[Closed] Sherlock

The Blue Carbuncle. 🙂

Ok, but if you both HAD to pick one.....?

One?
The Man With The Twisted Lip.
Just such a clever story.

FeeFoo - Member
Ok, but if you both HAD to pick one.....?

Well obviously not the Blue Carbuncle.

It'll spread.

Musgrave Ritual is my clear favourite. That or Bruce Partington Plans.

Just starting The Man with the Twisted Lip - thanks all!

Obviously, the majority of the "books" were not books at all, but the stories appeared in Strand magazine. "A Study in Scarlet" and "the Sign of Four" were published unillustrated before this association began and Holmes is pictured first wearing a deerstalker in the fourth illustrated story to appear in Stand magazine, "The Boscombe Valley Mystery", the first time he goes to the country in an illustrated story. He generally wore a trilby in town.

I thought this series was pretty poor - overly stylized and a bit too pleased with itself - and last night's was the worst and was frankly laughable. I won't make a special effort to watch the next series.

Enjoyed it as entertainment
Not a fan of defective series but this has a nice twist to the plot lines.
Good to see Moriarty back, cracking actor.

Like the way the characters are played and the interactions but the story is padded out too much for the amount of time. Hour longs would have worked. What was the point of building up Magnusson making him so odious then killing him? Apart from to bring his PA into play as moriarty's sister with control of media outlets.

I've given this a punt. £0.77 for a Kindle book that has quite a few of the classic stories in it.

[url= http://www.amazon.co.uk/SHERLOCK-HOLMES-Arthur-Conan-Doyle-ebook/dp/B00F11KS6E/ref=sr_1_1_bnp_1_kin?ie=UTF8&qid=1389694692&sr=8-1&keywords=the+man+with+the+twisted+lip ]Clicky[/url]

Apart from to bring his PA into play as moriarty's sister with control of media outlets.

Did i miss this while watching it? Is it a 'fact' that Sherlock's irish squeeze / Magnussen's PA is Moriarty's sister, or is it speculation?

What was the point of building up Magnusson making him so odious then killing him?

And why would the most powerful man in the world reveal to anyone that it was all in his head?

"Oh, so if I just kill you...?"

I also thought that the reveal of the last episode was pretty weak. If he knows the blackmailing material exists, he must have had access to it at some point, but chose not to retain it, but memorise it instead.

So as soon as one of his victims says 'publish and be damned', his whole plan for world domination falls to pieces.

The 'Mary is international assassin' was frankly preposterous, too, as was the 'shoot to seriously injure not kill' idea, given that Sherlock was flatlining at the hospital, so the shot would have killed nine out of ten people.

The whole series has been a bit Doctor Who, smug and self-regarding, too little focus on tight plotting and too much on in-jokes and sorting it all out with a [s]sonic screwdriver[/s] deduction in a couple of seconds flat.

I'd still like to meet the Doctor/Pathologist woman 😉

The whole [s]series[/s] thread has been a bit Doctor Who, smug and self-regarding

Excellent TV, the eye flicking scene in episode 3 was brilliant.

The whole series has been a bit Doctor Who

Agreed, the problem with putting this and Doctor Who in the hands of fanboys, is that they write for fanboys, and that's great if you keep up with every detail, but otherwise it turns off the casual viewer. My son's an avid Doctor Who fan (yes, I know there's a word for it, no, not that word) but I don't get to see every episode. Used to be fine, I'd drop in on the series when I could and enjoy the odd episode - that's becoming increasingly impossible as it becomes so self-referential that unless you've seen all the other episodes and know who everyone is, and what they've done previously, none of it makes any sense.

Sherlock is in danger of going the same way - unless you've seen all the others, don't bother trying to follow it....

Great that they'll get more geeks along to the fan conventions, less great when it gets cancelled because the only people watching it are the geeks who go to fan conventions..

I also thought that the reveal of the last episode was pretty weak. If he knows the blackmailing material exists, he must have had access to it at some point, but chose not to retain it, but memorise it instead.

So as soon as one of his victims says 'publish and be damned', his whole plan for world domination falls to pieces.

Well he did say that as a newspaper person he could publish and then worry about the evidence (or words to that effect). I guess if you think about it, the real damage is in revealing the info as long as it's true, rather than having documentary evidence. Sometimes it's not even the risk of publishing it but giving it to the wrong person like he said to Watson about Mary.

I liked the fact the solution to the problem was as non-cerebral as it could be; shooting the bad guy in the head. That said, the scenes to tie it up and introduce the next season felt a bit rushed.

Excellent TV, the eye flicking scene in episode 3 was brilliant.

Yeah - almost went along with that but then couldn't help thinking what if (we know he's a bit handy) Watson just kicked him in the crutch and said "Didn't see that coming did you, Mr Clever Clogs?"

just seen episode 3, in a different class to eps 1 & 2

I don't get to see every episode. Used to be fine, I'd drop in on the series when I could and enjoy the odd episode - that's becoming increasingly impossible as it becomes so self-referential that unless you've seen all the other episodes and know who everyone is, and what they've done previously, none of it makes any sense

TV shows do sometimes have series-spanning plots.

Yeah - almost went along with that but then couldn't help thinking what if (we know he's a bit handy) Watson just kicked him in the crutch and said "Didn't see that coming did you, Mr Clever Clogs?

Sherlock had Watson on the leash, no? (presumably, in preparation for shooting Magnus Magnussen in the head, and leaving Watson free to live his life without getting charged for murder)

The point about the eye flicking was that Watson had to suck it up for the sake of his Mrs. Which would take a huge amount of strength. And Sherlock shooting the guy was also an enormous gesture of love and friendship. One reviewer complained that Sherlock should not be shooting people illegally, which is true but he did it to take the fall for his friends. Knowing it would lead to his death ultimately. He wanted to set Watson and Mary free from tyranny. It wasn't really dwelt on but it was profound. Greater love hath no man than this...

