On the logic of Sherlock's world

As I alluded to back in my review of Sherlock (the third season that is) I was more than a bit disappointed in how the season's "grand villain" was handled because it just didn't make any logical sense to me. Logic is a bit part of the setting for any story, it determines how the world works, how character's react, what is and isn't possible (which informs the audience of what may or may not happen) and when you have a story where this isn't made clear usually it becomes a plot point in and of itself. So when Sherlock, which had already done a good job at establishing that it was set in a world like ours, just one with a genius detective in it, started to have it's villain act differently, well, it meant that the world stopped working for me too.

(spoilers ahead)

TV Series Review: Sherlock (season three)

Goodness it's been a long time since this show started, as the opening credits rolled by I was thinking that way back when this show first aired I had just started dabbling in video but by now I could do a fair recreation of the opening on my own if I put my mind to it (and put in quite a few hours of work that is). Back then barely anyone had heard of this show too and now it's everywhere. Before the first episode aired I was chatting with my mom and she said that they were taping it, my aunt's sister said that they would be watching it when I got home that evening if I wanted to join them, I started watching it while babysitting since my charge was already in bed, and when the parents came back, before the episode ended, they said that they were taping it too! Really, now everyone and their cat is watching the show (no seriously apparently my cat loves it when my mom watches Sherlock since it means he can sit in her lap for a full hour and a half without being moved).

Sherlock (season three)

Documentary Review: How Sherlock Changed the World

Someone on twitter pointed out this little documentary to me and, since I'm waiting for the PBS broadcast of Sherlock which won't start for another few weeks, it seemed like a fun little diversion in the meantime. And I was curious, considering that the science Sherlock Holmes used, based on what I remembered from reading the books, seemed so similar to modern day forensics there's no way Arthur Conan Doyle made up all of that, right?


How Sherlock Changed the World

TV Series Review: Sherlock (season two)

Compared to the rest of the internet I'm rather late here but, considering the last episode only aired (legally) in the US last Sunday I'm not doing too bad actually. When my mom and I first heard that there was going to be a five month gap between the BBC and American showings (and I'm rather unhappy at their "we have to edit it to fit American format" excuse, the show is on PBS which doesn't even have commercial breaks!) we guessed that we probably wouldn't be able to wait and did watch the first two episodes in March but weren't able to get to all three because of their length (each episode is a long, hour and a half long), thankfully PBS has them legally streaming on their website for now (abet cut down by eight minutes or so for each episode, I really don't understand why they can't at least leave the full episodes online where there are no time restrictions on it AND they make money off of the commercials).

Sherlock (season two)

Summary: Following last season’s harrowing cliff-hanger, Sherlock (with John in tow) tackle three more mysteries, based and expanded upon the original Sir Arthur Conan Doyle canon, but with Moriarty afoot there might be some things that even Sherlock cannot work out in time.

The Good: I'm not fond of villains like Moriarty, I like them to have more of a motive than what boils down to "I was bored" but here he was just so insane underneath it all, although his last scenes of the season felt a bit contrived, like Moffat and Gatniss had been written into a corner and didn't have a really good way to get out. All of the mysteries were interesting and stayed true to the spirit of the original stories and the new elements worked in well (especially in the case of the Baskervilles) and Sherlock's explanations for the cases make enough sense to be plausible. In short, if you liked the first season (and if you haven't you really shouldn't watch this one first) you'll enjoy this one quite well.  

The Bad: While Sherlock is far from the first mystery series to have this problem it was tiresome after a while to see just how dumb and incompetent everyone around Sherlock is and they don’t even seem stupid by comparison, it really seems like the London police force has exceedingly low standards for general intelligence among it’s employees*. I had issues with Irene Adler as well, mainly since she deviated so much from the original canon (where she was a clever and quick thinking woman who was the one person ever to catch Holmes off guard, here whatever cleverness she has is buried under UST with Sherlock^) and I’m also tired of the “sexually confident women can wear skimpy clothes because they’re that happy with themselves!” idea, it just rings like a hollow excuse for fanservice and that was supposed to be a plot point early on.

The Audio: This may be just me but whenever I hear one of the main themes played in Sherlock I always feel as if it’s drawing inspiration from other Sherlock Holmes adaptations. I don’t mean that in a bad way at all, and it’s possible that I’ve seen so many series I’m trying to see connections that aren’t there (by my own count I’ve seen roughly 60 hours of Sherlock Holmes tv series/movies), but the music for this series has always seemed like a perfect and seamless fit here.

