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"The Final Problem" (BBC Sherlock): Review

1/17/2017

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Here's my review of the final episode of Season 4 of the BBC's Sherlock, and possibly the final episode of the entire series. This review was originally published on I Hear of Sherlock Everywhere.
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"It is with a heavy heart that I take up my pen" [FINA] 

[Editor's Note: this is the eighth in our series of reviews for Series 4 of Sherlock. There are spoilers below. Don't say we didn't warn you.]

Where to begin? How does one describe this beautiful mess, this sublimely ludicrous end to a season that has delighted and frustrated so many viewers? Well, I guess we have to start with the obligatory spoiler warning. I mean, for the love of all that is Sherlockian, don't think about reading any further until you've watched the final episode of Season 4 of Sherlock: "The Final Problem."

Let's start with that title: despite the obvious reference to perhaps the most famous of all Holmes stories in the Canon, this episode has little to do with Doyle's story of the same name. Moffat and Gatiss had already plundered Doyle's "The Final Problem" back in Season 2, with "The Reichenbach Fall." So plot-wise, there's not much in the way of references to that source material, other than a certain air of finality at the end of the episode. But more on that point later...

There are references to the Canon, of course, as we have come to expect from this series: the reference to "The Three Garridebs" (just their names—the plot point is completely different); the "Dancing Men" reference in the final montage. Perhaps other more eagle-eyed Sherlockians will detect other clues. And there was a delightful detail in the final shot, where a placard on a building clearly reads "Rathbone Place," a cheeky little extra-canonical tidbit. But I'm getting ahead of myself again.

As a fan of comic books when I was younger, I can't help but think that the island fortress of Sherrinford was reminiscent of Arkham Asylum from the Batman series: a place where only the most brilliant of the criminally insane reside. Meanwhile, the writers made the parallel to Silence of the Lambs explicit in the scene where Sherlock first visits Eurus at her cell, and a guard refers to the famous film/novel. Eurus certainly brought Hannibal Lecter to mind right away.

Perhaps one of the biggest laughs I got (maybe the only laugh, considering the dark tone of the episode) was when the camera panned down through the floor at 221B, to show Mrs. Hudson vacuuming her floor, while listening to Iron Maiden's "Number of the Beast" on her headphones. No, that's not right, I did laugh at one other spot: the great musical cue at the beginning of the flashback to Moriarty's visit to Sherrinford, wherein he's listening to Queen's "I Want to Break Free." Typical Moriarty flash and cheese, all in one delicious moment.

The Critical Question
At this point, though, I have to ask myself: canonical references and humorous musical cues aside, what about the rest of it? Did this episode, in fact, make any sense?

No, I don't think it did. For all their attempts to really wow us, with all the suspense — will Sherlock shoot Watson or Mycroft? Will Mrs. Hudson perish in the explosion? Will Molly Hooper die because she won't say "I love you"? — for all that, much of the action felt horribly contrived to me. If anyone has watched any of the Saw films, there's often a point in those elaborately executed torture traps where the viewer thinks, "How could anyone possibly set all of this up?" In the case of Eurus Holmes, a woman who had been incarcerated for much of her adult life, I found myself thinking the same thing: even with the help of the guards that she had (almost magically) talked into doing her bidding, there was just too much planning and almost superhuman omniscience involved in setting up her elaborate test of brothers Sherlock and Mycroft.

Speaking of superhuman, we're also forced to believe that Sherlock, John and Mycroft (not to mention Mrs. Hudson) all walked away from the huge explosion at 221B, with nary a scratch on them? For heaven's sake, Sherlock and John were blown through a second story window!
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But this same superhero-style Sherlock doesn't even realize that there is no glass between him and Eurus, the whole time he's talking to her? Nope, sorry, I don't buy it. I've stood in front of glass walls, and it's quite easy to tell the difference between glass and thin air. And it takes that long for Sherlock to figure out that the little girl on the plane is all a ruse? As they have in the past, Moffat and Gatiss seem to have thought we, as viewers, would simply accept their overly elaborate game (that's "not a game any more," according to the trailer), and not notice how far-fetched the whole thing was, or how lame Sherlock has gotten at figuring things out.

