Average Rating: 
Rating:  - What happens if you try to improve something that's perfect?
This applies to the TV versions that I saw of all the films in the UK and VHS versions of the Sign of Four and The Hound of the Baskervilles that I have.Most Sherlock Holmes episodes with Jeremy Brett were faithful to Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's original stories - and have been superb. The few in which the original stories have been altered, including 3 of the 5 in this set, have been poor. In fact, disastrous when compared to the rest. Avoiding them is easy - just like avoiding other Homes stories that people other than Conan Doyle have come up with - but only partly effective because these were original stories that should not have been altered and should have been made with Brett (the very best Holmes ever) faithfully. My solution will probably be to buy the set but not watch the altered storyline episodes.
Rating:  - The rest of the story
...viewed through the lens of agony at the end of Brett's life, these movies blossom. He was battling severe depression and a nervous breakdown due to the death of his wife and dying of cardiomyopathy. Medication prescribed to control his bipolar disorder gave him the bloated appearance seen in later episodes. As the medication built up in his system, it wreaked his already weakened heart (he'd had rheumatic fever as a child)... What raises this above maudlin tribute is how much closer the latter-day Brett comes to the Holmes penned by Doyle. There is a problem with the Doyle Holmes even the best actors don't overcome. (Brett himself thought Doyle was better read than watched.) The agony Brett suffered in his last months seems to have enabled him to transcend that barrier. Maybe because Holmes is so dark a character. Tom Keogh says in Amazon.com's Editorial Review, "the ailing Brett gives an ever-fascinating performance... something darker and more personal" and "the ailing Brett, play[s] an increasingly darker and more neurotic detective." A writer once suggested Holmes' own words from Watson's memoir (in The Final Problem) could serve as his epitaph: "I think I may go so far as to say that I have not lived wholly in vain; if my record were closed tonight, I could still survey it with equanimity. The air of London is sweeter for my presence." Diana Rigg observed they might also apply to Jeremy Brett. The earlier episodes are more comely. Nevertheless, the rest of the story and the essence of Holmes are in The Eligible Bachelor, The Master Blackmailer, The Last Vampire, and The Hound of the Baskervilles.
Rating:  - The Worst of Jeremy Brett; buy all others first
The Sign of the Four is quite well done, but the other 4 movies in this collection are either too drawn out and slow (Hound of the Baskervilles), too strange and meandering and at times virtually incomprehensible (The Master Blackmailer, which might be good if you cut out 1/2 of it, namely, the subplot regarding Holme's nightmares which is the incomprehensible part); though the Eligible Bachelor has its moments it too (and features James Bellamy from Upstairs Downstairs) it is too slow and meandering and at times very unHolmes-like. As for the Sussex Vampire, or The Last Vampire as I think they called it in the Film Adaption, I haven't watched it for a long time, but I recall it as being absolutely terrible, the very worst of all Brett's episodes...So if you want to enjoy Jeremy Brett's Sherlock Holmes, and he was the best Sherlock Holmes in history so far as I'm concerned, stick with the one-hour episodes (and perhaps The Sign of Four if you can buy it separately). The best episodes include The Blue Carbuncle (my all-time favorite), The Speckled Band, The Red Headed League, The Cardboard Box (very dark and creepy), The Second Stain, The Greek Interpreter, The Copper Beeches, and just about any of the others. A few one hour episodes (not the above though) do have very odd and overly gothic directing that gets in the way of the telling of the story, but even those are better than the two-hour movies. One of those strangely directed episodes is quite good, however; this is The Mazarin Stone, in which Sherlock Holmes hardly appears; His Brother Mycroft and Watson do all the sluething. It is a quite unusual and very insteresting episode. The two old ladies (the clients) are exceptionally entertaining. Just stay away from The Eligible Bachelor, The Master Blackmailer (which has its moments...), The Last Vampire (The Sussex Vampire), and The Hound of the Baskervilles.
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