Sherlock: "The Sign of Three"

[tj_teejay]

Episode 3x03 hasn’t even aired yet, and already I can tell that the theme of me not liking the middle episode in any Sherlock season continues.

Don’t get me wrong, “The Sign of Three” had a lot of cute, funny, intense and quirky moments, but I couldn’t help cringing all the way through at the overall depressing undertone. Sherlock in E minor.

Comments

[tj_teejay]

You're probably right that one can never empathize with Sherlock too much. Though, mostly, I must admit I empathize more with John, because he usually gets the short end of the stick. Maybe this had such a big impact on me because it's very unusual that you even realize Sherlock's being emotionally affected by anything. Sherlock's normal outward perception is that everything even remotely emotional rolls right off his back, but of course that doesn't mean he doesn't have any feelings.

And you're right, it wasn't just Mrs Hudson with the depressing comments. Mycroft was basically telling Sherlock the same thing: Don't get attached, he's gonna disappoint you by focusing all his attention on his wife from now on. Though, of course, what cred does Mycroft actually have to be giving this advice? He's no less of a sociopath than Sherlock.

I'm not even sure if Sherlock would be my type if I met him in real life. I'd probably get really annoyed and frustrated with him after a short period of time. I don't deal well with people who dwell on things and don't give you straight and/or quick answers. Probably the German in me. And on the visual side of things... while Benedict is surely as handsome as they come, there are men I find a lot more attractive. 'Nuff said. (Not to mention that I think Sherlock would have sub-zero interest in a not overly intellectual or attractive geek such as myself.) :-)

I occasionally rewatch the episodes as well, sometimes with friends that I'm trying to introduce to the show, but it's not a regular thing with me. I have enough other shows to tide me over, though few that mean as much to me.

Fanfic-wise, I'm probably a bit of an oddity in the fandom, as I don't enjoy any of the Johnlock stuff. I've never understood the desire to stick two people together in a relationship that is against everything that canon suggests. While Moffat and Gatiss have been very good at dropping slashy hints here and there, they've always made it clear that John is straight, and the Sherlock/Irene relationship suggested Sherlock was too. I can't see them in a gay relationship at all. And I have no interest to read about them being in a gay relationship, much less read about how they're having sex.

Which is not to say I'm anti-slash. To each their own, and the slash enthusiasts are certainly entitled to enjoy their side of things. Fan fiction-wise, that makes it very difficult for me. It's so hard to even *find* non-slash stories in the fandom, especially since I've found a lot of Sherlock stories labeled gen are actually slash. Maybe I'm too spoiled from the White Collar fandom.

I've written a few, very short Sherlock pieces, but mostly for landcomm challenges or prompt fics. Nothing I'm overly proud of, but it's always been fun to write!

Since you mentioned Glee, I will have to admit that Glee is a show/fandom that totally eludes me. I've seen the episode with Matt Bomer, and I immediately knew it would be a show I would not watch voluntarily unless there was an actor in it I really loved. I'm not judging, just saying it's not my thing.

While I still enjoy Matt's work, season 5 of White Collar has seriously under-impressed me, and I'm close to giving up on it altogether. You may find rants about it in my journal. I loved the show in it's first two or three seasons, and I've written lots and lots of fanfic for it, but I've pretty much departed from any active participation in the fandom now.

Yes, it's pretty astounding what the internet can do these days. I actually watched 3x02 via BBC live stream at the same time it aired in the UK, which was a first for me. I usually just wait until the next day and grab my shows off the 'net, but with Sherlock I just couldn't wait. I think Germany is set to air season 3 around Easter. I mean, I can't stand the German dubbing anyway. I'm tempted to take a look, just to see what voices they gave John and Sherlock, but I'm sure I'm going to hate them.

[prosen8966]

I'm actually under a bit of a time-constraint and can easily see forgetting and/or thinking I'll respond at some point in the future which will become never so I'm going to try to type fast.

This will be easiest to start w' Glee. Because I was raised on show tunes (and classical music, but that has no bearing on this conversation so poof!) and Broadway shows since we lived quite close to the City and I never realized that this was actually a big deal (other than being excited about going to a show; you know: WOW! Lilith is starring in Chicago! This is so cool... Bebe Neuwirth... to be accurate) so I was sort of like Sherlock in how I looked at that (that is to say, Sherlock's response to how his tea miraculously appeared each morning). I appreciate the time and expense NOW, of course, but at the time, nope, not at all.

