apparently it's against the law to chin the Chief Superintendent
Given that the other things I would say today are either 1. boring or 2. ranty and political epics on why telling the disabled they should get better magically so that they're not a "problem" for the economy any more makes you a DOUCHEBAG, HOUSE OF LORDS, which will just increase my blood pressure and not assist anything, I am going to talk about Sherlock.
I still think that my first problem with Sherlock is that it isn't episodic enough. Like, 45 minute episodes over a longer time would take so much of the pressure off, while still letting you have the references and suchlike when you wanted them. Stuff like the conversation where Sherlock's like, "I'm not going to Dartmoor, I'm sending John!... oh wait lol I am going after all" just seemed like they were there to fill out time and reference the original without doing anything useful.
(...unlike the hat, which is HILARIOUS GENIUS. I was unsure, when the first picture of Bundersnatch Cumberbund (sorry, that really is how I think of him in my head because I find him a bit ridiculous anyway!) what I thought of it, but now I love it. It has plot relevance, it was a great way of recognising that they're engaging with and coping with not just the original stories, but the image of the stories, the mythos of years that has been built up. It helped that Sherlock just looks deadly serious the whole time he's wearing it - it's not played with a wink at all. Love it. Also, it is quite clear that how Cumberbatch looks EERILY Holmesian in the hat is a major reason why they cast him, haha.)
My second problem is that I think Sherlock himself is just too much of a dick. Which is really my way of saying I'm too much of a canon purist for the show - it's beautifully shot, and the last episode especially was often excellent television anyway, but there is a large section of my head that goes "Holmes is just not that much of an antisocial arsehole". Holmes in the stories is charming, in a way Sherlock aggressively isn't: yes he is weird, but he knows how to be nice to clients and he knows how to get someone who is upset to talk. He HAS TO, because it's his JOB. It is how he pays the bills. And there is no sense at all of that bill-paying in the show. Not that I expect them to talk about Holmes' bank balance or whatever, but this Holmes clearly does not and never has had any worry about money - the implication is heavily that they come from some serious money of one sort or another, and that adult Sherlock at least does not need to think about work. Book Holmes comes from gentry, but that is very clearly a different thing than being rich.
Which brings to the main thing: book Holmes deliberately let Watson leave him alone in a trap because he didn't want to put him through the fight which he then thought would lead to Holmes' death. He didn't let Watson think Mrs Hudson was dying (no way would book Holmes believably leave Mrs Hudson dying somewhere so he could think! even if it was a ruse!) and whatever your theories on what Holmes knew when and what he told Watson when etc etc etc, one thing that is very clear is that he did not want the image of his death to be one that Watson ever saw. And I am a sucker for that, and I find it really hard to forgive Sherlock for fucking with it - I certainly don't expect Holmes to be perfect, and I know they're going to make changes, but making Sherlock such a dick is never going to get it to be the show of my heart.
And I think that a similar sort of attitude to canon actually also sort of sifted into how they deal with Mycroft. I really liked their Mycroft right up until we're supposed to think he was dumbass enough to give Moriarty a lot of info on Sherlock: now, I hope that we're going to find out Sherlock told him to as part of a plan, or similar, but that Watson would even begin to buy that does make me go 'eh'. Mycroft in canon is kind of like the more rarefied version of Holmes himself: he is the brain to extreme, without the body, and he is there partly to help remind us that Holmes is kind of physically badass. Er, despite Doyle never using the word 'badass' in his life, haha. I really liked the relationship we got between the Holmes brothers, but I do wish there'd been some other explanation initially given for that info leak than "Mycroft was a moron".
Oh, and I also still hate Jim Moriarty. Sorry. Sherlock says that he is the spider at the centre of a web - which I yayed at! - but we never saw that at all. We saw Moriarty committing crimes - which he never actually does in canon, except for the bit where he off-screen tries to chuck Holmes off a cliff. I liked him this episode more than I did the first ep of the season - his last conversation with Sherlock worked for me and I really liked that he killed himself in a way that made a modern sense of the way the book Moriarty did: if he couldn't take Holmes down any other way, he'd take Holmes with him. But I fundamentally don't really get the... drama of this Moriarty, I think, it just doesn't appeal to me in a villain and I don't really get where they got it from.
I still do very much like John - him being all military and knowing what to do and having a little moment with Sherlock about it made me very happy indeed! I didn't buy his speech to the gravestone (1. I totally KNEW Sherlock would hear it because that's what always happens and that makes me want to cringe and hide away behind a sofa for the rest of my life in embarrassment, and 2. less is more as far as that sort of thing goes for me and I found the one sentence blog post way more effective) but that wasn't his fault. I do hope he was in on the death plan though. And I want to know what the fake death plan IS already, because there obviously is one but I don't get how it can survive Watson - a DOCTOR - seeing the person he knows best fall flat on the pavement like that. With WITNESSES. Either Watson or witnesses I could buy being fooled - but both? How are they going to get around that? It sort of works as the modern version of "Holmes has to sell his death to the world in order to get the bad guys", but in that case where does the reputation stuff come in? Do we need TWO parallels to the same thing?
(Book Moriarty wouldn't give a shit about Holmes' reputation if his own safety wasn't threatened, incidentally, LA LA LA SURPRISE!CANON CLINGING.)
I loved Molly this last episode. And Mrs Hudson: though I am deeply displeased at the apparent thing where Mrs Hudson has to be threatened every episode, I liked the callback to Holmes punching out a dude in her defence.
Mostly, I want The Empty House now, and also Holmes to APOLOGISE A LOT AND NOT BE A DICK SO MUCH, to the extent where I am kind of tempted to write it.
