'perhaps you can put away your harpoon?'

[subtle1science]

Round 2, "The Hounds of Baskerville."

This was a first for me, in watching the Sherlock series.  In series 1, Moffat's "A Study in Pink" was excellent--hooked me on watching the show within a few minutes.  "The Blind Banker":  not as good, in plot, ideas, etc.--still:  above average TV, and the performances remained brilliant.  "The Great Game":

Comments

[rattlesnakeroot]

I'll have to watch Hound of the Baskervilles - that's one of my favorite Sherlock Holmes stories and I recently read it again. I have to admit that I'm not a big Cumberbatch fan, but I admire the idea of updating Sherlock.

Have you watched any of Downton Abbey? It's like a little sharper Upstairs/Downstairs. I bet you would like it, and Maggie Smith is such a hoot. They give her all the best lines.

[subtle1science]

I very much like Cumberbatch as Sherlock: usually, he's dead-on in capturing the cold, arrogant intelligence and the underlying emotion....but, in "The Hounds of Baskerville," he's really off in several scenes: the performance is just overdone and not really in character. It distracts from the fact that the script is a well done adaptation of the original.

The "update" of Holmes is terrific: both Moffat and Gatiss are fanboys, so they really know the essence of the characters and the typical scenarios, and they put neat spins on the original stories. The 21st century really does suit Sherlock Holmes, since he was a forensics expert before there were forensics.

I haven't seen Downton Abbey, although several people have recommended it to me. One promised to lend me the DVD and never came through (*sadface*), so I'll have to hunt it down for myself. It certainly sounds exactly like something I'd like.

[suo_gan]

It's brilliant, rattlesnakeroot, you've got to see it. I think you'll enjoy it very much. I have to give 'Downton Abbey' another go. I started watching, and didn't keep up, although Maggie Smith is a joy as always. Snark Personified.

With 'HOunds', I figured out what was going on pretty quickly, but I don't think of the episode as a mystery so much as a lot about the characters, responding to a mystery, and how they solve it. The meat receipts and all the rest were very clever, something the viewer could pick up on easily.

Sherlock was a little uncharacteristically manic in the beginning, and I'm not sure I buy that he couldn't figure out he'd been tampered with, but it was fun to watch, and scary as he went very, very weird after coming in contact with the beast. I could believe he'd do a controlled experiment with Watson, and that he stole his brother's identify just made me smile and smile.

Too little Gatiss, I think. Mycroft is growing on me.