Almost the entire length of the episode, I just kept thinking, "No, that wouldn't happen that way...no, that just isn't possible." Just as they did at the beginning of Season 3, when everyone wanted to know how Sherlock had survived his "Reichenbach Fall," the Sherlock writers simply said, "We don't need to explain it. Sherlock's just the cleverest man alive." Except for when he's not. Which leads me to the end...

There has been much speculation, especially as Season 4 has progressed, as to whether this will be the last season of Sherlock. The final montage of this episode certainly seemed to lean that way: Mary's final words about her "Baker Street Boys...Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson!" had a definite air of finality about them. Are Moffat and Gatiss going to accomplish what Arthur Conan Doyle failed to do with his "Final Problem"? Will this be the end of the story? Doyle tried to kill off his detective, but ended up bringing him back to life. All of our favorite characters (well, most of them) are still alive and well at the end of this "Final Problem." So I guess the future of the series is still open.

Of course, that leads me to my final dilemma: how do I view this episode as a series finale, rather than just a season finale, if that's what it turns out to be? I suppose, to a certain extent, this finale demonstrates what Sherlock has always been: entertaining, frustrating, impressed by its own cleverness, slick, modern, and completely in love with its source material. I mean, that's what's kept so many of us coming back, through the long hiatuses and all that, isn't it?

It's always been clear (to me, at least) that Moffat and Gatiss absolutely adore the characters and stories created by Arthur Conan Doyle. In the end, if it is actually over, the whole series is kind of like a crazy, devoted fan fiction: they have always said, "What if?" What if Sherlock Holmes and John Watson were living in today's world? What stories could we tell about that?

And they did.
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Countdown to SHERLOCK Season 4

12/30/2016

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A bit of fun...click on the image below to begin.

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Good news for BBC Sherlock fans

7/2/2014

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The following announcement just showed up on the Sherlock Facebook page:
Did you miss us?

We can confirm that #Sherlock will be back with a special followed by a series of three new episodes!

Shooting on the special will begin in January 2015, with the series shooting later next year. The game is on! #221back
I suppose I can wait that long for the next new material from this excellent show. That special had better be good, though...
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In which I look at Series 3 of Sherlock (SPOILERS)

2/3/2014

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If you haven't seen "His Last Vow" (Series 3, Episode 3 of Sherlock), then...SPOILER ALERT!

Despite a few minor disappointments (How did Sherlock really fake his death? What was the point of the cruel joke on John in the subway car? Did we really need Sherlock to puke on the carpet?), I thoroughly enjoyed this third series.  "His Last Vow" was as excellent an episode as I've ever seen.  Charles Augustus Magnussen was a truly creepy villain.  And the relationship among Sherlock, John and Mary was really nicely done.  Here are a few of my favorite moments:
  • Sherlock reveals himself to John.  As Moffat and Gatiss have pointed out in interviews, ACD wrote Holmes's reappearance just a little too nicely: Sherlock appears, John faints.  Doesn't ring true, does it?  In "The Empty Hearse" (a title with a fun play on canonical material), John's reaction is much more entertaining, and a bit more realistic, after Sherlock's two year hiatus.  Meanwhile, the comic element in Sherlock's attempt at a dramatic reappearance, and the jokes about John's mustache, were a great deal of fun.
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  • The character of Mary Morstan.  Mary as she appears in The Sign of Four is a bit bland as a character in her own right.  Mary Morstan on Sherlock is a rich, fun, quirky character with a fascinating backstory.  The chemistry between her and John (no doubt due in part to the real life relationship between the two actors) is lovely to watch, and even more lovely is how Mary fits into the relationship between Sherlock and John.  I won't recap the entire plot of "His Last Vow" here, but the writers chose to go in directions that I never saw coming.  I was literally on the edge of my chair during much of that episode, and found myself shouting at the screen several times.
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  • The best man speech.  Oh my goodness, what a wild piece of writing this lengthy segment was!  To really appreciate it, I found I had to watch the episode a second time.  There's so much going on throughout ""The Sign of Three," that I didn't enjoy it as much on the first viewing as I did on the second.  But Cumberbatch's acting is so richly layered in the episode, and John and Mary's reactions, as well as the reactions of several of the guest, really made it a fascinating thing to watch.
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  • Charles Augustus Magnussen.  Oh wow, this guy is SLIMY.  The scene towards the end where he flicks John's face repeatedly actually made me uncomfortable, as it was designed to do.  And Sherlock's "solution" to the problem almost made me jump out of my chair!  Lars Mikkelson's performance was nothing short of brilliant: so quietly menacing, and such a contrast to the manic nature of Andrew Scott's Moriarty.  I'm not sure that the twist of Magnussen having his own "mind palace" worked 100% for me, but it was unexpected, to say the least.
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I've seen complaints from some Sherlockians that there wasn't enough mystery in the third series, or that some of the plot twists didn't make sense, or that the third series was a disappointment to them.  Hey, to each his own.  But, apart from not knowing the "real" solution to Sherlock faking his death (or not being sure whether I know it or not), I found the third series of Sherlock to be an amazing ride, especially "His Last Vow."  Now let's just hope we don't have to wait another TWO YEARS...
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Article Link--One Fixed Point: “Sherlock,” Sherlock Holmes, and the British Imagination

