Still Without a 'Sherlock' Icon
So I've watched all three episodes and have had a least twenty-four hours to process. This is what I think of series 2 over all:
A Scandal in Belgravia:
I had been kind of dreading this episode since series 1. Pretty much because I dislike the original story probably more then any other Holmes story out there. A Scandal in Bohemia is not a bad story, it's just not one of my favorites, nor I think one of the best. Probably more then any other story in the Sherlock Holmes cannon it's had the dubious pleasure of being dragged through the common culture gutter. Next to possibly The Hound of the Baskervilles it is the best well known of the Sherlock Holmes stories and for some reason it's the one movie makers and tv shows always go to.
Unfortunately I feel they don't turn to A Scandal in Bohemia because it's a good story, or because it will draw new viewers in or appeal to modern audience but because Irene Adler is pretty and clever and most importantly a woman. It's like screen writers and directors go "oh look it's a woman. Let's throw Sherlock at her." My problem with this is it assumes pretty much the only important part of Adler as a character is the fact that she has a vagina and thus can have a heterosexual relationship with Sherlock. Too often there is no deeper exploration of either character or why there might be some kind of chemistry there Often there is just this assumption he doesn't hate her + she is a woman = love or at least sex.
If this happened once or twice I would deal with it but at this point it is so common. It's like the longer times goes on the harder it is for our society to read Holmes and Watson's relationship as anything but sexual and the more people start frantically looking for anything to add some acceptable heterosexuality and too often Adler's character gets slaughtered as sacrifice to that end.
So I wasn't looking forward to this episode.
But I loved the first series and there was no way I wasn't going to watch any of the episodes of the second. Luckily Sherlock is too classy a show to stoop to the level a lot of retellings of this story do but it still walked a very fine line. They did at least try to make Sherlock's interest in her make sense with his character. I did appreciate how they made a real parallel between Sherlock and Adler. Two brilliant people who sort of draw others into their orbit. While his allure is his powerful unbending intellect and hers is her kind of brainy sexuality for lack of a better word. I did think the very last part was a little bit of a cop-out I would have liked it better if she had actually died. It would have added a certain amount of weight the whole episode.
Everyone was on their top form acting wise but still I came away not loving it and seriously wondering if this series was going to be as good as the last.
The Hounds of Baskerville:
I really, really loved this episode. For me The Hound of the Baskervilles is a much stronger Sherlock Holmes story. I've always enjoyed it even though it's been just as poorly treated over the years as A Scandal in Bohemia, if in totally different ways.
It was good to see this version of Sherlock and John outside of London for a change. I thought the reworking of the plot was very cleverly done and the story remained interesting and suspenseful all the way through. The scene were Henry Knight's backyard lights keep going on and off was actually frightening I felt, as was the scene with John trapped in the lab. I love the whole part were they snuck onto the base using Mycroft's access and John's bluffing skills. I kept trying to guess how the episode was going to go based on my knowledge of the original story and it kept me guessing right to the end, which was nice. Again I figured out who the bad-guy was before Sherlock did has I had in the very first episode A Study in Pink. Much like in that instance though I wasn't really worried by it because at that point it wasn't so much following the clues as understanding people's behavior and motives. Which might have seemed simple to most of us but the way I read Sherlock's version of Sherlock that's probably the hardest part of each case for him.
So all and all a very nicely done episode.
The Reichenbach Fall:
I was kind of surprised that they decided to do this episode at the end of series 2 actually. I had kind of thought they were going to milk Moriarty's character for all it was worth and hold off on The Final Problem for another series at least. Since they didn't though I really enjoyed how they changed the story up. The leading up to the trial scene with its sound track of Nina Simone’s Sinner Man was just beautifully done. I also really liked the theme of fairy tales that ran through the whole thing and the little nods to it that were given over and over again.
I'd been wondering about this version of Moriarty throughout most of series 1. The thing I think that makes Moriarty hard as a character is that he wasn't written as a particularly good one, but rather as a plot device to get rid of Sherlock Holmes. Therefore I have huge respect for every single actor who's had to play him and every writer who's been faced with the job of making him into an actual person. Andrew Scott did a really excellent job, playing the hell out of his character specially in this last episode. Over all though in the last episode of series 1 and throughout series 2 I was a tiny bit disappointed that the show elected to go with a very classic Moriarty. In the end I can't fault them for it because it's always best to when in doubt go with what's already been tried and worked. There was points watching Scott's Moriarty when I got strange flash-backs to Eric Porter's performance as the character, in the way he would go from calm to melodramatic crazy-angry in the next. Really it was a fantastic performance but I would have loved to see Moriarty be given the same depth of character as Sherlock. He is after all supposed to be Sherlock Holmes' greatest nemesis and I would one day like to see a version were I loved him just as much if for completely opposite reasons. But really I can't fault the series for not giving me exactly what I want every single times and it's a testament to the show's quality that I can concentrate on such small things because I don't have larger issues to worry about.
