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I haz a new obsession happy! (Okay, maybe "obsession" is accurate.)
I knew I had friends who enjoyed the new BBC Sherlock, but I felt really dubious about setting the whole thing in twenty-first-century London with a tech-obsessed Sherlock. I stayed dubious for approximately 80 minutes of the first episode (they're all 90 minutes, and there are only three in series one!). Of course, by the time we were at minute 60 of the second episode, I was hopelessly hooked. I know we're the last people on the planet to watch and I'm even later commenting, but I hope some of you will comment back and share some squee with me (and maybe a few complaints). Spoilers after cuts.
"A Study in Pink"
I spent most of the episode complaining: Sherlock is too extreme, Sherlock is ridiculous, Sherlock is a sociopath but I'm starting to doubt the "high-functioning" part, etc. We'd figured out it was the cabbie long before Sherlock did—and actually thought he'd figured it out before he had. Srsly? They looked at the cab passenger but not the driver? Steven Moffat Syndrome: careless writing about characters I could so easily love. Also, I hate that Sally Donovan says almost nothing other than "freak" and sleeps with a married man. We have a female detective; can we please have a competent one now? Donovan is simply unprofessional here. (The one saving grace is that it's not her face Sherlock can't stand; it's Anderson's. Otherwise, I would probably have switched it off due to misogyny. I was close at times as it was.)
I fell in love anyway, though I didn't figure that out until the next episode. Benedict Cumberbatch gets nearly unperformable scenes and pulls them off. I'm not sure how, but he manages to make this guy (almost) believable. He gives Sherlock just enough of a sense of humor and irony to make him likable, even.
But they've misnamed the show, because surely it's not about Sherlock! It's about John Watson, the not-quite-sane war veteran who allows himself to be sucked into an even crazier life. Simply living with Sherlock is heroic. Their rapport is wonderful—as are their disagreements.
The creators said they never considered anyone but Cumberbatch for Sherlock, but I read somewhere that they considered Matt Smith for the role of Watson. Will someone please tell me that was never under serious consideration? First off, two tall, gangly young guys with floppy hair running around with each other would be unwatchable. Not that they're bad looking, but they would look absurd together. (I also heard that Cumberbatch was considered for the Eleventh Doctor and suspect that one of these rumors is correct, and the other is a corruption of the correct one. I could be wrong.)
Second, Martin Freeman is brilliant, and I wouldn't want anyone else in the role. I could believe this John Watson would shoot the cabbie. I don't approve (argue with me in comments, if you like). I can totally imagine it, though. He sees Sherlock in danger, he knows the other man is a killer, and he might not know what the cabbie has done to get Sherlock to take the pill, but it sure as heck looks like Sherlock will take it. I think John could not tell for sure, with Sherlock blocking part of his view, whether the cabbie had any weapon other than the pills, or whether Sherlock might have been compromised (already drugged?).
I did think that Mycroft was Moriarty when he first kidnapped John. Silly me. I adored that scene, though: John was so determined, and Mycroft so annoyingly superior and even amused! (I thought John's attempt to ask out Mycroft's assistant was desperation; Brilliant Husband has convinced me that, on the contrary, it's guts. This Watson doesn't lack for guts, or brains.)
"The Blind Banker"
I'm ashamed to say that this episode is where I really fell in love, because overall, it reeked. It's 2010, people! Do all Chinese people have to have Tong connections? Do they all have to be stupid? Soo Lin* hides in (or sneaks back to) the museum where she is eventually found and killed. The General, who should never have lived so long were she an idiot, doesn't do her homework and assumes the guy hollering in the mail slot "I'm Sherlock Holmes!" is actually Sherlock Holmes? Who the frell did she think the tall guy was, then? The muscle? Well, okay, he kind of is the muscle. But that's beside the point! Plus, she apparently took her kidnap victims to the same place that was established in a code as the drop-off point for anyone who did find the missing jade? Then she used a device worth of the 1960s Batman tv show to threaten Sarah? Writers, you need a drug raid!
Really, the episode crossed the line of "culturally insensitive" to downright racist and sexist, I thought. That's why I'm appalled that I enjoyed it anyway.
