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Source: (consider it) Thread: Sherlock - triumphant return or disappointment?
quetzalcoatl
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Laughing at fans, or in fact, cruelty to the audience is a venerable tradition, in any case. No sentimentality in our art, you see!

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ecumaniac

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So….. the bit towards the beginning where Sherlock is being interrogated. Did anyone else find that scene sexy/hot? Was it just me? Trying to work out if I'm a (statistical) pervert.

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Paul.
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I was too busy trying to decide if the Christ imagery - shirtless man, head bowed, long hair, arms outstretched - was deliberate.
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Tubbs

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quote:
Originally posted by Firenze:
OTOH, Gatiss and Moffat have to be well in the obsessive Holmsesian nerd class to have created the series. I think they are quite well aware of how close they are to the fan-fic huddles - except they have got a budget from the BBC.

Having watched Gatiss' series about British horror films, that seems spot on. They are professional fan-boys! I saw that various explanations more as a nod and a wink to the audience than contempt / mockery.

Looking forward to this evening.

Tubbs

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ecumaniac

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quote:
Originally posted by Late Paul:
I was too busy trying to decide if the Christ imagery - shirtless man, head bowed, long hair, arms outstretched - was deliberate.

That has *got* to be deliberate! Surely - it's too obvious not to be.

Also, it doesn't seem like a very good position to interrogate someone in. Arms together above the head would be better. Ahem.

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Adeodatus
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quote:
Originally posted by Late Paul:
Sherlock, being a show about a very clever detective, has to have a complex puzzle-crime to solve. And it has to have the figleaf of seeming like a very clever, watertight, only-possible-way-to-fit-the-facts solution. But in terms of the show, that's just the MacGuffin. What the show is really about is the relationship between Holmes and Watson.

We could say the same about the original stories. It has been pointed out (I think in an introduction to an edition of the complete stories I once read) that Holmes rarely solves a case by using his "methods". He might make a deduction or two, but often the resolution will come about by setting a trap for the crook, or a stroke of luck, or by some revolver-toting bravado on the part of Holmes and Watson.

More than that, Holmes's "deductions" are really nearly always inferences. He works on balances of probabilities rather than watertight deductions. You'll rarely read one of his episodes of showing-off without being able to go back, look critically at it, and think, "Yes, but that observation could also mean ...".

I like the way that, at least, the current series has sidelined some of the dodgy "science" of the originals. Last week's deductions from the hat are a case in point. In the original version (in The Blue Carbuncle, one of my favourites), much is made of the size of the hat owner's head. In the modern version, Mycroft merely sneers, "Women can have big heads too." Loved it!

Just off to settle into the sofa for this evening's treat ...

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Paul.
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I want to clarify that I don't think Gatiss/Moffat are mocking the fans contemptuously or cruelly, I think it's more of a gentle teasing, and I agree they too are fan-boys. However I stand by my reading that they've made it clear where their priorities lie. They want to entertain. If a few plot-holes slip through... oh well.


quote:
Originally posted by ecumaniac:
quote:
Originally posted by Late Paul:
I was too busy trying to decide if the Christ imagery - shirtless man, head bowed, long hair, arms outstretched - was deliberate.

That has *got* to be deliberate! Surely - it's too obvious not to be.


I agree it's obvious but I spent a few minutes wondering what that means if anything. Also wondered if we're too secular in general to get the allusion. I guess we are but the imagery's still iconic and potent.

quote:
Also, it doesn't seem like a very good position to interrogate someone in. Arms together above the head would be better. Ahem.
I bow to your superior knowledge. [Biased]
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Paul.
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quote:
Originally posted by Adeodatus:
More than that, Holmes's "deductions" are really nearly always inferences. He works on balances of probabilities rather than watertight deductions. You'll rarely read one of his episodes of showing-off without being able to go back, look critically at it, and think, "Yes, but that observation could also mean ..."

Indeed and it's why I probably wouldn't be watching if it were a more rigorous attempt to follow the "method". There's a favourite SciFi book of mine that does a similar thing - there's a whole plot that not only relies on the main character making a certain chain of reasoning about the causes and effects of events on a cosmic scale (spatially and temporally) but that the characters he interacts with thinking the same way and therefore he's able to predict their behaviour. It's always slightly irked me although I still love the book.

So maybe I would still watch after all [Big Grin]

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Garasu
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The "method" surely was always inductive? Whatever Conan Doyle called it...

