Laurence pics! Elementary! Whee!
Watched it yesterday with another Sherlock fangirl and J (so basically, three Sherlock fangirls), and reviews were mixed. I find that if I set my expectations low (below that of what I'd expect from Brit TV productions or, say, HBO), it's actually fairly good for a procedural. Someone else on my flist mentioned they couldn't see why they'd felt the need to attach the Holmes and Watson labels to these characters, and I don't particularly see it, either - it doesn't look like they're going to be referencing canon stories (correct me if I'm wrong - was this an update of an old ACD story?) and the characters are different enough from their original selves (no military experience for Watson, which was a huge part of the original character; Holmes needs to get his rocks off occasionally with anonymous hookups, because I guess there are no asexuals allowed in American shows) that you wonder if they really needed to go there. However, IMO they did manage to distance themselves from Sherlock in performance, content and tone, and there were moments when I absolutely loved their interaction - Liu and Miller are both fantastic actors, and they're bringing their A game to this. I also liked that they didn't make Watson a sidekick, but someone who had her own intelligence who was able to use that to contribute to solving the case (rather than just her empathy, which, while also important, is not all she has to offer). Liu is definitely my favourite of the two, though - she's kind of awesome in the role, and as I suspected, she's going to be the main reason I'll be giving this incarnation a try.
I do, though, now get the comment BC made in this recent interview about being cynical about why they cast Miller: because he was a guy they knew could work alongside Cumberbatch's performance of the same role and not be overly influenced by it. (Our little Sherlock group was divided on how well he'd pulled that off - my vote was that Miller had created a much more humanized version of the character. Whether or not that's your Sherlock is something everyone has to decide for themselves, of course). I'm cringing, though, that Cumberbatch said this publicly, because true or not, it's a real boot to the prunes to a guy he considers a friend. Don't get me wrong, I love Bendydick, but I'm starting to think he really needs to stop doing print interviews for a while, or at least until he can get some lessons in how not to say everything he's thinking, all the time. He comes across great in TV interviews, but he seems to keep oversharing in magazines. Now he's claiming he never said that stuff about Miller, but come on, do they not record these interviews? Is he basically saying they made that whole bit up? Benedict, honey, I know you're smarter than the average bear and inclined to be painfully frank, but please do try to be diplomatic from time to time. You might want to work with these people again sometime down the road. :)
Second, Laurence Fox just retweeted a tweet from Arthur Darvill regarding a gallery of shots from their August 30 Our Boys rehearsal. Lots of great photos at the play's website and three of my favourites are under the cut.
Oh, honey. <3
Love the way they're all riveted to him - all the lads love Laurence. :)
HEEEEEE.
There's also a new photo of Laurence in uniform over on the cast page.
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