Sherlock - BBC [4]

Pettytyrant101 wrote:the Adventures of Sherlock Holmes ect.

Eldorion wrote:Watched the special today.  I saw it on BBC's iPlayer using a proxy, so I still don't know whether or not PBS cut anything from it (despite airing it yesterday, PBS will not making a streaming copy available until the 11th for some reason).  I had read some reactions to the episode (including on here) ahead of time so I knew about the mind palace thing and it not "really" being a Victorian stand-alone episode.  I'm kinda glad I knew because I think otherwise I would have been more annoyed at the tricksy marketing (like STID).

I'm not thrilled to see Moriarty back again but I'm hopeful that Sherlock's realization at the end means that Moriarty will have less of a role in series 4, or at the least that they aren't going to switch gears again and he really is dead for good, and there's just some sort of plan that he had laid out before his death going on here.  I'm still not thrilled by that possibility, but it's better than the alternative.  Anyway, Figgs is definitely right that Sherlock the show is not about the mysteries anymore and I do rather miss that, but given the negative fan reaction to the Baskerville episode (which I personally loved) I can perhaps see why they're doing this.  Most of the period stuff I wasn't really that enamored with though it was fun for the novelty.  Sherlock and John's dynamic felt decidedly off for the first half of the episode but I suspect that was deliberate.  I kinda liked what they did towards the end with addressing Sherlock's drug addiction and its effect/interaction with his relationships.  But overall I think the episode was a bit too convoluted without really going much of anywhere in the end.  I liked it more than any episode of series 3 though.

Mrs Figg wrote:

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.

halfwise wrote:Oh - the one with Lily Tomlin.  I remember it was kinda cute with a bit of a fail near the end.

Mrs Figg wrote:oohh ohh January 24th!  

halfwise wrote:Are you talking about the jaundiced guy who would eat people's livers?  That was actually the first one I saw, and I was hooked ever since.

Pettytyrant101 wrote:the hero worship of Sherlock by the writers on behalf of the audience is starting to near Moffat Doctor Who proportions. Which does not help the show, nor the episode. - Blue

I think its worth bearing in my mind here the original stories. One of the writing devices Doyle uses to make Sherlock seem larger than life and amazing is too big him up, other characters do it continuously- whether its the awed amazement of clients or a variety of Scotland Yard officers, or Watson himself who often prefaces a story with something about howit was a case that taxed even the greatest mind of his friend Sherlock Holmes or such like.
The hero worship of Sherlock as a narrative device is Doyles. used by Gatiss and Moffat but not born of them.

The difference here is obvious, in Doyles version Sherlock is of course 'the great man' but we are shown that he is a genius by his solving of complex cases. In Moffat's version we are told he is 'the great man' everyone fanboys over him from actual fanboys to Irene Adler and everyone in between, the adoration is implicit, its hardly ever explicit. basically Doyle told a story about a genius who became famous through the tales of Watson, Moffat has Sherlock a genius through the cult of personality.

'As far too much of Moffats writing, when viewed as a whole it flattered to deceive. There was nothing really there. And as far too much of Moffats writing it mistook complexity for an engaging narrative. There was nothing there in the end that could engage the viewer. You were left with a narrative that was, proverbially, a mile wide, but an inch deep. '

I think there are two separate issues here so I am going to tease them apart and start with the second one, because the reply is shorter.

I think you have to look at this episode for what it was- a gift, a treat, something to entertain and for you to enjoy whilst you await series four.
From a writing and filming standpoint what were the choices?
You have the actors long enough to shoot 1 episode- but late rin the year you have them long enough to shoot 3.
If you take the chance to make the one off as well then how do you do it without if really being the first episode of series 4? You cant set it iin modern times because then people will naturally expect it to start where series 3 left off- and they are clearly keeping that for the series proper.

So instead you make a stand alone that's mainly just for entertainment and fun, and you tie it in to the end of series 3 in a manner which sets up series 4 by leaving the viewer with a question to ponder.
I think it strikes a pretty good balance in the circumstances to make an entertaining episode which can go between series 3 and 4 but which it is not necessary to see to follow the narrative of the main series.

Its a gimmick to keep people happy while they wait on the next hyped up episode.


Now your other point- 'far too much of Moffats writing, when viewed as a whole it flattered to deceive. There was nothing really there. And as far too much of Moffats writing it mistook complexity for an engaging narrative.'