1/31/2014

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I really enjoyed this article from www.themillions.com: http://bit.ly/1fnlqiF.  (It's too long to copy here, but well worth reading.  Thanks to Dr. Amy H. Sturgis (amyhsturgis.com) for posting this on her Live Journal blog.
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A.V. Club article compares Elementary and Sherlock

1/21/2014

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The article below is from The A.V. Club website.  It's a very insightful comparison of Elementary and Sherlock, and even though I still lean towards Sherlock in my affections, the author raises some excellent points.  I've mentioned on this blog before that it took me a little while to warm up to Jonny Lee Miller's portrayal of Holmes, but I do think he brings his own unique twist to the role.  Cumberbatch is still my favorite, but Miller is a close second.

You can read the article at its original home here.


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It’s Elementary, Sherlock: How the CBS procedural surpassed the BBC drama
  Zack Handlen
  Jan 20, 2014 • 12AM

The announcement that CBS would air a modern adaptation of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s most famous character was met with a certain amount of skepticism. This was understandable. The world was not exactly hurting for new versions of Sherlock Holmes, and any attempt to tell more stories about the influential icon smacked less of creative inspiration than of a desire to attract audiences with something almost, but not exactly, the same as something they already liked. Even more damningly, there was already a modern adaptation of Sherlock Holmes on the air: BBC One’s Sherlock, starring Benedict Cumberbatch as the World’s Greatest Detective, alongside Martin Freeman as His Guy Watson. Debuting in 2010, two years before Elementary’s premiere, the series created by Steven Moffat and Mark Gatiss arguably filled any conceivable Holmes-shaped hole in viewers’ lives. Surely another take on the iconic character from creator Robert Doherty would be a disappointing, pale copy by comparison. He’d even turned Watson into a woman. The absolute nerve.

Hopefully the skeptics gave Elementary enough benefit of the doubt to watch a few episodes. Turning John into Joan (and casting Lucy Liu in the role) wasn’t just a gimmick, but rather the central part of a commitment to finding a new take on the Holmesian mythology. Over the course of its first season and a half, the series has defined itself as a thoughtful, sharp, warm investigation into the central characters’ history, relationships, and philosophy. There’s a wholly unexpected, and entirely welcome, vitality to Elementary at its best, a sense of new ground being uncovered rather than old ground being re-trod—and while it’s not perfect, it does more than simply justify its existence. By now, the antisocial genius who solves crimes without being able to understand people is a trope so old it reads like a Mad Lib waiting for the latest iteration of proper noun/verb/adjective. But Doherty and his writers have found new life in the concept by creating an antisocial genius who is more than a cartoon. In doing so, they’ve given us a new, but still recognizable, Sherlock Holmes (Jonny Lee Miller), one who is in many ways superior to his Cumberbatchian counterpart.

The major objection to Elementary before it debuted was its apparent superfluity, but that objection no longer holds water; there’s something gratifying in knowing that for once, the cynical (and sensible) reaction to the news that two different networks were developing the same source material was proven false. WhileSherlock’s playful style and Tumblr-friendly leads have their pleasures, the show also has some significant flaws, flaws that Elementary, in its low-key, airs-on-CBS-so-we-all-assume-it’s-for-old-people way, has largely avoided. Shocking as it may be, considering their relative positions in the pop culture zeitgeist, Elementary is a fundamentally better series, with a richer supporting cast, a more consistently rewarding structure, and a far more compelling perspective on its protagonist.

