Sherlock Series 2 titles

Den of Geek is reporting that the new series titles for Sherlock are A Scandal in Belgravia (written by Steven Moffat), The Hounds of Baskerville (Mark Gatiss) and The Reichenbach Fall (oh dear, Stephen Thompson). We can expect to see them sometime in the autumn.

As you might recall, after a flurry of enthusiasm, I was left rather jaded by Sherlock. Teaching it this year to undergrads did nothing to endear the show further to me, but new episodes might. I am intrigued to know where the show goes next – how about you?

Studies in Sherlock #7

I meant to write this up last week, but other stuff has got in the way. Anyway, while I’ve lost a bit of momentum with my Studies in Sherlock, I do want to conclude them in the way that I intended.

So, Moriarty… This reconception of the character has definitely been the most controversial aspect of the series. It really affected my enjoyment of The Great Game, and unfairly biased me against other aspects of that episode. Looking back now, I retain my reservations but have less of the jaw-dropping astonishment at Andrew Scott’s gurning campy “Jim”. The following series of screencaps illustrate the broadness of Scott’s performance (screencaps thanks to Cementville).

While many fans seem to have accepted and enjoyed the new version, I disliked the episode’s cynical invitation to “ship” Sherlock and Jim. I had a similar objection to the way this was done with David Tennant and John Simm in Doctor Who. I’d argue that, in this respect, both shows are pandering to their fans rather than challenging them. In fairness, some of these aspects have been interpreted differently in an excellent essay by Matt Hills on the subject.

I think my friend Alex put his finger on the strangest aspect of this reimagining. While Moffat and Gatiss have insisted in interviews on the affinity between their update and the Conan Doyle stories, their Moriarty bears no resemblance to the original character. He destroys the logic of the show. Far from being a shadowy presence, here he seeks the detective’s attention. And I think that by making him a fan of Sherlock, he becomes less complex. Moriarty is frightening when he towers above Sherlock, not when he is following him.

New Tricks Season 7 Overview (part 1)

Roisin Muldoon considers the latest from UCOS…

I have long been promising to write a guest blog for Nic on the subject of one of my favourite detective dramas, New Tricks. As series 7 came to a close last Friday night, I thought it time to finally make good on my promise and so I present to you an overview of series 7. It isn’t fashionable to like New Tricks, but I love it. In my house my collection of New Tricks boxed sets sits proudly next to more respected shows such as The Wire or Mad Men.

After a slightly disappointing and uneven sixth series, I was unsure of what to expect from series 7. I confess, I had started to wonder if it was time for these old detectives to hang up their shields and hand in their blockbuster cards.

Episode One, Dead Man Talking, assuaged some of my doubts. The UCOS team investigated the suspicious death of a wealthy financier on the insistence of his daughter, who was taking advice from a dodgy psychic. Sceptical of Sebastian Carter’s claims, the team were keen to expose him as a fraud but this was complicated by Carter’s seeming insight into Pullman’s complicated family issues. Dead Man Talking contained some elements similar to the Sherlock episode The Blind Banker – mysterious Oriental women, sinister dealings in back rooms in Chinatown and gang members and Nic has already pointed out that this episode was half as long and twice as enjoyable.

Favourite moment: When James Bolam’s Jack Halford goes all Columbo to solve the mystery, making up a black box with gold lacquer to catch Penny Anderson out. It’s a blink and you’ll miss it moment, but it really made me laugh.

I was excited to see Anne Reid guest-starring in Episode Two, It Smells of Books. New Tricks was on more familiar territory here, with a lot of shenanigans surrounding Brian’s new obsession with his London Library membership.

The episode appeared to be commenting on the commercialisation of education as the plot centered around the fictional London Municipal University, which was closing its library in an attempt to make more room for profitable degrees such as Law and Economics. The mystery itself was reasonably pedestrian but I thought the idea of the murder victim having hidden a priceless book in a library to be very satisfying.

Favourite moment: Just because it genuinely frightened me – the unscrupulous Dr Jeremy Ventham attempting to trap Brian in the sliding stacks in the London Library Basement. It was very creepy!

