The Abbey Grange

This is one of the more complex stories. Holmes is called to the home a nobleman who has been beaten to death with a fireplace poker. His wife has been tied to a chair in a state of great distress. As the episode unfolds there are series of inconsistent clues which lead Holmes to be suspicious of the lady's story. There is a bell rope to nowhere, a knot that doesn't fit, and a set of wine glasses which aren't as they should be. Holmes must tread lightly because the lady is fragile and must be treated as such. The beauty of this particular episode has to do with the amassing of clues. It has a more contemporary sense to it and requires more decoding. Jeremy Brett and Edward Hardwicke are very adept as the sleuths, and when one hears the wrapping up at the end, it is quite satisfying. It has a side issue which a stickler for traditional justice might find unsatisfying. Holmes must become judge and jury once again.

Although the accent of course is on our protagonist Sherlock Holmes ferreting out a solution to a murder, in this particular story Sir Arthur Conan Doyle was years ahead of his time in using as a subject a battered wife of the Victorian Era. Options for battered women were quite a bit more limited than they are today.

For reasons he's not quite clear himself about, Scotland Yard's Inspector Hopkins (Paul Williamson) calls in Jeremy Brett and Edward Hardwicke (Holmes and Watson) in on what looks like a break-in robbery of a Victorian mansion gone wrong right into a homicide. Perhaps because the victim was a titled individual and a rich one, Scotland Yard wanted to be sure.

Of course Holmes deduces it was not a break-in gone bad which left the man murdered and his much younger wife tied up. Rather quickly Brett says that Anne-Louise Lambert was the victim of long time abuse. And he also figures out that a sailor is somehow involved in this affair.

What to do about it, well all I can say is that Agatha Christie might have taken a bit from Conan Doyle when she wrote Murder On The Orient Express with her solution for Hercule Poirot when he found the murder.

As Arthur Conan Doyle was an observer of Victorian society, I believe that his victim/villain Lord Eustace Brackenstall may very well have been modeled on the Marquis of Queensbury who later made life miserable for Oscar Wilde. Queensbury had the same kind of temperament that Brackenstall displays and he certainly abused his family. Conrad Phillips plays Brackenstall with relish.

Good Holmes story and dramatization of same.

I have always been a fan of the Sherlock Holmes Granada series, and while not my favourite of Return...(between The Devil's Foot and The Sign of Four) or of the series(too many to choose from), it is one of the stronger episodes and deserves to be better known. The story is not unfamiliar territory, but it is still as compelling as you'd expect a Sherlock Holmes story to be. What I also liked about the story, aside from how it drew you in with the suspense and the twists and turns, was not only that it didn't feel like a retread of another episode with a similar premise but I too like the episodes that show a more human side to Holmes and The Abbey Grange is one of those. The writing is intelligent, the music is hauntingly beautiful and the episode is splendidly and evocatively made. The supporting cast are solid, but the two leads are the stars. Edward Hardwicke is a loyal and quietly intelligent Watson, and Jeremy Brett's Holmes is as superb as you would expect. Overall, one of the better episodes of the "Return" series and falls into the category that deserves to be better known. 9/10 Bethany Cox

The Abbey Grange was the first episode shot with Edward Hardwicke as Dr. Watson, but you can already notice the chemistry between Holmes and his new companion.I really liked David Burke, but Edward is just as great as he has been.

What I like in this story the most is the deep sympathy Holmes feels towards Lady Brackenstall, who is tortured by her husband. In the Canon Holmes is portrayed as someone who has no emotions at all and who does not care about women.In this episode he tries to help a lady, we see emotions, sympathy, worry and strong sense of justice.Jeremy is so irresistibly young and handsome, he shows more of his true personality.He is calm, understanding and caring, a real gentleman.

The ending scene is perfectly arranged: just watch how Holmes responds to a quite natural thing - Lady Brackenstall tries to hug him. There we see another Sherlock: a solitary, introverted creature, who does not like to be close to someone, who is impatient. This is the miracle of him, he is so multi-layered and complex, he can always surprise us with a move or a sentence.

Holmes is urgently called to Abbey Grange in Kent at the request of Inspector Hopkins. Sir Eustace Brackenstall has been murdered. However, Lady Brackenstall was a witness to proceedings and from her testimony the case seems cut and dried - a notorious gang of thieves was responsible.

A reasonably interesting episode of The Return of Sherlock Holmes. Not entirely intriguing: from the start something is amiss - the case is (apparently) solved very easily and everything is too neat and complete. The implication for this is that we know who the perpetrator is, or at least that they're an accomplice of the perpetrator.

And so this feeling of unease proves justified. This doesn't make the episode a waste though as Holmes still has to figure out what actually happened and the back story is a very interesting one.