The Musgrave Ritual

It's been said a million times before and I'll point it out again, Jeremy Brett was born to play the great detective. He not only breathed new and invigorating life into the well-worn character, but became the blueprint for those that came after him. The mannerisms, movements, cadence and quirks. The organic humor. You name it, he had it in spades. 'The Musgrave Ritual' is one of my personal favorites; not only within the Granada series, but of the whole Sherlock Holmes canon. The story as told here has a couple of clever work-arounds, while remaining faithful to the original text. The addition of Watson in this episode, as well as moving the happenings forward a few years, makes complete sense; and it's handled very well. The acting is top notch and Brett is the ON. The subtle humor in the first act is worth mentioning, because it gets the ball rolling before the tale takes a darker turn. I hope more people unfamiliar with the series find it. It truly is fantastic.

The Musgrave Ritual stands as one of the most unique episodes of Sherlock Holmes, it is totally different to all others. The approach, tone and story themselves are all different. Normally the crime is the focal point, here the crime is almost incidental. Holmes is involved in a treasure hunt, where he discovers a crime, and has to solve it. Even the second body seems almost a side story.

Terrific casting in this one, James Hazeldine had bags of charisma, which allowed Brunton to shine over Musgrave, not that Michael Culver is any less an actor, he's again just perfect casting.

Brett is terrific, as is Hardwicke, it once again touches on the addiction of Holmes.

Excellent. 9/10

A faithful adaptation of one of the best of the Holmes stories. It has to do with a butler who gets wind of a document that is actually a kind of treasure map. Unfortunately for him, he hooks up with an unstable maid who gets in the way of his realizing an end to all this. The butler is caught in Musgrave's study, rifling through important papers, and is summarily fired. Despite pleading for a couple days to prepare (and do whatever it is he is going to do), Musgrave give him till the next day. This sets up a series of events based on a set of statements that have come to be known as "The Musgrave Ritual." They have to do with locations and positions, but are also threatening in their own way. Holmes and Watson begin to sort out the craziness, involving the disappearance of the butler and the crazy chambermaid, and in the process begin to decipher the Ritual. Clothing has been found indicating that people may have drowned, but that makes no sense. It leads to a cellar and a series of discoveries. It is kind of like Poe's "The Gold Bug" in some ways. Holmes always has a great sense of spatial relationships and this is his top asset here. There is atmosphere and suspense and a wonderful conclusion to this. Brett and Hardwicke really do themselves proud here. One might compare this to one of the Basil Rathbone Holmes efforts.

Sherlock Holmes and Dr Watson are invited to the estate of a university acquaintance of Holmes, Sir Reginald Musgrave. Holmes isn't exactly enthusiastic about the holiday but things get interesting when the butler disappears. Due to the circumstances surrounding his departure Sir Reginald relates to Holmes the contents of a cryptic document that has been in his family's possession since the mid-17th century, the Musgrave Ritual.

An excellent episode, the best of the series thus far. Like many of the recent episodes, and in contrast to The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, it is not necessarily about a murder. In this case it is essentially a treasure hunt.

The cryptic document, Holmes' decoding of it and the treasure hunt it leads him on make for engaging and intriguing viewing. The disappearance of the butler adds a fair bit of intrigue too...and tragedy.

This was the worst I've seen in the Brett series which has been excellent so far. This is an awful version of the Rathbone version and nothing like the Doyle story. Really bad.