Magic Words

I am going to give you the two magic words that will make the last episode of the second season of Sherlock watchable.

Are you ready? You're gonna want these -- get a pencil and some scrap paper or something. Got it? Okay, good.

Andrew. Scott.

Or, if you prefer:

James. Moriarty.

Like any good fairy tale -- remember those words, folks -- the villain makes the piece. Without Vader, Star Wars falls apart (ceases to be, actually, I think) and the Doctor is better with his Master -- yeah, well, this Sherlock has a fuck-tastic Moriarty.

Yeah, okay, I'll grant that Cumberbatch and Freeman and Gatiss turn in reasonable performances -- Freeman's is actually inspired at more than one point -- but Scott is the beating black heart of this thing. He's freaky, he's scary, he's violent, he's crazed, he's unreliable, and he is fucking convincing.

This isn't a villain you want to have tea with (Al Swearengen, anyone?); this is a villain you'd hide behind the couch from (think John Simm's Master at his nutsiest.)

So you've got that, right? Glue your eyes to Andrew Scott and don't fucking let go or you will miss the best, juiciest bits of this show.

Apart from that, Reichenbach Fall is a hot mess -- we're back to Scandal territory here and it's painful. The story kinda makes sense -- at least the bits with Moriarty have the charm of complete and utter insanity -- and you know what's gonna happen in the end, so, really, it's just a matter of making sure we get from A to B in an hour and a half.

I'm not going to bother going through the motions of a plot summary here and if you really think you can be spoilered on a story that was first published in 189-blahdeblah, then...wow, I really have no help for you. But there are some nice character moments -- Watson at Sherlock's 'grave' is palpably painful and Molly, once again, gets some truly awesome screen time.

Does the whole thng work? Well, do you want to be convinced by it? Then you will be. I think Gatiss and Moffatt have signed themselves up for more trouble than they really need for the third season -- already contracted for, or so I hear -- and I'm really not looking forward to seeing how they get themselves out of it because all the options I can think of at least are messy and unfortunate.

Still, through all this, there's my happy place: He didn't screw up season 6. He didn't screw up season 6. He didn't screw up season 6. :)

Dog or No Dog

All right, so it's really sad to have to come to the second season of Sherlock and say that Hounds of the Baskerville is the strongest episode.

It shouldn't be.

Much as I love Hound (and I do in pretty much any version including Rathbone and Brett), in a line-up that includes Scandal and Reichenbach, it should not be the strongest.

That said, Mark Gatiss has done a lovely job updating the monster story -- I think maybe he tried a tad tiny bit too hard ("The Grimpen Minefield") but at the same time, I'm deeply grateful not to have to go through the whole quicksand thing.

If I were Russell Tovey's agent, on the other hand, I might have suggested that doing another story that centers around big, potentially supernatural dogs might be something that could be best avoided at this point but, hey, whatever. I'm not the man's career coach and I love watching him dither about the place.

Hound gives us some great Sherlock/John moments and the best attempt at character development for Sherlock that you're going to get for any of the three stories. Admittedly, it also features Sherlock's "info dump" trick which I'm starting to get really sick of. Cumberbatch is very good at it and I realise that it's totally canon, but it's slick and superficial and annoying and when it's used in place of actual character development, it just doesn't cut it.

There's great house porn and bar porn and small-cute-town-in-England-porn which is nice. There's a moderately effective villain and some great chain-jerking which allows Gatiss the luxury of tying in another Holmes canon story.

So...yeah, it's fun; it's cheesy; it's amusing; it's well-paced; it's the most fun you're going to get out of this season, quite honestly, without making a drinking game out of it!

"What? What?!"

All right, before we start the investigation (see what I did there?) into the second season of Sherlock, let me lay something right out on the table.

I'm a Whovian.

In plainer English, I am a Doctor Who fangirl.

Bet you're surprised, right?

Yeah, no, I know you're not.

But my point is that, in the grand world of Steven Moffat's televisual projects, Sherlock can win, lose, or burn to the ground for all I care so long as Doctor Who stays solid.

My mantra since the end of Who season 5 has been "Don't fuck up season 6."

He didn't.

I'm happy.

That said, I like Sherlock. I heartily enjoyed the first season. I was looking forward to the second season.

And...well...Moffat didn't fuck up season 6.

And I can't say that Sherlock 2 is a total loss but....wow. After season 1? It's kinda sad.

