The Irregulars visits the more gruesome side of Sherlock Holmes’ Baker Street
TV Reviews Sherlock Holmes
The Baker Street Irregulars were a gang of street urchins who Sir Arthur Conan Doyle wrote into a few of his Sherlock Holmes mysteries. Holmes recognized that the savvy youth—led by a boy named Wiggins—had intimate knowledge of the streets and investigative abilities aided by their anonymity, and so hired them for some of his cases. The Baker Street Irregulars have made occasional appearances in the Holmes canon since then, in a series of children’s novels and performing songs in the Baker Street musical.
Tom Bidwell’s new Netflix production The Irregulars not only puts the young street gang at the head of their own series, but it also catapults Holmes’ usually straightforward detective work into the realm of the supernatural, a move that the afterlife-fascinated Doyle probably would have applauded. Instead of Wiggins, these Irregulars are led by Bea (Thaddea Graham, fresh off another Netflix kid ensemble series), a tough, impoverished teenager and former workhouse resident who tries to provide for her delicate sister, Jessie (Darci Shaw), as well as her pals Billy (Jojo Macari) and Spike (McKell David). Bea’s efforts get a boost when she receives a proposition from the enigmatic and vaguely menacing Dr. John Watson (Royce Pierreson), who needs help solving a plague of mysterious crimes that are becoming disturbingly more prevalent around London. Meanwhile, the gang’s new pal Leo (Harrison Osterfield) is keeping some secrets of his own.
The crimes are clever, based on modern myths with an intensified, nightmarish supernatural twist, like a tooth fairy that steals all the teeth right out of your mouth. A botanist who creates a monster out of love. An ornithologist that wields a terrifying power over birds. A taxidermist who turns their trade toward skinning humans instead of animals. These bolstered skill sets stem from the “rip,” a tear in the reality continuum that is letting all of these evils filter into Victorian-era, poverty-stricken London, which already resembles a dusty hellmouth as it is. Other kids shows have had similar plots in which an evil entity threatens to envelop the world into its bizarre apocalyptic milieu—Weirdmageddon, as Gravity Falls describes it, or the Upside Down of Stranger Things. But even Stranger Things doesn’t have this kind of graphic, gruesome depiction. No details are spared for that face skinning. We learn that birds love to pluck at eyes specifically. At one point, as the rip (surely a nod to the area’s most famous serial killer, Jack The Ripper) seeps its way into London’s underclass, one man feasts on another man’s entrails in the middle of the street.
Veering on the horrific side of picturesque, The Irregulars’ gore stretches the limits of its TV-14 rating, which is unfortunate, because without all the carnage, The Irregulars would have made a fun watch for tweens. Fortunately London’s effectively atmospheric hellscape (partly filmed at Liverpool’s Stanley Dock, home of Peaky Blinders and Guy Ritchie’s Sherlock Holmes) is tempered somewhat by the plucky determination of The Irregulars’ young leads and their iron-like bond. Also, Holmes himself doesn’t stay hidden for long, though there’s a reason that Watson had to search elsewhere for help, as the famed detective is ravaged by drug addiction. Henry Lloyd-Hughes offers an inspired take on the icon, especially in flashbacks displaying his once-prominent (and frequently witty) brilliance. Holmes and Watson have a to-be-unearthed connection to the kid gang and to the rip itself—especially via Jessie, who puts the “irregular” in The Irregulars. She’s a powerful clairvoyant who’s often trapped in nightmares, but also has the ability to enter the subconscious of these regular citizens now transformed into murderers. The ornithologist, botanist, et al. are just normal people who begged for help out of desperation, only to receive the power to have their darkest desires fulfilled.
