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?
Yeah, I was wondering whether I had missed something (entirely possible) or whether this was speculation.

To continue the Dr Who similarities, Only the Doctor Sherlock can save the Earth 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 may have had a few “extended blinks” during expisode 3…

* 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?