In passing: Sherlock S4, Wynona Earp S1
Not really reviews, just short remarks on shows Netflix put up I don't have the time and/or motivation to write proper reviews for:
Sherlock, Season 4: good lord. I can see where the conspiracy theorists who think Moffat & Gatiss wanted an end but because the show continued to be a hit for the BBC couldn't just quit, so self-sabotaged are coming from. That was one big mess, displaying their worst tendencies as writers. Mind you, it's also the kind of mess that made me look for fanfic, despite not being in the fandom, which I haven't done for Sherlock before. But messed up families are almost always a surefire button for me. Oh, and since Lestrade's statement in the very last episode very consciously points to his statement in A Study in Pink, and thus it does feel like an ending, here's the irony: back in s1, my major (not the only) problem with the show was that Sherlock himself was far too dislikeable, as if M & G had taken a look at Holmes avatar Dr. Gregory House and concluded he was way too mild-mannered, and that consequently I couldn't root for the central Holmes & Watson relationship. By the end of s4, one of my major problems (leaving aside the messy writing for the season, especially the finale) is the reverse: the show's Sherlock Holmes has grown on me (and I mostly buy his in-story growth arc), but I can't stand this particular John Watson anymore. This never happened to me with an incarnation of Watson, but there it is. Which still leaves me unable to root for what's supposed to be the central relationship.
Meanwhile, the Holmes clan, or, what happens if two writers think "wouldn't it be cool if we went Gothic!" in a manner what would make the Brontes and Daphne du Maurier weep, and not with joy: . This is what made me look for fanfic, of course, because dysfunctional siblings, yay, and also the actress playing Eurus was actually good (and got to be quite versatile, playing Faith, John's public transport crush, John's therapist and Eurus all convincingly and in a way that didn't clue me in that they were all the same person before the reveal). But having cast Benedict Cumberbatch's rl parents as the Holmes parents in s3 and milked the "the Holmes parents are actually utterly normal, delightful people" gag for all it was worth, the show has the problem of evidently not wanting them to be the ones deciding to keep their homicidal pyromaniac genius child locked up in the attic the proverbial hidden island. Otoh, the show also established in this same season that Mycroft is seven years older than Sherlock (and thus eight years older than Eurus), which meant he was 14 when Eurus turned murderous, and there's no way a fourteen years old boy would have been able to make that decision instead of his very much alive parents. So we get the explanation that Uncle Rudy (previouly only alluded to as a crossdresser) did that original faking-Eurus's-death-and-lockign-her-up deed, and Mycroft "carried on his work", which enables the show to let the other characters, notably the Holmes parents at the end, to still only blame him. Except. For Sherlock to have successfully altered his memories, deleting Eurus and replacing his friend Victor whom she killed by a dog, the Holmes parents would have to a) destroy each and every photo of Eurus in their home, b) never mentioning her when talking to Sherlock, and c) doing the same re: Victor Trevor. As opposed to, you know, get your traumatized kid (or kids: teenage Mycroft treated to displays of Eurus slicing her arms open to see how anatomy works still qualifies as a child as well, I'd argue) a therapist. V.C. Andrews, the one of "Flowers in the Attic" fame, wrote as her follow-up novel "My Sweet Audrina", in which it turns out the narrator's father (and the rest of her family) dealt with her having been raped as a child by persuading her that she was her own sister and her bad memories were dreams about said sister. But these people are supposed to be completely fucked up. Not Mr. and Mrs. Salt-of-the-Earth.