In any case, this might explain why I was so thrilled with the concept of Glee and then I saw the pilot and fell headfirst in love (but seriously) with Chris Colfer who, during the first season, looked like a baby or, a quote from an early episode: he looks like an eleven year old milkmaid... so it was more of an identification w' his character than anything else. He felt ostracized by the other kids, alone, and had developed a snarky, sarcastic, vigilant, arrogant, vain, immodest approach as a result. (He was/is shown to be quite intelligent from the very start, using vocabulary unusual in a teenager, possibly as a result of spending so much time alone and friendless.) His audition song for the Glee Club is Mr. Cellophane, so you get the gist. But, in any case, thru the club and the people he meets and just general changes in high school, one sees him grow (metaphorically and literally) as the show goes on and it just so happens that CC (who starts the show at age 18) has a somewhat late in life growth spurt so he goes from, like, 5'6" when the show starts to about (I think) 5'11" now (as I type this) which is a fairly huge change. And he goes from this teeny baby character whose cheeks you want to squeeze to, basically, sex on a stick (at least in my eyes, and millions of others - the whole thing is subjective; albeit, I don't think Matt Bomer's looks are truly subjective, but that's a different story).

So. I felt a bit lost in high school. I wasn't gay and going thru a problem with meathead jocks or coming out to my family, but I was seen as a 'brain' (just like you) - I followed two older sisters close in age as they zipped thru their classes; my mother was on the Board of Education, my father was a Village Trustee (like a ridiculous political position for our teeny-tiny town wherein all the teachers at school knew my parents) and I felt separated from the other kids as a result. And I felt like I approached things in a quite similar manner to Kurt - I identified really strongly with him from the get-go, so it would have taken a lot for this thread to be broken and, as it turned out, CC was/is a tremendous actor so that didn't go away. And since he WAS gay, his potential partners, ultimate BF, and when I eventually discovered this thing called 'fanfic' random whoever people who might BECOME his special-someones had to, of course, be gay. And since the only fanfic I read for the next two years was Glee, I got quite used to slash as a general rule.

[prosen8966]

There came a point (I can't quite remember when) wherein it popped in my head that if Glee had all fanfic, OTHER shows must as well, and I looked up NCIS to see if any of this Tiva romance existed on paper (since there was shit-all happening on the show itself) but in point of fact, all the fanfics were about Tony & Gibbs and while Sherlock might be virginal, with a bent towards Irene & John has been shown repeatedly dating women, he does in fact, give up quite easily on all his women to help out Sherlock and there's no reason Sherlock couldn't ultimately be interested in John, just like Irene. (IMO.) If you've EVER seen NCIS, tho, the concept that Tony and/or Gibbs being gay is just ludicrous. And NOT b'c (as I've mentioned) I'm anti-slash. As I said, almost every single fanfic I've read has been slash. But they made sense. You don't just grap two heterosexual people and have them sleep together b'c it's 'fiction'. If you're going to start off using characters that exist from the get-go, you shouldn't rip apart everything the audience knows about them. (Or, at least, as a general rule, that's my feeling.) You should pretty much go with what you have and then use THAT to grow your story.

Anyway, going backwards, Glee has been going to shit for the past few years but I can't completely stop watching b'c Kurt/CC is still there. But it's almost complete crap now. I started off watching White Collar and LIKED it and now can't for life of me remember what stopped me from continuing, if only to stare at MB for an hour. But seriously. And he and Peter's bromance was actually quite interesting to see b'c, you might have seen this differently as you were probably paying more attention & I haven't watched in ages, but the way I remember it, Peter and Neil didn't have sexual chemistry; they had a friendship/working link (albeit, I guess that's pretty much the same as Sherlock & John so people can see however they want.)

