Sherlock - The Abominable Bride
Spoilers for Sherlock: The Abominable Bride
I was, despite myself, rather looking forward to this one-off, as it was clearly heavily inspired by the amazing Grenada/ITV series with Jeremy Brett that I adore and believe to be the finest (and most true/accurate) adaptation of the Holmes stories. I was also intrigued by the fact that it seemed to be more of a mystery/ghost story rather than a straight-up crime that was going to be the case, as those tended to be my favourite Holmes stories.
So I watched it, and...there were some bits I liked. It looked wonderful, of course, and I thought some of the touches were very clever, including the main ‘conceit’ of the episode (particularly with the little clues in turns of phrase building up to the reveal). There were some very nice references to the older series, from the set to little bits of camerawork that reminded me of some of the later episodes where things got a bit weird.
However, the writing oh gods the writing why….Everything was so unsubtle and argh.
Particular “highlights” include Holmes mansplaining the Suffrage movement/feminism; I’ve seen comments saying that it was in his mind-palace so perhaps that’s understandable, but it was just so badly done. The KKK-esque robes, describing the room as being full of “Brides” - really?
Also, the characters were more like grotesque parodies rather than people. The depiction of Mycroft was horrible and unnecessary, and the interactions between characters were just so...cruel. Yes, Holmes is cleverer than people and he doesn’t have a lot of patience, but there is a difference between deprecating and cruel. All the “banter” and lines that were clearly meant to be funny felt sharp and unkind. This was particularly out of character for Holmes and Watson, who in the books and ITV series have so much warmth and affection for each other and it was uncomfortable to see them being so harsh to each other and others. Oh also, Holmes does call Watson “John” in several of the stories. So there.
If you’ve not seen the Jeremy Brett episodes, I cannot recommend them highly enough.