Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson: Acquaintance

Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson: Acquaintance (1980) — watch online on iFILM — is the opening chapter of Igor Maslennikov's celebrated Soviet TV series. Dr. Watson, fresh from the Afghan campaign and short on money, needs a cheap room in London. A mutual friend steers him to 221B Baker Street, where the other lodger conducts blood experiments beside a burning fireplace and plays violin at three in the morning.

That lodger is Sherlock Holmes, played by Vasily Livanov with a restless, slightly feverish energy. Vitaly Solomin's Watson reacts with the right mix of alarm and reluctant fascination. Rina Zelyonaya as Mrs. Hudson has clearly decided long ago that protest achieves nothing. This first episode is the essential one: without watching how these two begin, nothing that follows in the series quite makes sense. Stream Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson: Acquaintance online on iFILM.