Jessie has a lot to carry on her fragile shoulders, but her four friends offer ample backup. Graham’s Bea is the group’s rock, and the two sisters are clearly at the fulcrum of the series. Billy and Leo both get some side plots to help flesh out their backstories; Spike remains mostly underexplored, which is too bad, since he’s a charming standout in a group that’s already pretty appealing. Because the young detectives are teens, there are obviously going to be hidden crushes and commented-on desires you’d expect from hormone-ridden adolescents, even if their straits are dire. But primarily, The Irregulars serves as a conduit, especially for fans of Sherlock Holmes in all his many forms, into some goosebump-inducing, jump-scare-filled mysteries—intriguing to be sure, but not for the faint of heart.
75 Comments
So… absolutely no connection whatsoever to the stories except for the name and everything being vaguely London-esque. Good to know.
Probably wise given that every Conan Doyle story has seen literally dozens of adaptations.
And some characters who happen to be named “Dr. John H. Watson” and “Sherlock Holmes”.It’s like J.J. Abrams’s version of STAR TREK, only marginally connected to the source material. At first I thought it was because Abrams was contemptuous of TREK while being a STAR WARS fanboi — but then I saw The Rise of Skywalker….
I do sometimes wonder if we could maybe have a version of Sherlock Holmes that doesn’t emphasize his drug use like they’re the first one to realise that, hang on guys, Holmes did cocaine every so often, how edgy! Like, I get it, if you’re looking for a flaw for him it’s a quick and convenient one to latch on to, but surely — surely — there’s someone out there with a take on Sherlock Holmes that has something different to offer other than just making him a drug addict. Also, are those people are supposed to be “youths”? FFS, not a single one of them is under twenty. I’d be amazed if any of them is under twenty-five. And don’t even get me started on the “let’s make this a supernatural procedural in which the answer is ‘monsters and supernatural shit’ did it”, since that’s pretty much the complete antithesis of what Sherlock Holmes is supposed to be. [Grumbles and throws a bunch of breadcrumbs for the pigeons]
I don’t remember the Robert Downey JR Holmes movies being very drug-centric, but it’s been a long time since I’ve seen those. I do remember him hanging out in an opium den at one point, but he was in disguise and it seems like it was implied that he was there hiding out or being on a case or something as opposed to getting drugged out.
Stop interrupting my grumpy old man kvetching with your counter-examples! Honestly, commenters these days, not like in my time…(Though FWIW, while in fairness I don’t think it was ever explicitly stated, RDJr’s Holmes was still pretty clearly coded as a bit of a drugged up bohemian if memory serves.)
LMFAO, great reply… IN BREAKING NEWS TONIGHT… “Old man that yells at cloud jealous of younger people yelling at clouds but having more fun… sad thing is they’re not in his yard and can’t hear him.”
Grumpy OldManRiver here. The only Holmes outside of the books was Jeremy Brett
I like the cut of your jib, Grumpy OldManRiver, and I wish to subscribe to your newsletter.Also, get off my lawn.
I haven’t seen the second movie yet (I need to remedy that sometime, as the first was enjoyable, if flawed), but there’s a line from Watson in the first movie where he snaps at Holmes for dipping into his (Watson’s) supply of a drug that’s supposed to be used in eye surgery.It’s a nicely-obscure reference that ties in to Downey’s 170kmh performance without rendering him a strung-out druggie, though I do wish someone would also make reference to the passage in one of the later stories where Watson mentions helping Holmes keep that addiction in check as his career progressed.
Yes; cocaine was originally used as a local anesthetic.
You really should see the second one. I enjoyed the first, but the second one really hits its stride. Jared Harris is outstanding as Moriarty.
There was one implied scene in the first movie where he was implied to drugged out. The one where he was drawing a pentagram in wax on the floor
I just rewatched both RDJ Sherlock Holmes movies and yes the drug addiction was emphasized.
Mr. Holmes loved his opium. Frequented opium dens for days on end
And don’t even get me started on the “let’s make this a supernatural procedural in which the answer is ‘monsters and supernatural shit’ did it”, since that’s pretty much the complete antithesis of what Sherlock Holmes is supposed to be. I’m with on this, Old Man Yelling At Cloud!
