Watson has still been in Afghanistan, I perceive

Sir Arthur Conan Doyle recorded in his story "A Study in Scarlet" that when Sherlock Holmes met Dr. John Watson on that fateful day in 1887, the famous detective's first words to the recently discharged veteran of the Second Anglo-Afghan War were, "You have been in Afghanistan, I perceive."

Last night, when the PBS series Masterpiece debuted Sherlock- a 21st Century updating of the Holmes-Watson collaboration- I saw it coming from the very first scene, which portrayed the character playing Watson in contemporary combat.

Sure enough. Holmes to Watson: "Iraq or Afghanistan?" "Afghanistan," Watson replied.

"A Study in Pink," as the first episode was called, was clever, well-written, and generally fun. This Holmes is admittedly a bit edgier than we're used to. For one thing, the references to homosexuality (doubtless a reference not only to the great detective's antipathy toward women but to Holmes's claim of a relationship with Watson in order to avoid becoming entangled in a heterosexual affair in Billy Wilder's film The Private Life of Sherlock Holmes) were a bit thick on the ground; at one point, Watson- who is dining with Holmes- finds himself repeatedly having to deny that he is the detective's "date." Then, too, the references were probably part of the effort to establish that this is a contemporary Holmes, much in the manner of his substitution of nicotine patches for his famous pipe and his pronouncement of the case he's working on as "a three-patch problem."

Another interesting element is the suspicion in which Lestrade and Scotland Yard hold the great detective's psyche. He is not simply eccentric, as in the canonical stories. He is referred to more than once by the police as a "psychopath;" at one point, he corrects the officer who uses the term, and stating that more careful research would reveal that he is in fact "a high-functioning sociopath." One member of London's finest suggests that one day it will be Holmes himself who, out of boredom, is responsible for one of the murders Scotland Yard investigates. And this Holmes does not hestitate to torture the dying villian at the story's end in order to obtain a piece of information which, while of great personal interest to him, is, strictly speaking, not vital to the resolution of the case.

The story was well-written, witty, amusing, and thoroughly enjoyable. I look forward to the further adventures of the sociopathic, 21st Century Holmes and his Afghan war veteran sidekick in weeks to come.