Discussion: What makes Holmes Holmes?
Saw this interesting interview on PBS: http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/masterpiece/sherlock/producers.html
All of it's interesting, but you have to select "True to the original" in which Moffat briefly states why he thinks it is true to the original. (also "Embracing Technology' applies) Here is my very sloppy transcript of the lines I'm interested in:
"Holmes is consciously portrayed by Doyle as an up to the minute young man. But as it's become a period piece he's become about fifty...I think by putting him in the modern day we put him back to what he was originally--a slightly dangerous, slightly odd, very current man. At the edge. He's meant to be ahead."
I'll just say right here that I completely and utterly agree with Steven Moffat, and that is precisely why I love Sherlock--because I think it captures the spirit of Sherlock Holmes in a way that period dramas do not. (Also because they are actually bothering to ask if Sherlock Holmes is a good man or not...but that is slightly beside the point...).
So here are my questions:
How important is the Edwardian-ness of Holmes to you? Does setting the stories in the present take anything away from them? Moffat argues (and as I said, I agree 100%) that he's preserving the spirit of the books by taking it out of the original trappings. What do you think about that idea in any fandom?