Sherlock - BBC [4]

Looking forward to the special.

I know Sherlock is kind of a side-project in between Who and feature film obligations, but it is kinda weird that more than five years after the first series aired we've only gotten six additional episodes. As long and (mostly) good as they are I can't complain too much though.

Any of our UK members watching "The Abominable Bride" when it airs in a few hours tonight? It's actually premiering in the US on the same day and time slot for the first time, though five hours later than the UK due to time zones. Hopefully they don't edit down for time like they have in the past, but they probably will (usually like 2-3 minutes).

Hopefully. I will use a link.

I'll be watching.


Try here Figg-

https://www.filmon.com/tv/bbc-one

cheers.
overall it was ok for a gothic ghost story.

Spoiler:

I enjoyed that.

Spoiler:

But overall was a good fun special with more to enjoy in it than not, a lot of the usual plus points- writing, direction, cinematography and performances. Two for two from the Moff for me- good Who xmas episode- good Sherlock special new year episode. Moffat wins xmas.

I would say that the cinematography and the performances were the best thing about this episode. it got the Victorian atmosphere off quite well. I heard one jarring note when Victorian Mycroft said,

Spoiler:

either that was deliberate or it was sloppy.

Deliberate-

Spoiler:

sad to say but I think I am over Sherlock, it just seems so formulaic and all about Sherlock rather than the mysteries. I will always love Martin Freeman as Watson and I will watch it because he is in it, but as for the rest of it, I am bored.

cant wait to watch the new X-Files. it could be either a huge mistake or really brilliant idea.

Two posts ago it was ok and watchable, now its formulaic and boring and your over the show! (and of all the words to use to describe that episode formulaic is not one I would have thought of)

I forgot that the Christmas Special was this year!

Mrs Figg wrote:
cant wait to watch the new X-Files. it could be either a huge mistake or really brilliant idea.

I didn't know you were and Xphile! Either you get it or you don't, some just miss how deeply the tongue is buried in the cheek.
(wait, come to think of it we did have this conversation a year or so ago).

I expected it to be a stand alone Victorian episode also but, what I want & what I get are 2 very different things. I got the little jabs at "modern language" data virus etc, just for once, just for fooking once could not Moffatt stop being "clever clogs" & left it at the Victorian Age ? Its kinda traditional to have a spooky ghost story at Christmas & this could have been it if it werent for the "Source Code" style end. I like that each of them get a part to play & that Mary is it ? hooks up with Mycroft. She actually typifies that wives often CAN do things without hubby knowing Watson didnt have a clue. I heard Sherlock say Monstrous Regiment in a list he was rattling off & that put me in mind to Terry Pratchett ? I dont think I felt satisfied with the conclusion of the Bride killings ? It felt open air ? But, it wasnt a waste of an evening, in fact Im glad I watched it. Just dont get too Tricky Dicky Moffat, I dont want to see Shlock & Who knitting together with the wise crack banter & the frantic flying about.

I really didn't think there was anything too complicated here- the twist is a jolt, but they are supposed to be its a twist. But I don't think it was tricky. Seems a lot of folk online saying they couldn't understand it, it was confusing, they don't know what happened- seemed pretty straight forward to me.

Also this a present- a bonus- they couldn't get the actors to start making series 4- they didn't want to waste a xmas special on the opening episode of series 4 disjointed form the actual series, and they didn't want to waste 1 episode of series 4's three episodes on a special- so they made a fun stand alone as they only had time for 1 episode. Its nothing more and nothing less than that. I enjoyed it very much for what it was.

I'm sick and tired of the Mind Palace. Why do they keep bringing this tired idea up? Are we supposed to think it's just so cool?

The opening scenes of the bride herself shooting out the window was brilliantly creepy. I liked the barbs about women not being used in Victorian stories but not sure we needed it to be the whole plot twist. I'll forgive them bringing Moriarty back again but only because it was psychological flashback as Sherlock is trying to figure out why he's back in the real world. Otherwise it's getting to be as tired a trope as the mind palace. (no, actually the mind palace is the worst trope of all time.)

Because if they didn't use it here there would be no excuse to make it. What other device within the Sherlock pantheon of narrative devices could you use to set an episode in the past?

