SusiGo wrote:

I'm aware of the fact that without ACD's creations we wouldn't be here today. But as with Shakespeare - and this is meant as a compliment - the wonderful thing is how the works last just because they are interpreted and adapted to the changing times again and again. 

I'm in agreement with you Susi.  The best artistic creations are those that are so good and strike the imagination so hard that they live across the centuries and continue to spark the imagination time and again. I have seen the most wonderful, brilliant adaptions and spin-offs of Shakespeare and have loved them all.  Nothing is lost to me because it is not the "original".  More often than not, I'm in awe of the new creativity.

I read all of the ACD canon when I was about 18 - and loved them.  But I love this new adaptation of Sherlock just as much. For the new Sherlock fans who may not have read canon, this show may be away of getting them inside the Big Top circus tent.  As a teacher, my husband always says, you have to lure them in. Once inside, who knows where they may decide to go from there.

We are all Sherlockians. The only stipulation to being a Sherlockian is that you like Sherlock Holmes! :-)

And yeah, I don't think we have to worry too much. I'm sure there were people worrying about the same thing when the Rathbone series first came out, which were basically the BBC Sherlock of their day - a modern interpretation of Holmes, and we've done pretty well since then.

Be wrote:

IMO, Sherlock is unique because of the camera work and the inventive script. This Sherlock is not just CSI Baker Street which would be boring. We have seen almost everything -CSI in american TV before.

That's it, exactly.  I don't watch television -  I've seen a few episodes of CSI and NCIS while visiting people, and yes, the plots are interesting, but nothing made me want to go home and buy the whole series.    I watched one episode of Sherlock and I was gone.

Be wrote:

In BBC Sherlock there are many layers to detect, double meaning and metaphors, funny puns and a puzzle that keeps the audience thinking about the plot and the relationships.
Sherlock made me and many people read the canon in english to get acess to the original Sherlock Holmes character.
I haven't seen anything like that in televison in my life.
 

I read some of the stories a while ago, and I enjoyed them, but they didn't grab me the way Tolkien or J K Rowling did.  Since watching Sherlock, I've picked up a complete volume and have been enjoying it a great deal.  I love to find the bits Moftiss have used in the series.  I particularly like seeing how they've adapted elements that wouldn't work today.  Sherlock himself had to change - as the forum has discussed in other threads, modern audiences would have difficulty with a drug user as the 'hero' and central character.  In other ways, they've remained quite faithful - I often find snippets of dialogue that were lifted right out of the books.

Truly, I don't think it was the cases that made Sherlock Holmes an icon - it's the character who has fascinated audiences for over a century, and the BBC interpretation is very close to the original, in my opinion.