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The poor man really has a stake in the country. The rich man hasn't; he can go away to New Guinea in a yacht. The poor have sometimes objected to being governed badly; the rich have always objected to being governed at all
We love our superheroes because they refuse to give up on us. We can analyze them out of existence, kill them, ban them, mock them, and still they return, patiently reminding us of who we are and what we wish we could be.
"the play's the thing wherein I'll catch the conscience of the king,
I thought it was OK but not necessarily deserving of the long wait and hype. I can't help feeling that the series is disappearing up the writers' own arses, frankly. It was all a bit meta for my taste.
Bit of a nuisance the long wait times between series/episodes given that we probably won't see series 4 until at least this time next year.
While the idea of a standalone 'alternate reality' version of the show in lieu of the proper series we've been waiting ages for irked me slightly, I was willing to buy into it, and the odd cringeworthy reference to the modern show aside, I really, really liked the first hour. Cumberbatch and Freeman, or the whole cast really, did a great job as their 19th Century counterparts, the production values were excellent, it looked great and was written very well; different enough to the modern version not be anachronistic, but also not just a generic Sherlock Holmes period piece. And then....
Spoiler:
as soon as the 'flash forwards' started, I think it lost the plot really. I was really getting into the alternate version, and then the sudden and jarring shift back to the modern version just killed my enthusiasm. I like the modern version a lot, but up until that point, this was refreshingly different.
Once it got into flashbacks within flashforwards with flashbacks within dream sequences within mind palaces, and ultimately had no resolution whatsoever ('Moriarty is back, but not back, but maybe he is back, but possibly not?') and didn't move the modern day version forward either, I finished it feeling very, very let down by something far too convoluted for its own good, to be honest.
Sherlock has always been good at treading the line between clever and convoluted, but in this case, I think it went too far towards the latter. The performances were exceptional as always, the writing itself was as slick as it usually is, it's just the premise that all of a sudden brought it down for me... I may give it another go knowing what's coming, and see if that's any better, but I just think that a potentially amazing, self-contained story was ruined by trying to connect it to the modern version...
Still very much looking forward to the next series, though, Sherlock remains one of my favourite shows on TV.
I enjoyed it very much but I agree with the criticisms given above.
I accepted it as a Christmas Special, which as with Doctor Who and the X Files can be given some special licence to do something a bit off piste, but
Spoiler:
TBH the idea that Moriarty has come back from the dead but is still dead but is still active but... feth's Sake, make your mind up! Is he dead, or was it all a clever trick and how did he fool a modern post mortem?
I don't like saying this but I kind of feel that Moffat and Gatiss are trying to keep a Holmes/Moriarty gay/slash vibe in the show, which for me spoils it not because I care if Holmes actually is gay but simply because Moriarty is not nearly as interesting as a variety of other mysteries from different characters, and let's not make all the show all about Moriarty.
Spoiler:
Partly because of this I particularly enjoyed the bit where Doctor Watson kicked Moriarty off the cliff.
A much-needed note of pragmatic sanity was thereby injected into the weirdo Holmes fugue.
The last Sherlock episode I liked was the wedding one.
We love what we love. Reason does not enter into it. In many ways, unwise love is the truest love. Anyone can love a thing because. That's as easy as putting a penny in your pocket. But to love something despite. To know the flaws and love them too. That is rare and pure and perfect.
Chaos Knights: 2000 PTS
Thousand Sons: 2000 PTS - In Progress
Tyranids: 2000 PTS
Adeptus Mechanicus: 2000 PTS
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i was really enjoying it up until it all went a bit inception. I wish they'd just left it as a straight forward victorian episode rather than jumping back and forth.
I can't help but feel Moffat shouldn't work on two shows at the same time. Sherlock's Christmas special was good, but should have better, and the same can be said of the Doctor Who Christmas special
The last Sherlock episode I liked was the wedding one.
I agree. I used to really like this show but the last episode of the 3rd series was actually really quite bad. When Sherlock just shoots a guy in the head because he's smarter than him he also killed all my interest in the show.
Kilkrazy wrote: He did it to save the country from a plague of blackmail.
In the original version of the story, if I remember correctly, the blackmailer is acid splashed by one of his victims.