Episode Three, Left Field saw the team investigating the case of a missing five-year-old, Yasser Gorton-Blackledge. When a notorious paedophile confesses to the child’s kidnap, the case seems open and shut, but where would the fun be in that?! Doon McKichan is an excellent guest star and red herring. Like the series 3 episode, Dockers, Left Field takes a look at a political movement and considers the effect the political has on the personal. Brian and Gerry spend some time in the MI5 headquarters reading surveillance files and, of course, Brian becomes paranoid about his past political involvements and whether he is being watched. Happily, this episode also featured appearances by Anthony Calf as DAC Strickland and the marvelous Susan Jameson as Esther Lane.

Favourite moment: I was genuinely a bit torn here. Brian becoming convinced that he is under surveillance was pretty funny, but I think the best line in the episode belonged to Gerry. Being confronted by the odious chauvinist Fred Blackledge, and being labelled a ‘mangina’ Gerry retorts: “If that makes you a man, and me a mangina, then book me in for a Brazilian!” God bless the BBC for putting the word ‘mangina’ in Dennis Waterman’s mouth. Pure comedy gold.

Gerry Standing: Mangina

In Episode Four, Dark Chocolate, things take a slightly darker turn as the team investigate a series of rapes in a chocolate factory after the serial rapist strikes again. I was deeply impressed by how subtle the writers were in portraying the effect the attacks had on the women who survived them. Moreover, the episodes highlighted that rape is a crime of violence and not sexually motivated. The crime was solved, not by advances in technology, but by the team’s ability to remember past cases. Mixed in with the darker elements in the storyline was some humour, and Gerry getting caught in the factory production line was slapstick at its finest. I could have done without the comedy pathologist, however.

Favourite moment: The capture of the rapist – foiled in his attempts to get away by being tripped up by Gerry.

In Episode Five, Good Morning Lemmings, the team investigate the unsolved murder of a Banksy-esque figure, grafitti artist Danny ‘Flak’ Tyler. There is some overlap with BBC’s Sherlock, again. The episode guest stars Hadyn Gwynne (who appears in The Great Game) and both shows make some attempt to portray the grafitti community. Whereas Sherlock‘s attempts at a Banksy figure in The Blind Banker were just risible, here they are merely silly. New Tricks is often at its best when it shows the old boys attempting to get to grips with the modern world, and Good Morning Lemmings is no exception. Brian has joined Twitter, as TopCop999 and his growing obsession with tweeting is ridiculous and hilarious (‘cop is in my DNA’).

On my way in this morning, I played a game...

It also gives Dennis Waterman ample opportunity to do silly voices and faces as Gerry mocks Brian’s obsession. Good Morning Lemmings is notable also for an excellent appearance by the late, and much missed, Simon McCorkindale. It’s also a good episode for Sandra’s general fabulousness.

I want these sunglasses...

...and an appointment with her stylist.

Favourite moment: I’m torn again. Jack’s posh voice at the fancy art gallery is pretty hilarious but Sandra Pullman wins. When Gerry is worried that his classic car will be unsafe when parked in a shady area, she shoots him down. “Gerry, it’s a pile of shit.”

Read part 2 here!

Sherlocking fan fiction

(Sean and Liz over at Sherlocking have been running a fan fiction contest. Their only rule – all stories submitted had to be under 1000 words! Here’s my entry. Please feel free to let me know what you think!)

THE SINGING OF THE SEA

I’d been crouched in the freezing cold for three hours. The wind had chilled my ears into memories. My sole comfort was the sweeping beam from the lighthouse, which seemed to batter the driving rain back from the coast. I stamped my feet and wondered again how Sherlock had talked me into this vigil.

“Take note of everything, John,” he’d instructed, “and be careful! One man has died already.”

I was about to give up when I heard the click of high heels. She passed by me, huddled forward into the wind, and disappeared into the darkness. I strained my ears to hear over the roar of the wind and the sea.

