But as much as I loved the show . . . as much as certain episodes haunted me, like Copper Beeches with its creepy house and red hair fetishization (Doyle's Red Headed League features this strange fascination as well), or The Hound of the Baskervilles with its Gothic moor motifs (I'm a sucker for things Gothic and moor-based, and my guess is that a lot of other people are as well, considering that this is the one story which almost no incarnation of Sherlock has been able to screw up) . . . there was one unwavering bit of awesomeness in the series that no single episode could top:
The intro theme (composed by Anthony Gower)
That virtuosic, haunting, darkly humorous, and supremely poignant violin piece that began every episode. And not only was the music perfect, but the sepia-toned bustle of Baker's Street, the waifish Irregulars, the mud under the carriage wheels, and the smooth camera pullback to the perfect profile of Brett's Sherlock Holmes in the window--as the Observer Extraordinaire--all of it perfectly captured the side of London I love the best. Whether this side of London--the foggy, curious, imperialistic, dominating, adventurous, and "scientific" bastard of the 19th century--appeals to me primarily because of early exposure to this telly marketing . . . or because of some combination of other factors and inborn tastes, I will never know. I can't peel back those layers of causality now. All I can say is, that while the rest of my female friends read and re-read Austen, and while my literature teacher mother was pouring over Shelley and Keats and Elizabeth Barrett Browning, I was more likely to be found reading Verne or Conan-Doyle.
Sure, Austen and the great poets were, well, great, too. But, let's face it, if you had to brave the mud and the manners of London of the 19th century, it was better to be a man. And if you won the lottery and got to be an educated white man, it was best to be the fabled detective of Baker's Street.
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