Moranthology by Caitlin Moran

greatest TV shows of all time.” After twenty minutes! That is one hell of a mesmeric aura for a show to be throwing off.
    When people said, smugly, “Oh, it’s just because you fancy Benedict Cumberbatch as Sherlock,” it was as if they were saying to a plant, “Oh, you only photosynthesize because of the sun.” Well, YES. DUH. That’s what the sun/Cumberbatch does to me/a plant. Why are you arguing against the miracle of Nature? You might as well punch a tree. Just buy the box set.
    Anyway. Here’s my review of the first episode, written with a spinning head and a bursting heart, and a bid going on eBay for a deerstalker hat.
    S HERLOCK R EVIEW 1: L IKE A J AGUAR IN A C ELLO
    O h dear. That was bad timing.
    In the week where Culture Secretary Jeremy Hunt questioned if the BBC license fee gives “value for money,” the advent of Sherlock donked his theory quite badly. It’s a bit embarrassing to be standing on a soap-box, slagging a corporation off as essentially wasteful and moribund, right at the point where they’re landing a bright, brilliant dragon of a show on the rooftops, for 39p per household. And with the rest of the BBC’s output that day—theoretically—thrown in for free.
    The casting was perfect. Benedict Cumberbatch—the first actor in history to play Sherlock Holmes who has a name more ridiculous than “Sherlock Holmes”—was both perfect and astonishing: an actor pulling on an iconic character and finding he had infinite energy to drive the thing. He is so good that—ten minutes in—I just started laughing out loud with what a delight it was to watch him.
    He looks amazing—as odd as you’d expect The Cleverest Man in the World to look. Eyes white, skin like china clay, and a voice like someone smoking a cigar inside a grand piano, this Holmes has, as Cumberbatch described it in interviews, “an achievable super-power.” He might not have actual X-ray vision, but his superlative illative chops mean that London is like a Duplo train-set to him: an easily-analyzable system, populated by small, simple plastic people.
    At one point, a suspect speeds away from him in a taxi. Holmes can call up the A-Z, and the taxi’s only possible route, in his mind: “Right turn, traffic lights, pedestrian crossing, road works, traffic lights.”
    By climbing over the right rooftop, ducking down the right alleyway, and running very, very fast while looking hot, Holmes can beat the taxi to its destination: as easily as if he were the size of the Telecom Tower, or Big Ben, stepping over the city laid out on the rug at 221b Baker Street.
    Of course, this view of humanity’s masses makes him a high-functioning Asperger’s/borderline sociopath. Questioning why someone would still be upset about their baby dying fourteen years ago—“That was ages ago!” he shouts with the frustration of a child. “Why would she still be upset?”—Holmes notes that the room has gone quiet.
    â€œNot good?” he hisses to Watson.
    â€œBit not good, yeah,” Watson replies.
    So this is why Holmes needs Watson—their advent into each other’s lives managed with three perfect flicks of the script. Yes, Watson is impressed by Holmes: “That’s amazing!” he gasps, as Holmes deduces he has an alcoholic sibling, merely from scratch marks on his mobile.
    â€œPeople don’t usually say that,” Holmes blinks, pleased. “They usually say, ‘Piss off.’ ”
    But this Watson isn’t the usual, buff, conservative sidekick. In a role rivalling his turn as Tim in The Office, Martin Freeman’s Watson is altogether more complex and satisfying. Yes, he’s here as dragon-trainer—to whack Holmes with a stick when he starts monstering around, and climbing up on the furniture. But he’s also as quietly addicted to “the game” as Holmes—it’s