Sherlock’s episodic design is both one of its great strengths and its biggest weaknesses. British television seasons (or series; we’ll stick to “seasons” here to avoid a bad comedy routine) are typically shorter than American ones, butSherlock takes this to the extreme, with only three episodes per season, each running roughly 90 minutes. On the plus side, this allows for greater dramatic builds, as movie-length stories are allowed to play out without needing to break into smaller, 45-minute chunks. But the limited episode number makes for a severe shortage of distinct mysteries. By and large, each Sherlock entry keeps its focus on a single plotline, and while the best episodes have enough twists and turns to keep that line from dragging, there’s little of the comforting regularity that Doyle’s fiction generally delivered. The few Holmes novels aside, the detective’s main presence was in short fiction, and its familiar routines work best in the aggregate. By limiting the characters’ exposure, the BBC series puts substantially more focus on big moments and iconic surprises, often to its detriment. And in those cases when a mystery fails to live up to snuff (like, say, “The Blind Banker,” with its dimly racist Orientalism, or “The Hounds Of Baskerville,” which comes perilously close to Scooby-Doo territory), it means a third of a season’s worth of plotting wasted.

Operating under the traditional American television model, Elementary is allowed more room to breathe. With only a season and a half under its belt, the show has put out nearly 40 episodes; and while not every one of those episodes is a classic, it matters significantly less when a particular adventure fails to live up to expectations. Each episode of Sherlock must be, by the show’s design, an event. This leads to episodes that are wildly dramatic but often lacking in substance, relying on flashy twists and excessive (if frequently effective) emotional manipulation to reach audiences. In contrast, Elementary, with its stolid procedural approach and more conventional pacing, gains strength from allowing character responses in situations to develop naturally over time. Season-long mysteries can fade into the background when necessary, offering the chance for steadier pacing, and far more consistent world building.

This leads to another area in which Elementary is superior to Sherlock: the depth and variety of its supporting cast. Six episodes in, Sherlock has its two leads, and they are unquestionably the strongest figures in the series. That isn’t in itself a complaint; Sherlock and Watson are necessarily the focus of their own stories, and if Cumberbatch and Freeman didn’t work so well together, there wouldn’t be a show. The problem is that the two men don’t exist in a vacuum, and while there is a supporting ensemble surrounding them, that ensemble exists largely to offer straight lines for Sherlock to bounce off of. Mrs. Hudson (Una Stubbs), Molly Hooper (Louise Brealey), and DI Lestrade (Rupert Graves) are likable figures, but they have little selves beyond their relationships with the leads. Even Mycroft, Sherlock’s brother (played by show co-creator Mark Gatiss), who operates in the highest echelons of British government, is largely a distant observer who steps in when a plot needs instigating or resolving. It’s not necessary for every character to have a rich inner life, but apart from the actors’ game efforts, it’s often hard to detect if these people have any lives at all. This limits the writers’ options; outside of guest stars, the only character pairing to generate reliable dramatic energy is Sherlock and John, and the need to find ways to keep them vital together is already showing signs of strain at the start of the show’s third season.

Elementary fares much better. People like Captain Thomas Gregson (Aidan Quinn) and Detective Marcus Bell (Jon Michael Hill) didn’t arrive on the scene fully fleshed out, but over the course of the show’s run, they’ve developed into more than just exposition delivery devices. Gregson’s home life was the subject of at least one storyline, and his occasional issues with Holmes’ methods make him more than just a good-natured doof relying on an outsider to do his job for him; this season, Bell was injured in the line of duty as a direct result of Holmes’ carelessness, and his recovery has become a small but important running storyline. Elementary’s Mycroft (Rhys Ifan) has a complicated relationship with Sherlock that suggests resentments and affection lingering beneath the surface, and Alfredo Llamaso (Ato Essandoh), Sherlock’s AA sponsor, helps keep the detective’s addiction problems a relevant part of the series.