Suddenly there was a scream, a low inhuman moan that rose into a frantic banshee wail. It had found her. She hadn’t exaggerated. Whatever it was, it was real. Then it was upon me, its claws tearing at my clothes and my throat. I twisted away, and with a thrill of terror found myself stepping into the void. The rail had broken. I was falling, and all I could think was I’d never know my killer.

I was going to die…

 

Four hours earlier, Sherlock and I had climbed down to the beach at Dungeness to examine a corpse. Above us, the power station towered over the coastline, a space station on an alien landscape. As we passed under the police tape, Sherlock gestured around us.

“I’m no poet, John,” he said gloomily, “but this is a landscape made for madness.” It was a disturbing thought with which to preface our examination. The young man in the duffel coat was lying face down in the surf. His head was caved in.

“Condition’s consistent with having been in the water all night,” I said. “The cuts and bruises on the face and hands will have been sustained in the undertow.”

Williamson, the lighthouse-keeper who’d reported the body, ventured an opinion, “Makes sense. It’s shingle all along this coast.”

Sherlock raised a sardonic eyebrow. “Thank you. What do you make of these cuts, John?” He pointed towards some distinctive wounds. “The skin appears to have been hooked and pulled.”

“My God, Sherlock,” I muttered. “ You don’t think this poor devil’s been caught on a fishing line, do you?”

“I know where he was thrown in…” said Sherlock, pointing up at the power station.

 

 

In a glass-fronted office looking down at the generator room, the Right Hon. Violet Smith fiddled with the ornaments on her desk.

“Mr. Holmes,” she said, “I assure you that no-one is missing from my power plant. We’re running at optimum efficiency. Indeed, the government’s generous provision has guaranteed our future for some time.”

“Then why are you asking your employees to work double-shifts?” I asked. I’d noticed a sign on the notice-board in the lobby. Sherlock shot me an impressed look.

“Just about to ask the same thing,” he claimed. Liar.

 

Unsurprisingly, the politician’s story had been untrue. The dead man was Charlie Carruthers, her accounts manager. Many of her employees had been refusing to turn up to work after being harassed by a mysterious assailant.

“All of these attacks have taken place at night,” she explained, leading us out of the power plant. “You see, my workers have to cross this walkway to get to the car park. Many have heard a bizarre scream, like a tormented soul calling out from the water. You know that many ships landed here in the old days in order to avoid the customs men? The locals claim to have seen phantom ships in the beam of the lighthouse.”

“This is a human agency, Miss Smith,” said Sherlock severely. “No ghosts need apply.”

 

We stood out on the clifftop walkway, a single rail separating us from the rocks below. With the hum of the generator behind us, and the scream of the wind in our face, it seemed like nature itself was promising our destruction. I imagined the tempest plucking our corpse from the gantry and tossing him down onto the rocky fangs below. A shudder ran through me and, as though reading my thoughts, Sherlock laid a hand on my shoulder.

“Light at the end of the tunnel, John,” said he. “Look at this!”

He had stooped to examine the railing with his lens. Through it, I could see deep irregular scratches, bright and fresh. Sherlock smiled and shouted into the wind, “Our monster begins to take shape!”

 

The lighthouse was dark and cold but still a relief after my ordeal in the rain. Somehow I had snatched at the gantry as I fell, so that I landed on silt rather than the rocks. I took the stairs three at a time.

At the top of the lighthouse, Sherlock was standing tense, his arm outstretched. Williamson the lighthouse keeper was outside on the gallery, upon which perched a large sea-bird.

“I didn’t mean for that lad to die,” Williamson was saying. “I just wanted to scare off the suits from London. That nuclear waste is killing everything around here. We don’t want it!”

Slowly, Sherlock was edging towards him. “So you trained this cormorant to swoop down at employees during the night? Bit Scooby Doo of you, wasn’t it?”

Williamson hung his head in shame. “You get some funny ideas up here on your own.” He smiled ruefully. “I would have gotten away with it if it weren’t for you pesky kids.”

Sherlock reached forward, catching Williamson’s arm. Without a struggle, the lighthouse keeper stepped back in out of danger. Behind him, the cormorant croaked and flew off into the storm.