The short version: Scandal = hot mess. Hounds = much stronger. Reichenbach = oh my fucking God is anyone paying attention here?!

Spoilers follow. RAYOR.


So, Scandal in Belgravia. I can't even begin to recap the story for you because, honestly, I'm sorta confused as to what happened. I think the actors were confused as to what happened. I'm damn near certain the writers were.

There was the pool. And then there was a phone. And some pictures. And a dead hiker. And a naked woman. And the phone again. And Mycroft being seriously bitchy for no good reason. And the phone again. And....yeah, I don't know.

Moffat. Gatiss. We all know you can do better than this. WTF, guys. Seriously. Pull your fingers out and do a third draft next time.

And if you ever ever write another female character as hampered, pointless, uneven, whiny, and generally useless as Irene Adler (who could have been so completely kickass I can't even stand to think about it), I will end you. Me, and every fangirl out here with a sense of self-respect.

Also? Moffat, stop ripping off your Who storylines for other things. Most of us watch both. Cribbing River Song to make a cod dominatrix version? Not. Cool.

(And while we're on that subject, I don't think you need to whap someone around with a riding crop after you've tranked them. One or the other. Not both. Both was just going for a forced 'sexy' moment that didn't work. If it had worked, I'd've forgiven you much. But it didn't. And if you'd realised it didn't and then let it drop, I'd've forgiven you. But you didn't. It didn't work -- and then you kept pushing it. Realise when the horse is dead, fellas.)

The best thing about Scandal is the few moments of Moriarty at the beginning. Oh, that, and John, Sherlock, and Mrs. Hudson. Mrs. Hudson wins all the things in this -- as does Sherlock coming to her defense from the American (really, Moftiss? really?) thugs who break in to interrogate her. And Molly. Molly can share the things with Mrs. Hudson for finally stepping up for herself and telling Sherlock off -- much to the apparent amazement of everyone else in the room -- bar Lestrade, who was still trying to get over her dress.

I really cannot fully express my disappointment in this episode. It was a complete let-down after the tight, well-thought-out, detailed, character-rich storytelling that was the bulk of the first season to get this kind of sloppy rubbish that didn't seem to know where it was going, what it was doing, or what story it was trying to tell.

Anyway!

Something more fun on Wednesday. I promise.

"...later."

And -- now it's Wednesday. How are we all feeling?

(I seriously urge you to read your lease first, though. And lots and lots of thanks to my friend over at Hypomnemata for putting it together for me.)

So now I've finished fangirling, what else can be said about the show?

Well, one of the nice things about Moffat's Sherlock is that it is, at one and the same time, so essentially different from what I think of as the "classic Holmes" while drawing from the original story/character/theme pool, that there's no clash of inevitable fandom clash. This isn't Brett's Holmes -- the same stories are there (sometimes), but that's about it.

Sherlock and John at their new favorite place.
All hail to Minerva for the picture!

What is the same -- or at least much the same -- is the relationship between Holmes and Watson which forms the core of the story. Without that and without that done well, a lot of the attraction of the stories is gone. At least, it would be for me. I was willing to go along with the lunacy of the Ritchie Holmes largely because Downey, Jr. and Law seemed to be having so much fun with what they were doing -- and there was something about their portrayal of the friendship that worked. Perhaps because it wasn't so much a "friendship" as an unspoken and obviously unconsummated romance, but that's a whole different post.

Honestly, I'm not all that interested in the endless debate currently going on about which team Sherlock may -- or may not -- play for. I know what Benedict Cumberbatch has had to say; I suspect what Moffat would say; I'm pretty sure what Conan Doyle would say; and....well, to be honest, that's all just fine and dandy but it's like arguing with an ouroborous. You could be there all day and probably will! Characters -- especially popular ones as Sherlock seems to be becoming -- are blank slates; fans can and will inscribe anything they damn well please onto them. I'm sure there's someone out there who is heartbroken that Torchwood will not be moving to Fox because he or she is convinced that inside Captain Jack somewhere is a straight boy yearning to come out.

What I think is interesting in the new Sherlock is how detached Sherlock has become. The Brett Holmes was distanced, uninvolved -- but never unemotional. He had a sense of humor (albeit occasionally a peculiar one), a great deal of pride in his skill and accomplishments, a keen sense of class distinction, an ear for music, and rather snobby tastes in food and wine if I remember rightly. My point here in assembling this rather mongrel list is that Holmes never came across in the original Doyle stories as suffering from any kind of psychiatric condition: yeah, he was a bit weird, but it's mostly the kind of weird you can write off as being genuine Victorian gentleman weirdness. (This is the same kind of weirdness that comes across with the father of the family in Doctor Who's "Tooth and Claw" episode, written off by the Doctor with, "I just thought you were happy!")