I never, until 8 days ago, watched live streaming from overseas. And I was unaware of the website where I could actually GET downloads of Sherlock until New Year's Eve so while I've spent much of 2013 watching and reading Sherlock, I wasn't in contact with any other people who were interested in the show, which was weird only b'c when I discovered LJ and the Glee forums, people poured forth re their love of the program, and so I spent much of this past year sort of wondering: where ARE all those supposed Sherlock fans? Do they all hide in England?

This is the point where you think to yourself, what? She thought she was BRIGHT in high school?

But now I'm overtime and have to run and can not check for mis-spellings and such. Don't judge...

By the by, the concept of who people find attractive really is pretty subjective person to person. It generally comes down to who THEIR type is or who they respond to or even (like for me) whether elements like intellect come into things -- humor, kindness, sarcasm (that's just me, I know few people who go - wow! obnoxious & ironic, he's for me!!), etc. etc. But I liked Alex P. Keaton (Family Ties); Niles (Frasier); Chandler BING (Friends), House; Sherlock (both movie & BBC versions); Sheldon Cooper (Big Band Theory). There's truly no physical resemblance between all those characters, having written them out...

And the biggest joy is that, esp'ly in RL, it only HELPS if there are fewer girls in competition...

And again, I sprint!!

[tj_teejay]

Music was never a big part in my parents' life, and I'm pretty much the only person in our family who plays any instruments, so I don't have that background. And I'm not big into musicals, so I guess Glee just isn't for me. However, I can certainly see the appeal for people who love musical style music.

It's funny you should mention you were a bit of an outsider in school. I suppose I was too, because I just never hung with the "hip" crowd, and never did all the partying and the drinking, and whatever the hip crowd did. But the great thing about it was that I didn't feel negative about it, or was treated as a dork.

I had a group of like-minded friends that I had fun with. I guess we weren't the stereotypical uncool nerds, we were just... different.

I can certainly empathize more with the "outsiders" characters on TV, but it's not like I really need to identify with them. I suppose now, some twenty odd years after the German version of high school, I'm just a lot more comfortable with who I am, and I don't see myself as an outsider or weirdo. In the grand scheme of things, I'm probably still pretty normal, whatever that means. Except that I'm one of those "fandom" people that you rarely find in any regular conglomeration of people (e.g. in the workplace).

And if, on any given TV show, I can say I truly identify with a character, it's usually the science geek or the scientist, cause that's basically who I am. I have a Master's degree in molecular biology, so go figure. :-) And if I have a favourite character in any TV show, you can count on him or her being some kind of tragic hero who's a magnet for emotional angst. Not sure who this is on Sherlock, though. I think I actually like Sherlock and John in equal measure, for different reasons. I can also partly identify with Molly, cause, you know, scientist with a knack for unrequited love.

It makes a certain kind of sense if you say slash fiction is not so much about wanting to stay true to the characters, but taking them and shaping them into something that's different and, to a degree, your own.

To me fan fiction is like an extension of a show or movie I love. I don't want to stray from the universe that's been created, and that I've come to appreciate and love. And if suddenly the character does something that he or she would never do the show, it just seems wrong.

After Reichenbach Fall, I was sooooo craving angsty John/Sherlock reunion fics, but I have yet to find one I like that's not slash. Not that I've really undertaken any meticulous search, because I just got frustrated at the fact that what I was looking for probably didn't exist in this fandom. I haven't searched since.

In the White Collar fandom, I'd say probably more than 90% of fanfic is Neal/Peter slash or Neal/Peter/Elizabeth OT3. Some of my best WhiCo fandom friends are slash writers, and I will admit to having read some of the more relationshippy PG-13ish fics, because they were just so well written. But it's not my comfort zone.

The great thing about WhiCo is, however, that there's also a nice little gen community, and if you know where to look, it's easy to find all the good gen fic (that then really is gen). In the Sherlock fandom, either I haven't found the right place(s) yet, or a fanfic community interested in writing and reading gen fic just doesn't exist.

I'd say I know my way around getting TV shows on the internet fairly well, mainly out of necessity to avoid the German dubbing. Literally everything on regular German TV is dubbed, and you don't get the choice to switch to original language. I avoid German TV like the plague.

(to be continued)

[prosen8966]

So, I'm still actually busy right now but have internet access & read your comments & had to just respond to two things mentioned here:

It makes a certain kind of sense if you say slash fiction is not so much about wanting to stay true to the characters, but taking them and shaping them into something that's different and, to a degree, your own.