Wynona Earp, season 1: this, otoh, was a delight. Perhaps the inheritor of the mixture of earnestness and camp 90s fantasy shows like Xena excelled at? Anyway, Wynona, descendant of Wyatt, enters the tale with backstory trauma (and how!) and present day chip-on-shoulders attitude, would be a good (or bad, depending on your pov) drinking buddy for Jessica Jones and has a delightful geeky younger sister named Waverly who also has a canon f/f romance going on with a female cop in their hometown named Purgatory. This means 99% of the fanfic is about Waverly and said cop, btw, much as most Orphan Black fanfic is about Cosima/Delphine and most of Torchwood used to be Jack/Ianto. Now I don't begrudge anyone their canon slash juggernaut pairings, but while Waverly and Nicole are charming, I'll admit that my own main relationship interest lies with Wynona and the show's version of Doc Holiday (who is still around because it's a fantasy show and shortly before expiring from tuberculosis as history has it, he made the proverbial deal with the devil). Without being a Western expert: I've seen a few, and any version of Doc has yet to fail holding my interest. (My first was Kirk Douglas, btw - Wyatt: Burt Lancaster -, because Dad was a fan of Gunfight at the O.K. Corral, and scorned the black and white My Darling Clementine. Val Kilmer came much later, kids. Though yes, he's probably the best screen Doc. I also have a fondness for the Doc Holiday who guest stars in Walter Sattherwaite's novel "Wilde West", where a young Oscar Wilde keeps running into him during his lecture tour through the American West. Anyway, the Doc Holiday in Wynona Earp has kept his thing for Earps through the 120 plus years since last he saw one, and his moral ambiguity, which considering our heroine is a) currently trying to be lawfully good, having been unceremoniusly drafted as deputy to the show's lawman for all things supernatural, Dolls, and b) really has issues by the dozens, makes for a fiery relationship.
The show's special effects (mostly for the revenants, aka the demonic cowboys Wynona alone can dispatch because she's The Chosen One the current heir-of-Wyatt-Earp (who got cursed back in Ye Olde Days) are not so special, and unfortunately it shares that tendency of all too many media where when the heroes rough someone up, it always brings the correct results, and it often is unabashedly cheesy, but nonetheless, it charmes me the way Supernatural s1 (the only one I saw) did not. Give me the Earp sisters over the Winchester brothers any day. And their supporting cast. P.S. Waverly and Nicole aren't the only gay (or bi, in Waverly's case) people in Purgatory, either. The sole revenants in s1 who are not out to kill and menace but are presented as capable of good are an m/m couple.
This entry was originally posted at http://selenak.dreamwidth.org/1249689.html. Comment there or here, as you wish.
Sherlock, Season 4: good lord. I can see where the conspiracy theorists who think Moffat & Gatiss wanted an end but because the show continued to be a hit for the BBC couldn't just quit, so self-sabotaged are coming from. That was one big mess, displaying their worst tendencies as writers. Mind you, it's also the kind of mess that made me look for fanfic, despite not being in the fandom, which I haven't done for Sherlock before. But messed up families are almost always a surefire button for me. Oh, and since Lestrade's statement in the very last episode very consciously points to his statement in A Study in Pink, and thus it does feel like an ending, here's the irony: back in s1, my major (not the only) problem with the show was that Sherlock himself was far too dislikeable, as if M & G had taken a look at Holmes avatar Dr. Gregory House and concluded he was way too mild-mannered, and that consequently I couldn't root for the central Holmes & Watson relationship. By the end of s4, one of my major problems (leaving aside the messy writing for the season, especially the finale) is the reverse: the show's Sherlock Holmes has grown on me (and I mostly buy his in-story growth arc), but I can't stand this particular John Watson anymore. This never happened to me with an incarnation of Watson, but there it is. Which still leaves me unable to root for what's supposed to be the central relationship.
