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Googled or not, you still knew what I meant when you posted. Given the what came up when I googled it, my reaction was not all that uncommon.
Posts: 11187 | Registered: Sep 2005
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It wasn't the rip-off idea,for me. It was that the motives of each character seemed really weak/not fully explained at the time. By the end of the series, Sherlock's tendency toward deep despondency is a little more developed, so in retrospect it makes more sense.
I also disagree with the decision to cast Sherlock as a sociopath. I always thought of him as a highly intelligent moral narcissist. (Not moral narcissism in the way it has come to be used politically, but a psychological type which lacks usual levels of empathy but has a very strong moral code which might seem to involve some empathy.)
But really, that is hardly a quibble. This was so much better better than I expected it to be! The premise could have gone HORRIBLY awry. I really expected it to blow from the previews and things I had seen, but it was actually quite acceptable to this long-time Sherlock Holmes fan.
Edited for stutter-finger typos
Posts: 9293 | Registered: Aug 2000
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I agree. I liked it more than I thought I would. I am not really a Holmes purist, though. I like the Mary Russell books. Posts: 11187 | Registered: Sep 2005
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Another complaint about the Princess Bride scene -- if Sherlock wanted to know so badly whether he chose right or not, why didn't he just have the pills tested afterward?
Posts: 16551 | Registered: Feb 2003
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quote:Originally posted by mr_porteiro_head: Another complaint about the Princess Bride scene -- if Sherlock wanted to know so badly whether he chose right or not, why didn't he just have the pills tested afterward?
I think that would be an affront to his ego. The whole idea was to out think his opponent, to figure out how he did it (stayed alive so many times).
Posts: 891 | Registered: Feb 2010
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He was willing to risk his life to find out if he was correct. When the guy was dying, he was asking him if he was correct. Afterward, when they guy's dead, why doesn't he just get the pills tested?
Posts: 16551 | Registered: Feb 2003
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But I'm sure the pills would be needed as police evidence. Eventually the police would test them, but he was a bit impatient for the answer.
Posts: 676 | Registered: Feb 2003
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quote:But I'm sure the pills would be needed as police evidence.
Yeah, and Sherlock showed such diligence in turning over the pink suitcase to police evidence earlier in the episode. Posts: 16551 | Registered: Feb 2003
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I think that, once it was no longer a life or death question, the urgency was gone. The challenge was whether he would bet his life on being right, not just being right.
Posts: 11187 | Registered: Sep 2005
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I'm bumping this because the series is now available for Netflix streaming.
Also, the original pilot (only one hour long and generally inferior to the 90 minute incarnation) deals much more interestingly with the one scene that seems to have annoyed people most.
The context of the pill challenge is significantly different in the pilot, and a few minor details of it are the only the only things I liked better.
In any case, it is worth a look, my lovelies.
Posts: 9293 | Registered: Aug 2000
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Gatiss and Moffat are writing the first two episodes. The only bad news I can see in this is that Stephen Thompson is writing the last episode. He wrote the middle episode of the last season and the recent pirate episode of Doctor Who.
So the last episode will, most likely, suck.
Posts: 1528 | Registered: Nov 2004
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Ugh. That is bad news. He wrote "The Blind Banker" AND "The Curse of the Black Spot"? He should stick his quill back in his goose and be done with it. Posts: 9293 | Registered: Aug 2000
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Gatiss and Moffat are writing the first two episodes. The only bad news I can see in this is that Stephen Thompson is writing the last episode. He wrote the middle episode of the last season and the recent pirate episode of Doctor Who.
So the last episode will, most likely, suck.
I don't know why they're allowing it. Surely they must have heard from viewers that the second episode sucked.
Posts: 12266 | Registered: Jul 2005
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quote:Originally posted by Olivet: Ugh. That is bad news. He wrote "The Blind Banker" AND "The Curse of the Black Spot"? He should stick his quill back in his goose and be done with it.
Or stick it somewhere else...
Posts: 12266 | Registered: Jul 2005
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The first episode was mind-blowing. After I finished watching it, I thought of the possibility that both pills were poison and the cab driver had taken some medicine so that it wouldn't affect him. I came to this thread to post that theory and read about how this scene was similar to a Princess Bride scene. I've never seen that movie, but I read about the scene and saw that my theory had already been done. I'm disappointed, I thought I was clever to come up with it.
Posts: 2054 | Registered: Nov 2005
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I re-watched "The Blind Banker" and decided I was too harsh. Yes, it was the weakest of the three, but it didn't entirely suck. Other than relatively small details that represented plot holes large enough to drive a truck through for any person with a fully-functional brain, it was pretty good.
That didn't come out the way it sounded in my head...
Seriously, though. I think it felt worse than it was because there were only three of them and the other two were such standouts.
Posts: 9293 | Registered: Aug 2000
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I finally got my brother in the same room as me and watched the first episode, we are both hooked. I'm sad to hear I shouldn't get my hopes up for episode two, and that there aren't more episodes yet. ----
What I don't understand is that when Watson was looking for Holmes at the end, and finally sees Holmes through a window holding up a pill about to ingest it, he just guns down the other guy. For all he knew the taxi driver wasn't the murderer, and it certainly looked like Holmes was eating the pill voluntarily, the driver didn't have his fake gun out anymore.
