It depends what season you’re watching. In the first season, Miller’s Holmes was a terrible dresser - he wore awkward outsized clothing as if he was unaware of what proper clothing was. But now, he’s fashionable - his outfits are still unusual but they’re stylish rather than awkward.
The Netflix series “lie to me” (three seasons) is a contender too. With a Holmes that reads body language to solve crimes.
It is an awful show, I tried watching it and cannot stand it at all. The acting is painfully weak from the principals.
As to a direct comparison to Sherlock, Martin Freeman is probably the best Watson of all time. Lucy Liu can barely act. The best American version of Sherlock Holmes is probably the newest and the one with the name filed off, Ioan Gruffudd in Forever. He pulls off a great Sherlock like character.
But Benedict Cumberbatch is an awesome Sherlock, I actually prefer him to Brett even. He was my easy pick for this poll.
“What part of this are you not getting??”
“Obviously, the core concept.”
Of the choices that represent answers rather than challenging the poll: Elementary is reliably mediocre in that CBS procedural sort of way, which isn’t really my thing, so it’s between the other two. I guess I’ll go with Cumberbatch, since I do think it’s a little closer to the spirit of the character than the Downey movies. I also really like House as a suggestion that’s in the spirit of the poll, though it makes me feel a bit old that it’s been off the air for two and a half years at this point (and debuted over a decade ago).
I think I caught one episode of the recent TV series, and I saw a Sherlock Holmes movie. After Jeremy Brett, they did not hold my interest.
Cumberbund Englepatch, or whatever his name is, is a creepy looking dude.
I am totally up Jeremy Brett’s ass, but I like both Cumberbatch and Miller’s portrayals. JLM has the physicality going on. He loves training with a stick and a dummy.
The Cumberbatch show, being a min-series, is a lot tighter and cheekier than Elementary, so I’ll give my vote to Cumberbatch. I look forward to *Elementary *every week tho!
I’ve never seen the Robert Downey Jr. portrayals.
What? No Brent Spiner!?!
Occasionally a thread comes along that makes me realize how old I am. This is one such thread. I read it, and I keep thinking, “What do you mean, Jeremy Brett isn’t recent? Basil Rathbone, sure, his stuff is old. But Brett was just a couple years ago, wasn’t he?”
And then I look at the calendar. 
Anyway, I voted for Jonny Lee Miller. Downey is too much “Iron Man does a British accent.” And the BBC Sherlock honestly pains me. Any program that describes Holmes as a “sociopath” clearly has absolutely no understanding of the character of Sherlock Holmes and what he’s all about.
If I actually met and interacted with Downey’s Sherlock, I’d think that goofball needs medication; Cumberbatch, that guy is a robot trying to act like a human being.
Miller – strikes me as an energetic and knowledgeable guy with a lot of interests. He’s the only one who seems to be a genuine person: he’s obviously taking things seriously even when he’s displaying a sense of humor – the way Downey doesn’t, and the way Cumberbatch doesn’t need to – and he can actually carry on a conversation with someone as if they were equals. (Okay, near-equals. That’s still pretty good.)
With all due respect, the fact that characters in the BBC show, including Sherlock himself, refer to Sherlock as sociopathic does not make him so. :dubious: He’s shown too many times that he cares about people for him to actually be a sociopath. Would a sociopath kill Magnusson (nee Milverton 
) right in front of the police to (1) remove him as a threat to his victims, and particularly (2) make a new life possible for “Mary Morstan”? Characters calling him that are either misreading him or angry with him at the moment (Watson!) and IMHO Sherlock calls himself that as some sort of coping mechanism.
Interestingly on the “no understanding” point, the one arguably sociopathic thing BBC Sherlock has done – romancing and proposing to Magnusson’s personal assistant just to get into his office – was something Doyle’s Holmes did in the same story! 
Then the OP should’ve asked who was the second best Holmes.
I abstain since Jeremy Brett is not on the list.
Any programme that fails to describe Holmes as non-Neurotypical clearly has absolutely no understanding of the character of Sherlock Holmes and what he’s all about.
His brain simply works differently to most of us. I’m not sure if he’d meet the strictish definition of sociopath or even aspergers, but it’d be wrong not to highlight it.
I voted for Cumberbatch, Downey was entertaining, Cumberbatch was riveting.
Dear lord, this is not that hard to understand. Jeremy Brett is not on the list because 1994 is not “recent”. If the OP had considered Brett to be “recent” he would have included him on his poll of “recent” portrayals of Holmes.
Why on Earth can’t people just answer the question that was asked instead of wishing that a different question had been asked?
Because Brett completely owns the role. There is no other, not even Frazzled Bathrobe (my father’s deliberate mangling of Basil Rathbone).
And if the question were “what is the best all-time portrayal of Sherlock Holmes” that might be a valid point. But it’s not. It’s like if someone asked “what’s the best movie of the 21st century?” and people complained because The Godfather isn’t on the list.
Perhaps you’re right. Can I change my description to “annoying hipster”? Some people like him and I have no problem with that. But he makes my skin crawl.
That’s like saying Frankenstien isn’t Frankenstien without the bolts in his neck. It’s purely a cinematic invention (and an unfortunately pervasive one) disconnected from its source material.
Nevertheless.