Re: Sherlock - BBC [4]

by Eldorion Sun Feb 08, 2015 6:30 pm

Simulpost with Petty there. I've only read a couple of the original Sherlock stories, and Baskerville is not one of them, so I can't comment too much on the modernization angle, but I thought the episode stood up well with its own themes.

by Pettytyrant101 Sun Feb 08, 2015 6:38 pm

The original is as you would expect- it plays on the genuine fears of ghosts and spooks and devils and god, it also requires that luminescent paint be a new high tech thing and the same goes for mastiffs.
In short it relies a lot on fears of the time, high tech stuff of the time thats now ancient tech, and a set of beliefs that have largely died out.

So whilst I thought the angle they took on it was acceptable and made sense, I still didn't feel it actually worked as well as the original- its not as tense or scary a story as the original was to its audience.

by halfwise Sun Feb 08, 2015 6:55 pm

Right on target. A secret high tech biological lab is just not the same level of creepiness as a giant spectral hound. And you never got the sense of the moors as an ancient place with embedded darkness.

So the episode worked when in the villages surrounding the moor, but felt silly once the lab was brought in. It simply didn't work.

by halfwise Sun Feb 08, 2015 7:01 pm

And as I posted about a year ago, the thing about deriving chemical composition using an optical microscope sent my crabbit off the deep end. If it has to be a microscope, it would be an electron scanning microscope analyzing the xrays emitted when electrons strike. But that only gives you relative element abundance, so you'd have to couple with a mass spectrometer.

The thing is, a writer is given holy hell when messing up historical facts and so will usually at least investigate, but they don't even bother to investigate scientific facts. There's no need to read journal papers, all they need do is ask. Folks would be glad to help get it at least somewhat right.

by Eldorion Mon Feb 09, 2015 3:21 am

halfwise wrote:Right on target. A secret high tech biological lab is just not the same level of creepiness as a giant spectral hound. And you never got the sense of the moors as an ancient place with embedded darkness.

So the episode worked when in the villages surrounding the moor, but felt silly once the lab was brought in. It simply didn't work.

I disagree. I thought the hound was plenty spooky in the episode, but I think the idea of government labs conducting secret experiments on their citizens is plenty creepy as well, all the moreso because it's something that we know has happened in the not-very-distant past (Tuskegee comes to mind). And if you broaden the scope of concerns about overreach of government power beyond just immoral experimentation, the episode touches on all sorts of very contemporary fears, such as the Snowden mass surveillance revelations (which became public after the Baskerville episode aired). That's the sort of thing that should be massively creepy and worrying to people, though what's perhaps equally worrying is the number of people who took it completely in stride. :/

by chris63 Mon Feb 09, 2015 4:41 am

by malickfan Mon Feb 09, 2015 4:19 pm

I still haven't got round to watching eps 2/3 of series 3, were they really that bad?

(And I really liked the Baskervilles Ep, though I haven't read any of the books)

by Mrs Figg Mon Feb 09, 2015 5:14 pm

Eldorion wrote:I'm one of the like half a dozen people who actually really enjoyed the Baskerville episode.

I really enjoyed it too. Thumbs Up

It seemed like a real Sherlocky episode as opposed to season 3 which seemed like an ego trip for He Who Cannot Be Named Very Happy

by Mrs Figg Mon Feb 09, 2015 5:16 pm

Eldorion wrote:The entire premise of Sherlock Holmes is silly if you get right down to it. I thought that the Baskerville episode was very effective in its creepiness. Given how short the seasons were, I really appreciated the chance to just follow the characters as they try to solve a mystery, without any world-shaking plots or life-altering consequences cropping up for once. Don't get me wrong, the episodes with those things are great too, but they can only happen so often before I want to see what the characters are up to when the world isn't ending. Those sort of everyday stories are the bread and butter for a lot of TV, and I think it's actually one of TV's biggest advantages over movies. You have the time to explore the lives of the characters in a lot more detail. For as short as the seasons of Sherlock are, I was really glad they took the opportunity to do that. (The Blind Banker tried something similar, of course, but I didn't care too much for that one.) I thought that they took a really interesting tactic in modernizing that particular story, and Gatiss is absolutely right about how the things that we find scary are different now than a century ago, making the government conspiracy angle highly effective. Plus it had some really nice location shooting and solid character moments with Sherlock and John.

I know that I'm very much in the minority with this opinion, but I honestly can't recall most of the criticisms of the episode because it aired about three years ago. But I'd be happy to read any of you guys' thoughts on it.