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Angloid
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quote:
Originally posted by betjemaniac:
I think there's "obsessive geekiness" which may be indulged in for effect - eg "why would there be two stations so close together?/look at the shape of the doors!" and then there's how in God's name do you park a single carriage on the Underground for 24 hours without either crippling the network or causing an almighty crash (much the same thing)?

That's not geekiness, that's an enormous plot-hole which should never have got past the storyboarding. If they couldn't think of a way of doing it, just have the train stopped briefly while they shove explosives in a vent shaft or something.

As a sort of train geek (only sort of because I have met the real thing!) I can cope with trains in the wrong livery or anachronisms in historic dramas. But what almost ruined this episode for me - it didn't because the overall thing was so good - was the confusion between the sub-surface District line and the deep-level tubes like the Jubilee and Piccadilly. It seems to me it makes all the difference. The idea of using a train parked in a siding only a few feet below to blow up the Houses of Parliament seems feasible: using one a hundred or so metres deep in a tube tunnel such as those used for WW2 air raid shelters, doesn't seem a very good idea. Of course that would cause massive destruction but I can't see it doing much more than loosen the foundations.

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Doublethink.
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I like that it is funny [Smile]

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Pyx_e

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Awesome.

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balaam

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How does Cumberbatch do that twirl when taking the overcoat off/putting the overcoat on. It's very distinctive. Is the coat weighted at the hem?

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Ariel
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OK, not great. Overlong and bitty. No real plot, and more about relationships than actual cases, with plot pretty much sidelined. I'd been looking forward to this episode, but having sat through an hour and a half of it, feel I've had an overdose of the clever Mr Holmes for the time being.

On the plus side, some genuinely very funny bits in it, but not really enough to swing it to being a great episode.

[ 05. January 2014, 21:06: Message edited by: Ariel ]

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SyNoddy
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The verdict of the jury at chez SyNoddy was a solid 4 stars.
We loved the comedy of the stag night, the humour of Mary "running" both of the boys at the same time and even enjoyed the plot to kill the victim at the wedding. Didn't guess the method but had spotted the assassin.

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Penny S
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Wasn't the reception venue (the inside, anyway), the same one used in Dr Who for Rory and Amy's wedding - or do they all look the same?

[ 05. January 2014, 21:29: Message edited by: Penny S ]

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balaam

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I guessed the weapon wrong. I thought that for the guardsman in the shower a sharpened icicle would have worked. It would have melted in the hot water. How the killer then got out of the shower after that I didn't work out.

As usual I was wrong.

But why does it have to be about murder or potential murder? Not many of the original stories were about murders, there is a much wider range of crimes in the original stories. This is supposed to be based on Conan Doyle not Agatha Christie.

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Firenze

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quote:
Originally posted by balaam:
I guessed the weapon wrong. I thought that for the guardsman in the shower a sharpened icicle would have worked.

But then you need the thermos flask.

The dead man walking has its parallel in the assassination of the Empress Elizabeth of Austria (which John Dickson Carr* brings into one of his novels as support for the MO of the plot).

*whom I first discovered as the co-author, with Adrian Conan Doyle, of some further Holmes stories.

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quetzalcoatl
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I thought it was a tour de force. The cross-cutting was handled with great elan throughout, especially during the best man's speech.

Difficult to summarize really, a kind of heightened effect of fantasy, or a sort of delirium of TV technique. Remarkable.

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M.
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I thought it was amusing enough, enjoyable enough - but it felt like a parody of itself.

And are we always going to get lots of gooey emotion now? Why does everything have to be gooey emotion these days?

M.

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Schroedinger's cat

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Good points: I like the fact that they are trying to make some good drama out of the interaction between the characters, not just in the crime solving. I don't know if it works completely, but I like the idea. There is more to them - well, Watson at least - than a detectives sidekick.

Meh points: Sherlock telling a story of a crime he failed to solve?

Problem points: Two experienced soldiers are stabbed with a very sharp weapon, and don't notice a thing? No pain at all? Nothing they would check out?

The first soldier is stabbed through his clothing, and yet Sherlock does not even examine it to check? It would have been clear, surely, if he had?

So I am rather ambivalent about the episode. Maybe because I expected more.

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Firenze

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I thought it was supposed to have gone through an aperture in the belt buckle?

We are never told Watson's middle name in Doyle: 'Hamish' is from the Holmesiana canon as well - from a 'biography' - can't remember the author, but I borrowed it from Belfast Central Library sometime in the mid sixties, so published a while ago.