I have to say Martin Freeman's acting was amazing in this episode. I love the show I really do, it's one of my favorite screen versions of Sherlock Holmes hand's down, but Sherlock and John aren't my favorite versions of Holmes and Watson. In this episode though Martin Freeman's Watson stepped up to be one of the very, very best versions of the character ever, hands down. In fact his little heart wrenching speech at Sherlock's grave is, to date, my favorite interpretation of Watson's reaction of Holmes' death. It was just so perfect.
Benedict Cumberbatch also pulled off a pretty gut wrenching performance, so all and all it was a great episode.
Mycroft Holmes:
totally aside from the episodes themselves I have to give the entire show, both series credit for the character of Mycroft. Mycroft has been really overlooked character for the better part of Sherlock Holmes history I think. The idea of him is so interesting, Holmes' brother, just as brilliant but in a completely different way, working for the government. Yet in the original stories we are never given a lot about who he is and in general stories, movies and tv shows that came later don't really give us a lot either.
It think it was genius on the part of the show to do something more with this character, to make him an actual presence. Mark Gatiss is brilliant in the role, totally believable as someone just as brilliant as Sherlock but in such a completely different way it's almost not comparable. He made A Scandal in Belgravia for me. The scene in the plane were he chews out Sherlock made me want to kiss him.
His plotting with John and sibling squabbling with Sherlock adds a strange element of family to the whole thing. I'm not quite sure how to explain it but there is a feeling this show has when Sherlock, Mycroft and John are all arguing together or plotting crossways to each other, which I've never seen before in Sherlock Holmes. I like it though, I like it a lot.
So yes the I'm a little in love with Sherlock's version of Mycroft Holmes, something I never thought I'd ever say about any version of Mycroft.
All in all the show still continues to impress as a heavy weight in the very long history of Sherlock Holmes productions.
A Scandal in Belgravia:
I had been kind of dreading this episode since series 1. Pretty much because I dislike the original story probably more then any other Holmes story out there. A Scandal in Bohemia is not a bad story, it's just not one of my favorites, nor I think one of the best. Probably more then any other story in the Sherlock Holmes cannon it's had the dubious pleasure of being dragged through the common culture gutter. Next to possibly The Hound of the Baskervilles it is the best well known of the Sherlock Holmes stories and for some reason it's the one movie makers and tv shows always go to.
Unfortunately I feel they don't turn to A Scandal in Bohemia because it's a good story, or because it will draw new viewers in or appeal to modern audience but because Irene Adler is pretty and clever and most importantly a woman. It's like screen writers and directors go "oh look it's a woman. Let's throw Sherlock at her." My problem with this is it assumes pretty much the only important part of Adler as a character is the fact that she has a vagina and thus can have a heterosexual relationship with Sherlock. Too often there is no deeper exploration of either character or why there might be some kind of chemistry there Often there is just this assumption he doesn't hate her + she is a woman = love or at least sex.
If this happened once or twice I would deal with it but at this point it is so common. It's like the longer times goes on the harder it is for our society to read Holmes and Watson's relationship as anything but sexual and the more people start frantically looking for anything to add some acceptable heterosexuality and too often Adler's character gets slaughtered as sacrifice to that end.
So I wasn't looking forward to this episode.
But I loved the first series and there was no way I wasn't going to watch any of the episodes of the second. Luckily Sherlock is too classy a show to stoop to the level a lot of retellings of this story do but it still walked a very fine line. They did at least try to make Sherlock's interest in her make sense with his character. I did appreciate how they made a real parallel between Sherlock and Adler. Two brilliant people who sort of draw others into their orbit. While his allure is his powerful unbending intellect and hers is her kind of brainy sexuality for lack of a better word. I did think the very last part was a little bit of a cop-out I would have liked it better if she had actually died. It would have added a certain amount of weight the whole episode.
Everyone was on their top form acting wise but still I came away not loving it and seriously wondering if this series was going to be as good as the last.
