An official adaptation of the British show Sherlock Holmes, the first season of Shekhar Home focuses on the origin story of Shekhar and his partner-in-crime Dr. Jayavrat, as they go about solving cases in their neighbourhood. But with a sinister plot on the sidelines, will they manage to halt the assault in time? The story and screenplay written by Aniruddha Guha and Niharika Puri is more on the reimagined zone of the original, wherein the writers just borrow the core traits of the characters while spinning a setting and an origin story of their own. The core fans of the original show/novel may be on the fence here given the creative spin-off that the drama has to offer here. But it definitely did work for me with a rather playful tone that accompanies the narrative. This was an important ingredient that often hoodwinks the viewers into underestimating the turn of events which are downplayed, before unleashing a cerebral approach to the proceedings while deciphering the same. This is a consistent observation spanning over the screenplay which is standing at 6 episodes of about 40 odd minutes each. But one small barter in trying to wrap up the show early was, the integral cerebral approach of the original that offered a little more palatable flavour(given that it was a slow burner) which itself is abrupt here along the way. 

The drama wastes no time in introducing the principal characters featuring the protagonist Shekhar Home that possesses a sharp mind to literally turn things around with his exceptional observational skills. To give him company is Dr. Jayavrat who assists him ably to resolve multiple cases. And voila! You have a winning combination ready to take on the world. The minor issue with the narrative lies with its pacing. There is a clear barter here to do away with the slowness of the original with respect to its pacing, that did instill a lot of flavour in the narrative, while replacing it with a slightly quicker narrative that is focused on jumping from one event to another while reducing the cerebral approach to a flicker(relatively speaking). So while this approach did work for most parts, I would have ideally liked the pacing to be reduced, to completely grasp and indulge in the antics of the protagonist and his mystery solving skilks. Having said that, such is the character trait of the protagonist(as developed by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle), that it is hard to go wrong drastically even with a minimalistic approach. So even the slightly more pronounced playful tone unlike the polished tone of the original (consistent throughout the narrative) works here, and it doesn’t seem out of place precisely for this reason.

The proceedings are intriguing and engaging while jumping from one event to another, even as the protagonists play their part in deciphering and cracking the various cases within a single episode. I liked how the writers did not dwell in subplot within a subplot while focusing on the main case in hand that needs to be addressed. And each case brings with it, a unique flavour in itself. Be it a rudimentary serial killer or a small little heist underway, or the kidnapping of the daughter of a local MLA or even the protagonists’ tryst with the supernatural, all the cases might appear to be elementary and slightly convenient, but the approach taken by the protagonist to crack them was quite interesting, and made for a fascinating watch. The main thing to note is that the resolution wasn’t flashy but true to the idea of the original of approaching them in a cerebral manner! And I liked how the setting of smaller towns in Calcutta(given that the show is set in the early 90s), had a part to play in each of the cases, being a silent spectator and almost a third rotating wheel along the way. The pop culture /literary references are a refreshing addition to the screenplay too(Read : O Henry, Ashwin-Jadeja, Ravindranath Tagore).

Another smaller flaw of the show lay with its concluding plot of a potential sinister plot that does threaten to eradicate the city. While the plot was promising with its conclusion(that I will get to in a bit), I wished the flickers of that case was prevalent at frequent junctures in the preceding episodes. There was just a little hint provided, but the presence of the mastermind was the missing link(remember Moriarty?), and that may have added additional layers to the narrative in terms of the guessing game and the ultimate payoff. In the interim, the little backstory followed by the Tagore trail which did form the crux of that sequence did work, leading to a shocking conclusion that I did not see it coming. It is at this point that the fans of the original show/novel will be divided, given that the writers here did pull a rabbit out of the bag. But the twist did work well here(remember a similar heist by Farhan Akhtar in Don?, yes out of context but a twist nevertheless), thereby summing up the screenplay that is quite well written and makes for an engaging watch.