Belated Sherlock Post
sixish was kind enough to show me Sherlock series 1 quite some time ago. I subsequently bought it and rewatched it, but life proved too busy for me to sit down and post on it. So here's some catch up.
I really like the show; I'm looking forward to series 2. I am not a huge Holmes fan in general and have been annoyed in recent years at the constant reinvention (usually in direction of gayer and sexier) that Holmes has been getting. It just seemed like enough was enough. So I was dubious about this show. But it's a good reboot. Moving story into the 21st century gave it the new life it needed to justify the rehash, yet it retains the core of what made Holmes famous: the brilliance and quirk and the friendship, of course, and I'm proud of it for pitching toward asexual. Great casting, great acting.
I do have some complaints though, and I'm going to harp on two--
Sarah
Sarah, John's girlfriend, annoys me. The actress is great; she's very talented and a good cast. The character looks terrific: very cute but not too Hollywood, plausible age range for John, if obviously younger. But she is written as one more female love interest who is perfect-for-her-man rather than a human being. If we try to explain Sarah as an internally motivated human being, she is either very bizarre or, well, isn't a real human. Let's look at her behavior:
* She flirts with a job interviewee. (Mildly unprofessional, no biggie.)
* When a new employee falls asleep on the job, she lets him sleep because he seems tired, does his work for him, makes a token comment later that he was unprofessional (no scolding or sanction), then goes out on a date with him. If ever there were a more obvious start to a co-dependent relationship...
(Now, one could argue that for patients' safety, a sleepy doctor shouldn't see them, but at least wake him up to reprimand him, make him do some routine tasks to fill in while she does twice the work.)
* On a first date, she gets kidnapped and almost killed due to a very clear link between her date and the Chinese mafia. Shortly thereafter, she's cracking jokes about when she's going to start sleeping with this obviously very dangerous personage a sensible person would never go out with again.
Now, is all this impossible? No, it takes all kinds. Is it possible even to like someone who displays these behaviors? Sure. People are wondrous in their quirk and diversity.
But Sarah is not presented as quirky. She's presented as the girl-next-door: cute, sweet, plucky, pleasant, well dressed, polite, funny, flexible, understanding, low key, stable, etc., etc. But anyone who would behave like this, really, is minimally not low-key and stable. If we were shown that she's an adrenaline junky, like John, that she has her own sideline in working as a volunteer firefighter or that she routinely dates "dangerous men," then, that would be interesting, like Sherlock and John are interesting. But well, they're men and she's a love interest. I can't find another explanation.
Moriarty
Say it ain't so. I'm not the first to express dismay over Jim Moriarty, yet I have to express my own. The problems (a quick precis):
* He's insane. This is not good for our more-or-less sane hero's arch enemy; he comes off as way too easy to defeat.
* Case in point: after keeping his identity meticulously secret all season, he suddenly reveals himself, face, name, shootable body parts, and everything. Even if he planned to kill Sherlock, this is ridiculous. Why take the risk?
There's only one acceptable reason, which I pray to God is true: he's not really Moriarty; it was all a fakeout. This is where my Moriarity diatribe also becomes an issue about women. The real Moriarity should be Molly. Note, I don't believe they'll go there; I do hold out some small hope that they'll do something to show some sort of fakeout.
Nonetheless, Molly should be Moriarity. It makes a lot of sense. Consider:
* Sherlock dismisses her. That makes a super dangerous arch enemy. And it also gives her some emotional motive for being his arch enemy, thus explaining the personalized nature of her hijinks.
* Comments like the text about his being "sexy": this fits in very well his scorning her crush, whether or not her crush is real. Her text come-on is a hint (it is with gay!Jim too), and one he's missing because he dismisses her.
* She obviously very smart: she's a pathologist. This is a great background for killing people and covering it up.
* Jim, of course, would be her lackey. We know they're acquainted.
* "Molly Moriarty." That's a very Irish name. First name: another clue he's missing because he dismisses her?
* Sherlock isn't the only one who dismisses her. It's clear she's known for having trouble getting dates. Being routinely dismissed is a good basis for anger and lashing out in general, especially in exhibitionist yet secret ways.
* The old woman referred to Moriarty's voice as soft. She also identified him as male, but Molly could be vocoding. Her voice might still sound comparatively soft, though, even in a masculine register. It could be another clue.
I don't expect they'll do it though. The writers dismiss her, you see. (If I'm proven wrong, I'll be the first to cheer.)