I totally agree with you on all points Very Happy

by Eldorion Tue Feb 10, 2015 12:56 am

I'm glad I'm not alone on the Baskerville episode. Most people I've talked to about it, both online and IRL, have been down on the episode. My mom was the only other person I recall having enjoyed it til now. Smile

by Eldorion Tue Feb 10, 2015 12:57 am

I vaguely recall hearing something last year about the elderly Sherlock Holmes movie starring Ian McKellen, but this is the first clip or trailer I've seen of it, and it's sold me on the film already.

by halfwise Tue Feb 10, 2015 1:02 am

I read about, and the whole idea seemed rather dodgy to me, but it looks like it may charm it's way through.

by David H Tue Feb 10, 2015 1:45 am

Eldorion wrote: I think the idea of government labs conducting secret experiments on their citizens is plenty creepy as well, all the moreso because it's something that we know has happened in the not-very-distant past (Tuskegee comes to mind). And if you broaden the scope of concerns about overreach of government power beyond just immoral experimentation, the episode touches on all sorts of very contemporary fears, such as the Snowden mass surveillance revelations (which became public after the Baskerville episode aired). That's the sort of thing that should be massively creepy and worrying to people, though what's perhaps equally worrying is the number of people who took it completely in stride. :/

While I agree with this in theory, I'm afraid I'm with Halfy on the execution. That lab was just silly-dumb. It's as if the hound had been a man in a dog suit. The story lost all cred at that point for me.

Surely they could have taken the trouble to have consulted with any college chemistry student. It wouldn't have been hard to make something halfway plausible looking Mad

by Pettytyrant101 Tue Feb 10, 2015 5:29 am

I think also whilst science labs doing freaky stuff is a sort of general fear its not as persuasive or all generally accepted as the supernatural was in Holmes times.
The audience reading that would have been much more open to the idea of a supernatural hound existing, and the clash between Holmes manner of working and the supernatural doesn't work for me in the episode the way it does in the book, its not the clash of two great world views that it should be.

One thing I thought they did do well in that episode however was to keep Sherlock involved.
Its always struck me as odd that the most filmed Holmes story is one in which he is absent for a large part of the time, appearing only at the start and then again at the end.

Although does get extra points for sneaking the TARDIS into the episode!

Sherlock - BBC [4] - Page 12 6701449189_36035c3333_b_zpscfixqpte

Sherlock - BBC [4] - Page 12 6701449189_36035c3333_b_zpscfixqpte

by halfwise Fri Feb 20, 2015 6:59 pm

So new unpublished story has been discovered:

http://mashable.com/2015/02/20/lost-sherlock-holmes-story/

Which you can read here:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/howaboutthat/11425042/Read-the-lost-Sherlock-Holmes-story-found-in-an-attic.html

Though I have to say, just glancing over it, it's a weird-ass story, and told in third person rather than from Watson's point of view.

by Pettytyrant101 Fri Feb 20, 2015 7:19 pm

Love the comment left by someone at the bottom - 'Can't wait for the Peter Jackson trilogy.' Laughing

by Pettytyrant101 Mon Mar 02, 2015 9:33 am

Things you learn from watching QI no.100054- Jeeves and Wooster were based on the releationship between Holmes and Watson. A genius and an ordinary man, but exaggerated- so Jeeves knows everything and Wooster is a bumbling idiot.

I had no idea, but when you stop to think about it makes complete sense.

by Bluebottle Mon Mar 02, 2015 2:47 pm

It was also PG Woodehouse who actually came up with the phrase "Elementary, my dear Watson." It was never used in the Sherlock Holmes books. (As I mentioned in the current part of my story.)

by Pettytyrant101 Mon Mar 02, 2015 5:25 pm

That I did know, but I still didnt make the connection :facepalm:

by Bluebottle Sun Mar 15, 2015 8:56 pm

Well, the fjordlandian tv show made another Sherlock parody. Based on the nerdiest pretext, Cumberbatch shoulder missing in a set picture. But hey, I guess they're fans. Razz

by Bluebottle Sun Mar 15, 2015 9:03 pm

The domed room with the body is the movie theater where I went to see the Hobbit premier.

by azriel Sun Mar 15, 2015 9:39 pm

I love those parodies ! Laughing

LMAO when Jude Law was kicked up the arse !

by Bluebottle Sun Mar 15, 2015 10:09 pm

Yeah.

by Pettytyrant101 Wed Mar 18, 2015 3:12 am

'The upcoming Sherlock special will be set in Victorian London, the show's co-creator, Steven Moffat, has confirmed.
Moffat told Entertainment Weekly it would be an historical adventure that stood alone from the main series.

"The special is its own thing. We wouldn't have done the story we're doing, and the way we're doing it, if we didn't have this special," he said.

"It's not part of the run of three episodes. So we had this to do it - as we could hardly conceal - it's Victorian. [Co-creator Mark Gatiss] and me, we wanted to do this, but it had to be a special, it had to be separate entity on its own. It’s kind of in its own little bubble."

Moffat added filming had been completed on the special and he was "very pleased" with the result.- BBC

That could actually be rather interesting. Weird thing to do, but interesting.

by Eldorion Wed Mar 18, 2015 3:42 am

I wonder how different the characterization and dialogue will be given the setting. Will be interesting to see. Hopefully it's more than just a gimmick.