Sherlock 4.2
Well, why not make it a thing this series.
I'm going to try to be short, because I have to get back to work. (Hah! Short.)
Actually, I lie, a bit: the first thing I have to write is a conclusion come to a few days after last week's episode, on which I was struggling to identify quite how I felt. I realised, finally, that my feeling was: they're writing their own fanfic.
Now, you could argue the series has always been Sherlock Holmes Modern AU, and you wouldn't be wrong. But Series 1 and 2, while changing the furniture of the original stories, were basically just updating them, or rather stripping them of the Victorian London gimmick so modern audiences could see past the pipe and moustache and old-fashioned verbiage to what's so intrinsically cool about the Holmes stories. But the last two series have done what fanfic usually does, in my experience: they've taken the characters and premise and gone off exploring with them, rather than sticking to the format of the canon. Whether or not this is a good thing is up to the viewer - it's certainly popular, and quite often successful, in fanfic land - but that is what they are doing, now more than ever.
They've added little things about the characters and their broader lives in previous episodes and done it quite successfully, so it's not the fact that they're doing it that's the problem, more a matter of their priorities. To get a bit metaphorical, there's a difference between commenting on what you see out the windows of a train, and hauling the train off its tracks to go investigate. It feels like they're doing the latter.
So, this episode ...
Does anyone else remember that in 'The Dying Detective' Holmes was faking it? I mean, I get it, I'm just a little disappointed that this series is falling into the same ant-trap as so many other adaptations and making it All About The Drugs. I suspect this tells us rather more about high-status media types than Sherlock Holmes. I'd rather not be told this about these particular people, but to believe otherwise is, I suppose, blissful voluntary ignorance.
After last week I was prepared to work through this one and just have it on in the background - something I've never been tempted to do with Sherlock as, before, one of its main selling points was rewarding close attention. But I am happy to say it was demanding enough in the first ten minutes that I took a break, which also happens to be good for my wrist, so not a lazybones sort of thing to do at all.
Hey, did anyone remember Sherlock went out for late night chips back in Series 1? Is this retroactive codifying or does he just like having an excuse to go out for chips?
Mainly, though:
I was a little miffed - not surprised, or disappointed, just miffed - that Sherlock didn't get to reply to John at the end there. Only miffed, because I already know his answer, it just would have been nice to hear it put into words on national television:
What, and end up like you? You've seen how badly I cope with mere boredom, how do you think I would weather heartbreak?
Well-adjusted people are all full of reasons why their friends should participate more fully in the human experience, never thinking they may have their reasons for doing otherwise ...
I'm sure it'll do wonders for patronage of the High Wycombe Harvester, though.
Back to francophone radio for me now; have fun out there, fandom.
I'm going to try to be short, because I have to get back to work. (Hah! Short.)
Actually, I lie, a bit: the first thing I have to write is a conclusion come to a few days after last week's episode, on which I was struggling to identify quite how I felt. I realised, finally, that my feeling was: they're writing their own fanfic.
Now, you could argue the series has always been Sherlock Holmes Modern AU, and you wouldn't be wrong. But Series 1 and 2, while changing the furniture of the original stories, were basically just updating them, or rather stripping them of the Victorian London gimmick so modern audiences could see past the pipe and moustache and old-fashioned verbiage to what's so intrinsically cool about the Holmes stories. But the last two series have done what fanfic usually does, in my experience: they've taken the characters and premise and gone off exploring with them, rather than sticking to the format of the canon. Whether or not this is a good thing is up to the viewer - it's certainly popular, and quite often successful, in fanfic land - but that is what they are doing, now more than ever.
They've added little things about the characters and their broader lives in previous episodes and done it quite successfully, so it's not the fact that they're doing it that's the problem, more a matter of their priorities. To get a bit metaphorical, there's a difference between commenting on what you see out the windows of a train, and hauling the train off its tracks to go investigate. It feels like they're doing the latter.
So, this episode ...
Does anyone else remember that in 'The Dying Detective' Holmes was faking it? I mean, I get it, I'm just a little disappointed that this series is falling into the same ant-trap as so many other adaptations and making it All About The Drugs. I suspect this tells us rather more about high-status media types than Sherlock Holmes. I'd rather not be told this about these particular people, but to believe otherwise is, I suppose, blissful voluntary ignorance.
After last week I was prepared to work through this one and just have it on in the background - something I've never been tempted to do with Sherlock as, before, one of its main selling points was rewarding close attention. But I am happy to say it was demanding enough in the first ten minutes that I took a break, which also happens to be good for my wrist, so not a lazybones sort of thing to do at all.
Hey, did anyone remember Sherlock went out for late night chips back in Series 1? Is this retroactive codifying or does he just like having an excuse to go out for chips?
Mainly, though:
I was a little miffed - not surprised, or disappointed, just miffed - that Sherlock didn't get to reply to John at the end there. Only miffed, because I already know his answer, it just would have been nice to hear it put into words on national television:
What, and end up like you? You've seen how badly I cope with mere boredom, how do you think I would weather heartbreak?
Well-adjusted people are all full of reasons why their friends should participate more fully in the human experience, never thinking they may have their reasons for doing otherwise ...
I'm sure it'll do wonders for patronage of the High Wycombe Harvester, though.
Back to francophone radio for me now; have fun out there, fandom.