I've considered watching that show, but never got around to it. What happened?
"Sherlock" started off as a brilliant modern update of Sherlock Holmes, with Watson as an army medical man just returned from Afghanistan (oh, the irony of history) who is writing up Holmes' cases for his blog, and Holmes as a tech wizard who annoys Lestrade by sending disparaging text messages to everyone in a press conference simultaneously (while Lestrade is addressing it), with Holmes solving actual cases composed of clever sidelong references to the canon stories: http://archive.boston.com/ae/tv/articles/2010/10/22/sherlock_holmes_in_a_strange_and_brilliant_take_as_a_pbs_series/
Unfortunately I still think the first episode of the first series was the best of *any* of them (though perhaps that's nostalgia speaking)
The updated Moriarty and 'archenemy' strand never worked very well for me (I really can't see Moriarty as a giggling young psychopath), although the 'Reichenbach fall' was clever. (Moriarty comes up with a way to destroy Sherlock's reputation by making it look as if he has faked his cases, thus causing him to fall in the eyes of the press.)
And with the third series it started turning into over-the-top soap opera about Sherlock's family relationships and childhood traumas and deceptions in the Watson marriage -- by this point they were hardly featuring actual cases at all, so far as I remember. The final episode, featuring elaborate games being set up for Sherlock to solve by the evil genius little sister whose existence he had conveniently wiped from his memory, was just pretty silly. I'm not sure where on earth they can go from there, if ever they do a fifth series (increasingly unlikely now, I think, with everyone involved committed elsewhere), but not back to the uncomplicated and fiercely intellectual 'consulting detective' episodes of the beginning. It's not that those first episodes weren't emotionally involved, because they *were* ("A Study in Pink" is simultaneously hilarious, nail-biting, and deeply touching -- one of the few TV episodes where I've actually wanted to cheer at the screen). They just weren't all *about* 'Sherlock trying to cope with emotions' at the expense of his dignity and self-possession and the viewer's intelligence. Frankly, my suspicion is that the writers found coming up with actual crime mysteries too difficult and went for self-indulgent whizz-bang conspiracies instead...
I just happen to like faces with strong cheekbones and deepset eyes (that resemble mine :-p)
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2019-03-15 11:37 pm (UTC)"Sherlock" started off as a brilliant modern update of Sherlock Holmes, with Watson as an army medical man just returned from Afghanistan (oh, the irony of history) who is writing up Holmes' cases for his blog, and Holmes as a tech wizard who annoys Lestrade by sending disparaging text messages to everyone in a press conference simultaneously (while Lestrade is addressing it), with Holmes solving actual cases composed of clever sidelong references to the canon stories: http://archive.boston.com/ae/tv/articles/2010/10/22/sherlock_holmes_in_a_strange_and_brilliant_take_as_a_pbs_series/
Unfortunately I still think the first episode of the first series was the best of *any* of them (though perhaps that's nostalgia speaking)
The updated Moriarty and 'archenemy' strand never worked very well for me (I really can't see Moriarty as a giggling young psychopath), although the 'Reichenbach fall' was clever. (Moriarty comes up with a way to destroy Sherlock's reputation by making it look as if he has faked his cases, thus causing him to fall in the eyes of the press.)
And with the third series it started turning into over-the-top soap opera about Sherlock's family relationships and childhood traumas and deceptions in the Watson marriage -- by this point they were hardly featuring actual cases at all, so far as I remember. The final episode, featuring elaborate games being set up for Sherlock to solve by the evil genius little sister whose existence he had conveniently wiped from his memory, was just pretty silly. I'm not sure where on earth they can go from there, if ever they do a fifth series (increasingly unlikely now, I think, with everyone involved committed elsewhere), but not back to the uncomplicated and fiercely intellectual 'consulting detective' episodes of the beginning. It's not that those first episodes weren't emotionally involved, because they *were* ("A Study in Pink" is simultaneously hilarious, nail-biting, and deeply touching -- one of the few TV episodes where I've actually wanted to cheer at the screen). They just weren't all *about* 'Sherlock trying to cope with emotions' at the expense of his dignity and self-possession and the viewer's intelligence. Frankly, my suspicion is that the writers found coming up with actual crime mysteries too difficult and went for self-indulgent whizz-bang conspiracies instead...
https://www.deviantart.com/igenlode/art/Self-portrait-with-moustache-401234324