Meanwhile, the Holmes clan, or, what happens if two writers think "wouldn't it be cool if we went Gothic!" in a manner what would make the Brontes and Daphne du Maurier weep, and not with joy: . This is what made me look for fanfic, of course, because dysfunctional siblings, yay, and also the actress playing Eurus was actually good (and got to be quite versatile, playing Faith, John's public transport crush, John's therapist and Eurus all convincingly and in a way that didn't clue me in that they were all the same person before the reveal). But having cast Benedict Cumberbatch's rl parents as the Holmes parents in s3 and milked the "the Holmes parents are actually utterly normal, delightful people" gag for all it was worth, the show has the problem of evidently not wanting them to be the ones deciding to keep their homicidal pyromaniac genius child locked up in the attic the proverbial hidden island. Otoh, the show also established in this same season that Mycroft is seven years older than Sherlock (and thus eight years older than Eurus), which meant he was 14 when Eurus turned murderous, and there's no way a fourteen years old boy would have been able to make that decision instead of his very much alive parents. So we get the explanation that Uncle Rudy (previouly only alluded to as a crossdresser) did that original faking-Eurus's-death-and-lockign-her-up deed, and Mycroft "carried on his work", which enables the show to let the other characters, notably the Holmes parents at the end, to still only blame him. Except. For Sherlock to have successfully altered his memories, deleting Eurus and replacing his friend Victor whom she killed by a dog, the Holmes parents would have to a) destroy each and every photo of Eurus in their home, b) never mentioning her when talking to Sherlock, and c) doing the same re: Victor Trevor. As opposed to, you know, get your traumatized kid (or kids: teenage Mycroft treated to displays of Eurus slicing her arms open to see how anatomy works still qualifies as a child as well, I'd argue) a therapist. V.C. Andrews, the one of "Flowers in the Attic" fame, wrote as her follow-up novel "My Sweet Audrina", in which it turns out the narrator's father (and the rest of her family) dealt with her having been raped as a child by persuading her that she was her own sister and her bad memories were dreams about said sister. But these people are supposed to be completely fucked up. Not Mr. and Mrs. Salt-of-the-Earth.
Wynona Earp, season 1: this, otoh, was a delight. Perhaps the inheritor of the mixture of earnestness and camp 90s fantasy shows like Xena excelled at? Anyway, Wynona, descendant of Wyatt, enters the tale with backstory trauma (and how!) and present day chip-on-shoulders attitude, would be a good (or bad, depending on your pov) drinking buddy for Jessica Jones and has a delightful geeky younger sister named Waverly who also has a canon f/f romance going on with a female cop in their hometown named Purgatory. This means 99% of the fanfic is about Waverly and said cop, btw, much as most Orphan Black fanfic is about Cosima/Delphine and most of Torchwood used to be Jack/Ianto. Now I don't begrudge anyone their canon slash juggernaut pairings, but while Waverly and Nicole are charming, I'll admit that my own main relationship interest lies with Wynona and the show's version of Doc Holiday (who is still around because it's a fantasy show and shortly before expiring from tuberculosis as history has it, he made the proverbial deal with the devil). Without being a Western expert: I've seen a few, and any version of Doc has yet to fail holding my interest. (My first was Kirk Douglas, btw - Wyatt: Burt Lancaster -, because Dad was a fan of Gunfight at the O.K. Corral, and scorned the black and white My Darling Clementine. Val Kilmer came much later, kids. Though yes, he's probably the best screen Doc. I also have a fondness for the Doc Holiday who guest stars in Walter Sattherwaite's novel "Wilde West", where a young Oscar Wilde keeps running into him during his lecture tour through the American West. Anyway, the Doc Holiday in Wynona Earp has kept his thing for Earps through the 120 plus years since last he saw one, and his moral ambiguity, which considering our heroine is a) currently trying to be lawfully good, having been unceremoniusly drafted as deputy to the show's lawman for all things supernatural, Dolls, and b) really has issues by the dozens, makes for a fiery relationship.
The show's special effects (mostly for the revenants, aka the demonic cowboys Wynona alone can dispatch because she's The Chosen One the current heir-of-Wyatt-Earp (who got cursed back in Ye Olde Days) are not so special, and unfortunately it shares that tendency of all too many media where when the heroes rough someone up, it always brings the correct results, and it often is unabashedly cheesy, but nonetheless, it charmes me the way Supernatural s1 (the only one I saw) did not. Give me the Earp sisters over the Winchester brothers any day. And their supporting cast. P.S. Waverly and Nicole aren't the only gay (or bi, in Waverly's case) people in Purgatory, either. The sole revenants in s1 who are not out to kill and menace but are presented as capable of good are an m/m couple.
This entry was originally posted at http://selenak.dreamwidth.org/1249689.html. Comment there or here, as you wish.