The whole edgy drug thing is also kind of ridiculous considering that Holmes lived in an era where he could just toddle down to his local druggist and buy the cocaine legally.
What if he were addicted to likes?
Then he’d just be me, only with more deductive insight, wit and brilliance.
and laudanum for when he got to edgy.
The Victorians really liked their drugs.
Kinda jealous of them on that front, (and ONLY that front,) TBH, lol.Considering all the sexual repression, and the newly-industrialized and imperial hellscape they existed in, it doesn’t surprise me in the slightest.
Well they used drugs for all kinds of purposes and it often did stuff like made them go blind (belladonna), ruined their skin (arsenic in lotions) and poisoned them through the closed they wore (again arsenic in a green dye very popular with the Victorians). It would curl your hair if you went in depth into what the Victorians ingested (in one form or another) on a daily basis. But Victorians took living dangerously for granted. Their own houses were death traps.
Also Victorian men were hardly suffering from sexual repression. And, while there was a hypocrisy in Victorian society about sex and knowledge, many women were not sexually repressed either, just very discrete. Even Victoria herself had a physically passionate relationship with Albert. She even wrote about her wedding night, describing it as “beyond bliss.” And when her doctors told her that her ninth child should be her last, she said to them, “Can I have no more fun in bed?”
but surely — surely — there’s someone out there with a take on Sherlock Holmes that has something different to offer other than just making him a drug addict.Yes, we could focus on his love for Irene Adler, great romantic potential here. They could team up against Moriarty. Moriarty is the guy who commits the crimes in the Sherlock Holmes stories, isn’t he.
Nah, he’s the guy who convinces other people to commit crimes. Also he’s only in one Sherlock Holmes story.
(I was being a tad sarcastic. Adler/Moriarty get even more inflated roles in every each adaptation than cocaine.)
Two, actually — he’s also the unseen antagonist in Conan Doyle’s fourth Holmes novel, The Valley of Fear.
He’s one guy who commits crimes in the Holmes universe, Perlafas — like The Master on DOCTOR WHO or Hannibal Lecter, he becomes a crutch for writers following in the character creator’s footsteps.
I’ll… never attempt irony on the internet ever again.
Isn’t it ironic?
Don’t you think…?
Those are some good ideas, kid. You’re gonna go far in this business.
i think you mean (grumbles and throws a bunch of breadcrumbs AT the pigeons)
[Whacks bigstimpycat on head with cane]Hello! Hello bigstimpycat! Anyone home?!
Conan Doyle did (infamously) embrace Spiritualism; what had been an interest since the 1880s became a passion after his oldest son Kingsley died in the Spanish Flu pandemic after WW I. However, it was really just an interest until then, and even after he fully embraced it he resisted any urge he might have had to make any of the Holmes stories actually supernatural. Several Holmes stories before and after Kingsley’s death have supernatural elements, or start off as if they might be supernatural, but everything proves to have a rational explanation. ‘This agency stands flat-footed upon the ground,’ says Holmes in ‘The Sussex Vampire’. ‘No ghosts need apply.’ACD did not, alas, stick to his rational guns when it came to his other great creation, Professor Challenger (of The Lost World fame), making Challenger a convert to Spiritualism in a later work.Conan Doyle wrote some very fine ghost/supernatural/horror stories. ‘The Captain of the Pole-Star’ is superbly haunting (pun intended), while ‘Lot No. 249′ is one of the first – if not the first – weird tale to make effective use of the mummy trope, nearly three decades before the discovery of Tut’s tomb and four decades before the first Universal Mummy film. ‘The Terror of Blue John Gap’ is about a Bigfoot-type creature roaming the Derbyshire landscape, and was written within a few weeks of ACD meeting Teddy Roosevelt, of whom he had been a great admirer for many years. In his book Wilderness Hunter Roosevelt had recounted a story about two men’s encounter with a Bigfoot-type creature, and I’d like to think that either ACD knew the story already or that he and Roosevelt talked about it when they met, and that the one story inspired the other, but have never been able to prove this. ‘The Parasite’ is a very effective and nasty spin on the ‘psychic vampire’ trope, while ‘The Horror of the Heights’ is very early SF. When I first read it at age 12, the idea of planes flying 10,000 or 15,000 feet or more above the Earth was fact, and I thought little about that aspect of the story; it wasn’t until some years later I realized ACD’s story was written at a time when flight was in its infancy, and flying that high was impossible.If you want some very Poe-esque stories of horror that get more horrific the more you think about them, try ‘The Lost Catacomb’ or ‘The Case of Lady Sannox’. The latter in particular is very disturbing indeed.All of which is a roundabout way of saying that although ACD was very careful to keep the supernatural out of the Holmes stories, he was very much a fan of supernatural tales and wrote a good many such stories. Add to that the fact that several Holmes tales do have that supernatural atmosphere and some genre trappings, and it’s not that much of a stretch for subsequent authors to write Holmes tales that do involve the actual supernatural, if that’s not a contradiction in terms. I wrote one such tale that turns The Hound of the Baskervilles into a werewolf story, and I didn’t have to do much twisting to the original to do that (effectively, according to readers). I also took inspiration from M.R. James’s ‘Casting the Runes’ – which has a ‘Dr. Watson’ as a minor character – to write a tale that’s a sequel to that story, and has Holmes investigating supposed supernatural events along with his (also fictional) contemporary, the psychic detective Flaxman Low. I got round the ‘Holmes does not believe in the supernatural’ thing by coming up with two explanations, one supernatural and one not, both of which fit the facts as presented, thus allowing readers to make up their own mind as to which detective they believe. Watson, called upon in the story to act as judge and jury after hearing both Holmes and Low, cites his Scottish roots and says he will go with ‘Not proven’.
I sat through the full first episode just to verify it was actually going the supernatural route, but yeah, I gave up on this once I realized it was just a procedural show. It’s definitely not my cup of tea.
Freshly-scrubbed 25-year-olds playing 18-year-olds in extremely anachronistic YA fantasies…fine. Make 400 more series like these I guess. But do they HAVE to be steampunk-adjacent?
Apparently, yes — these days, it seems you can’t have a period Sherlock Holmes movie or series without a steam-powered mechanical dinosaur or a big fight scene on a zeppelin.
What the hell do you expect out of the movie machine? If you wanted success out of a Holmes film, you had to make it a blockbuster for IP adoption purposes.These days, if you don’t own the IP through your interpretations, (e.g., basically owning creative worlds in the common domain,) you lose your chance to do so by the power of the marketplace.That’s why Amazon is adapting Wheel of Time now, and not some dreamer that never had a chance.
I mean, Knives Out was basically a Poirot movie, and it didn’t have a fistfight or anything. It did pretty well. I’ll bet a well-made Holmes film that was a reasonable adaptation would do just fine.
That was helmed by Rian Johnson after Star-wars, he had a lot of buzz going into that. Sherlock was meant for episodic TV, and Irregulars takes a new twist on the whole thing, and I hope they don’t mess it up, because it COULD be great.Knives Out was basically a “Clue” remake, and it was good for what it was.
Ah, the humanity.
I’ve been wondering about the persistent adults-playing-adolescents thing too. I can see why it’s done. Use actual youngers and you’ll only be able to get one or two series out of them until they look like an adult; choose young-looking adults and they’ll probably stay that way into their 30s. Plus I swear that it’s only in the last 20 years that child actors have actually learned to act — watch something from the 90s and the acting is generally atrocious. (I want to revisit the BBC Narnia series from the late 80s, which I grew up with, but my word! None of the children in it can act.) So yeah, I get why a producer would go for this. I just don’t know why a viewer should accept it, given how much work is d0ne elsewhere to help us suspend our disbelief. (In a theatre I wouldn’t give two hoots — have a 50-year-old play a child, so what? I can use my imagination. But that doesn’t work for TV that’s trying to look moderately expensive…)
Jodie Foster, MrWH? Yes, she was kind of a freak of nature, like Dakota Fanning was in the Nineties — so able to be in the moment that she blew almost every other child actor out of the water.
