It's official: Elementary has spoiled me for Sherlock BBC's casual racism.

[gardnerhill]

WARNING: Spoilers ahead for Sherlock BBC's Christmas mini-sode, and for the ACD story “The Empty House.”

I saw the mini-sode teaser for Sherlock BBC's season 3.

In a word? Ugh.

Comments

[frodosweetstuff]

I'm afraid I disagree with quite a lot of what you are saying.

Let's start with the factual errors - BBC's Sherlock series is not a series written and directed by Steven Moffat. It's created jointly by Steven Moffat and Mark Gatiss (who, btw, is openly gay and married), with episodes being written by Moffat, Gatiss and Stephen Thompson. So, it's wrong to look at bits of the series and blindly blame them on Moffat, just because you perceive Moffat as misogynist or racist (an assessment which I partly agree with).

Secondly, while you can argue that Elementary does a great job at representing modern life in the US, it is still not a "modern version of Sherlock Holmes" - it's at the most a police procedural with minor elements taken from Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes (mostly, the detective's name in a cheap ploy to draw attention to the series). BBC Sherlock, on the other hand, truly is an adaptation and remains quite faithful to the core aspects of the orginial material. Also, no matter what people - scholars, fans - think about The Great Hiatus, Conan Doyle wrote it that way and if an adaptation chooses to follow that, then I don't see a problem with that.

What I think you are overlooking is the fact that the mini ep was written to give us the message "Sherlock is coming home" - as can be inferred from the title (Many happy returns, which also connects with John and his earlier birthday), from the music that accompanied the mini trailer (Baby, please come home) and the whole Anderson thing with the map and the realization that all possible Sherlock cases have one thing in common - their locations are getting closer and closer to the UK and London. Therefore it makes sense to start with countries further away (ie exotic) and move to countries closer by (ie the European ones). It wouldn't make much sense to mix them up because then it wouldn't lead anyone to the conclusion that Sherlock is making his way back home.

Also, "Benedict Cumberbatch’s Sherlock’s big schtick wherever he goes is to be the smartest man in the room, and to make sure everyone knows it". Well, actually that should be the big schtick of ALL Sherlock Holmes incarnations because that is the central thing about that character. That is what all the stories are based on, that is what people love about the character. It's nothing to do with Benedict Cumberbatch or the makers of the Sherlock series - this is pure Conan Doyle and the basis of the success of this figure, together with the close friendship with John Watson. These are the defining things about Sherlock Holmes and if you take those away it's no longer Sherlock Holmes.

> No one ever seems to be coincidentally Asian, or Pakistani, or black, or non-heterosexual, or female.
Well, Mycroft is coindidentally non-heterosexual as was the brother of Connie Price. Also, the guy with the Bruce Partington plans was Pakistani. Molly who has a fairly big role (and getting bigger, obviously) is female - as are Mrs Hudson and Sally.

>The proof lies in the mini-sode: Once the POC were dealt with in the first half, the real cast - you know, the White Males - went on with the important business of the storytelling.
And that's wrong, too. The POC stuff I discussed above and if you look at the plot of the mini ep you'll see that it only makes sense with the three main characters that they used for it. John had to be in it as he is the one "left" by Sherlock. Then you needed two people discussing whether Sherlock was still alive and about to return, with one saying he is coming back and one saying he's dead and therefore not coming back. Who could that be? It had to be main characters from the show and it had to be characters that know each other and would realistically talk about this. This rules out Mrs Hudson. It also can't be Molly because there is the mystery of whether she was involved in Sherlock faking his death or not. If she was one of the two, it would mean ruining that mystery. And finally Sally - we know that the actress playing Sally was filming in Canada/the US and couldn't be part of series 3 as extensively as she was beforehand (at least that's what she told fans when asked if she was in series 3). So, Anderson and Lestrade remain the best two options.