The appropriate Shelockian response to that would still be to out think him. Sherlock is a not a murderer. It's his role as a detective that's made him so endearing not as an assassin. Otherwise surely he would have done a spec ops style hit on Moriarty a long time ago. Which brings me to another problem with the 3rd series.....Watson's wife is a secret agent...
I was of the opinion that an episode set in the "proper" era would essentially be a waste of an episode. A fun diversion, yes, but ultimately one that didn't serve the overall story that the "modern" era Sherlock has been doing. But we got the best of both worlds. We got an old timey mystery, and we moved the narrative forward enough so that we don't have to answer the "How is Moriarty still alive?" question when series 4 starts.
So a fun diversion and narrative progression. Fantastic.
KamikazeCanuck wrote: When Sherlock just shoots a guy in the head because he's smarter than him he also killed all my interest in the show.
Kilkrazy wrote: I enjoyed it very much but I agree with the criticisms given above.
I accepted it as a Christmas Special, which as with Doctor Who and the X Files can be given some special licence to do something a bit off piste, but
Spoiler:
TBH the idea that Moriarty has come back from the dead but is still dead but is still active but... feth's Sake, make your mind up! Is he dead, or was it all a clever trick and how did he fool a modern post mortem?
.
Spoiler:
Everything in the Victorian segments is happening in Sherlock's Mind Palace as he tries to figure out how Moriarty came back from the dead. When he solves the Ricoletti case, he solves Moriarty's return.
To summarise - Mrs Ricoletti is dying of consumption. She fakes her own death and kills her cheating husband as the revenant Bride. She then commits suicide later the same day so the body is identified correctly as hers. In doing so, she creates a myth, a legend - a brand - which, along with her secret society, allows every wronged wife of a cheating or violent husband to kill him without recrimination. It's always The Bride's doing.
The implication is that Moriarty is truly dead, but has set himself up as a bogeyman and cover for someone's - some secret society's? - future criminal activity. It's always the indestructible Professor Moriarty's doing. He paid the terminally ill cabbie to commit murders in a similar fashion back in series one.
Sherlock hints that he did something similar himself - there was a bad-guy double of him floating around in series 3, and he lets slip that Molly Hooper helped him fake his own death with "a body".
It all got a bit messy towards the end - was that Sherlock's modern ex-girlfriend in the secret society (in his head)?
It's possible that I was totally addled by that time on Christmas Day, but that's my reading of it.
I think I followed it, but count me as another one who would have been happier with a standalone Victorian episode.
This message was edited 8 times. Last update was at 2016/01/08 12:43:16
Kilkrazy wrote: He did it to save the country from a plague of blackmail.
In the original version of the story, if I remember correctly, the blackmailer is acid splashed by one of his victims.
The appropriate Shelockian response to that would still be to out think him. Sherlock is a not a murderer. It's his role as a detective that's made him so endearing not as an assassin. Otherwise surely he would have done a spec ops style hit on Moriarty a long time ago. Which brings me to another problem with the 3rd series.....Watson's wife is a secret agent...
Holmes kills Moriarty by chucking him down the Reichenbach Falls. How is that different to shooting Thingy Bloke, in terms of assassinating opponents?
Kilkrazy wrote: He did it to save the country from a plague of blackmail.
In the original version of the story, if I remember correctly, the blackmailer is acid splashed by one of his victims.
The appropriate Shelockian response to that would still be to out think him. Sherlock is a not a murderer. It's his role as a detective that's made him so endearing not as an assassin. Otherwise surely he would have done a spec ops style hit on Moriarty a long time ago. Which brings me to another problem with the 3rd series.....Watson's wife is a secret agent...
Holmes kills Moriarty by chucking him down the Reichenbach Falls. How is that different to shooting Thingy Bloke, in terms of assassinating opponents?
Only in every way. That was Moriarty trying to assassinate Homes which instead ended up in mortal combat which they then both ended up falling to their supposed deaths.
I think Moffat is spiralling out of control and is beginning to transform into the last days of Russell T Davies! By that I mean bloated, contrived, and self-indulgent stories, not just with Sherlock, but with Doctor Who as well.
Like George Lucas with the Star wars prequels, I think Moffat is surrounded by too many yes men, and desperately needs somebody to him that this is a idea, from time to time.
"Our crops will wither, our children will die piteous
deaths and the sun will be swept from the sky. But is it true?" - Tom Kirby, CEO, Games Workshop Ltd
idea, from time to time.
