Community and Sherlock Holmes

A RUSSIAN-SPEAKING Sherlock Holmes. The Hound of the Baskervilles filmed in a quarry in Eastern Europe.

That was my introduction to a rather different series of everyone’s favourite detective (apologies to Poirot fans) on Saturday. Russian friends found this popular series from the USSR era on YouTube - with English subtitles.

And it was a heap of fun. These days we can access nearly anything via the internet. Missed your favourite ABC TV show? Catch up on iview. Want to enjoy the Soviet version of Sherlock Holmes? Go to Youtube.

It’s a far cry from the 1970s and 1980s, which I’m reminded of each week with the Countdown highlights series.

In the days of Countdown many of us listened to the same music, raved about the same TV series, even adopted the same fashion trends (remember those platform shoes, girls?).

Now, excluding Game of Thrones, it’s harder to find common pop-culture interests.

We’re free to pick and choose. Not follow the herd, so to speak. Make a statement about who we are as individuals.

But as amazing as this brave, new world is at times, I sometimes miss the “cohesiveness” that existed in previous decades. Did we have more that bound us together, even at the level of pop culture?

Did the fact that we all watched Countdown on Sundays or The Six Million Dollar Man in some small part help define who we were as a society?

Or perhaps in this day and age of infinite choice, we simply have to work harder to decide what unites us.

Perhaps embrace this opportunity to decide what it is we value as a community, as a nation beyond simple pop-culture guides.