If you’ve wondered how Sherlock Holmes became the world’s greatest detective before he got his famous deerstalker hat, Amazon Prime’s new series “Young Sherlock” has got you covered.
The show dropped all eight episodes on March 4, 2026, and after binge watching it last weekend, I’ve got some thoughts.
First off, the casting is solid.
Hero FIennes Tiffin, plays 19 year old Sherlock Holmes. He’s not the polished detective we know from the books or the Benedict Cumberbatch version, this Sherlock is messy, impulsive and starts the show in prison for pickpocketing. His older brother Mycroft, played by Max Irons, bails him out and gets him a job as a janitor at Oxford University. Not exactly the genius detective lifestyle you’d expect.
The real interesting choice? James Moriarty, the Moriarty who becomes Sherlock’s arch-nemesis, is actually his friend in this version. Donal Finn plays him as a scholarship student who bonds with Sherlock over being super smart and kind outsiders. It’s weird seeing them as buddies instead of enemies, but the actors have good chemistry, so it works. For now.
The plot kicks off when some ancient scrolls get stolen from a Chinese Princess named Gulun Shou’an, played by Zine Tseng. Sherlock gets framed for it and he and Moriarty team up to clear their names, and what starts as a simple theft turns into this huge globe trotting conspiracy involving secret societies, family drama and murder. There’s this rich guy named Sir Bucephalus Hodge, played by Colin Firth, who’s shady in that classic “I’m rich and secretly evil” way.
The show has this weird habit of explaining Sherlock’s “mind palace” as him walking through his memories like it’s a video game. It’s visually cool but sometimes feels like the show doesn’t trust us to understand he’s really smart.
If Amazon renews it for the second season, hopefully they focus more on the clever detective work and less on the explosive action movie stuff. Sometimes less really is more, even for Sherlock Holmes.
Young Sherlock is now streaming on Amazon Prime Video.
Rated-14 for violence and language.
Details:
Title: “Young Sherlock”
Director: Guy Ritchie
Starring: Hero Fiennes Tiffin, Donal Finn, Zine Tseng
Rating: TV-14
Runtime: 46-52 minutes each episode
Genre: Action-Adventure Mystery Drama
Now playing: Amazon Prime Video