I did not enjoy the failure to depict Chinese people as rational human beings, or the apparent confusion of Japanese and Chinese culture. (Does it mitigate the failure that John and Sherlock also behaved stupidly? John was supposed to stay with Soo Lin, but goes haring off after Sherlock, and Soo Lin ends up dead! Yes, the brother would probably have killed John to get at Soo Lin, but that doesn't make John's move the right one. Also, Sherlock absolutely failed to pay attention, both in Soo Lin's apartment, when he realized far too late he wasn't alone, and when the gang knocked out John and kidnapped John and Sarah while Sherlock was poring over a London A-Z!)
I did think Sarah partly redeemed the episode: a woman who can play with the boys! She doesn't scream and run when her date and his tag-along flatmate get in trouble—she dives in and fights! She saw Soo Lin's writing that Sherlock had failed to see on the photo! I think she's great. I hope we see her again. I think she's good for John (who desperately needs some time away from Sherlock on a regular basis).
And as we sat watching John and Sarah tied to chairs, I said, "Now that's an inappropriate boyfriend."
Brilliant Husband said, "Inappropriate for you, inappropriate for Sarah, or inappropriate for anyone?"
"Yes for Sarah, probably for anyone; I'll get back to you on me."
The following week, my answer changed to an absolute yes: yes to inappropriate, yes to tv boyfriend, yes for me.
"The Great Game"
I should note at the outset that we can rarely manage to put together 90 minutes at a time and so watched each of these eps over two nights. Watching TGG over two nights darned near killed me, because by the end of the first half, I was convinced Moriarty would grab either Mrs. Hudson or John for the final bomb. I was in agonies. Before we got to the second half, I'd started reading fic, avoiding anything that warned for TGG. Unfortunately, when a story description reads something like "John's thoughts when the bomb was strapped to him," watching the warnings is insufficient.
I thought this story was definitely the strongest, though if I start to nitpick, I might not stop (so I'm going to try to avoid nitpicking altogether). Sherlock was absolutely frightening. When he pretended to be an old chum of the missing man to get information out of the man's wife, I screamed at the screen: that was completely unethical! Sherlock doesn't worry much about ethics.
This was the episode with the head in the fridge, wasn't it? I love that scene. That is still funny to me. John's face! Reopening the fridge to be sure that's really a head in there! "You don't mind, do you?"
When I heard a child's voice doing the countdown, I pretty much lost it. (I can't stand children in jeopardy.) I was very glad Sherlock saved him. I thought Cumberbatch's performance was outstanding: he showed just flashes of surprise, concern, even caring, much as Sherlock would deny it. When he said he couldn't care, it seemed clear enough that he couldn't let himself care. He pleaded with the old woman not to talk about Moriarty's voice; he looked lost when they lost the connection.
I did want to bang the boys' heads together for not figuring out that John was an obvious target. They thought they knew the game, but Moriarty always controlled all the rules; why shouldn't it change? Using strangers wasn't fun anymore—probably especially after Sherlock refused to react to the deaths of twelve people from that bomb. (My own bit of fanon here that is probably against what the writers intended is that the pink phone has an active bug, so that Moriarty was eavesdropping on Sherlock all along. Yes, that's cheating—and Moriarty totally cheats. All the time.)
I liked that John really couldn't handle Sherlock's lack of reaction to the deaths. He no doubt felt guilty himself, and he couldn't handle Sherlock's apparent coldness on top of that.
The fade to black at the end left me in silent shock. Usually, I scream at things like that. Instead, I sat there. Brilliant Husband said, "What?" and rewound. I said, "That's it. Cliffhanger." I knew what I'd seen, but I couldn't really process it.
I'm not a slasher for this show, but that doesn't mean that I don't think Sherlock and John don't love each other. They obviously do† Sherlock didn't realize it until awfully late, but obviously he has some difficulties with emotions. I love Sherlock looking back to John for permission for probably blowing them all to heck, and that John gives it.
I love these boys. I want them back! I also like Lestrade, and I'd like to see Sally Donovan as a competent, professional detective who just happens to have a (justified) dislike of Sherlock (whom the word "obnoxious" does not begin to cover). I hope we see Sarah again. I am very glad that Martin Freeman managed to swing a deal whereby he can return for the second series of Sherlock and play Bilbo Baggins in Peter Jackson's Hobbit movies! Can't wait!
* Did anyone else get Blake's 7 flashbacks every time Soo Lin was named?
† I don't see John and Sherlock's love for each other in a romantic or lustful way in the show. I've read some slashfic, and I think of it as AU, as I do most slash. (Yes, I realize that means I'm reading AUs of the Moffat/Gatiss AU of Conan Doyle. That's not a problem for me, somehow.)
