast to the tragedy that is to befall her- and Michael Jayston's superb performance as her aristocratic brother reminds us that, privileged though she may be, Lady Frances exists at the whims of men who control the purse strings.
The air of religiosity around the earlier scenes feels most odd in a Sherlock Holmes story but it is, of course, a clever piece of misdirection: it is the saintly missionary who turns out to be not only a confidence trickster but a murderer.
This is a strong opening, but possibly one that may herald an older and less confident Holmes?
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