This Sherlock is a little bit beyond that -- this is sort of like what would happen if you took Conan Doyle's Sherlock, crossed him with Cracker, and then added some of the late Prime Suspect Jane Tennison. He is not only distant, he is actually removed. We don't know why -- I would imagine speculation runs rife in fandom -- but there are, presumably, reasons.

Which then makes it interesting to watch when he is startled into not being removed: e.g., the closing scenes of "The Great Game." Watson goes out for the evening when everything should have been solved and resolved, leaving Sherlock to shiver quietly in 221b. Sherlock goes out, too, taking the jump drive which contains the solution to the nouveau "Bruce Partington Plans" with him. The two meet up at a deserted swimming pool -- and for a startlingly real-feeling minute, it seems like Watson might be the bad guy.

Watson not being the bad guy. Go and thank
Minerva for the lovely still!

I bow to Moffat and Gatiss and the work they must have done and to Martin Freeman for making the possibility of Watson's betrayal feel so real. And the look on Sherlock's face -- bow to Cumberbatch, too -- shows how much this hurts. And how unexpected the hurt is. Half of his problem seems to be with what to do with the sudden feeling that someone might have hurt him -- and how the hell does that work?! (Watch Cumberbatch's eyes, by the way, if this isn't working for you -- as a friend of mine said on Saturday evening, "It's all going on there!")

The bad guy is, of course, Moriarty and he and Watson are not one and the same -- not even close really. As someone who was deeply terrified of the Brett series Moriarty as a child -- I was traumatized by the Reichenbach Falls episode -- I like this Moriarty. He's unstable on a level that makes quicksand seem dependable. His voice, his attitude, his physicality change as quickly as he speaks and it's really unsettling to watch.

There's a great, great moment here when Watson tries to help himself: Sherlock has a gun on Moriarty and we know there's a sniper with a bead on John, so he grabs Moriarty -- not such a great idea as it turns out, since there's more than one sniper, but the complex of emotions going across Sherlock's face makes it totally worth it. An equally valid story choice, of course, would have been for Moffat and Gatiss to choose to unbalance their hero -- and he is the hero, don't mistake that, just a very...rough-edged one -- bit by bit and allow him to discover slowly how much the new relationship with John has grown to mean to him -- but this is a lot more fun. Forcing him out of his adopted stance of emotional detachment -- which we've even seen in relation to his brother who tries to bribe John to spy on Sherlock for him out of "concern" -- and watching him not snap under the strain is fascinating. He doesn't know what to do with the new information -- but it is information and he can cope with it.

I don't want to absolutely ruin the end of the episode for those of you who have braved spoilers to follow me thus far -- suffice it to say, Moffat wanted to be sequel-hunting and classy at the same time and pulled it off moderately well.

And I really really hope that the new series -- which I hear will begin filming in the spring? -- will show up over here in non-pirate quality soon. I've figured out two possible ways for our heroes to survive the end of the Game, but what I'm really eager to see is if Moffat figured out a third.

Did I mention he's also Irish? Go forth and give thanks to the
mighty Minerva for making this post much more scenic
than it would otherwise have been!

"Catch you..."

Sherlock.

You knew I was going to get here sooner or later, right? Lets talk.

When I first heard about the "update" of Holmes -- "a detective for the 21st century," a tagline I devoutly hope Stephen Moffat didn't come up with or, if he did, that he regrets intensely -- I was dubious. Me? I'm a Brett girl. Always have been. Rathbone doesn't thrill me; Downey, Jr. amused me, but didn't shake my essential loyalty; King's (no, not that one) Mary Russell novels, ditto. As far as Holmes goes, it's all Brett all the way.

Despite my essential bias, I have to say: Moffat and his co-conspirator, Mark Gatiss, know their Holmes. There's really no better way to put it than that; better still, I suspect they know their Conan Doyle. I find C. Doyle interesting as a historical figure and I adore the Holmes canon, but he was a pretty hack-job writer, often comes across as being rather stupid, and was personally bigoted, Imperialistic, and jingoistic to a painful degree. Just try reading his "impartial" history of the Boer War -- but don't blame me when your eyeballs ache. Does all this affect his writing? Oh, hell yeah, honey. Get through Study in Scarlet -- and try not to wince. If Holmes himself doesn't come out with something winceable, just wait 'til we get to the "American scenes." Oh, baby, oh, baby.

