The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, starring Jeremy Brett, might be the most underappreciated show of all time. In the Granada television series of 41 episodes, which spanned four seasons from 1984 to 1994, Brett regalvinizes the detective, sweeping the dust from from Arthur Conan Doyle’s Victorian pages. This is not your grandparents’ Holmes, as played by Basil Rathbone, or the prettified modern-day Benedict Cumberbatch adaptation. Here is the depressive, drug-addled, disturbingly eccentric P.I. whose superpower lies behind his aquiline nose and feline eyes. It would have been easy for Brett to give a gas- or steam-powered performance—florid and atmospheric, befitting the character’s period—but instead he goes electric, each exquisitely dictated syllable sharp enough for you to hang on. —Nathan King

Nathan King is a Deputy Editor for AIR MAIL