He didn't have any sort of conclusory evidence that the taxi driver was the culprit, in fact he completely missed the conversation where Holmes realizes he was staring at the passenger when he should have been staring at the driver while they were eating at the restaurant.
Seems strange Watson was so trigger happy.
Posts: 14316 | Registered: Jul 2005
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Two is not as good as one, but it isn't bad. And there is still three and more to come after that.
Posts: 11187 | Registered: Sep 2005
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Yeah, two isn't bad. I just got frustrated by the end, but I won't spoil it.
It's entirely possible that the first one would have been my favorite if I hadn't known the plot, more or less, from A Study in Scarlet. That knowledge made me antsy that it took Holmes so long to grok the culprit's profession.
I also don't think John was trigger happy -- I think he's just a really smart guy, saw what was happening and intuited the circumstances. He's a smart enough man (a doctor, after all) and trained to make quick life-and-death decisions.
That said, he's a total BAMF, despite his "regular guy" camouflage. And despite his kidnapped/not kidnapped ratio, which is a little puzzling.
The third is my favorite, even though it has a bit of kitchen sink plot. I love that John calls Sherlock on his detachment, and that Sherlock behaves a bit stupidly (again) in his rush to prove himself clever. I think I cursed for a full minute when the credits rolled, but I still loved it.
Posts: 9293 | Registered: Aug 2000
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I don't know. I suspect that in this case it might be because the BBC has had some budget cuts (not that they have huge budgets to begin with) and one or two writers who are awesome (and they must sleep at some point.) Even if they pay the actors in beer and construct all their sets with gaffer tape, cameras aren't cheap.
(I'm only joking. I know that isn't the case at all. But it is frustrating that US TV throws millions at mediocre shows, and... Well, lets just say it's a miracle that anything halfway decent and non-moronic ever gets on television.) The fact that more of the shows I like seem to come from the UK probably has a lot more to do with how actors are trained there (and the fact that there is less of a theater/film/television caste system than in the US) than anything else.
Oh, and most US TV shows are written by twelve year olds. It's a cumulative effect of the market-driven entertainment model.
Posts: 9293 | Registered: Aug 2000
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Oh, lots of UK TV is awful (and not for budgetary reasons), just like everywhere. I don't think anyone anywhere is ever really aware that their TV is almost always simultaneously wonderful and terrible. Everyone in Spain says that their TV is craptacular, but I've watched some really great, seriously entertaining dramas here. And there are so many wonderful US shows.
And, of course, there are total gems like 'Sherlock'. I can't wait for the next season - a year and a half is far too long.
I might catch the last episode again, as I'll be in the UK in August - so thanks for the info!
Posts: 1528 | Registered: Nov 2004
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I haven't noticed a particularly higher quality among British television overall than US television. Most of British television is *serious* clunkers, that don't even have the higher production values of US shows (though that's changing a bit), and are every bit as bad in other ways.
And that's before we talk about all those shows that are basically variants of "call in and receive a chance to win X. (calls cost X pounds)".
Posts: 15770 | Registered: Dec 2001
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This is true. Anybody catch Outcasts? It was so amazingly awful, we watched just to heckle.
I think my preference may be genre-based, at least partly. I love mysteries, and the BBC does them very well. Also, several of my favorite American shows feature foreign actors doing American accents, which is probably more of an odd coincidence than cause and effect.
quote:Originally posted by Lisa: I'm almost an hour into the first episode, and it is magnificent! Luther was great, but it pales next to this. The movie was fun, but it wasn't even in the same category as this show.
posted
The new series starts this weekend. Anyone excited, or has it been so long we really don't care?
Posts: 79 | Registered: Dec 2011
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Oh, glad you posted this, because I liked the original series and had no idea it was time for the next one.
Posts: 315 | Registered: Dec 2005
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It will be on PBS in May, I think. Also, the DVDs will be available shortly after it airs in the UK, if you have a region 2 DVD player or equivalent.
Posts: 79 | Registered: Dec 2011
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I enjoyed it. It was funny and clever - and a few of the breakthroughs will probably make you groan at how obvious they are, especially if you *didn't* guess.
Though you probably wouldn't want to watch it with kids as you might have to explain a few things to them!
Posts: 1528 | Registered: Nov 2004
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Hmmm. I was hating the episode for the last 30 minutes, but after the last thirty seconds, I don't know what I think.
I still hate the interpretation of Holmes as a sociopath (though they perhaps have deliberately developed him away from that), and the misogynistic elements of the show still bother me. Watson was too much missing (perhaps scheduling issues? Perhaps because of the nature of the episode?), but I'm hoping that the next episode, based on Hound of the Baskervilles, which has Watson front and center for 70 percent of the story, will rectify that.