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Lord Jestocost
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quote:
Originally posted by Penny S:
Wasn't the reception venue (the inside, anyway), the same one used in Dr Who for Rory and Amy's wedding - or do they all look the same?

And for Gwen and Rhys in Torchwood, I thought ... Other wedding venues probably exist in Cardiff but this may be the most TV friendly.
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Penny S
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quote:
Originally posted by Lord Jestocost:
quote:
Originally posted by Penny S:
Wasn't the reception venue (the inside, anyway), the same one used in Dr Who for Rory and Amy's wedding - or do they all look the same?

And for Gwen and Rhys in Torchwood, I thought ... Other wedding venues probably exist in Cardiff but this may be the most TV friendly.
Or they have an arrangement with Moffatt and Gatiss which will benefit both sets of parties. Fans wanting Who/Torchwood/Sherlock themed do's?

[ 06. January 2014, 10:37: Message edited by: Penny S ]

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Firenze

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quote:
Originally posted by Penny S:
Or they have an arrangement with Moffatt and Gatiss which will benefit both sets of parties. Fans wanting Who/Torchwood/Sherlock themed do's?

I think that is both improbable and in certain lights, a tad libellous.

Scouting locations is a function of programme researchers. Any contract or remuneration would be between the proprietors and the BBC.

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Penny S
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Not intended that way.
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Moo

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quote:
Originally posted by Firenze:
The dead man walking has its parallel in the assassination of the Empress Elizabeth of Austria (which John Dickson Carr* brings into one of his novels as support for the MO of the plot).

Georgette Heyer does the same thing in Envious Casca.

Moo

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The Great Gumby

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quote:
Originally posted by M.:
I thought it was amusing enough, enjoyable enough - but it felt like a parody of itself.

This. If you were going to do this, it was probably a fairly good way to do it, but I wish they hadn't. I got completely bored halfway through when we got onto yet another "OMG Sherlock doing something he's really bad at!!1! LOL" moment. There were some good moments, but it was generally disappointing. In both style and content, it looks closer to fanfiction than the brilliance of the previous series.

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Pine Marten
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quote:
Originally posted by ecumaniac:
So….. the bit towards the beginning where Sherlock is being interrogated. Did anyone else find that scene sexy/hot? Was it just me? Trying to work out if I'm a (statistical) pervert.

No, you're not the only one [Hot and Hormonal] .

quote:
Originally posted by Firenze:
We are never told Watson's middle name in Doyle: 'Hamish' is from the Holmesiana canon as well - from a 'biography' - can't remember the author, but I borrowed it from Belfast Central Library sometime in the mid sixties, so published a while ago.

Yes, I think either Mary or the second Mrs Watson calls him James in one story, and it is glossed as a Scottish version of the name. I've got the book somewhere.

I got rather bored with the speech and with the stag night, which went on far too long, and they appeared to be drunk for too long. I liked the cutting between scenes/flashbacks and laughed several times, but it wasn't up to the high standard of the episodes so far. I recorded it and watched it after we got back from our Epiphany do but I found myself looking at the clock now and again [Frown] .

Actually I thought the weapon might be an icicle, too.

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Paul.
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I mostly enjoyed it - the earlier part rather than the later. Lots of funny moments.

I have my own "would that really happen?" question about the crime though. Not the technical details of it but the character motivation. Someone prepared to kill an unrelated person merely as a rehearsal is a different kind of killer than someone who kills to revenge a family tragedy. Could be both but I felt it needed some character development to explain that, something we (necessarily perhaps) didn't get.

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Adeodatus
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I liked it very much. It was an interesting step away from the Conan Doyle canon, and gave Mary Morestan something like the attention she deserved.

The attempted murders themselves were riddled with holes (much as the victims were), and I agree with those who've questioned whether an aggrieved relative would have committed a "rehearsal" murder. But it was lovely, the way the plot elements slowly drew together. The scripts for Sherlock are consistently clever and tightly written - there's barely a wasted element. Everything turns out to be either a Chekhov's Gun or a proper red herring, designed to mislead us. (With the mention of "ginger", "Redbeard", and the bank robberies, did anyone else think we were going to get a version of "The Red-headed League"?)

Sherlock / Doctor Who crossover trivia: Alfred Enoch, who played Bainbridge the Bloody Guardsman, is the son of William Russell, who played companion Ian in Doctor Who.

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Sarasa
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I was disappointed, thought it was too self-indulgent and went on far too long. There were good bits, and the basic plot was clever, but my least favourite episode so far. I did get the idea of having already been stabbed, but I thought it was something embedded in their belts.
On another note, is anyone else irritated by Sherlock's attitude towards religion? In the original books Sherlock seemed to have quite a lot of faith in divine justice, in this series he seems to have signed up to the New Atheist agenda.