“One of our failures, John,” said Sherlock as he watched the winged murderer disappear. “Carruthers’ killer escapes and we have a story that no-one will believe.”

I looked out into the inky blackness, following the light around as it cut through the sky. Shivering, I remained in that windswept beacon as Sherlock guided Williamson down the steps.

Studies in Sherlock #6

When I started these Studies in Sherlock, I hoped that rewatching the series would lead me to like it a little more than I had first time round. Happily, in the case of A Study in Pink, that was the case. I’ve come to appreciate that hour and a half as one of the most refreshing of Holmes adaptations. However, I’m forced to conclude that neither The Blind Banker nor The Great Game live up to the considerable promise of the series opener.

And I want to like Mark Gatiss’ The Great Game, I really do. Disliking it makes me feel like a spoilsport and a rotter. However, it’s just that appeal for sympathy that leads me cold, my sense that the episode is straining far too hard to be liked and admired. “Don’t make me into a hero,” Sherlock tells John at one point. It’s a disengenuous line from a writer who insists upon his protagonist’s infallibility throughout.

In Gatiss’ hands, deduction is equivalent to magic. We are given none of the careful and compelling detail of Holmes’ analytic process in The Great Game. To often, we trust in the detective’s conclusions simply because Benedict Cumberbatch is speaking quickly. It’s sad that one of the series’ most interesting innovations has already become a gimmick.

Another disappointing development is the series’ lack of interest in its supporting characters. I didn’t believe in any of the very broad characterizations in The Great Game, casualties of Gatiss’ interest in Sherlock over the people who occupy his world. We never know anything about Moriarty’s victims, only vicariously observe their distress. It’s a distasteful narrative trick.

You can read my original review of The Great Game here. Sadly, I haven’t really changed my position. However, I do think that the episode’s appeal to its fans and its presentation of Moriarty does merit further discussion. These topics will be the subject of my final two Studies in Sherlock.

Studies in Sherlock #4

As you may recall, I was hugely disappointed with Sherlock‘s second episode, The Blind Banker (click here for my original review). It still seems like a very curious mis-step, an episode that fails as a mystery, as an adventure and as a Sherlock Holmes story.

Like me, many reviewers latched on to the outdated Orientalist aspects of the tale. Adlina bemoaned the stereotyping of Asian women, while Sherlocking noted that Chinatown was presented as alien and threatening. One of the great successes of A Study in Pink was its updating of Victorian mores. In comparison, the ‘Yellow Peril’ aspects of The Blind Banker seemed utterly quaint. Quite rightly, Adlina asked if you’re going to depict Tongs, why not depict modern Tongs? Now there’s a potentially fascinating milieu, as opposed to the hoary old Si Fan-alike that we got.

Pondering the mysteries of the Orient.

Tonally, the episode veered from slapstick to tragedy, rarely hitting its mark. While A Study in Pink very carefully established the parameters of this modern world and the ways in which stories would draw upon Conan Doyle, The Blind Banker had no such internal logic. Worst of all, it failed to distinguish itself from other TV crime shows. My friend Dan Stirrup put it best when he said the story got “lost up Jonathan Creek without a paddle”.

I was interested to find many elements of this story also present in a recent episode of the BBC’s oft-derided but actually rather wonderful New Tricks. Dodgy bankers, young male Tong members, beautiful yet secretive Asian women, back rooms on Chinatown business premises: all present and correct. Written and directed by Julian Simpson, the episode was called Dead Man Talking and was a rather nifty updating of Conan Doyle’s The Sign of Four. The first installment of New Tricks‘ seventh season, it was half as long as The Blind Banker and twice as enjoyable.

That's right, guv'nor

Studies in Sherlock #3

Here’s a blog that I wrote immediately after seeing A Study in Pink, way back in July. Since then, I’ve had some new thoughts on the show and have incorporated them below. Many thanks to Sherlocking for publishing it in the first place!

A Study in Pink introduces us to its new Sherlock through technology. Undermining Inspector Lestrade’s press conference by text bomb, Sherlock demonstrates his intellectual mastery by proxy. He’s aloof, omnipresent and utterly frustrating. “If you can tell me how he does it, I’ll stop him!” snaps the bemused policeman.

