The British Board of Film Classification has rated the pilot as a 12 certificate (not suitable for children under 12) for video and online exhibition, and it is included as an additional feature on the DVD released on 30 August 2010.
[4] John Watson, an army doctor injured in Afghanistan, meets Sherlock Holmes, who is looking for someone to share a flat at 221B Baker Street, owned by landlady Mrs. Hudson.
Sherlock is invited to inspect the latest crime scene, that of a woman dressed exclusively in pink, who managed to claw the letters "R-a-c-h-e" into the floor before dying.
Sherlock deduces that the word was "Rachel" and that the woman was from out of town; observing that her luggage is not at the crime scene, he searches the neighborhood until he finds it, discarded by the killer.
When John returns to Baker Street, Sherlock asks him to text Wilson's still-missing phone, hoping the murderer will make a move.
Sherlock presumes that Wilson planted her phone on the killer so that he could be traced by GPS; correctly assuming that "Rachel" was her password, he initiates such a search through her online account and finds the signal at 221B Baker Street.
[5] Tom Sutcliffe of The Independent points out, "Fans will recognise at once that the close-reading Sherlock applies to John's mobile phone is drawn from an almost identical analysis of a pocket watch [taken from The Sign of the Four].
[8] However, the first version of the pilot – reported to have cost £800,000 – led to rumours within the BBC and wider media that Sherlock was a potential disaster.
[9][10] The newly shot episode, says journalist Mark Lawson, was "substantially expanded and rewritten, and completely reimagined in look, pace and sound".
[14] Director Paul McGuigan says that using modern technology is in keeping with Conan Doyle's character, pointing out that "In the books he would use any device possible and he was always in the lab doing experiments.
[20] Producer Sue Vertue adds that additional footage to increase the length would not have matched because a different director of photography and a superior camera were used when filming the series.
[22] Final viewing figures were up to 9.23 million viewers and averaged a 28.5% share of the UK audience with a high AI rating of 87.
[25] The episode won a Peabody Award in 2010 "for bringing the beloved Victorian sleuth into the high-tech present while remaining faithful to his creator's original conception".
[13] Tom Sutcliffe for The Independent also suggests that Holmes was "a bit slow" to connect the attributes of the killer to a London taxicab driver, but his review is otherwise positive.
It understands that Holmes isn't really about plot but about charisma ... Flagrantly unfaithful to the original in some respects, Sherlock is wonderfully loyal to it in every way that matters".
[6] IGN's Chris Tilly rated the episode 7.8 out of 10, describing it as "an excellent 90-minute origin story wrapped in a rather uninspired mystery that fails to fully take flight".
He was positive towards the introduction of the two lead characters and actors, but felt the mystery was "something of an anticlimax" and Inspector Lestrade was "the only weak link".
[28] Serena Davies of The Daily Telegraph particularly praised Cumberbatch and stated that the show "worked because it was having fun" and was "hugely enjoyable".
Club reviewer John Teti gave "A Study in Pink" a grade of a B, feeling that the modern-day upgrades were too forced and that the resolution was "overwrought".