I knew I had friends who enjoyed the new BBC Sherlock, but I felt really dubious about setting the whole thing in twenty-first-century London with a tech-obsessed Sherlock. I stayed dubious for approximately 80 minutes of the first episode (they're all 90 minutes, and there are only three in series one!). Of course, by the time we were at minute 60 of the second episode, I was hopelessly hooked. I know we're the last people on the planet to watch and I'm even later commenting, but I hope some of you will comment back and share some squee with me (and maybe a few complaints). Spoilers after cuts.
"A Study in Pink"
I spent most of the episode complaining: Sherlock is too extreme, Sherlock is ridiculous, Sherlock is a sociopath but I'm starting to doubt the "high-functioning" part, etc. We'd figured out it was the cabbie long before Sherlock did—and actually thought he'd figured it out before he had. Srsly? They looked at the cab passenger but not the driver? Steven Moffat Syndrome: careless writing about characters I could so easily love. Also, I hate that Sally Donovan says almost nothing other than "freak" and sleeps with a married man. We have a female detective; can we please have a competent one now? Donovan is simply unprofessional here. (The one saving grace is that it's not her face Sherlock can't stand; it's Anderson's. Otherwise, I would probably have switched it off due to misogyny. I was close at times as it was.)
I fell in love anyway, though I didn't figure that out until the next episode. Benedict Cumberbatch gets nearly unperformable scenes and pulls them off. I'm not sure how, but he manages to make this guy (almost) believable. He gives Sherlock just enough of a sense of humor and irony to make him likable, even.
But they've misnamed the show, because surely it's not about Sherlock! It's about John Watson, the not-quite-sane war veteran who allows himself to be sucked into an even crazier life. Simply living with Sherlock is heroic. Their rapport is wonderful—as are their disagreements.
The creators said they never considered anyone but Cumberbatch for Sherlock, but I read somewhere that they considered Matt Smith for the role of Watson. Will someone please tell me that was never under serious consideration? First off, two tall, gangly young guys with floppy hair running around with each other would be unwatchable. Not that they're bad looking, but they would look absurd together. (I also heard that Cumberbatch was considered for the Eleventh Doctor and suspect that one of these rumors is correct, and the other is a corruption of the correct one. I could be wrong.)
Second, Martin Freeman is brilliant, and I wouldn't want anyone else in the role. I could believe this John Watson would shoot the cabbie. I don't approve (argue with me in comments, if you like). I can totally imagine it, though. He sees Sherlock in danger, he knows the other man is a killer, and he might not know what the cabbie has done to get Sherlock to take the pill, but it sure as heck looks like Sherlock will take it. I think John could not tell for sure, with Sherlock blocking part of his view, whether the cabbie had any weapon other than the pills, or whether Sherlock might have been compromised (already drugged?).
I did think that Mycroft was Moriarty when he first kidnapped John. Silly me. I adored that scene, though: John was so determined, and Mycroft so annoyingly superior and even amused! (I thought John's attempt to ask out Mycroft's assistant was desperation; Brilliant Husband has convinced me that, on the contrary, it's guts. This Watson doesn't lack for guts, or brains.)
"The Blind Banker"
I'm ashamed to say that this episode is where I really fell in love, because overall, it reeked. It's 2010, people! Do all Chinese people have to have Tong connections? Do they all have to be stupid? Soo Lin* hides in (or sneaks back to) the museum where she is eventually found and killed. The General, who should never have lived so long were she an idiot, doesn't do her homework and assumes the guy hollering in the mail slot "I'm Sherlock Holmes!" is actually Sherlock Holmes? Who the frell did she think the tall guy was, then? The muscle? Well, okay, he kind of is the muscle. But that's beside the point! Plus, she apparently took her kidnap victims to the same place that was established in a code as the drop-off point for anyone who did find the missing jade? Then she used a device worth of the 1960s Batman tv show to threaten Sarah? Writers, you need a drug raid!
Really, the episode crossed the line of "culturally insensitive" to downright racist and sexist, I thought. That's why I'm appalled that I enjoyed it anyway.
I did not enjoy the failure to depict Chinese people as rational human beings, or the apparent confusion of Japanese and Chinese culture. (Does it mitigate the failure that John and Sherlock also behaved stupidly? John was supposed to stay with Soo Lin, but goes haring off after Sherlock, and Soo Lin ends up dead! Yes, the brother would probably have killed John to get at Soo Lin, but that doesn't make John's move the right one. Also, Sherlock absolutely failed to pay attention, both in Soo Lin's apartment, when he realized far too late he wasn't alone, and when the gang knocked out John and kidnapped John and Sarah while Sherlock was poring over a London A-Z!)
