Jeremy Brett is the most loved on-screen Sherlock

The argument

This argument holds that the 1984 Granada television series is the best screen version of Sherlock Holmes because its star, Jeremy Brett, is the most loved on-screen Sherlock — the portrayal that devotees of the character, across generations, return to as definitive. Out of more than 250 screen portrayals of the most-adapted literary character in history, Brett's occupies a singular place in the affection of Holmesians. Across a decade of the Granada series, he gave the detective everything the books describe and most adaptations smooth away: the mercurial energy and sudden languor, the theatrical gestures, the cold brilliance shot through with flashes of warmth and dry humour. Brett famously made fidelity his obsession — studying Conan Doyle's stories exhaustively and keeping a file on the character's habits and manners so that his performance would honour the canon line by line. The series around him matched that care, with faithful adaptations and a period production that aimed to put the original stories on screen rather than a reinvention of them. The argument takes this devotion as the right measure of 'best'. Screen Holmeses can be ranked by box office or novelty, but the truest test of an adaptation is its standing among those who love the source — and there, Brett's name is the perennial answer. Decades after his death, fans and critics alike still call him the definitive Holmes, the actor who, as the tribute goes, became the detective. From this standpoint, the portrayal most cherished by the character's own devotees marks the adaptation that got Holmes right. Because Jeremy Brett is the most loved on-screen Sherlock, this argument holds, the 1984 Granada series is the best screen version.

Premises

Counter-arguments

The measure and the merit are the same thing here, which makes the reasoning circular. The devotees polled are those who prize fidelity to the stories; the series was built to satisfy fidelity to the stories; so its standing among them records that it did what it set out to do rather than that it is the best adaptation. An adaptation that reinvents the character will never win a vote conducted among people who value transcription. The empirical claim is asserted rather than demonstrated. 'Most loved' across more than two hundred and fifty portrayals is a strong statement, and other performances command enormous followings — an earlier generation's attachment to Rathbone, and modern audiences far larger than the Granada series ever reached for the Cumberbatch and Downey versions. Which is 'most loved' depends heavily on which cohort is asked and when. Fidelity is also one criterion among several. Adaptations can be judged by what they make of a source rather than by how closely they reproduce it, and on that standard a faithful rendering is not automatically superior to an inventive one — the question of which is better is exactly what the rival positions dispute. The series itself complicates the fidelity case. Its later seasons are widely acknowledged to have declined as Brett's health deteriorated, and several late instalments depart substantially from the stories they adapt.

Rejecting the premises

[Rejecting P3] Standing among devotees who value canonical fidelity measures whether the series met the standard it was built to meet, which makes the criterion and the achievement the same thing. [Rejecting P1] That this portrayal is the most loved across more than 250 versions is asserted rather than shown; other performances command far larger modern followings, and the answer varies with which cohort is asked.