Sherlock

Yes, it was.

Yes.

“I’m not a psychopath, I’m a high-functioning sociopath - do your research.”

Yes. Shame it’s only three episodes but quality over quantity every time.

Miles better than Jekyll, so far!

SPIOLIERY BELOW

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I’d been wondering all the way through if they were going to introduce Mycroft, and when that umbrella-leaning fellow first appeared, I thought for a moment that it might be him. But I quickly dismissed that and bought into their red herring that that was Moriarty. Shoulda stuck with my instincts!

I had my doubts about a Sherlock Holmes set in the present day. I get what Moffatt says, that Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s books were about good detective stories not fog and gaslights, but… well… I like fog and gaslights. (And a good mystery too, don’t get me wrong.) And it’s not as if there aren’t plenty of other detective stories set in the present day.

On watching it however, I thought it was REALLY good and it worked very well creating something that felt original while still (or perhaps because of) retaining much of the flavour of the original books. The characters were perhaps a bit darker (I can’t imagine the original Watson thriving on the idea of ‘going to war’, for example, although Holmes has always been a bit dark) but some differentiation is welcome.

The Moriarty thing is one thing I didn’t like. I was relieved when it emerged that Gatiss was Mycroft, but they’re still milking the arch-enemy angle. Moriaty didn’t need to be linked to this case at all.

I enjoyed it, but I want to see it again because I think I missed some of the mumbled details and I couldn’t rewind. Or with subtitles.

Had lots of “oh, clever!” moments which is, of course, what the consumption Sherlock Holmes is all about, so they pretty much nailed it. I’m also glad that it was nothing like CSI which had been my worry.

And of course some great lines. (I liked that scrubbing floors one.)

I’m not sold on the casting yet. Doesn’t Benedict Cumberbatch look too young to have been consulted by the police for the last five years? I know he iesn’t, but he looked it. It makes him look more like a prodigy prat than a genius investigator to me. And Martin Freeman I’ve only seen in comedies so far and as Arthur Dent so he seemed a bit too “soft” to play a traumatised soldier happy to shoot someone. But maybe I’ll get used to the cast in the later episodes (my brain does that). Didn’t mind it that much anyway.

All of that being said, I had watched several episodes of Hustle yesterday so my “oh, clever!”-o-meter was already way up and I think if I hadn’t, I would have enjoyed Sherlock even more.

Well I loved it, thought it was very good. Some of the shots and cinematography were so beautiful, it was like a book opening up in front of you. I like the stylisation of it too, makes it a bit quirky and different.

May have been me, but I think Moffat sometimes wrote Sherlock like the new Doctor….I got these strange moments of deja vu whilst watching it…

Setting Sherlock Holmes in the present day is a clever move but a potentially risky one - after all, back then, there was no DNA profiling or CCTV (something which I feel was a little side-stepped in the episode) but hey - all in the name of a good laugh.

Overall I absolutely loved it - I hope that the three-parter is a ‘testing the waters’ for a full-on series!

May have been me, but I think Moffat sometimes wrote Sherlock like the new Doctor….I got these strange moments of deja vu whilst watching it…

Definitely. I suppose the big difference (well, y’know, apart from all that time travel) is that the Eleventh Doctor’s a little less blunt and more tactful than Holmes!

In terms of specific moments reminiscent of the last series of Doctor Who, both The Eleventh Hour and A Study In Pink used ultra-slow-mo/bullet-time-esque/time-slice effects to illustrate the superhuman observation abilities of their lead character.

In terms of specific moments reminiscent of the last series of Doctor Who, both The Eleventh Hour and A Study In Pink used ultra-slow-mo/bullet-time-esque/time-slice effects to illustrate the superhuman observation abilities of their lead character.

The rapid, changing thought process certainly reminded me of the Doctor. Personally I think they conveyed the idea of ‘not missing anything’ a little better in Sherlock than they did in ‘The Eleventh Hour’, though.

Loving this new take on an old character. I like the visualisation of text when using technology, it’s unusual, but you get used to it very quickly. And the use of doors literally opening into the next scene kept making me smile.

Loved it, can’t wait for next week.

Oh and I have a feeling Moriarty isn’t a person in his instance, but like an organisation or a company…

From everyone’s comments, I can’t wait to see this. I don’t care about spoilers…it doesn’t mean much when you have no idea what anyone’s talking about anyway.

RE: Eleventh Hour. Must watch the UK version. The US version sucked so bad, it blew. *yawn*

The Eleventh Hour being talked about here is the Doctor Who ep, not the Patrick Stewart/Rufus Sewell thing ;-)

Ah. Either way, I stand by my statement. :P

I loved it too, and was really quite impressed by Martin Freeman: I totally bought him as an ex-soldier. Benedict does look young, but old at the same time, which isn’t surprising, considering that he and Matt Smith seem to be auditioning for the same roles! Ooh, that Moffat’s a clever man.

I liked it.

Freeman was great.

The ‘Sherlock app’ text-on-screen stuff was alright but annoying when he just repeated it all for the benefit of Watson & Lestrade, plus it wasn’t consistent, either use it for actual phone texts or Sherlock’s observations but not both, unless Episode Three reveals Holmes getting his ideas from a telecommunications satellite in geostationary orbit.

Pete Part Three:
> Moriaty didn’t need to be linked to this case at all.

That was definitely the case in this second episode. Moriarty (whether that’s one person, or a SPECTRE/Quantum-type organisation as suggested earlier in the thread) seems to be the “season arc” of these three episodes, and the mention of M__ right at at the end seemed tagged on just for the sake of sustaining it.