TV shows do sometimes have series-spanning plots.

Yes, but with Doctor Who, it's stretching to multiple series - if you wanted to get into Doctor Who now, you'd have to watch about three years worth of DVDs to get up to speed on quite a lot of it, River Song etc. In the long term, it's not a good plan - I have another child, who is now 8, roughly the age my lad was when he first got into Doctor Who. My daughter can't get into it, because she doesn't understand what a lot of it is about, since she wasn't watching it two years ago. For a family show, that strikes me as being a short-sighted strategy.

I'm all or keeping the geeks interested, and it's great that there's clues and obscure references for them to pore over in internet forums (both Who and Sherlock), but with Gatiss and Moffatt, it seems that they are writing primarily for those fans, rather than the less obsessive viewer.

I also felt eps 1&2 were weak compared with the previous series and ep3.

Would have been good to have [s]Murdoch[/s] Magnusson built up in the background through the 1st 2 eps (unless he was and it was so subtle I missed it 😀 ) rather than just set up and destroyed in 1 episode.

Sherlock could still have shot him in the head after he got a kicking...

Be honest, you were just hankering for a bit more Watson-based chop sockey action weren't you? TBH, I'm with you there. The knife scene was great.

@edlong, ok fair enough. I'm not a Who-ver (?) and don't follow it, but yes making it impenetrable to new viewers ain't not a good idea.

Watson NOT lashing out was a major plot point. Given we were all screaming for him to do it, and the majority of our US based drama would definitely have had him doing it, it was a brilliant bit of drama imo.

Incidentally, anyone got the last 3 series of Who to lend out? Or know where we can watch it online? Netflix ran out at er.. 6? Or 5? And the Mrs won't watch the current series because she's not up to date. And I don't fancy spending £30 per series on it.

theotherjonv - Member

Did i miss this while watching it? Is it a 'fact' that Sherlock's irish squeeze / Magnussen's PA is Moriarty's sister, or is it speculation?

To continue the Dr Who similarities, Only the [s]Doctor[/s] Sherlock can save [s]the Earth[/s] Britain.
Still enjoyed the series though 🙂

Would have been good to have Murdoch Magnusson built up in the background through the 1st 2 eps (unless he was and it was so subtle I missed it )

He was, they even explained it in ep3, he was behind Watson's abduction in Ep1, so was the main antagonist in ep1.

It wasn't pretty subtle, they even made it obvious by Magnusson calling it out in ep3. With the explanation that Magnusson abducted him to find Sherlocks' 'pressure point'.

Be honest, you were just hankering for a bit more Watson-based chop sockey action weren't you?

Well, er, yeah. O.K. 😀

He was, they even explained it in ep3, he was behind Watson's abduction in Ep1, so was the main antagonist in ep1.

It wasn't pretty subtle, they even made it obvious by Magnusson calling it out in ep3. With the explanation that Magnusson abducted him to find Sherlocks' 'pressure point'.

* I wasn't nodding off, and anyone who says I was is lying...

TV shows do sometimes have series-spanning plots.

Yeah, and I take the point about turning off the casual viewer. But you you know what, 95% of TV output is aimed squarely at the causal viewer and I'm glad that there are a handful of shows that aren't aimed at the lowest common denominator.

Putting that another way: if you're behind on a show, do you bemoan the fact that you've got to wade through the previous three seasons to catch up, or do you think "fantastic, I've got three whole seasons I can watch and enjoy!" If the former, I'd respectfully suggest that you aren't all that arsed about watching it in the first place.

Would Breaking Bad have been improved by making every episode standalone so the casual viewer could watch and completely follow episodes 7, 39 and 60?

Oh, and,

Sherlock has had three "series", which each contained three episodes. The entire thing is nine shows, that's not exactly a great investment. If that's too much for the casual viewer, I suggest the casual viewer goes and watches something more appropriate like Celebrity Big Brother or TOWIE.

TV shows do sometimes have series-spanning plots.

Note how all the suggestions for "best TV series ever" are like this. I challenge anyone to dip into an arbitrary episode of The Wire, for example, and know what's going on.

I'd argue that Sherlock is having a bit of an identity crisis though, not knowing whether to be easily accessible for the casual viewer, or rewarding those who invest time to watch it from start to end. Certainly series 3 has been more superficially "glossy" than I remember the other series being.

The "Moriarty is back" moment did make me think of the reappearance of Bobby Ewing though. Will every series finish with a key character being killed off only to resurrect themselves? It's a bit cheap and tacky.

@cougar

I agree about Sherlock right now, but my original point was not that it is inaccessible now, but that it is in danger of heading in that direction, which is what, in my opinion, has happened to Doctor Who, when I look at the experience of two of my kids, one of who got into it when you could turn on, start watching from there and get into it, and the other of who has tried to watch it, needs constant explanations of who is who (no pun intended), what the background is, what the references are about, and has basically given up on it and decided it's not for her, mainly because she hasn't got a clue what is going on.

Sorry, overly long sentences are a bad habit of mine.

To be fair,

For a family show, new Who is pretty convoluted and can be difficult to follow everything that's going on. Younger kids can just 'bleep' over the references they don't understand and older kids should have the wherewithal to follow it, but I wouldn't be surprised if there's an age group they're overlooking - the ones who are old enough to want to try and understand everything but not quite able to yet. As an adult, I find myself going "wait... what?" at it sometimes.

So why didn't Sherlock sleep with Janine when she very obviously wanted him to?