Even Elementary’s take on Watson is more complex and interesting. The Sherlockversion is perfectly acceptable: Freeman is well cast, and does a fine job of switching between outrage, awkward double takes, and astonishment. But it was established in the first episode that Watson’s war experience (he served as an army doctor in Afghanistan) had deeply affected him, and this has been largely forgotten, outside of the occasional tossed-off bit of dialogue. Though he’s given the dignity of outside work and occasional love interests, Watson’s main job is to react to Sherlock. As Joan Watson, on the other hand, Lucy Liu gives life to one of the stronger female roles on network television, a former surgeon turned sober companion who first meets Sherlock when his father hires her to help him go (and stay) drug-free. Over the course of the first season, Watson helped bring balance and perspective into Holmes’s world, while he, in turn, offered her a glimpse of the challenges and gratification of investigative work. It’s an equal partnership that allows Watson agency and standing without diminishing Holmes’ gifts.

The best development of Elementary’s first season is also one that requires a bit of spoiling; if you haven’t seen the season, and have avoided learning about it, feel free to skip this paragraph. For both TV versions of Holmes, it was inevitable that Moriarty would eventually come into play. Despite appearing only briefly in Doyle’s stories (and basically having been created so the author could have an excuse to kill off his most famous creation), the evil professor has long been a key figure in Holmesian lore. On Sherlock, Moriarty (Andrew Scott) was a bratty, petulant psychopath, a twisted mirror version of Sherlock’s own childish self-regard. All well and good, but there’s nothing particularly innovative about this take, and the showdown between hero and villain, for all the fireworks surrounding it, was never much in doubt. Elementary, however, decided to combine Moriarity with another of piece of the mythology: Irene “The Woman” Adler. On Sherlock, Adler is a dominatrix who briefly defeats Holmes before her emotions get the better of her (a twist that manages the neat trick of being even less progressive than the Victorian-era short story which inspired it). But the Adler to Miller’s Holmes is a former lover whom he initially believes to have been murdered; her death sent him to drug addiction, which in turn led to his arrangement in New York with Joan Watson. The twist being that Adler isn’t dead, and is, in fact, the mysterious “Moriarty” whom Sherlock spends most of the first season tracking down. The idea of Sherlock being infatuated with his criminal counterpart (and apparent intellectual match), feelings which don’t disappear even when he helps turn her over to the police, offers tremendous opportunities going forward, and, in retrospect, seems like the most natural idea in the world. Who else would a man obsessed with solving crime fall in love with?

The key difference between Sherlock and Elementary comes down to the way each show treats its protagonist. Everything in Sherlock revolves around Sherlock. He is the series’ sole reason for existing, and the dynamic remains frozen in amber. Sherlock will do something outrageous, everyone will gasp, but then he’ll solve a crime or offer a token gesture of commiseration, and everyone will move on. It gets old, because the show simultaneously wants its audience to be shocked by Sherlock’s behavior, and charmed by his roguish self-regard and evident brilliance, without much variation. Elementary takes a broader view. As Sherlock, Miller is often standoffish and arrogant, but he exists in a world that refuses to let him off the hook for his mistakes or his behavior; better still, he recognizes his failings, and is clearly working toward addressing them. This doesn’t mean the series is about “fixing” Holmes, or even that the character is inherently broken, but it allows for the possibility of growth and change. OnSherlock, Holmes is constantly bemoaning that he’s surrounded by idiots, and it’s hard to argue his point. On Elementary, Holmes is engaged in the slow, painful process of accepting that those “idiots” might have something to teach him. The former has its moments, but the latter makes for better television and more rewarding art.
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Let's talk about Watson...

1/16/2014

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One of the great things about Elementary and Sherlock, and even the Guy Ritchie films, is that the character of Watson has finally broken out of the Nigel Bruce mold.  Not to completely denigrate Nigel Bruce's contribution to Holmesian film history, but he made the stereotype of Watson as an old bumbler the standard for an awfully long time.  Watson ended up being a comic figure, almost the polar opposite of the brilliant figure of Sherlock Holmes.  But now we have Jude Law--brave, intelligent, handsome; we have Lucy Liu--a female twist on the character, but a brilliant detective in her own right; and possibly the best actor to ever play Watson, Martin Freeman, whose depth and nuance are really astounding.