This onscreen appearance of text is A Study in Pink greatest innovation. That repeated ‘Wrong!’ popping up above the bemused journalists emphasizes Sherlock’s difference from the herd, his patrician bearing. Visually startling, it’s as though Sherlock controls the onscreen space in previously unsuspected ways.

And if that sounds like a cunning visual metaphor for Sherlock’s remarkable gifts, well then, so be it. Onscreen text is this series’ way of showing “how he does it.”

Having accustomed us to this layering of the frame, Moffat and McGuigan up the ante during the examination of the body at Lauriston Gardens. Here, onscreen text represents the sleuth’s thought processes as they occur. We are boldly moved from being admiring onlookers (as in the preceding scene, when Sherlock explained his deductions about John’s phone) to something like willing collaborators.

So we see Sherlock comparing the corpse’s coat to her umbrella, the words ‘wet’ and ‘dry’ appearing as he notes their condition. A dictionary definition of ‘Rache’ appears before him, dispersing as he dismisses it. As he searches for another meaning, there’s a fruit-machine effect, letters rolling upwards until ‘Rachel’ is formed.

Cardiff!

Tom Sutcliffe has described this as “tag[ging] the crime scene like an internet word cloud.” Perhaps more usefully, Sean C. Duncan suggests it’s ” very reminiscent of this year’s dark crime game Heavy Rain, released for the PS3″.

It’s an important moment in the drama, humanizing Sherlock through showing us his interaction with evidence. His achievement is not diminished – by giving us clues as he finds them, we admire his meticulous process. We know Sherlock’s methods, and yet we are still unable to construct the chain of inference with which he wows his audience. In this way, deduction becomes novel once more.

Both Moffat and Gatiss have cited the Universal films starring Basil Rathbone and Nigel Bruce as their primary inspiration. This is especially evident in their Sherlock’s relationship with technology; Cumberbatch understands mobile phones and GPS, just as Rathbone’s Holmes used contemporary 1940s technology in his films. However, despite his aptitude with oscilloscopes and fluoroscopes, Rathbone remained a Victorian in his bearing and manners. Indeed, it was these very values which his films presented as worth defending against the Nazis.

In the second half of the 20th century, adaptations frequently characterized Holmes as the representative of a fetishized Victorian past. Some of these films were about people merely believing themselves to be Holmes (like George C. Scott in They Might Be Giants, 1971); others resurrected refrigerated Holmes’ into the present day (Michael Pennington in 1987′s The Return of Sherlock Holmes and Anthony Higgins in 1994 Baker Street: Sherlock Holmes Returns). In its most extreme form this led to the cartoon Sherlock Holmes in the 22nd Century, which featured a cyborg Watson and cloned Moriarty! Linking all of these modernized adventures was Holmes’ role as commentator on a degraded modern world.

The wonderfully inventive 22nd century Sherlock!

It’s refreshing, then, that Moffat and Gatiss’ Sherlock presents its heroes as unashamedly modern, not feeling the need to shy away from technology. No longer fixed points in a changing age, Holmes and Watson have caught up with 2010.

Studies in Sherlock #2

I was surprised to learn that the BBC planned to release Sherlock‘s unaired pilot on the DVD release. The abortive 55 minute production had been the subject of much speculation amongst fans, fueled by the glimpses leaked in July. When I initially reviewed A Study in Pink, I criticized some sequences for seeming stretched and wondered if the story mightn’t have been better suited to the hour long format.

Well, I was wrong.

The Pilot (directed by Coky Giedroyc) is an enjoyable watch but in many ways lacks the verve and invention of the broadcast version. While its plot is essentially the same (only really diverging in the last act), the Pilot feels more pedestrian. In the documentary Unlocking Sherlock, producer Sue Vertue explains that the investment of more money from the BBC and PBS allowed them to use more expensive cameras second time around. Visually, then, the broadcast version is richer and more dynamic.