For that matter, watch Kurt Russell in the Sixties — it’s a bit scary just how fully-formed his acting was a ten-year old!
Yep, but was Jodie Foster ever a television actor? One factor is the gulf in the past between “proper” film actors and television actors. The point though is nowadays someone _like_ Jodie Foster really doesn’t seem so rare; then, absolutely so.
MrWH — Jodie Foster’s first major role was in the television version of PAPER MOON, where she took over Tatum O’Neill’s part. Prior, during, and after that she did a lot episodic television:
https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0000149/#actressPre-Taxi Driver she’d only been in a handful of movies; the Disney film Napoleon and Samantha, Kansas City Bomber as Raquel Welch’s daughter, the Reader’s Digest musical version of Tom Sawyer (I’d just gotten my driver’s license, and part of getting to borrow the family car was taking my younger brothers to this movie),
some family-friendly Comedy/Western called One Little Indian, Alice Doesn’t Live Here Any More (although she’s far down the cast list), and some family tragedy called Echoes of a Summer where she’s a daughter dying of Movie Heart Disease who befriends a boy during her last summer alive.So, yes — I’d say that originally, she was a television actor…who graduated to movies Summa cum laude.
By way of adding some evidence to my assertions here, looking at that BBC TV seriesThe Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe (2005) – IMDbof the four child leads, it looks like only one has had a “proper” acting career.
Re: child actors – yes, they are mostly all horrible. I fully understand where you’re coming from.
I’ll withhold my judgement until I see more of this.
I never knew I wanted it, but after the BBC “Sherlock” series was so amazing, I immediately thought of this concept as a spin-off, and heard rumors about it for a few years.I had pretty much given up on it, and if it sucks, I’ll survive, but at least someone is bringing homeless children into the public eye right now, and they’re (probably, I’ll wait and see,) bad-asses.The Irregulars is a story I wanted told for a long time… I’m hopeful, but prepared for disappointment.
Sherlock was shit.
Shakespeare was even worse. Dude just threw together a bunch of tropes and called it a day.
It was like most BBC stuff without an American-style writers’ room: as uneven as a mountain range. But when it was good it was very good indeed.
Holy hell, you expect me to watch 2 hours of some bloviating youtuber? FFS, give me a TLDW!
Yeah, no. Not gonna watch it – you’re missing out. HBomberguy isn’t some random youtuber, he’s one of the most respected ones in certain circles, and, first of all, it’s a fun video. So it’s too bad you’re not gonna see it. It’s worth watching even if you won’t agree with it.
Wow! A 90 minute long tv series from the 2010s, is not, in fact, like short prose stories from the 1890s. Color me shocked. (That’s about 75% of the video covered right there). Hbomb’s Fallout 3 video was terrific. It’s too bad he refused to engage with Moffat’s work in the same way—on its own terms. The video is better made than most of the ‘Moffat bad’ posts you see out there (probably why it’s become one of the first tools in the ‘Moffat bad’ crowd’s toolkit). I myself find Sherlock deeply flawed and often was lost in Moffat’s worst instincts, but his analysis is frustratingly shallow.
Spiritualism was just a novel branch of science in the eyes of Conan Doyle, it was more sci-fi (in the anticipation, hard science sense) than magics. A bit like the Holmes story where a guy turned into a gorilla hybrid because he injected monkey blood. And that was the point of that Challenger novel. Post-mortem communication, poisonous ether, living globe, same stuff : Jules Verne-like scientific theories of the time.What I’m saying is “Sherlock Holmes + Supernatural Fantasy” is super dumb. You can’t make deductions or invent forensics in an anything goes, magical world of vampire, werewolves, devils and cthulhus. “Once you’ve eliminated the impossible” doesn’t operate when “impossible” means nothing.Actually what I’m saying is “piss off with your hey what about sherlock homes but with wizards and also time travelling godzillas versus zombies”. But more politely. Than it deserves.It’s even worse than Scooby Doo with actual ghosts.
loved the old 1970’s-80’s Baker Street Irregulars books by Terrance Dicks as well as the Victorian series by Robert Newman from roughly the same publishing period [early 1980’s?] – they were my gateway drug to the Conan Doyle classics.also good were the Holmes pastiches by Mark Frost [of Twin Peaks] and Nicholas Meyers [of Star Trek] – and i heard there was supposed to be another by Meyers coming out soon?
