The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes

Originally airing for only 13 episodes, this highly detailed series recreation of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's Victorian detective was so well made that, more than just being a ratings-puller, it’s considered a classic series. How detailed is it? Painstakingly so, even to the extent of recreating illustrations that accompanied the original stories in Strand magazine in the late 19th century. Though a second series aired a year later (The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes II), the lead characters are played in both cases by Jeremy Brett (Holmes) and David Burke (Dr. Watson). On the skin front, Lorraine Peters appears in the second episode, The Dancing Men, while Fiona Shaw (Aunt Petunia in the Harry Potter films) appears in episode five, The Crooked Man. Peters showed skin in 1973’s The Wicker Man, while Shaw managed to drop the duds in Mountains of the Moon in 1990 and For The Greater Good a year later. Let’s hear it for the old birds!