Saturday Morning Cult-TV Blogging: BraveStarr: "Sherlock Holmes in the 23rd Century" (Part I)

In BraveStarr’s “Sherlock Holmes in the 23^rd Century (Part I)” the audience learns that the Great Detective of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle is not a work of fiction at all, but a real man. 

Furthermore, we learn that Holmes does not die at Reichenbach Falls while fighting Professor Moriarity.  Rather, he falls through a “natural time warp” and emerges in England of the 23^rd Century.

Holmes doesn’t require much time to adjust to the future, and promptly agrees to help the visiting Marshal from New Texas, BraveStarr, solve the mystery of a little alien boy who disappeared on a missing kerium freighter.  The boy was searching for his parents, and is now lost himself. 

Also helping Holmes on this case is a Scotland Yard detective -- and his grand-niece -- the beautiful Mycraft Holmes, and a Rigellian doctor named Witson…

“Sherlock Holmes in the 23^rd Century” (Part I) -- an endearing riff on Buck Rogers tropes -- shows a lot more life and ingenuity than do many episodes of BraveStarr that I’ve seen so far.

This story was apparently intended as the pilot for a spin-off Filmation series which never came to be, alas.  Still, the story shows tremendous promise, and I enjoyed the look of a Retro-Victorian England of the Future, one replete with Dickensian pick-pockets and so forth.

Although it defies credibility that Holmes would wake up in the 23^rd century to partner with a physician named Wittson, a superior at Scotland Yard named Lestrade (after her ancestor…), not to mention a kick-ass detective named Holmes, we must, as Mr. Spock would remind us, no doubt, remember that the universe unfolds as it should. In whatever time period he dwells, Holmes’ life as we remember it in fiction seems to form around him.

Alas, as we learn in the second part of that episode, that means his greatest nemesis is also still alive in the future, and waiting for him.

Next week: “Sherlock Holmes in the 23^rd Century” (Part II).