Very very predictable, including the post credit scene !!!

Overrated

Load of rubbish!!

Through painfully honest and emotional moments, the movie becomes irresistibly relatable

I have decided to stop evaluating these episodes because they fly in the face of the Holmes canon. This one is about a marriage between a young woman and her ne'er-do- well fiancé, who has had a series of conquests, each involving a death or disfigurement or annulment. Each has one thing in common. It pads his wealth, which he quickly dissipates. Holmes has had trouble sleeping. He has a recurring dream with strikingly horrible visions. The episode starts to fall apart when the dreams connect to reality. Conan-Doyle's character was incredibly critical of anything but deduction and fact. Here he moves in and out of a dream world. Several other factors enter in, including the sought after revenge of one of the previous conquests. There is a leopard running around loose and a man who shows up at the wedding. There are a few entertaining moments and visually the special effects are reasonable. But it doesn't seem to work. It's also hard to watch Jeremy Brett in the latter stages of his life, in the kind of distress we see here.

A full and varied cast, a Victorian melodrama, a dastardly villain, what could go wrong? A semi-detached plot. The writer seems to have a detective story of his/her own that they wish to put on television. Unfortunately, on attaching it crudely to this Sherlock Holmes story, without rhyme or reason the result is a great bloated pudding of a melodrama. Even Jeremy Brett, providing broad slices of ham acting, cannot save this. Choppy direction and lots of short, dramatic 'takes' create a sinister atmosphere, but so does a fire in a cornfield. The result appears for most of the programme to be two period dramas spliced together in error. Most of Sherlock Holmes' part could have been left on the cutting room floor and condensed to a walk-on. The real Sherlock Holmes adventure doesn't begin until 50 minutes into the film. Presumably T R Bowen has read somewhere about Conan Doyle's interest in spiritualism. Perhaps a couple of pages of the biography got stuck together - as the rationalist, Holmes, would never have indulged in setting store by visions 20 years separate the Doyle of spiritualist 'research' and Shelock Holmes. Crude references to Victorian romantic paintings merely add a hotch-potch feeling as do the frequent 'Victorian' street scenes (taken from spare footage of a production of Oliver, mixed up on the same cutting-room floor). What a disaster for an otherwise acceptable series!

Along with The Last Vampyre, The Eligible Bachelor is one of the weaker Sherlock Holmes adaptations. If I have to marginally edge out which was worse, this probably because it is so weird and hard to get into. Well there are redeeming qualities. The production values are meticulous as usual with wondrous costumes, settings and scenery, while the music is haunting and just wonderful. And the acting is not bad at all, Jeremy Brett looks worse for wears but still has that commanding, sophisticated and gritty baritone and presence that makes him so wonderful to watch. Edward Hardwicke is rock solid as Watson, while Geoffrey Beavers and Anna Calder Marshall are good in their respective roles.However I didn't care for Simon Williams as Lord Robert St. Simon, then again I didn't like his character, so conniving and such an unlikeable monster here he is horrible to watch. Then there is stodgy direction, pedestrian pacing and a plot that meanders all over the place. And the dialogue wasn't particularly noteworthy either, it wasn't sophisticated and intelligent enough and I missed the subtle humour that is evident at times.Overall, not awful but not great. For a great Jeremy Brett-Holmes adaptation see Hound of the Baskervilles and Sign of Four. Both can be slow at times but they do have absorbing stories, stick to the spirit of their respective stories(not really a general problem as such) and have intelligent dialogue. 5/10 Bethany Cox

Re-watching this feature-length episode from the Granada Holmes series after a long gap I was struck by its extreme strangeness when compared to even the most off-the-wall episodes of the 50 min serial episodes. Simon Williams plays a much-married cad with a murky past and a gothic house which doubles as a dangerous private zoo ... he's about to marry an American heiress who disappears as soon as they are married.Sherlock Holmes is bored, mentally unstable, and has a recurring nightmare in which images of insanity, spider's webs, and empty rooms merge to form a traumatic whole. All this of course is given extra resonance in terms of Jeremy Brett's portrayal given his own obvious decline around the time this was filmed, and he puts across this facet of the great detective brilliantly. Dr Watson comes to the rescue and helps to solve the mystery of Hattie's disappearance. Another solid performance from Edward Hardwicke.Another point of interest within this confused jumble of a plot is a rare TV appearance of Mary Ellis, the actress/singer who collaborated on a number of Ivor Novello musicals in the 1930s and 40s. Spot her in a couple of key scenes.Although 'The Eligible Batchelor' is titled as such, it is the tale of a number of women linked by circumstance. It - despite it's faults - is one of the best episodes of the whole series, and worth persevering with through all its weird and wonderful conceits.