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Panda
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I don't know; if you mean his comments regarding the clergy in the speech, I didn't think he was any ruder than he was towards anyone else, which took some doing... Was there anything else?
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Jane R
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Firenze:
quote:
The dead man walking has its parallel in the assassination of the Empress Elizabeth of Austria (which John Dickson Carr* brings into one of his novels as support for the MO of the plot).
I remembered Agatha Christie had done it and someone else, but I'd forgotten the someone else was John Dickson Carr...

I got the method but not the murderer. And am I the only one who thought it was a bit implausible that the soldiers didn't think of the 'dead man walking' idea? Surely they, of all people, must know what a badly wounded man is capable of doing?

Agree with Ariel's assessment - some funny bits and good ideas, but too long and overly concerned with the relationships. And I kept expecting the Hyaenodons to turn up - oh wait, that happened in Primeval...

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Adeodatus
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quote:
Originally posted by Gussie:
On another note, is anyone else irritated by Sherlock's attitude towards religion? In the original books Sherlock seemed to have quite a lot of faith in divine justice, in this series he seems to have signed up to the New Atheist agenda.

To be fair, the point at which he dismissed God as a fantasy was part of that lovely arc in which he was first sentimental, then massively offensive (more to the bridesmaids than the vicar, I thought), but then turned his offensiveness to self accusation. How did it go? - "Dismissive of the virtuous, blind to beauty..."

The one thing I did notice, particularly in this episode, is that present-day Sherlock is a very different personality from Conan Doyle's Holmes. Holmes, while sometimes odd and remote, seemed always to know how to behave in social situations, whereas modern Sherlock doesn't. Holmes was almost always well mannered and polite (unless he was riled), but modern Sherlock wouldn't know good manners if they bit him on the backside. It seems like modern Sherlock is the unnatural offspring of Conan Doyle's Holmes and The Big Bang Theory's Sheldon Cooper.

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The Rogue
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I'm always thinking of Sheldon when I see Sherlock.

But not vice versa.

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Sarasa
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Adeodatus said:
quote:
The one thing I did notice, particularly in this episode, is that present-day Sherlock is a very different personality from Conan Doyle's Holmes. Holmes, while sometimes odd and remote, seemed always to know how to behave in social situations, whereas modern Sherlock doesn't.
I think this is one of the reasons I didn't like the best man's speech bit. The tone varied qildly from the mawkishly sentimental to the downright rude - it semed a complete caricature of Holmes' character in the Conan Doyle stories. I think the writers have been too influenced by House and Hugh Lawrie's character in that. House was always being very acerbic about any signs of religios faith in his patients.

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'I guess things didn't go so well tonight, but I'm trying. Lord, I'm trying.' Charlie (Harvey Keitel) in Mean Streets.

Posts: 2035 | From: London | Registered: Jan 2007  |  IP: Logged
Pine Marten
Shipmate
# 11068

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Yes, I've just realised that this (and its length) is why I didn't like it either. Conan Doyle's Holmes enjoys the theatre, concerts, dining out. He can be sociable and expansive when he wants to be. Sherlock is not like this, and the episode did seem to be a bit of a caricature.

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Keep love in your heart. A life without it is like a sunless garden when the flowers are dead. - Oscar Wilde

Posts: 1731 | From: Isle of Albion | Registered: Feb 2006  |  IP: Logged
cattyish

Wuss in Boots
# 7829

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Great fun. I'm looking forward to seeing how Sherlock and Mary get on. They could have a great fight if they really disagree on something.

Cattyish, not a Londoner.

Posts: 1794 | From: Scotland | Registered: Jul 2004  |  IP: Logged
Robert Armin

All licens'd fool
# 182

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Were we ever told exactly what the murder weapon was? The idea of the injury only becoming fatal when the belt was taken off was excellent (in my humble o) but I can't see how a blade long enough to be fatal could have been used on either victim.

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Keeping fit was an obsession with Fr Moity .... He did chin ups in the vestry, calisthenics in the pulpit, and had developed a series of Tai-Chi exercises to correspond with ritual movements of the Mass. The Antipope Robert Rankin

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Jane R
Shipmate
# 331

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If you know exactly where to stab, you wouldn't need a very long knife. But I agree, it's odd that nobody else saw it - the blade must have been three or four inches long at least.