While all of the principal actors and much of the memorable dialogue is carried over from the Pilot, its pace and editing are notably different. One of my criticisms of the broadcast A Study in Pink concerned director Paul McGuigan’s hyperactive action sequences. There is nothing like this in Goydriec’s version, but this means the Pilot has none of the interesting visual flourishes that made Sherlock so distinctive (no onscreen texting, for example).

It does have a rather silly moment in which Sherlock stands on a rooftop looking like Batman, however. I’m glad they lost that.

I'm glad Sherlock lost the forensics gear as well.

What I missed most of all were the elegant visual layers and dissolves which made London so mysterious in McGuigan’s broadcast version. The Pilot fails to depict John’s discovery of this exciting new world, most notably in the drive to Lauriston Gardens. Similarly, the denouement (which takes place at Baker Street in the Pilot) makes John’s heroic act slightly more obscure.

And of course there’s no Mycroft or Moriarty. Both elements stand out in the broadcast A Study in Pink as precursors to the series finale and, as written, promise considerable drama (I am less confident about the execution of this, but that’s another discussion). They’re not missed in the Pilot, but A Study in Pink is richer for their addition.

In a typically fatuous comment piece, Mark Lawson described the Pilot as a ‘disaster’. It’s certainly not that. Moffat’s writing is excellent, and the performances of Cumberbatch, Freeman, Rupert Graves and Phil Davis are confident and compelling. Watching it through, however, one can see why the decision was made to reshoot and how A Study in Pink benefited from its extended running time. It’s a fascinating exercise in comparison!

Studies in Sherlock #1

This blog began with Sherlock.

It was just as the BBC were releasing the first details of the programme that I began planning Squeezegut Alley. Sherlock seemed perfect subject matter, combining my interests in Conan Doyle, Doctor Who and crime television. So back on July 7, my first ever post speculated on the photo above:

What’s particularly striking about the BBC’s new image is that wiring snaking up the wall on the left. It’s the kind of detail that used to be the bane of set dressers for Victorian productions (one such howler can be found in Granada’s The Second Stain, when Jeremy Brett climbs up to examine a curtain rail and electrical wiring is clearly in shot). Here the modernity of the setting is being foregrounded. It leads me to wonder what part technology will play in this series. What is this new Holmes’ advantage over modern criminological practice?

Reading that back, I can see how all of my subsequent posts were informed by a certain sensibility, that of the Holmesian, judging each episode against its original story and against other adaptations. This dominated my approach to reviewing the series, so much so that the Fanlore wiki links to my original review of A Study in Pink (beware, spoilers!) to illustrate allusions to Conan Doyle.

Regular readers will know that I was left with mixed feelings at the end of the series. Since then I’ve purposefully kept the series at a distance. I didn’t rush out and buy the DVD and I stopped contributing to online discussions. I wanted my memories to percolate for a while so that I could come back to the programme with a fresh eye.

Then a friend asked me to teach Sherlock Holmes adaptations on an undergraduate course next year. It was this that really motivated me to return to Sherlock. I realized that I hadn’t given certain aspects of the programme as much thought as perhaps they deserved.

Primarily, I want to think about why the show seems so much fun. Even a cursory survey of the various fan blogs and tumblrs shows that Sherlock has really engaged with its fans, and (perhaps even more uniquely) with the concept of fandom. With this in mind, I want to reexamine the show, bringing a fresh eye to elements such as its status as event TV, its 90-minute structure, its modernity and its mystery narratives.

Most of all, I want to know what you think of Sherlock. Was it a must-see? Were there disappointments? Has it led you back to Conan Doyle? What do you want from the next series? Leave me a comment to let me know!

The next few weeks are going to be dominated by Sherlock discussion here on Squeezegut Alley – I hope you’ll join me.

The television Bond

Tom Steward argues that TV is the natural home for 007.

There’s a wonderful exchange between Sean Connery’s James Bond and Donald Pleasance’s Ernst Stavros Blofeld in the film version of You Only Live Twice as Bond is being compelled by his new nemesis to witness Ninja soldiers fall to their deaths by CCTV:

Blofeld: You can watch it all on TV. It’s the last program you’re likely to see.