There!
This entry was originally posted at http://soupytwist.dreamwidth.org/79562.html. Please comment there using OpenID.
I still think that my first problem with Sherlock is that it isn't episodic enough. Like, 45 minute episodes over a longer time would take so much of the pressure off, while still letting you have the references and suchlike when you wanted them. Stuff like the conversation where Sherlock's like, "I'm not going to Dartmoor, I'm sending John!... oh wait lol I am going after all" just seemed like they were there to fill out time and reference the original without doing anything useful.
(...unlike the hat, which is HILARIOUS GENIUS. I was unsure, when the first picture of Bundersnatch Cumberbund (sorry, that really is how I think of him in my head because I find him a bit ridiculous anyway!) what I thought of it, but now I love it. It has plot relevance, it was a great way of recognising that they're engaging with and coping with not just the original stories, but the image of the stories, the mythos of years that has been built up. It helped that Sherlock just looks deadly serious the whole time he's wearing it - it's not played with a wink at all. Love it. Also, it is quite clear that how Cumberbatch looks EERILY Holmesian in the hat is a major reason why they cast him, haha.)
My second problem is that I think Sherlock himself is just too much of a dick. Which is really my way of saying I'm too much of a canon purist for the show - it's beautifully shot, and the last episode especially was often excellent television anyway, but there is a large section of my head that goes "Holmes is just not that much of an antisocial arsehole". Holmes in the stories is charming, in a way Sherlock aggressively isn't: yes he is weird, but he knows how to be nice to clients and he knows how to get someone who is upset to talk. He HAS TO, because it's his JOB. It is how he pays the bills. And there is no sense at all of that bill-paying in the show. Not that I expect them to talk about Holmes' bank balance or whatever, but this Holmes clearly does not and never has had any worry about money - the implication is heavily that they come from some serious money of one sort or another, and that adult Sherlock at least does not need to think about work. Book Holmes comes from gentry, but that is very clearly a different thing than being rich.
Which brings to the main thing: book Holmes deliberately let Watson leave him alone in a trap because he didn't want to put him through the fight which he then thought would lead to Holmes' death. He didn't let Watson think Mrs Hudson was dying (no way would book Holmes believably leave Mrs Hudson dying somewhere so he could think! even if it was a ruse!) and whatever your theories on what Holmes knew when and what he told Watson when etc etc etc, one thing that is very clear is that he did not want the image of his death to be one that Watson ever saw. And I am a sucker for that, and I find it really hard to forgive Sherlock for fucking with it - I certainly don't expect Holmes to be perfect, and I know they're going to make changes, but making Sherlock such a dick is never going to get it to be the show of my heart.
And I think that a similar sort of attitude to canon actually also sort of sifted into how they deal with Mycroft. I really liked their Mycroft right up until we're supposed to think he was dumbass enough to give Moriarty a lot of info on Sherlock: now, I hope that we're going to find out Sherlock told him to as part of a plan, or similar, but that Watson would even begin to buy that does make me go 'eh'. Mycroft in canon is kind of like the more rarefied version of Holmes himself: he is the brain to extreme, without the body, and he is there partly to help remind us that Holmes is kind of physically badass. Er, despite Doyle never using the word 'badass' in his life, haha. I really liked the relationship we got between the Holmes brothers, but I do wish there'd been some other explanation initially given for that info leak than "Mycroft was a moron".
Oh, and I also still hate Jim Moriarty. Sorry. Sherlock says that he is the spider at the centre of a web - which I yayed at! - but we never saw that at all. We saw Moriarty committing crimes - which he never actually does in canon, except for the bit where he off-screen tries to chuck Holmes off a cliff. I liked him this episode more than I did the first ep of the season - his last conversation with Sherlock worked for me and I really liked that he killed himself in a way that made a modern sense of the way the book Moriarty did: if he couldn't take Holmes down any other way, he'd take Holmes with him. But I fundamentally don't really get the... drama of this Moriarty, I think, it just doesn't appeal to me in a villain and I don't really get where they got it from.
I still do very much like John - him being all military and knowing what to do and having a little moment with Sherlock about it made me very happy indeed! I didn't buy his speech to the gravestone (1. I totally KNEW Sherlock would hear it because that's what always happens and that makes me want to cringe and hide away behind a sofa for the rest of my life in embarrassment, and 2. less is more as far as that sort of thing goes for me and I found the one sentence blog post way more effective) but that wasn't his fault. I do hope he was in on the death plan though. And I want to know what the fake death plan IS already, because there obviously is one but I don't get how it can survive Watson - a DOCTOR - seeing the person he knows best fall flat on the pavement like that. With WITNESSES. Either Watson or witnesses I could buy being fooled - but both? How are they going to get around that? It sort of works as the modern version of "Holmes has to sell his death to the world in order to get the bad guys", but in that case where does the reputation stuff come in? Do we need TWO parallels to the same thing?
(Book Moriarty wouldn't give a shit about Holmes' reputation if his own safety wasn't threatened, incidentally, LA LA LA SURPRISE!CANON CLINGING.)
I loved Molly this last episode. And Mrs Hudson: though I am deeply displeased at the apparent thing where Mrs Hudson has to be threatened every episode, I liked the callback to Holmes punching out a dude in her defence.
Mostly, I want The Empty House now, and also Holmes to APOLOGISE A LOT AND NOT BE A DICK SO MUCH, to the extent where I am kind of tempted to write it.
There!
This entry was originally posted at http://soupytwist.dreamwidth.org/79562.html. Please comment there using OpenID.