I tend to think the opposite, in that I thing sometimes the complex literary games Moffat plays masks the depth in his writing. That the viewer sometimes can be too distracted by the sleight of hand and roller coaster of a surface narrative to notice the deeper themes being played out.

I will take the recent Who episode Heaven Sent as an example, as its possibly the pinnacle of Moffats complex plotting. There is a surface story there, the one the tricksy plotting and slight of hand deals with - the laying out of clues like Bird or the clothes that lead into the final revelation. But then under that we have the entire enduring repeating ciycle as a metaphor for grief and mourning and loss. Under that we have the realisation the Doctor does all this just to save Clara, which completely alters how we view his internalisation of the dead Clara, and why they are in fact so dangerous to one another. And the entire thing deals overall with themes of the relentlessness of time and the inevitability of death.

You are reading into things which don't exist. It gives the impression of depth because you want there to be depth, its like a mirror, it looks deep but its all glossy surface and nothing else. The clues are just conceits, the themes are all in your imagination.

In this Sherlock Moffat and Gatiss are having some fan boy fun- its choc full of little nods to various other interpretations of Sherlock Holmes. But particularly in this one is a Sherlock tale not from Doyle, 'The 7 Percent Solution'- from wiki- 'The heart of the novel consists of an account of Holmes' recovery from his addiction. Knowing that Sherlock would never willingly see a doctor about his addiction and mental problems, Watson and Holmes' brother Mycroft induce Holmes to ...use a treatment consisting largely of hypnosis, which helps Holmes shake off his addiction and his delusions about Moriarty.'

They have no depth of imagination so they go ransacking other versions instead of creating something new. Nods to fanboys is just pandering at its worst.

Whilst some have complained of the use of the Mind Palace few seem to have picked up on the list of drugs Sherlock has consumed and the fact that his 'visions' are in large part drug induced and that he is suffering the effects of an overdose. During which we are confronted with the Moriarty of Sherlock's mind who tells Sherlock that he will always be there every time he fails to mock him.
As Mycroft points out this is not how a Mind Palace works as a memory technique, and thats because its also an hallucination caused by the drugs.
In the books Holmes says the use of cocaine keeps his mind active and helps him make deductive leaps, it sparks creativity in his logical deductions, and from the ending here this is also true of Sherlock- he claims to have had the realisation about Moriarty he sought from the use of drugs.


this stuff about drugs is just a lame attempt to make the whole thing current and fashionable. Its a diversion technique when the emphasis should be on solving crimes, Sherlocks drug taking should be a passing comment or a hint, not the basis of an episode.

The question of why does he take the drugs however is counterpointed throughout by Watsons insistence on trying to find out 'what made him' and the conversation about Sherlock being a flesh and blood human who must have urges, set against the negative effects of over consumption of anything.
Underneath the fun and frolics we are being asked here to consider both the value of Sherlock drug use against its obvious harm and if his use of it might be linked to his deliberate repression of other more human urges.
The them of addiction and its danger is humorously added to with obese Mycroft (he was fat in the originals but not obese) and whose morbid conversation with Sherlock over how long he has left to live shows the addicts disregard for their own life. And shows that both Homes brothers have their obsessions in equal measure.

Mycrofts obesity is not an obsession, its a mind game, he isn't addicted to food. Sherlock uses drugs as a tool, he isn't addicted in the normal sense.

And the overall plot mirrors this theme of taking an obsession or a belief, or a drug, or food to far and it becoming a negative with the suffragettes- the cause is good, but when your obsession with it or your belief in it ends up in murder, are you still conducting a 'good' cause?

And of course more on the surface in this episode we have the criticisms of Doyles portrayal of the women in his novels-

That's ridiculous, Doyles Irene Adler is not the sexualised damsel in distress that Moffat turns her into. Moffat turned her into a fangirl. he deliberately destroyed any power she had in the original story.

the fact Mary only gets one or two lines of dialogue in her entirety, or that Mrs Hudson only gets perfunctory lines and no real character- and they choose to criticise it by turning the whole thing on its head and making the plot all about the women. Whilst still leaving the male characters free to act like men of the period without running into gender issues (for example the scene where Watson calls his maid in and complains about her poor service is classic male of the time, and its right out one of the stories- but they subvert it so that the audience is more inclined to sympathise with the maid rather than with Watson as in the book).

This is pandering to his critics.

So I don't think Moffats or Gattiss writing in this instance is shallow at all- I think its cleverness sometimes clouds its depths however.