(no subject)
I do believe I'm having a fannish paroxysm. See, I'm rereading "Dancing Men," and there's such a sense of deja vu reading about Elsie Cubitt. She's American. With a dark past she wants to keep hidden from her husband - indeed, forbids him from asking about it. ("If you love me, don't read it in front of me.") This sounds an awful lot like how I like to imagine BBC!Mary's character. Then you look at the way both Hilton Cubitt and John are bound up by their promises, and throw in the fact that Mary has a secret tattoo (per Sherlock's deductions) and the fact that our other "Dancer" adaptation, Blind Banker, has hidden tattoos all over it, and. Well. My fannish heart is beating extra fast tonight.
All of which makes the line in the Special about that country squire so interesting. My mind first connected that line with the Holmes Srs, or perhaps Sherrinford/the other one, but there are other country squires in the canon.
The weird thing is that I don't actually like "Dancing Men." At all - it just bores me as a story, and Elsie Cubitt is sickeningly innocent in it for my tastes, the story lacks all mystery or even anything besides what strikes my modern sensibilities as a thoroughly avoidable tragedy, and it's just not a very compelling story to me. (A modernized look at what a spouse with a dark past actually owes her life-partner in terms of expectations, and what she can reasonably keep to herself could be quite interesting, if it critiqued Elsie's secrecy in a nuanced way, but as the story stands...) Why should I want Mary as Elsie when I could have, say, Mary as Bob Carruthers?
Still, the thrill of the chase, the blood pounding through one's veins. I love that the idea feels new, and that it feels like mine, and if the special isn't some weird combination of "Dancer" and "Bicyclist" I think I will be very disappointed.
All of which makes the line in the Special about that country squire so interesting. My mind first connected that line with the Holmes Srs, or perhaps Sherrinford/the other one, but there are other country squires in the canon.
The weird thing is that I don't actually like "Dancing Men." At all - it just bores me as a story, and Elsie Cubitt is sickeningly innocent in it for my tastes, the story lacks all mystery or even anything besides what strikes my modern sensibilities as a thoroughly avoidable tragedy, and it's just not a very compelling story to me. (A modernized look at what a spouse with a dark past actually owes her life-partner in terms of expectations, and what she can reasonably keep to herself could be quite interesting, if it critiqued Elsie's secrecy in a nuanced way, but as the story stands...) Why should I want Mary as Elsie when I could have, say, Mary as Bob Carruthers?
Still, the thrill of the chase, the blood pounding through one's veins. I love that the idea feels new, and that it feels like mine, and if the special isn't some weird combination of "Dancer" and "Bicyclist" I think I will be very disappointed.