Television series

Sherlock

Name: Sherlock
Genre: Drama, Crime, Mystery
Released: 2010
Cast: Benedict Cumberbatch, Martin Freeman

Sherlock reimagines Conan Doyle for smartphones and CCTV: Cumberbatch's Holmes is a rude, brilliant deduction machine; Freeman's Watson the ex-soldier who keeps him tethered to being human. Each 90-minute episode plays like a mini blockbuster — flashy graphics for his thought process, propulsive plotting, quotable dialogue. Clever, occasionally too pleased with its own cleverness, but when it clicks it's the most purely entertaining detective show on television.

TVMaze rating

8.9

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Luther2010

Idris Elba's tormented, brilliant detective has the same magnetic-genius-holding-himself-together energy as Cumberbatch's Holmes, but the London he stalks through is grimier, angrier, and the cases cut closer to genuine horror.

But It's bleaker and more violent than Sherlock ever gets, with far fewer jokes to cut the tension.

Elementary2012

The most direct answer to "what if Holmes lived in New York instead" — Jonny Lee Miller's recovering-addict Holmes and Lucy Liu's Watson build a genuinely different relationship across seven satisfying seasons.

But It's a network procedural at heart, longer and less stylised than Sherlock's cinematic bursts.

House2004

Take away the murders and keep the misanthropic genius solving impossible puzzles through pure deduction — House is Holmes in a hospital, and Hugh Laurie plays the part with real venom.

But 177 episodes is a huge commitment, and the formula wears noticeably thinner as it goes on.

The wildcard

Something you would not have found on your own.

Sherlock Holmes and the Voice of Terror1942no page yet

Both are Holmes stories ripped out of Victorian London and dropped into "now" — BBC did it with smartphones, Rathbone did it with the Blitz, sixty-odd years earlier.

Decades before BBC dragged Holmes into the smartphone era, Basil Rathbone's Holmes was doing the same trick in wartime London, fighting Nazi propaganda instead of texting suspects.

But Creaky black-and-white pacing and wartime propaganda plotting will feel stiff next to Sherlock's slickness.

Broadchurch2013

Swap flashy deduction for slow, aching small-town grief; David Tennant's detective is haunted rather than brilliant, and the mystery matters less than what it does to everyone left behind.

But It moves at a crawl compared to Sherlock's sprint, and the emotional weight can be heavy going.

Line of Duty2012

British crime drama at its most airtight — a different kind of puzzle box, all interrogation rooms and procedural traps, plotted so tightly it makes Sherlock's twists look casual by comparison.

But No Holmes-style genius here, just grinding, paranoid police work; the pleasures are colder and slower.

True Detective2014

A different register entirely — the detective story turned existential and nightmarish, with McConaughey's Rust Cohle as a burnt-out philosopher-cop instead of a chipper deduction machine.

But It's slow, grim and philosophical where Sherlock is fast and playful; expect real tonal whiplash.

The Fall2013

Gillian Anderson's detective hunts Jamie Dornan's killer across a genuinely tense cat-and-mouse structure, trading Sherlock's showmanship for something quieter, colder and far more unsettling.

But It sits with a predator's point of view in ways that can feel uncomfortable rather than thrilling.

Endeavour2012

A young Inspector Morse solving cases in 1960s Oxford — the same DNA of clever plotting and a brilliant, awkward loner, but with proper period texture and a slower, sadder burn.

But The pace and manners are gentler and more old-fashioned than Sherlock's rapid-fire style.

MINDHUNTER2017

Deduction turned into an actual methodology — FBI agents interviewing serial killers to build the science of profiling, with the same fascination with how a mind can be reverse-engineered.

But Only two seasons exist and it ends on a cliffhanger with no resolution ever coming.

The Great Mouse Detective1986

Same genius-and-loyal-sidekick engine, played completely straight as pastiche — proof the Holmes archetype survives being shrunk, animated, and handed to eight-year-olds.

Basil of Baker Street is Disney's cheeky, unmistakable Holmes pastiche — brilliant, vain, obsessive, saved by his loyal companion — squeezed into a breezy mouse-sized mystery that's genuinely tense for a kids' film.

But It's a children's cartoon; the mystery is simple and the stakes are, literally, mouse-sized.

Zodiac2007

Where Sherlock makes deduction a thrilling superpower, Zodiac shows what obsessive pattern-hunting actually costs when the case refuses to be solved — the same itch, without the fantasy.

Fincher's masterpiece takes the same hunger for deduction and turns it into something closer to horror: obsessive men chasing a killer who is never neatly caught, across years of dead ends and ruined lives.

But It's slow, deliberately frustrating, and offers no tidy resolution — the opposite of Sherlock's satisfying reveals.