Mon 10 Nov 2025
A TV Episode Review: THE RIVALS OF SHERLOCK HOLMES “A Message from the Deep Sea” (1971).
Posted by Steve under Reviews , TV mysteries[7] Comments
THE RIVALS OF SHERLOCK HOLMES “A Message from the Deep Sea.” 19 September 1971 (Season 1, Episode 1.) Thames Television, UK. John Neville (Dr. Thorndyke), James Cossins, Bernard Archard, Terence Rigby, Eve Pearce. Based on the story by R. Austin Freeman. Director: James Goddard. Currently streaming on PBS/Masterpiece.
The title of the overall two-season British series will tell you most of what might need to know, even if it’s managed to miss your attention all of the time since it first appeared. The stories presented were based on various detective stories written at the time Sherlock Holmes was around and solving mysteries, penned by various authors who were Conan Doyle’s contemporaries, mostly forgotten or not, justified or not. Comparatively speaking, I hasten to add.
This one’s by R. Austin Freeman, whose books are still generally available, and to the extent that they’re still being reprinted today. In this first episode of the series, Dr. Thorndyke, his most well-known detective, solves a case of young woman who’s found murdered in her room in a semi-reputable rooming house, her throat cut.
The setting of the tale is sumptuous, as is almost always the case in British TV productions such as this, while Dr. Thorndyke – who is much younger and more handsome than I have ever pictured him – continually rags on the police as constant tramplers of the evidence, saying that it is the facts that matter, not preconceived and half-cocked ideas that count for nothing.
In that regard, I confess to being guilty of following the facts well enough, as presented, but having little idea what to do with them. No matter. It is still a pleasure to follow a tale that has the right idea, done more than well enough.
November 11th, 2025 at 7:59 am
The stories in this series and its sequel were taken from books edited by Hugh Greene, Graham Greene’s brother and former Director-General of the BBC.
November 11th, 2025 at 10:09 am
The Second Series featured another story by R. Austin Freeman, “The Moabite Cypher”, but this time Dr. Thorndyke was played by Barrie Ingham.
November 11th, 2025 at 11:59 am
Thanks for the added info, guys. I’ve known about this series for quite a while, but this one is the first episode I’ve seen. It won’t be the last, I can tell you that!
November 11th, 2025 at 2:54 pm
As regards Thorndyke’s looks, Freeman (who held a number of unfortunate views on genetic superiority) wrote:
“In appearance he is handsome and of an imposing presence, with a symmetrical face of the classical type and a Grecian nose. And here I may remark that his distinguished appearance is not merely a concession to my personal taste but is also a protest against the monsters of ugliness whom some detective writers have evolved.
These are quite opposed to natural truth. In real life a first-class man of any kind usually tends to be a good-looking man.”
(http://www.classiccrimefiction.com/rafreeman-drthorndyke.htm)
He also establishes Thorndyke’s age as between thirty-five and forty when he makes his debut, and perhaps no more than fifty even thirty years later. (Although he admits to aging the character more slowly than the passing years, a number of the stories are also explicitly or implicitly backdated by a decade or more. I’ve never really tried to work out the reason for this, but my first guess would be that the advance of forensic science would create problems about some point of the story or open Thorndyke’s methods of investigation to criticism if it was set at the time of its writing.)
November 11th, 2025 at 3:04 pm
Ah yes, thank you very much. I was hoping for such a description of the good doctor, even if in perhaps substantial opposition to my own remembrances, based on a reading of Freeman’s work some 60 years ago, and never since. My error there.
November 15th, 2025 at 4:16 am
Dorothy L. Sayers had a bit of a crush on Thorndyke and called him the handsomest detective in the genre. Ironically his real-life counterpart, Sir Bernard Spilsbury, who came along after Thorndyke debuted, was also known for his striking good looks.
The two seasons of RIVALS are excellent with Douglas Wilmer (British television Sherlock Holmes and movie Nayland Smith) as S.F.X. Van Deusen, Donald Pleasance as Carnaki the Ghost Hunter, Peter Barkworth as Martin Hewitt, and Derek Jacobi as Duckworth Drew among others.
John Neville was Sherlock Holmes in A STUDY IN TERROR and a semi regular on X-FILES as well as a splendid Baron Munchausen for Terry Gilliam. Barry Ingham who played Thorndyke in the second season was the voice of Basil of Baker Street in THE GREAT MOUSE DETECTIVE.
November 15th, 2025 at 11:10 am
In other words, this is a detective anthology series done right. I can’t think of an American series that compares at all.