I did think Sarah partly redeemed the episode: a woman who can play with the boys! She doesn't scream and run when her date and his tag-along flatmate get in trouble—she dives in and fights! She saw Soo Lin's writing that Sherlock had failed to see on the photo! I think she's great. I hope we see her again. I think she's good for John (who desperately needs some time away from Sherlock on a regular basis).
And as we sat watching John and Sarah tied to chairs, I said, "Now that's an inappropriate boyfriend."
Brilliant Husband said, "Inappropriate for you, inappropriate for Sarah, or inappropriate for anyone?"
"Yes for Sarah, probably for anyone; I'll get back to you on me."
The following week, my answer changed to an absolute yes: yes to inappropriate, yes to tv boyfriend, yes for me.
"The Great Game"
I should note at the outset that we can rarely manage to put together 90 minutes at a time and so watched each of these eps over two nights. Watching TGG over two nights darned near killed me, because by the end of the first half, I was convinced Moriarty would grab either Mrs. Hudson or John for the final bomb. I was in agonies. Before we got to the second half, I'd started reading fic, avoiding anything that warned for TGG. Unfortunately, when a story description reads something like "John's thoughts when the bomb was strapped to him," watching the warnings is insufficient.
I thought this story was definitely the strongest, though if I start to nitpick, I might not stop (so I'm going to try to avoid nitpicking altogether). Sherlock was absolutely frightening. When he pretended to be an old chum of the missing man to get information out of the man's wife, I screamed at the screen: that was completely unethical! Sherlock doesn't worry much about ethics.
This was the episode with the head in the fridge, wasn't it? I love that scene. That is still funny to me. John's face! Reopening the fridge to be sure that's really a head in there! "You don't mind, do you?"
When I heard a child's voice doing the countdown, I pretty much lost it. (I can't stand children in jeopardy.) I was very glad Sherlock saved him. I thought Cumberbatch's performance was outstanding: he showed just flashes of surprise, concern, even caring, much as Sherlock would deny it. When he said he couldn't care, it seemed clear enough that he couldn't let himself care. He pleaded with the old woman not to talk about Moriarty's voice; he looked lost when they lost the connection.
I did want to bang the boys' heads together for not figuring out that John was an obvious target. They thought they knew the game, but Moriarty always controlled all the rules; why shouldn't it change? Using strangers wasn't fun anymore—probably especially after Sherlock refused to react to the deaths of twelve people from that bomb. (My own bit of fanon here that is probably against what the writers intended is that the pink phone has an active bug, so that Moriarty was eavesdropping on Sherlock all along. Yes, that's cheating—and Moriarty totally cheats. All the time.)
I liked that John really couldn't handle Sherlock's lack of reaction to the deaths. He no doubt felt guilty himself, and he couldn't handle Sherlock's apparent coldness on top of that.
The fade to black at the end left me in silent shock. Usually, I scream at things like that. Instead, I sat there. Brilliant Husband said, "What?" and rewound. I said, "That's it. Cliffhanger." I knew what I'd seen, but I couldn't really process it.
I'm not a slasher for this show, but that doesn't mean that I don't think Sherlock and John don't love each other. They obviously do† Sherlock didn't realize it until awfully late, but obviously he has some difficulties with emotions. I love Sherlock looking back to John for permission for probably blowing them all to heck, and that John gives it.
I love these boys. I want them back! I also like Lestrade, and I'd like to see Sally Donovan as a competent, professional detective who just happens to have a (justified) dislike of Sherlock (whom the word "obnoxious" does not begin to cover). I hope we see Sarah again. I am very glad that Martin Freeman managed to swing a deal whereby he can return for the second series of Sherlock and play Bilbo Baggins in Peter Jackson's Hobbit movies! Can't wait!
* Did anyone else get Blake's 7 flashbacks every time Soo Lin was named?
† I don't see John and Sherlock's love for each other in a romantic or lustful way in the show. I've read some slashfic, and I think of it as AU, as I do most slash. (Yes, I realize that means I'm reading AUs of the Moffat/Gatiss AU of Conan Doyle. That's not a problem for me, somehow.)
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