Even Russia’s Updating Sherlock, with Love

Igor Petrenko will be Russian television’s next Sherlock Holmes
Via RT.com: Apparently, there was a highly-acclaimed and rather-faithful television adaptation of the Sherlock Holmes stories which aired in the Soviet Union and in Britain in the 1980s.  So beloved was it that the leading man and Great Detective, Vasily Livanov, was awarded honorary membership in the O.B.E.  Now, St. Petersburg is the site of London-town for a new adaptation, starring 34 year-old Igor Petrenko as Sherlock Holmes and almost 50 year-old Andrey Panin. 

Andrey Panin will play Russian TV’s new Dr. Watson
The new series is supposed to film 16 episodes, but is also reported to “hit the big screens at the end of 2012,” so it’s possible that we don’t have all the facts straight yet.  We do wonder, though, how closely this new Russian series can mirror the source material, and/or if they’ll bother explaining a Dr. Watson who’s 15 years older than his friend, definitely more than the few years’ difference in the stories. 

In any case, gentlemen, we toast to your very good luck—Here’s borscht in your eye!

Comments

  1. Sleeping Hedgehog editor

    After the strong negative reaction over at the Tor website over the idea of CBS, an American tekevision network, making their own version of a contemporary Holmes, I am looking forward to seeing if it’s considered OK for a Russian company to do the same thing.

    If folks ooh and ahhh over this series, I’ll know that a double standard rules among Holmes fans!

  2. Clare 2e

    Pretty strong negatives from the crime crowd, too, at least based on Tweets and Facebook. But at least the Soviet series seems previously to have set a high water mark. I’m not sure whether CBS can lean, exactly, on its legacy of fine literary adaptations in the last 20 years or so–
    But maybe I’m forgetting something : ) The Big 3 seem always to want to start from scratch, or to twist the source material until it snaps like a pretzel. If this new Russian series stinks, I bet all those old-school Livanov fans will say so.

  3. KateH

    With the truly inspiring revamp of Sherlock in modern-day London being done by British TV (with Benedict Cumberbatch and Martin Freeman), CBS would be foolish to bring anything out that would have to compete with it. The only problem with ITV’s Sherlock is that it’s only 3 episodes per season, which is just not enough. Even though CBS would do at least 13 episodes, I cna’t see them being able to make them be as cool as ITV and BC/MF have done.

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