Posts: 428 | Registered: Nov 2006
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I was a bit annoyed by the treatment of Adler, honestly. Not the sex stuff. I actually rather loved her until they implied that every clever thing she'd done was mostly because Moriarty was doing her homework for her.
And the last 30 seconds? Pure textbook feel-good writer manipulation. A chance to make Sherlock a BFH (Big Freakin' Hero), hitting all the classic emotional buttons. It's a ploy right up there with killing off a small child in the Emotional Manipulation Playbook. I'm miffed that Moffat took the most independent female character ACD wrote in the Sherlock Holmes stories (the cleverest, too, and with the most agency) and made her a damsel in distress -- much less thematically challenging than the original was 1891. Makes me wonder if Moffat has ever met a woman.
But that bit *still* got me. It's frustrating to be manipulated when you *know* you're being manipulated, but the technique is undeniably effective. *shakes fist*
. . . . . .. . . . . . . .
But I still love this show.
Posts: 79 | Registered: Dec 2011
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Is Holmes a sociopath? A HealthGuidance article suggests he has many of the qualities, but his friendship with Watson breaks the stereotype.
Reading down their list of symptoms, though, I have to say it does sound like Holmes. TV and the stories. The Holmes in the books was, in fact, more interested in the puzzles than the people and tolerated human interaction only as necessary. Boredom nearly destroyed him. He was at times vain -- note his quiet delight in upstaging Scotland Yard, and his regular mention of Watson's "stories." But Doyle's Holmes was also more openly affectionate of Watson, always commending him on his strengths and never condescending.
I think I'd still peg him on the sociopath side more than the Asperger's, though. I doubt that sociopathy is an either-or thing, anyway. Maybe the possibility of emotional connection is what makes him high-functioning?
Posts: 7790 | Registered: Aug 2000
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I've always viewed Holmes as a very troubled person who probably would have lost his humanity at some point (thereby becoming a psychotic murderer like the people he catches) had it not been for Watson. Watson keeps him in check, gives him a human connection by way of friendship, and isn't afraid to tell him that he's being stupid (or whatever kind of insult the situation demands).
It's just like in House (another TV character based on Sherlock Holmes), whose narcasistic genius is often only offset by the only relationship he can hold on to---Wilson.
It's a great dynamic, in my opinion, and I love watching the two characters interact, no matter the show/film/interpretation. The two are always fantastic together.
Posts: 1324 | Registered: Feb 2011
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Also, in the first episode, and it could have been in jest, Sherlock says in response to being called a Psychopath, that he is a high functioning sociopath.
It could have been a joke, but it could also have been true! Posts: 1324 | Registered: Feb 2011
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quote:Originally posted by Chris Bridges: I think I'd still peg him on the sociopath side more than the Asperger's, though. I doubt that sociopathy is an either-or thing, anyway. Maybe the possibility of emotional connection is what makes him high-functioning?
There's no way he's got aspbergers. Aspies are functionally blind to such a profound quantity of things that are fairly blatantly necessary to the persona, quantity, and assumed capacities of, well, being sherlock m. f. holmes
sociopathy is kind of a stretch but ... I guess you could pull it off?
Posts: 15421 | Registered: Aug 2005
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I wonder if there could be a scale of sociopathy like there is the autism/aspbergers spectrum. There's obviously a middle ground between the Gandhis and the Gaddafis of the world.
I'm okay with them modeling this modern Sherlock after sociopathic tendencies. Its especially interesting considering that the friendship between Sherlock and Watson is still sort of ambiguous. There's still a sense that Sherlock only views Watson as a tool and even small acts of kindness or respect are mostly just Sherlock manipulating others for his own uses. Watching that relationship evolve will be very interesting. The chemistry between Cumberbatch and Freeman is really why I watch the show. The adaptations are fun but they'd be less engaging if I wasn't becoming so attached to the characters.
Posts: 1733 | Registered: Apr 2005
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A nice person in the UK has uploaded the videos from The Blog of Dr. John H. Watson to You Tube, so those of us who could not see them due to area restrictions, now can.
Moriarty in 221B while they are away. Kind of creepy, really, especially the obvious cuts, so that you wonder what he might have been up to when the camera was off. Nice touch, that.
Posts: 9293 | Registered: Aug 2000
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Just saw "Hounds," and thought it was quite good until the last thirty minutes, when the plot went all collapsy under its own weight. However, there was a lot more interaction between Sherlock and John , which gave Martin Freeman more to do, which made me happy.
Now we have the guy who wrote "The Blind Banker" writing the finale...and I'm terrified that they're going to fridge Molly...
Posts: 428 | Registered: Nov 2006
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Ugh. Do not have high hopes for that one. Molly's not important enough to fridge - no woman on that show is. But, considering the name, I bet people are going to expect a real confrontation with Moriarty.
Posts: 9293 | Registered: Aug 2000
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"He’s extraordinary. During auditions, the minute he stepped into the room I said to the producers, I don’t know if you want my opinion, but I want to work with him, because he makes my game better. I honestly felt myself get better as an actor playing scenes opposite him — he has brilliant level of humanity."
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