There have to be some other IPs with lapsed copyright we can make media about
I would legitimately love to see a Spring Heeled Jack series and don’t know why nobody’s done that yet, except for being obscure and kind of stupid.
tell you what, i’ll give the first episode a go & we’ll see what happens.
Fair enough, bigstimpycat!
ok, gave it about five minutes…when the techno music began to play, that was it for me! i’m done!
Yeah, I was kind of willing to look past some of the stupid parts until a single possessed raven was somehow able to fly away while carrying the full weight of human baby.And then it got much, much stupider. That said, Clarke Peters is clearly having the time of his life playing what he clearly realizes is a very badly written character on a terrible, terrible show.God, the dialogue alone is really just awful.
wait, was that an african or european raven?
Scottish, apparently 😉
I’m 3 episodes in and I actually like it so far. It not nearly as good as the 1st season of Stranger Things but I’ve really enjoyed it so far.
i’m the person who hasn’t seen “stranger things,” maybe i’ll give it try.
I’ll give it a go, but the last Sherlock Holmes + Supernatural crossover was kind of disappointing. Specifically, the three “Cthulhu Chronicles” books put Holmes into a Lovecraftian world (or rather, puts Lovecraftian mythos into Holmes’ London)… Anyway, I didn’t find that it held up that well because it was neither cosmic-horror enough, nor was it Sherlock Holmes(y) enough. If you’re going to play it straight (I originally assumed it would be a comedy series, which it isn’t) you need to do at least one of the conceits appropriately.
The show is interesting but I really, really dislike the choice to make Sherlock and Watson complete assholes.
As far as I can tell from the first couple episodes, almost everyone is an asshole except Jessie. We’re just supposed to like the street urchin assholes, I guess.
I’m halfway through the binge. I don’t think any of the main kids are assholes except maybe Leo. Mainly because they’re all just trying to survive, taking on terribly dangerous cases to get some silver so they can stay out of work prisons. Meanwhile Leo is just having some jollies while not helping his new friends avoid homelessness for some reason.But man the adults are so unlikable. And it just doesn’t work for me because these adults are supposed to be Sherlock characters.
Sure, but when are they going to visit North Avenue???Yes, i’m old.
Meh. I slogged through it yesterday and today. I hope this is a one-off short series, because nothing was noteworthy, especially by the end, which was as tiresomely drawn out as this sentence. Stuffed with so many tropes all season I was often completing dialogues just before they were uttered.
I wish I had thought of this–what a great idea for a series. It looks weirdly contemporary, I’m assuming that’s a stylistic choice.
It struck a decent balance for me. Not fantastic, but interesting enough to keep me, well, interested but not obsessed. I watched three episodes last night, and they did not seem all that gory to me (but I’m a medical school professor who lives on a farm, so gore is not such a big deal). For some reason I did not realize it was meant for teens. Now that I do, some of the production choices make more sense. So far it’s a charming trifle.Also, I appreciated the incorporation of the historical character.
I actually enjoy the show. It is entertaining for what it is as long as you don’t think too hard and ignore super strong ravens, people in Victorian London using a word like “clones”, street urchins speaking like educated royals, and music that does not fit the setting. That sounds like a lot, but in truth the main characters are enjoyable and and like the overall arc.But my MAIN beef is so much use of “idiot plotting” when so much would be solved by characters just telling each other a few details rather than being idiots and hiding things from each other to draw out drama.