I suppose it wasn’t essential to link Moriarty to the first episode’s case either, but the Mycroft red herring helped give the illusion that his presence could be felt throughout the story, so the mention of him in the last few minutes didn’t feel tagged on like it did this time.

I liked it though.

“I won’t give away your identity.”
“I’m sure you won’t.”
Piu!

Loved the first episode, which we watched last night. We’re going to watch episode two tonight.

Disappointed by episode 2 which felt artificially stretched to fit the 90 minute runtime. Some rather silly plot holes throughout too.

Hope episode 3 is a strong one, otherwise this (very brief) run will look a little underwhelming.

I loved the second part, although I have to agree with Pete, I did find myself checking the clock every now and then.

I couldn’t take that young Chinese actress seriously either. But that’s probably because I could only picture her in that creepy Bing.com advert…

Part two felt too long and didn’t quite have the same tone. Still enjoyable, but nowhere near as good.

Part two wasn’t as good, but I’m still stoked for part three just because the concept seems to work so well. I’m a fan of the stories and didn’t think I’d like it much at all. I was wrong! They’ve done the character justice.

> Part two wasn’t as good, but I’m still stoked for part three just because the concept seems to work so well. I’m a fan of the stories and didn’t think I’d like it much at all. I was wrong! They’ve done the character justice.

Howdy stranger…. ^__^

Well that was a really good episode, nice conclusion to the series and good cliffhanger.

I think I’d have preferred one central mystery then a bunch of small (vaguely connected) ones, but it had a nice pace to it and I was entertained throughout. Better than last week, still not as great as Week 1.

As for the ending; the reveal was a bit Scooby-Do for my liking. The cliffhanger will only work if they’d already filmed the next bit. I don’t want a bunch of exposition in a year’s time about how it was resolved or even a pick-up flashback; I want to see a direct continuation from Scene 1 of the next episode.

I find Moriarty to be incredibly annoying.

(Assuming that was him ;) )

*SPOILERS*

I thought it was clever that we’d already met Moriaty earlier in the episode but didn’t suspect him. Gives you the chills.

However, the ending I felt to be a little odd. To see Moriaty walking away to continue to tease him with more crimes to solve (a more plausible ending IMO) only to find it suddenly cut short with a ‘oh wait actually, let’s just kill you both here and now’ ending instead. Husband and I were left blinking at one another when the credits came up. It was like the writer couldn’t decide which ending he wanted SO HE DID BOTH.

Did anyone else find the guy’s performance as Moriaty was just like The Master? Very odd.

That aside, if this trio is a testing of the waters, I’d say the BBC are onto a winner.

SPOILERS

> I thought it was clever that we’d already met Moriaty earlier in the episode but didn’t suspect him.

Yes, by episode 3 the viewer had been conditioned to expect that the scenes involving the woman who worked in the morgue would be there largely as comic relief, and that anyone we met there would be a pretty inconsequential character. (Well, I had, at least.) Nice bit of misdirection!

Via people on facebook:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-10925753

Also, Moffat is married to a producer?

Yes. Sue Vertue = “Susan” from Coupling (“Steve” is Moffat).

Yup, Sue Vertue, daughter of Beryl Vertue.

Shame they’re stick with the 90 minute format. Would have preferred 4 one hour episodes, than 3 Ninety minute efforts last time round.

I rather liked the three 90-minute episode format, provided they’re well-written. Fortunately parts 1 and 3 were fantastic. Moriarty is like if David Tennant and Eddie Izzard could somehow have a baby with Stephen Fry’s brain.

And Father Noel Furlong’s voice.

For a second I seriously thought it was Graham Norton’s voice!

Finally watched episode 3 properly after having the original viewing messed up by realll life, whatever that is…

Loved it the most out of the three eps though I agree with many who’ve said how mad the very end was. I didn’t mind the performance of Moriarty (or the twist of him being the ‘gay’ guy, Gatiss having some fun there lol) but coming back into the room to supposedly finish them off with god knows how many rifles pointing at them…odd to say the least.

Odd, yes. Mad, certainly. Brilliant? Oh my, yes.

Basically the Simm Master in a different guise.

Why not enjoy peanut M&M’s during this repeat post…

They’ve got Pretzel M&Ms over here now. I haven’t tried ‘em yet.

Pretzel? Are they actually doughy or just a combination of complex chemicals injected into a butter icing centre surrounded by unmeltable chocolate?

Appaently they’re also a bit salty…

What were the chocolates called with a pretzels inside them, they were amazing!!!!

Chocolate coated pretzels?

Pretzel Flips (or Flipz, I forget). You can still get them over here. They’re rank.

It’s ‘wank’. Bloody Americans…

Darn, Karen looks so sweet in my pic I’m gonna have to change it asap before I swoon…..

The white fudge Pretzel Flipz were… ummm…. the shit?

By which, naturally, I mean the opposite of shit, in as much as they were actually nice.

Flipz! Them’s the buggers!! The White fudge ones made me feel a bit ill once and i never ate them again, but i’ll enjoy the company of the normal chocolate ones any day!!!

When you next coming to the UK Ben? ;)

Bloody Americans…

…

…maybe if you’ve been over there for more than a year you count as one of them…

> Bloody Americans…

Rebels, miscreants, traitors to the Crown!

…maybe if you’ve been over there for more than a year you count as one of them…

If that were true I’d qualify for unemployment benefit. Alas, no.