Sherlock Holmes has been the most iconic detective in history, with countless incarnations in TV and film.
One of the forgotten actors who played Sherlock was the great Peter Cushing, who wore the deerstalker for two BBC series in the mid-1960s.
Like so many classic BBC series many episodes were lost. But now some episodes have been found.
The Yorkshire Post says that some have been found after an intense search by reporter, Tony Earnshaw.
“A huge amount of BBC material was wiped in the 1970s, allegedly to allow tape stock to be re-used. Among the victims were Doctor Who, Dad’s Army and Sherlock Holmes.
“Via a friendly mole at the BBC, I was able to watch on time-coded videocassettes the handful of episodes that still existed. The rest had been wiped. Later those remaining stories would emerge on DVD. Fans of the character – and of Cushing – could only lament the loss of the others and, if old enough, recall their broadcast all those years before.
“Flash forward two decades and Holmes aficionados have thrilled to the news that clips of the missing episodes have been found in the public television archives of Holland and Flanders. Just like Doctor Who, Cushing’s TV series had been transferred to film for overseas syndication.”
Cushing first played the sleuth in films from The Hound of the Baskervilles in 1959 and up to 1984’s The Masks of Death.
Half a decade ago, there was much hullaballoo when US network CBS announced that it was going to broadcast its own version of Sherlock Holmes, starring British actor Jonny Lee Miller and Lucy Liu. How dare they? screamed many Holmes die-hards, especially as the announcement was coming (very) soon after the successful Steven Moffat and Mark Gatiss reboot for the BBC. While the BBC version became a global success and a bit of an enigma, catapulting Benedict Cumberbatch to superstardom, the US version also proved its worth. If the BBC’s Sherlock is all bangs and whistles and narrative pyrotechnics, the US version – Elementary – resembles a long-running and often deeply satisfying police procedural. And now it has been renewed for a sixth series. 
It seems people just can’t get enough of Sherlock Holmes. With countless incarnations of cinema and TV screen, and with Britain’s own Benedict Cumberbatch-starring behemoth having just finished (the US version, Elementary, is still going strong-ish), Arthur Conan Doyle’s iconic character just keep on going. And going. And going. In fact, now it’s going to Scandinavia and the Nordic countries… 
So who is Eurus? We may think we know the answer, but as this week’s episode delved into Sherlock’s murky childhood and even murkier psychology, we suspected that the truth will be even stranger than we had been led to imagine.
The long-awaited return of Sherlock bears the burden of being required to explain unresolved matters from previous episodes before it can get on with its own concerns. Rapidly dealt with is the little matter of Sherlock being a murderer; the government (that is to say, Mycroft) is so worried that Moriarty may not be dead, that footage is faked to absolve Sherlock of the killing of Charles Augustus Magnussen. So, not even a pardon needed. Result!
The Killing Times 