And it's more than simply casting fine actors as Watson; the balance of Sherlock Holmes and his trusty companion has been restored.  In the canon, Watson is an essential element of almost all of the cases, and Holmes trusts him completely.  There is a mutual admiration between the characters that is wonderful. Not that Watson isn't sometimes critical of Holmes, though...I think the recent versions mentioned above have all grappled with Watson's frustration with Holmes.  Sherlock in particular has explored a very complex give and take between Holmes and Watson, wherein John becomes devoted to Sherlock as his friend, but is sometimes very angry with his callousness and his inhumanity.  In Elementary as well, Lucy Liu's Joan Watson can be highly critical of Sherlock, while he can be quite cruel to her at times; but the mutual admiration and trust are always there.  Jude Law's Watson seems to have a short fuse when it comes to Holmes and his idiosyncrasies, but he and Holmes still seem to respect each other.

After all, what do we know about Watson from the Conan Doyle stories? (We don't really know his middle name, but that's a subject for another time...) We know he was an army doctor, wounded in battle (in either the shoulder or the knee, or perhaps both.)  We know Holmes trusts him completely, so much that when the King of Bohemia suggests in "A Scandal in Bohemia" that he would rather talk to Holmes alone, Holmes says, "It is both or none."  We know that Watson is continually amazed at his friend's deductions; however, Watson never seems to have any problem following Holmes in his reasoning, and he certainly does an excellent job of recording those deductions for posterity.  We know that the two men are close enough friends that, even after the good doctor gets married, he still spends a considerable amount of time with Holmes, and always seems ready to drop everything to accompany him on cases.  And when it comes to the much publicized issue of Holmes's use of cocaine, Dr. Watson does not hesitate to make his displeasure known to the detective.  So it makes sense that portrayals of Watson on film and TV shouldn't distill the character down to a bit of comic relief.

I realize there have been other actors in the past who haven't followed Nigel Bruce's lead in their portrayals of Dr. Watson.  David Burke, the first Watson in the Granada TV series which featured Jeremy Brett as Holmes, was a particular favorite of mine.  But Brett's Holmes was so brilliant, I often thought Burke, and Edward Hardwicke, who replaced him, were often overshadowed a bit.  The lovely thing that's happened in the recent film and TV incarnations of Sherlock Holmes and Watson is that Watson, be it John or Joan, has emerged from Holmes's shadow, and gotten a fair share of the limelight. And interestingly enough, when Watson gets his (her) share of that light, Holmes shines all the brighter.
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Victorian vs. Modern...and other debates

1/13/2014

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I remember, once I'd seen Jeremy Brett play Sherlock Holmes, arguing with my grandfather about which actor was better: Jeremy Brett or Basil Rathbone?  My grandpa was a Rathbone man through and through; for him, Rathbone simply was Holmes.  Funny thing was, my grandpa considered himself a "purist" when it came to Sherlock Holmes.  And yet, compared to Brett's sometimes slavish, but almost always brilliant, portrayal  of the detective, I considered Rathbone's Holmes way off base.

Nowadays, judging from many comments I've seen on Sherlockian forums, a similar debate rages: those who prefer Holmes in his Victorian element, and those who enjoy the recent programs that update Holmes to the 21st century.  The Victorian crowd often consider themselves the purists in the argument; one comment I saw in a thread about Elementary said, "It's simply NOT Holmesian!" (Whatever that means...)  But I often wonder, is the Victorian setting really all that important, or is it the Holmes-Watson relationship and the deductive reasoning? Or some mysterious balancing of those elements?

For example, look at Guy Ritchie's Sherlock Holmes films compared to Elementary and Sherlock.  For my money, despite the fact that Ritchie still places Holmes in a (stylized) Victorian England, the two TV shows, particularly Sherlock, do a far better job of maintaining what I would consider to be the essential character of Sherlock Holmes.  But clearly, there are an awful lot of Holmes fans who completely disagree with me. Looking back to my old debate with my grandpa, though, I can see that I was kind of on the Victorian side of the argument back then.  I mean, I still think Brett was a better Holmes than Rathbone, but my grandpa still thought Rathbone was more Holmesian (whatever that means) than Brett, and it apparently didn't bother him that Rathbone was fighting Nazis, brandishing guns, and driving around in cars.  The setting didn't mean as much to Grandpa as the portrayal of Holmes himself.