The Visuals: The show has created a very distinct looking style of cinematography with many quick shots, overlaid with text to give the viewer insight into Sherlock’s methods, often in close-up with a very shallow depth of focus, combined with some tilt-shift shots of London every now and then as transition shots, which serves to re-emphasis that Sherlock has a strange mind that sees the world in odd ways. As I believe I mentioned last time, I’ve seen a few of these quirks appear in various Doctor Who episodes but never with the frequency that they are seen here and they do keep the show interesting in a unique manner.

One thing that does puzzle me is that I saw a lot of praise for Molly online once the show finished it's British run and I'm not entirely sure why. People mentioned a speech of hers and I'm wondering if that was part of the 8 minutes that were cut, she did have a speech but it just didn't seem, well, strong enough to merit that much discussion I saw. My mom and I feel like a scene with her was also cut for a few other, spoilery, reasons, if anyone has a list of the cuts made to the US version (for any of the episodes) please share since I would love to know.

*I feel like I’ve had this problem with Moffat’s work before too, he loves to build up his main characters but doesn’t quite seem how to flesh out the side characters as well 

^funny enough I don’t have a problem with Sherlock being interested in her, mainly because being asexual does not mean you can’t have romantic feelings for someone and Mycroft says point blank in that episode that Sherlock was a romantic. Holmes originally was certainly both asexual and aromantic but, possibly this is after seeing the two recent American Sherlock Holmes films and how they played with Irene Adler I’m willing to give the series a pass on that point

Tv Series Review: Sherlock

Happy New Year everyone! I was thinking about putting up a list last night of my top three anime/books/ect from 2010 but, while I could think of my top three anime and books easily I had trouble with all the other categories so I scrapped that idea.
But, and I didn't plan it like this actually, this is the first review that I didn't post on my old livejournal so I'm ringing in the New Year with new reviews. I still have a ton of reviews to write (I had to stop writing them mid-November when my NaNo started taking a lot of time) so I'll try to get out one or two each day until I run out and that probably won't be until mid-January. So, onto the review of Sherlock!

SHERLOCK

Summary: Doctor John Watson has just gotten back from serving in Afghanistan and comments to an old friend that he must be a very difficult person to room with. Enter Sherlock Holmes, the worlds only consulting detective who regularly helps the London police but only with the cases he finds interesting. 

The Good: It’s a very good update to the story, the characters still feel like themselves (well, Mycroft is rather different but he still fits well into the story), the cases are still twisty and, like I mentioned in the various Granada reviews, the viewer can actually guess how the case will end if they pay attention (and I’ve seen some people over the years criticize the books for not having Sherlock bring up the important details at the time which is a valid reason for not liking them). I also enjoyed the very cutting British humor here, the characters are wonderfully sarcastic and I’d even call it one of my favorite bits of the series.

The Bad: Well, it’s rather short (three, hour and a half long episodes) and ends on a cliffhanger so it won’t be an easy wait for season two (which I believe is also planned for three episodes). Little worried that the Moriarty plotline will be dragged out in the next season but that’s not a concern yet and it was handled well here. My only real complaint with the series is that the middle episode is rather forgettable. This series, like all the other Sherlock Holmes series out there, is episodic and the first and last episodes are just more memorable than the middle one. Can you skip it? Sure I guess, it doesn’t really advance the Moriarty plot or expand on John and Sherlock’s characters a lot, but with a series this short I don't see why you would want to cut it out.

The Music: There is a lot more background music in this series than in the Granada series I noticed and it reminded me of the music I saw in the recent movie.

The Visuals: It may be a coincidence but both here and the first episode of Doctor Who (season five, the one where Steven Moffat is now the show runner) had very interesting visuals in the first episode and they seem a bit more experimental than what is used in the later ones. Here we had a lot of words floating around as Sherlock investigated, texts appeared as text on screen, and occasionally we got a bit of visual insight into Sherlock’s mind, all of which I really liked. And there is something just so British about the videography, part of it may be how the framing and movement of the shots is much more interesting than what you would find on an American tv show or maybe it’s because the Brits seem to use more blue in their color schemes. In any case, I found the show very visually interesting and some of the tricks used helped the viewer understand Sherlock more and, considering how eccentric the character is, that is certainly a good thing.

I really did like this series and I know I'll get it on Blu-Ray someday (ie, when I actually have a BR set up) for rewatching. I'm a little worried how the second season will go (I'm not sure if can pull off three episodic episodes that are all connected by an overarching story arc without feeling like a re-hash of the first season) but I'm eagerly awaiting it!