I'm okay with wandering about with the characters in various ways (altho I prefer to stay in the general Sherlock world) but what I actually meant was that I wanted to, indeed, stay true to the characters, and THEN one could take the established characters and write a story, whatever that story might be, using the already conceived individuals from the show and/or movie (and/or books) altho ACDs style can be a bit dry for me, and some of his tales run for pages and pages and I feel like shouting 'just get to the friggin' point!!' (which is what an English major, as opposed to molecular biologist, is wont to do). I have a law degree as well, if that helps my credentials in any manner?? However, I'm not presently using the degree, so I'm just mentioning it so as not to seem slow in comparison...

So. While I enjoy fanfic being an extension of the show or movie, I don't mind if, for example, people have Sherlock return in what happened to be quite similar fashions to TEH, in fact, and then start off on various adventures depending on how whichever author decided that John was going to react to Sherlock's re-entrance into his life. [Mind you, what ALL fanfics included, and what was inexplicably NOT included in TEH, was a danger to John's life should Sherlock get in touch w' him during that time period. Why TPTB decided not to take that route I will never, but never, understand. I remain convinced that that was ludicrous and am unlikely to change my mind.] And one of the absolute BEST Sherlock fanfics ever written (except that you don't like the slash concept) is Saving Sherlock Holmes wherein the author went back in time to 1987 when she decided that Mycroft was 18 and Sherlock was 11 and their mother had just died. (Clearly not canon, albeit she couldn't have known that at the time it was written.) It shows how the brothers grew up, and includes almost every single canon reference to date (when published) in an astonishingly well-written and intricately detailed, character driven tale. It's wondrous. I would easily have spent money on that - without blinking an eye. It's better than many authors published today.

Seriously.

I'd say I know my way around getting TV shows on the internet fairly well, mainly out of necessity to avoid the German dubbing.

You're not familiar with Glee so you don't know CC (which is sad) but, in any case, he happens to have a really high voice, that he can do nothing about (obviously) and, after a while, probably was concerned that he might LOSE the high voice as it defined both his character and his amazing singing range (he can sing thru five octaves which, as you said you're not a music person, just take my word for it -- it's a big deal.) In any case, he was interviewed after visiting Paris for some reason, and he saw the French version of Glee while he was there and said that the person they had dubbing for him had this really low masculine voice which, if you've ever heard Kurt, is just totally ridiculous, and I'm pretty sure that they leave the regular songs in so that whatever the French are listening to when Kurt speaks suddenly goes, like, 4 octaves up when he sings. That must sound completely normal and right. (Sarcasm.) Chris was also complaining b'c he called down to the desk and called room service and they insisted on calling him mademoiselle and he didn't want to continuously make a fuss so this happened over a week's time and, he said, completely emasculated him prior to arriving back home.

[tj_teejay]

Haha, I wasn't trying to throw around credentials just for the heck of it. I just meant to illustrate why I usually identify with the science enthusiasts. And just like you, I'm not actually using my degree so much in my current line of work. It's still a science-related job, but it doesn't have anything to do with what I studied at university.

I might have to check out that fanfic you mentioned, it sounds quite good. And just to clarify, I didn't mean to say I can't enjoy a good AU story. I just don't really like it when they twist something around that is clearly against canon (or at least was that way at the time the story was written).

I don't even know if Glee is on German TV (it probably is), so I can't say anything towards CC's voice. But I get what you're saying. It happens quite often that the dubbing voices sound nothing like the original voice, although they often try to make an effort. Also, in Germany they try to always give one actor the same voice, at least those that are fairly well known.

And sometimes the same guy does the voice for two separate actors. Someone recently told me it would be a problem to have Arnold Schwarzenegger and Silvester Stalone in the same movie, because in Germany both have the same dubbing voice. Eep.

Now that we're talking about it, I'm actually tempted to find a German snipped from Sherlock. Normally I'd just pop in the DVD or Blu-ray, but my Sherlock Blu-rays are actually from the UK with a German audio track. Guess I need to hit up YouTube.

[tj_teejay]

My toenails are still curling at Lestrade's voice. Sherlock and John aren't great, but not nearly as terrible as Greg.