And if that doesn't get you, try The Sign of Four. Argh. There's lots of awful -- yet, somehow, it didn't get swept away with a lot of the rest of the late Victoriana that The Strand and the Gentleman's Magazine and Blackhill (Cornhill? Corn...black? Blackhilll? Cornhillblack? Blackornhill? Oh, something like that. Someone else be the librarian and look it up!) and whatnot used to print up every month. There's just something about Holmes and Watson that works and continues to work and continues to work and just...well, it just goes on continuing to work.

And it works here. Gatiss and Moffat have got it jumping through old and new hoops and it still works.

So lets have a brief rundown. Spoilers ahead. Take this seriously. If you haven't seen it and want to, read no further.

Benedict Cumberbatch as Sherlock.
Note the coat.
:)

Episode one, A Study in Pink. :) Great stuff. Really really awesome first episode. The characters and story spring straight into action and really don't stop to breathe for about an hour and half -- particularly Benedict Cumberbatch as Holmes who speaks so quickly that I was surprised he didn't either a) pass out; or b) gasp at the end of every sentence like Mrs. Haddock in Gerald Durrell's story about his sister getting involved in spiritualism. Man must have breath control like a merman.

The basic plot is lifted straight from A Study in Scarlet (if you try to read the original, don't blame me for the pain of the second half. It hurts everyone.) A body is found; there are no clues/weird clues/anomalous clues; Lestrade calls in Holmes; and I could make a "the game's afoot" reference here and I will restrain myself. Holmes and Watson meet for the first time; Holmes shows off his observational skills all over the place; the rooming situation at 221b is arranged and we're off to the races.

I need to say right off the bat how excellent a pairing Holmes (Cumberbatch) and Watson (Freeman) are here. They are great. This is like...it's like watching David Tennant and John Simm play against each other as Doctor and Master -- an inevitable comparison given who wrote the storylines in each case. They feel each other out for a few scenes -- both as characters and, rather visibly, as actors; get a sense of how this could work -- and then they basically just start having fun. And they have a lot of fun. And it is good fun. :) Martin Freeman is fantastic. He is a solid, believable, angry, damaged, unbelivably hurt -- and still functioning John Watson. He has discovered depth and humor and anger in that character that I wasn't quite sure were there and it works when he does it. This Watson is an Afghan veteran; his wound is giving him psychological symptoms; and he starts blogging about his "adventures" with Sherlock largely on advice from his therapist. The opening scenes of Pink show some real darkness behind this character; he's struggling with survivor guilt, PTSD, a wound that won't seem to quite heal, and having no money.

Enter Sherlock and the 221b flat.

The rest is history, more or less. Rupert Graves as Lestrade is great stuff; just thick enough to let Sherlock be continually impatient with him but still a solid, dependable copper -- who also knows that Sherlock is a show-offy, overly dramatic prat who needs to be stepped on firmly now and then before he starts riots just because he can.

Martin Freeman as John Watson.
Couldn't find a picture of him
in the good coat.

Second episode, The Blind Banker. Less successful -- tries to draw on things like The Sign of Four and whatnot that really were Conan Doyle playing with his Orientalist/Imperialist prejudices and letting them run riot: The British Empire Is Good. Anything East of France (And Much of France) Is Bad. Anything Coming From the East Is SUSPICIOUS. And Probably EVIL To Boot.

One of the best parts of this show for genre fans is going to be seeing Paul Chequer, aka Eugene from Torchwood's "Random Shoes" episode as DI Dimmock trying to wrestle (not literally) Sherlock into being useful and coherent and polite, all at once. There's also a location from a Doctor Who episode -- look really carefully at the museum where the Asian teapots are being kept and see if it rings any bells. Personally, I think there are two locations: does anyone want to scrutinize the round, tall room where the curators sit -- there's a long scene with Soo Lin Yao there although it's mostly in the dark -- and then watch the Doctor Who "Silence in the Library / Forest of the Dead" duo and see if anything looks familiar?

