The Return of Sherlock Holmes | |
---|---|
Written by | Bob Shayne |
Directed by | Kevin Connor |
Starring |
Margaret Colin Michael Pennington Daniel Benzali Connie Booth Nicholas Guest |
Theme music composer | Ken Thorne |
Country of origin | USA |
Original language(s) | English |
Production | |
Producer(s) | Nick Gillott Bob Shayne |
Running time | 100 min. |
Release | |
Original network | CBS |
Original release | January 10, 1987 |
The Return of Sherlock Holmes is a 1987 CBS television movie and pilot created and written by Bob Shayne involving the famous detective Sherlock Holmes finding himself in the modern world.
In the beginning sequence, a former FBI agent named Carter Morstan (Barry Morse) receives an unwelcome visit by a man named Small. In the ensuing struggle, a gunshot rings out. Subsequently, a body is wrapped into a carpet and set alight.
Jane Watson (Margaret Colin) works as a private detective in Boston, Massachusetts, but faces financial ruin because she approaches her job from a more humane angle - much to the dislike of her secretary, Ms Houston (Lila Kaye) - therefore she is eventually forced to sell the English country estate of her ancestor, Dr. Watson. She visits the old house one last time, where a lawyer hands her an envelope with detailed instructions inside. Following those instructions, Jane finds a hidden basement containing a primitive cryogenic capsule with a man lying inside, whom she thaws.
The man inside the capsule turns out to be her ancestor's friend and partner, the legendary Sherlock Holmes himself (Michael Pennington). He had received a trapped gift from a lost brother of his old nemesis, James Moriarty, which infected him with the bubonic plague. In hopes of receiving a cure somewhere in the future, Holmes and Watson had devised the desperate plan of putting Holmes into suspended animation to save Holmes' life. Fortunately, though she is at a loss to explain the recurrence of the plague to the doctor she seeks out, Jane manages to administer the cure to Holmes.
Holmes soon finds himself in a world which has changed a lot in his absence, and lacking an alternative, he accompanies Jane to America, where they are soon drawn into a very difficult case. Someone has ransacked Jane's office and left a message signed Small. Afterward, they receive a visit from Carter Morstan's daughter Violet (Connie Booth), who asks her to investigate her father's murder and states that the message found in Jane's office was meant for her. Jane and Holmes (who uses one of his old aliases, Holmes Sigerson) mean to ask the FBI, but the higher ranks are stone-walling, and soon Holmes and Jane find themselves under the close scrutiny of a young agent named Tobias (Nicholas Guest). When both begin to backtrack three of Morstan's former colleagues and friends, they find one of them dead.