[prosen8966]

You will now lose all good feeling (assuming it's still there) and certainly any and all intellectual respect, but having grown up YEARS and YEARS after the Holocaust, in a different country; brought up as a reformed Jew, and now an atheist, I still can not hear German voices without automatically thinking about WWII.

It's appalling, I know.

My dad's parents immigrated from Russia (well, actually fled the country b'c they weren't supposed to leave and my grandmother, while Jewish, was actually a doctor so, that was an issue...) but, in any case, you'd think that I'd either have gotten over it or have different issues but there you go.

And, of course, German, to my completely untrained ear (I'm terrible at languages as opposed to one of my friends at college who could speak about 9 fluently) sounds very guttural whereas French always sounds so pretty, even if they're asking where the toilets might be located or Irish or English (British) which sounds lovely to me.

Speaking of which, did you see that clip of BC saying the words to R. Kelly's song Genius?

Let me link you just in case...

See, THIS is why Sherlock could just do a monologue for an hour and I'd be happy...!!

[tj_teejay]

Benedict is hilarious! I've been watching a few interviews with him online lately, and, yes, I can certainly see the appeal.

I love his deep voice as well, and I totally get where you're coming from. You know, when I was watching The Desolation of Smaug for the first time, I thought somehow that scene between Smaug and Bilbo in the mine really dragged on for too long. After about a minute or two, I stopped listening to the dialogue and just let myself be enthralled by Benedict's booming Smaug voice. I totally get it.

It's fine to be reminded of WW II when you hear German. I take no offense at all. It's part of our history, but hopefully a part that we've learned from.

For me it's always a bit ambiguous to watch TV shows or movies where the Germans are usually pictured as atrocious, cruel killers. Cause somehow you've got that inherent feeling of patriotism that makes you want to be proud of your country, but then there's also repressed vicarious shame, because your fellow countrymen did this terrible thing decades ago.

You're right, German isn't a very nice language to listen to. I learned French in school, and I agree that it sounds a lot lovelier. I personally like most of the Scandinavian languages (not that I can speak them), because they're so melodious.

[prosen8966]

Well, yes, I'm clearly proud to be an American wherein we came to America, stole all the land from the Indians (killing them first w' the heinous diseases we brought over & then, of course, with rifles & such) in order to leave the 'tyranny' of Great Britain.

We then proceeded to drag over the necessary slave labor from Africa in boats, tearing apart families & villages, with no thought to their well-being, and having now annihilated approximately 85-90% of the Indian tribes, we then set up a 'democracy' wherein people with land (and penises) voted (the male slaves voted how their masters wished, as three-fifths a person) and started our new government.

It was a proud, proud moment and even now brings a tear to my eye.

I could go on but I'm pretty sure you get the point... (Indeed, as I type this, Congress is voting on whether or not to continue to keep food stamps and welfare out of the hands of people who properly deserve it just because. Apparently, voting for a program, ANY program, put forth by a Democrat, is a sign of weakness and if poor, malnourished children die in the streets, that's preferable to being seem as a wuss.)

Ah, America. Land of the free.

[tj_teejay]

Sometimes I wish there was more Sherlock interactivity on LJ. The comms seem to mostly host fanfic, and there's usually not a lot of response to any of the episode discussion posts.

I sometimes check Tumblr, but I don't specifically follow any Sherlock blogs, and just looking at the Sherlock tag can be too overwhelming because there's, like, at least 20 new posts every minute, and you just can't keep up and still have a life. Plus, Tumblr often is so shallow, and really shite if you want to hold any kind of meaningful discussion (not because of the fans, but because of the fact that you have to reblog something in order to reply).

But the few moments where I find something hilarious that just makes me laugh make it all worthwhile. :-D

[swanpride]

You know, I am at a really nice Sherlock Forum...a lot of German fans there. We'll even meet up tomorrow to watch the last episode together. And give each other our support.

[tj_teejay]

What's the URL?

[swanpride]

http://sherlock.boardhost.com/index.php

[swanpride]

Send it to you, but was marked as spam....

[tj_teejay]

It's fine, I got it in the LJ e-mail comment notification. Thanks.