There are some great character moments here between Watson and Holmes -- e.g., a scene where Sherlock breaks into a flat to examine it -- and forgets to let Watson in, leaving the honest John storming in the street outside, occasionally stopping to shout through the letterbox to Sherlock in a mood that passes from curious to exasperated to angry and back to exasperation again. (Sherlock is being distracted by a strangulation attempt, by the way; so it isn't all rudeness on his part that he forgets good ol' John.)

And the show does introduce Sarah -- fan question: is she meant to replace Mary? if so...why? is there some reason we don't like the name Mary? -- who is a staffer at the medical clinic where Watson finds part-time work. They go out on a date -- Sherlock tags along -- disastrous consequences. There are people tied up; weapons aimed at them -- it isn't the greatest start to a relationship, lets just put it that way.

The worst part of this episode is, really, the story. It's Orientalist. It's not well thought out. It plays to a lot of stereotypes and cliches that...really, Moffat and Gatiss could have come up with better than this. I don't know why they didn't. It plays as good Holmes but -- it plays as good old-school Holmes and if this is new-school -- then they can't really hope to get away with stuff like this. At least not very often.

The whole function of the episode is really to lead up to the reveal of the existence of Moriarty. Not much of a reveal, I grant you, but given events in episode three, it needed revealing. And it's a nice introduction which also serves to get rid of the villain from this episode who was clearly a "single use" villain.

Sherlock and Watson having a pleasant night out.

So, Episode three, The Great Game. My friends and I counted at least four original Holmes stories being referenced in the first ten minutes of the show: "The Five Pips," "The Bruce Partington Plans," "A Scandal in Bohemia," and "The Empty House." There are others.

I have to say, I struggled with this episode a little bit for oh, say...the first thirty fucking seconds because after that it. did. not. stop. Which was great. Lets face it, Sherlockian logic works at its best when it moves so fast you can't see the joins. The Great Game moves fast enough and it was dark enough to make me a very, very happy new little fangirl.

"Bored. Bored -- bored!"

Sherlock is bored. He is very, very bored. (See? look at him being bored over there.)

Much to his delight -- something interesting happens. Someone blows up the building across the street. And then sends him a cell phone. A cell phone made up to look identical to a phone that was critical to the Pink case, in fact. And the phone has a single message: five beeps and a photograph. The photograph takes them to a location where there are items. Evidence from an old case. One of Sherlock's first cases, in fact. And one which he failed to solve.

Not wildly interesting in and of itself -- except he also gets a phone call on the cell. Someone needs his help -- someone has been tied up with explosives all over them and needs him to solve the mystery of the shoes before the explosives are detonated.

Neat, yes?

And guaranteed to get the attention of someone like Sherlock who thrives on this sort of situation: two puzzles, both comfortably removed from real people, and a deadline to work against. His favorite things!

Of course, the problems multiply: he solves the first mystery -- an old murder which he failed to solve years before; saves the woman with explosives strapped to her...and lookie here: the cell phone rings again. Another photo (introduced by four beeps this time); another plea for help; another old case. Another solution; another salvation -- and we repeat. But -- we kind of don't because Sherlock loses this one. It isn't his fault, it must be said: he solves the mystery and gets the solution back to the Mysterious Evil Genius (are we really taken in by this? No, no, we are not -- but it's fun to pretend for awhile even though we know who it is) under time -- but the woman at the other end of the phone starts to describe said Mysterious Evil Genius -- and that's all she wrote. Big boom. But still -- the phone calls (with ever-dropping numbers of beeps) and the old puzzles keep coming.

The old mysteries don't get a lot harder, in all fairness, but Watson is starting to get frustrated: Mycroft (who we met in the first episode) has a case he wants Sherlock to work on that Sherlock's ignoring; and Watson doesn't feel that Sherlock is taking the threat to the people seriously. Since the last phone call is from a child -- Watson nearly loses his bottle entirely. But, it has to be said, doesn't.

So we solve the final mystery -- to do with a forged painting -- and we finally get a name for our Mysterious Evil Genius, in case we had any damned doubt. But there aren't any more phone calls: perhaps the terror is over? Of course, we know it isn't.

"I have a blanket, look..."

You see these shows? This one ...

...and that one over there?

Yeah, well, someday soon there will be a very clever blog post about these shows right here.

In this very space.

Or, at least, in a space very similar to this one.

But not today.

So I urge you to consider the loveliness of these two photographs, perhaps, if you have seen the shows in question, recollect your favorite moments, or, if you haven't seen them, consider additions to your Netflix queue.