(NB information on stab wounds gained from reading detective stories, not personal experience!)

Posts: 3958 | From: Jorvik | Registered: May 2001  |  IP: Logged
Lucia

Looking for light
# 15201

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Watched episode 2 last night courtesy of iPlayer!
I enjoyed it but I can't shake the feeling that in this series it has evolved into a slightly different programme. This episode seemed to have been written more as a comedy. There were always amusing things in Sherlock before but it was more subtle and incidental to the story. Or maybe I'm imagining that? I think I'm going to have to go back and watch the previous series again for comparison!

Posts: 1075 | From: Nigh golden stone and spires | Registered: Oct 2009  |  IP: Logged
Lucia

Looking for light
# 15201

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Oh and another question, can anyone shed any light on Mycroft's comment about Redbeard to Sherlock when he phones him from the wedding reception. Sherlock replies that he is not a child any more. So what's all that about?
Posts: 1075 | From: Nigh golden stone and spires | Registered: Oct 2009  |  IP: Logged
Jane R
Shipmate
# 331

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Redbeard the pirate? There's a well-known series of French comic books about him... (well-known in French, anyway; they haven't been translated)
Posts: 3958 | From: Jorvik | Registered: May 2001  |  IP: Logged
The Great Gumby

Ship's Brain Surgeon
# 10989

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quote:
Originally posted by Adeodatus:
quote:
Originally posted by Gussie:
On another note, is anyone else irritated by Sherlock's attitude towards religion? In the original books Sherlock seemed to have quite a lot of faith in divine justice, in this series he seems to have signed up to the New Atheist agenda.

To be fair, the point at which he dismissed God as a fantasy was part of that lovely arc in which he was first sentimental, then massively offensive (more to the bridesmaids than the vicar, I thought), but then turned his offensiveness to self accusation. How did it go? - "Dismissive of the virtuous, blind to beauty..."
Also, Conan Doyle's Holmes didn't use nicotine patches, or own a smartphone. I think a certain amount of dismissive rudeness about religion is entirely in keeping with the character as reimagined for the 21st century.

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The first principle is that you must not fool yourself, and you are the easiest person to fool. - Richard Feynman

A letter to my son about death

Posts: 5382 | From: Home for shot clergy spouses | Registered: Feb 2006  |  IP: Logged
Paul.
Shipmate
# 37

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quote:
Originally posted by Lucia:
Watched episode 2 last night courtesy of iPlayer!
I enjoyed it but I can't shake the feeling that in this series it has evolved into a slightly different programme. This episode seemed to have been written more as a comedy. There were always amusing things in Sherlock before but it was more subtle and incidental to the story. Or maybe I'm imagining that? I think I'm going to have to go back and watch the previous series again for comparison!

Have to say for me humour's always been pretty high in the mix. I re-watched A Study in Pink just before Christmas so it's fairly fresh in my mind, and the initial scene with the text messages at the press conference was (and for me still is) very funny.
Posts: 3689 | From: UK | Registered: Jun 2004  |  IP: Logged
Lord Jestocost
Shipmate
# 12909

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quote:
Originally posted by Lucia:
Oh and another question, can anyone shed any light on Mycroft's comment about Redbeard to Sherlock when he phones him from the wedding reception. Sherlock replies that he is not a child any more. So what's all that about?

I assumed some childhood trauma that gives Mycroft a hold over Sherlock - the kind of thing that is more of a joke if it's left to the imagination. A bone thrown to the fanfic writers; maybe significant later on, maybe not.
Posts: 761 | From: The Instrumentality of Man | Registered: Aug 2007  |  IP: Logged
Mr Clingford
Shipmate
# 7961

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I very much enjoyed the ride this week. Fantastic.

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Ne'er cast a clout till May be out.

If only.

Posts: 1660 | From: A Fleeting moment | Registered: Jul 2004  |  IP: Logged
Jammy Dodger

Half jam, half biscuit
# 17872

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Loved the latest episode. Some really great moments - looking forward to what's next...

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Look at my eye twitching - Donkey from Shrek

Posts: 438 | From: UK | Registered: Oct 2013  |  IP: Logged
Hugal
Shipmate
# 2734

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I quite enjoyed the episode. It was complicated yes, and it had a lot of humour yes, but you can't have Sherlock be Watson's best man and not explore it thoroughly.
I too thought the practice murder was an icicle.

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I have never done this trick in these trousers before.

Posts: 1887 | From: london | Registered: Apr 2002  |  IP: Logged



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