And so the debate continues, and I doubt there will ever be much agreement.  After all, Holmes fans can be a pretty devoted lot.  Before there were Star Trek fans and Star Wars fans attending Comic-Con, there were Holmes fans arguing about the most minute details, playing the great game.  The game is still afoot...or as Benedict Cumberbatch's Holmes says, "The game, Mrs. Hudson, is on!" But that's an argument for another day...

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Some thoughts on Sherlock vs. Elementary

1/11/2014

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I will be the first to admit, when I first saw Elementary on CBS, I wasn't impressed.  The BBC's Sherlock had captivated me from its very first scenes, and Elementary didn't compare...at least on my first viewing.  However, after the second season of Elementary was almost halfway done (and I was still waiting for the third series of Sherlock to begin), I decided to give the show another chance.  And I'm glad I did.  After I took the time to "live with" the characters of Holmes and Watson as they are portrayed on the American show, I found myself really enjoying it, albeit in a completely different way from how I enjoyed the British show.  So here are some of my thoughts on the differences and similarities between Sherlock and Elementary.


 The most obvious similarity between the two shows is, obviously, that on both shows Holmes and Watson (and some of Doyle's other characters) have been brought into the 21st century.  While this may seem to some Holmes fans to be a bold move, it is certainly not unprecedented.  The famous series of films starring Basil Rathbone and Nigel Bruce as Holmes and Watson also placed the characters in what was then a modern setting: the era of World War II.  Indeed, Holmes and Watson ended up pitted against Nazis and German spies, as well as the infamous Professor Moriarty.  So updating the setting from Victorian England is not as innovative as it may seem.


Sherlock does, I suppose, have a stronger link to the quintessentially English flavor of Doyle's work, as Holmes and Watson still work in London.  Elementary's New York setting is a bit more divorced from the source material, and having Sherlock be the only British character among a mostly American cast gives the stories a more American "flavor."  Meanwhile, the choice of Elementary's creators to transform Dr. John Watson into former Dr. Joan Watson lends a completely new dynamic to the duo. Perhaps that's why I initially preferred Sherlock to Elementary: the Holmes/Watson relationship in the British show is far more similar to Doyle's characters. 

Then there's the structure of the shows: each episode of Sherlock is like a feature film, while Elementary is structured more like an American CSI drama.  The episodes of Elementary are quite clearly structured with an eye towards commercial breaks happening at certain points in the story.  Sherlock has a more sustained dramatic flow.  Overall, the feel of Sherlock is more like a feature film, while the feel of Elementary is more like a typical American CSI show.  


Finally, there's the matter of how each show makes use of "canonical material."  Sherlock is loaded with references to Doyle's characters and plots; most of the episodes of the show thus far have paid some sort of tribute to stories from the Holmes canon.  Elementary gives the occasional nod to characters or situations from the canon (Captain Tommy Gregson, Charles Augustus Milverton, and Silver Blaze leap to mind), but for the most part, the plots are all original material, with Holmes and Watson as the protagonists.  Most interesting in this regard is probably how Elementary handles the characters of Moriarty and Irene Adler.  (SPOILER ALERT!)  Combining the two characters into one woman is a clever idea, and just as the dynamic between Holmes and Watson is changed by making Watson female, so is the dynamic between Holmes and his archenemy drastically altered.  Having Moriarty turn out to be Holmes's former lover whom he believed dead adds new layers to the relationship.  It will be interesting to see if the Moriarty plot is developed further.


Summing it all up, we have in Elementary and Sherlock two modernized Sherlock Holmes series, that approach the source material in very different ways. In my opinion, the British show is a bit more sophisticated in its style and writing, but the American show has much to recommend it to the Holmes fan.   I will attempt in later posts to discuss the differences between Benedict Cumberbatch and Jonny Lee Miller's approaches to the character of Holmes, and the differences between Martin Freeman and Lucy Liu's handling of Watson.
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    About Me

    I'm a stay-at-home dad, and Director of Music Ministries at a United Methodist Church in Mt. Juliet, TN. And a longtime fan of Sherlock Holmes.

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