The Hounds of Baskerville:
I really, really loved this episode. For me The Hound of the Baskervilles is a much stronger Sherlock Holmes story. I've always enjoyed it even though it's been just as poorly treated over the years as A Scandal in Bohemia, if in totally different ways.
It was good to see this version of Sherlock and John outside of London for a change. I thought the reworking of the plot was very cleverly done and the story remained interesting and suspenseful all the way through. The scene were Henry Knight's backyard lights keep going on and off was actually frightening I felt, as was the scene with John trapped in the lab. I love the whole part were they snuck onto the base using Mycroft's access and John's bluffing skills. I kept trying to guess how the episode was going to go based on my knowledge of the original story and it kept me guessing right to the end, which was nice. Again I figured out who the bad-guy was before Sherlock did has I had in the very first episode A Study in Pink. Much like in that instance though I wasn't really worried by it because at that point it wasn't so much following the clues as understanding people's behavior and motives. Which might have seemed simple to most of us but the way I read Sherlock's version of Sherlock that's probably the hardest part of each case for him.
So all and all a very nicely done episode.
The Reichenbach Fall:
I was kind of surprised that they decided to do this episode at the end of series 2 actually. I had kind of thought they were going to milk Moriarty's character for all it was worth and hold off on The Final Problem for another series at least. Since they didn't though I really enjoyed how they changed the story up. The leading up to the trial scene with its sound track of Nina Simone’s Sinner Man was just beautifully done. I also really liked the theme of fairy tales that ran through the whole thing and the little nods to it that were given over and over again.
I'd been wondering about this version of Moriarty throughout most of series 1. The thing I think that makes Moriarty hard as a character is that he wasn't written as a particularly good one, but rather as a plot device to get rid of Sherlock Holmes. Therefore I have huge respect for every single actor who's had to play him and every writer who's been faced with the job of making him into an actual person. Andrew Scott did a really excellent job, playing the hell out of his character specially in this last episode. Over all though in the last episode of series 1 and throughout series 2 I was a tiny bit disappointed that the show elected to go with a very classic Moriarty. In the end I can't fault them for it because it's always best to when in doubt go with what's already been tried and worked. There was points watching Scott's Moriarty when I got strange flash-backs to Eric Porter's performance as the character, in the way he would go from calm to melodramatic crazy-angry in the next. Really it was a fantastic performance but I would have loved to see Moriarty be given the same depth of character as Sherlock. He is after all supposed to be Sherlock Holmes' greatest nemesis and I would one day like to see a version were I loved him just as much if for completely opposite reasons. But really I can't fault the series for not giving me exactly what I want every single times and it's a testament to the show's quality that I can concentrate on such small things because I don't have larger issues to worry about.
I have to say Martin Freeman's acting was amazing in this episode. I love the show I really do, it's one of my favorite screen versions of Sherlock Holmes hand's down, but Sherlock and John aren't my favorite versions of Holmes and Watson. In this episode though Martin Freeman's Watson stepped up to be one of the very, very best versions of the character ever, hands down. In fact his little heart wrenching speech at Sherlock's grave is, to date, my favorite interpretation of Watson's reaction of Holmes' death. It was just so perfect.
Benedict Cumberbatch also pulled off a pretty gut wrenching performance, so all and all it was a great episode.
Mycroft Holmes:
totally aside from the episodes themselves I have to give the entire show, both series credit for the character of Mycroft. Mycroft has been really overlooked character for the better part of Sherlock Holmes history I think. The idea of him is so interesting, Holmes' brother, just as brilliant but in a completely different way, working for the government. Yet in the original stories we are never given a lot about who he is and in general stories, movies and tv shows that came later don't really give us a lot either.
It think it was genius on the part of the show to do something more with this character, to make him an actual presence. Mark Gatiss is brilliant in the role, totally believable as someone just as brilliant as Sherlock but in such a completely different way it's almost not comparable. He made A Scandal in Belgravia for me. The scene in the plane were he chews out Sherlock made me want to kiss him.
His plotting with John and sibling squabbling with Sherlock adds a strange element of family to the whole thing. I'm not quite sure how to explain it but there is a feeling this show has when Sherlock, Mycroft and John are all arguing together or plotting crossways to each other, which I've never seen before in Sherlock Holmes. I like it though, I like it a lot.
So yes the I'm a little in love with Sherlock's version of Mycroft Holmes, something I never thought I'd ever say about any version of Mycroft.
All in all the show still continues to impress as a heavy weight in the very long history of Sherlock Holmes productions.