First of all, the mind palace is a memory device dating to the Greeks. The show only once portrayed it correctly. It can't be used for analysis. If they had a bag of mind tricks I'd be happier, but they use the mind palace like a sonic screwdriver, and I'm sick of it.

I would say its clear that the concept of the Mind Palace in Sherlock is more than just as a memory device. Sherlock also uses it for conjecture- 'what if' scenarios as ways of de terming real facts.

I would compare it more closely to the science concept of phase-space than I would the Greek concept of memory aid.

halfwise wrote:

Mrs Figg wrote:
cant wait to watch the new X-Files. it could be either a huge mistake or really brilliant idea.

I didn't know you were and Xphile!  Either you get it or you don't, some just miss how deeply the tongue is buried in the cheek.
(wait, come to think of it we did have this conversation a year or so ago).

I was a massive X-File fan. I love Scully and Mulder's thing whatever it was it was gold.

what bugs me the most is the constant hero worship of Sherlock. Basically he is a very clever but unpleasant jerk. We are meant to worship him and excuse his general rudeness and emotional bankrupcy because he is brilliant. I for one would get sick of someone like that after a few days but we are led to believe he is loved by all. just because he is super clever. well I have to tell Moffat that super clever people are sometimes rotten to be around, and the only times on tv where sociopathic super clever people are made sympathetic to an audience is when they are charming in some way. Take Big Bang Theory, Sheldon could be a complete arse but he has childlike innocence which saves him from being very dislikeable indeed. At the moment Sherlock has NO redeeming features outside the personal charisma of Cumbersnatch and us the audience being 'told' every 5 minutes how brilliant he is. He is an unmitigated A-Hole to everyone, his only good point is his cleverness, making him the hero, the focus does not work because once the gloss and hype of Cumberbatch's fame has passed there remains an Emperors new clothes scenario. The focus has to be on the stories and the mysteries, not him as a tormented human being. I don't want Watson to ask Sherlock why he is alone without a woman in the MIDDLE of the mystery, as if its interesting, which it isn't. The old fashioned Sherlock tv programmes focused on the mystery and Sherlocks private mental state was left as the mystery, his drug taking was left as an unspoken mystery, his relationship with women was a pretty much unspoken mystery, Brett's Sherlock was a mystery in himself, the veil on that mystery was never raised, he didn't suffer the modern fashion for spilling the inner psychological traumas out for all to see, because the mystery is destroyed. Cumberbatch has had the mystery neutralised and domesticated. Its just another version of Dr Who and the prompt cards, functioning sociopath who is rude but lets forgive him because he is a genius. this gets boring pretty quick. I want to see Sherlock forget about his ego and solve mysteries. stop being rude and insulting because that is not the way gentlemen behave. The real Sherlock is charming, effete, cold and calculating, he keeps his deep inner workings to himself and shows his loyalty and yes, love, for Watson in the fraternity of one soldier would have for another in the war against criminals. Making Sherlock the focus is a mistake.

I am a huge Brett fan- but I do not think that Sherlock, in the pantheon of Holmes interpretations belong at the Brett end of the scale- for me it owes more to the Basil Rathborne versions, and not just in structure (Rathbones version starts out in period and ends up fighting Nazi's in the 1940's).

And Sherlock has always been as much a focus of the story as the mysterious- indeed Watson constantly in the originals tries to use Holmes reaction to mysterious as a way of trying to work out how his friends mind does work. The show is called Sherlock, and the originals were all variations on his name- The Casebook of Sherlock Holmes, the Adventures of Sherlock Holmes ect. And he has always been rude to people too- a gentleman by our standards, but shockingly rude by the social standards of his day- to convey that in a modern context he has to be rude by our standards.

Figgs: I agree with all you've said except saying the Sherlock should be 'effete'.  He was never written that way - early on Doyle had him straightening a poker with his bare hands.

I think the gay couple pair was always well done, I was okay with that...so long as Watson never asked why Sherlock was indifferent to women.  I agree that's a question that should never be explored.  The references to Irene Adler should have been sufficient to put that to bed.

I suppose by effete I didn't mean unmasculine, as I don't think of him as a fop, more an elegant cultured and cane-twirly kind of guy. I cant find the right word.

Cane twirly? Not the way I would imagine Sherlock. You may mean distinguished, but not to the point of twirling canes.

The cane to twirling ratio is quite high.