Bond: Well if I’m going to be forced to watch television, may I smoke?

This kind of slur was fairly common in movies of this period, as cinema lashed out against the threat that television posed to its business. It also screams of the jealousy the movies held for a new mass-media that could reach the parts they increasingly couldn’t. While an entertaining moment in a screenplay that (uncharacteristically for the masterfully droll Roald Dahl) has precious few highlights, it forgets the origins of the Bond movies.

Barry Nelson as "Jimmy" Bond

The first screen adaptation of an Ian Fleming Bond novel was a live TV version of Casino Royale in 1954 for the thriller anthology series Climax! on US network CBS. Hideous liberties were taken with Fleming’s characters, including making Bond an American CIA agent, but the gist of the novel remains, albeit more in Michael Pate’s suave and commanding performance as British spy Clarence Leiter than Barry Nelson’s Spillane-clone Bond. Peter Lorre’s quietly sadistic performance as communist treasurer Le Chiffre is a formidable example for future Bond film villains.

Peter Lorre as Le Chiffre

Dr. No, the first Bond movie, is played as a beautifully straightforward TV police procedural; like Dragnet in Jamaica. The film even seems aware of this heritage when the eponymous Doctor (Joseph Wiseman) calls Bond “a stupid policeman” in their first encounter on Crab Key Island. Bond’s long-suffering CIA counterpart Felix Leiter is played here by Jack Lord, later immortalised as America’s favourite detective Steve “Book ‘em Danno” McGarrett in exotic police show Hawaii Five-O. Garrett’s easy-going cool was pre-empted by Lord’s stylish performance in this franchise opener.

Jack Lord and Sean Connery

The Bond movies also fed off TV espionage series of the 1960s. From Goldfinger onwards, the films influenced and were influenced by the self-spoofing humour of comedy spy series such as Get Smart, and the cosmopolitanism and gadget obsessions of international task force dramas like The Man from UNCLE and Mission: Impossible. The debonair wit, high action, and flavour of fantasy and kitsch in 1960s British spy adventure series such as The Avengers was clearly also key to the Bond movie formula. This is evident in On Her Majesty’s Secret Service from 1969, the finest Bond film and one of the best British movies of its time, where Avengers star Diana Rigg plays Countess Teresa di Vicenzo. Whereas Fleming wrote Teresa as admirably capable (for a woman!), in the film version Teresa becomes a confident action heroine like The Avengers’ Emma Peel, despatching SPECTRE henchman with ingenious violence. Surely this was playing to the expectations of TV audiences?

Diana Rigg and George Lazenby

Fleming tried to bring Bond to the small screen in exactly this fashion, consulting with Danger Man creator Ralph Smart over a series of TV spy adventures, but to no avail. The Bond franchise is now hanging in the balance following the bankruptcy of MGM but, in my opinion, TV could once again propagate the series. The scale, special effects and international location shooting in the franchise has inflated exponentially over the years, associating the films with the breadth and spectacle of cinema rather than the intimacy and everydayness of the small screen.

But the Fleming novels on which the Bond films are based (if rarely ever faithful to) have a quotidian dimension which the films never attempted to capture, and which an ongoing and leisurely paced TV series could finally perfect. Fleming’s stories are those of a relatively ordinary civil servant occasionally allowed to escape his life of paperwork and office hours for international tourism as long as he risks life and limb at every turn. They are tales of a man exploited by bureaucracy and state-sponsored suicide missions who always returns to mundane time-killing activities in his depressing government building after his playboy antics. Have you ever seen Bond at a desk grappling with an in-tray in any of the films?

Art by John McLusky

This is the stock in trade of television; stories of office-bound public servants trying to find romance in their daily working lives which are shown in meticulous detail. It’s the stuff of Inspector Morse or NYPD Blue. The BBC has recently had great success with Sherlock, its update of Arthur Conan Doyle’s Holmes stories, and the period styles of the 1950s have proved popular with viewers given the outrageous success of Mad Men. With this in mind, it might just be an opportune moment for a lovingly recreated 1950s-set drama and an intelligent and book-based revival of a much-loved popular culture character.