Hey you Holmesian from the UK, after 1 year of Facebook Spam, The show is back! And the guy even have a chance to get laid. (Hey! They modernize or they don't)
Show your enthousiasm please!
Quote from: LUniqueDan on Sun 01/01/2012 16:47:18
Show your enthousiasm please!
Yay! Another Spontaneous TV Digest (http://www.adventuregamestudio.co.uk/yabb/index.php?topic=41492.0)! I'm glad the second Holmes film coincides too. I will be watching both TV and cinema screen... eagerly.
Quote from: LUniqueDan on Sun 01/01/2012 16:47:18
Show your enthousiasm please!
Oh yes! I've been expecting Sherlock to come back for ages, I can't believe it took so long. Just over an hour to go - can't wait ;D
Yes, can't wait to see what they made of 'A Scandal in Belgravia'... :)
Superb! Been waiting all year for this and it didn't disappoint.
I'm really enthousiastic for next week's episode :-)
Quote from: Stupot+ on Mon 02/01/2012 01:31:12
Superb! Been waiting all year for this and it didn't disappoint.
I'm really enthousiastic for next week's episode :-)
>:(
Down Speed : 3.2kB/s
ETA : 3w4d
I want my fix.
A review from a casual viewer: It was very good!
That was amazing! :o
All the details... all the modernisation. I mean they did something revolutionnary in television : they hired a writer who actually knows what he was writing about.
Spoiler
- The "Geek Interpreter" :D
- They plug the aluminium crotch !!
- They found a nice way to plug a "deer hunter" without being lame
- The "don't touch miss Hudson VATS mode"
- The 3 punches (Yeah ! 3!)
Can't wait for next week.
Thanks for the tip! Perfect holiday viewing for the family (though with more nudity than expected).
I've had mixed feelings about Sherlock so far (in the first episode the solution was obvious, the depiction of Chinese culture in the second was embarrassing, and the killing spree in the third one downright un-Holmesian), but this episode pretty much nailed it. The take on Irene Adler did a great job at updating yet staying true to her myth (as it has grown through different adaptations) rather than just to Doyle's character, and the mystery was better and more substantial than I remember the original story being. And for the most part it was just at the right level of un/predictability, so you could feel clever for seeing things coming yet still be surprised now and then.
Nicely packed with obscure Holmes references and fan service, too. I liked "Hamish", Watson's non-canonical middle name (Dorothy L. Sayers proposed it to explain a slip-up where Doyle accidentally calls him "James" instead of "John"; Hamish being the Scottish form of James). And I still love the Sherlock-vision and the way text messages and blog posts are integrated into the picture.
The modern Sherlock? I needed some more Sherlock after seeing second movie and found that first season of modern Sherlock was actually quite awesome. Only thing that I cannot unsee are his uneven nostril sizes :(
Quote from: InCreator on Thu 05/01/2012 13:51:54
I needed some more Sherlock after seeing second movie and found that first season of modern Sherlock was actually quite awesome.
Watch out! Season 2 is so far twice as good as the 3.5 episodes of season 1!
@Snarky : Tx for the infos. I never heard of L.Sawyer before nor her clever Hamish solution. (None of her works was translated since the 80's I guess). Now I can show everyone on the fr:wikipedia how great I am ! 8)
Quote from: InCreator on Thu 05/01/2012 13:51:54
Only thing that I cannot unsee are his uneven nostril sizes :(
Hey, I have uneven nostril sizes too! What's wrong about uneven nostril sizes? :'(
It seems Sherlock himself, Mr Bendy Cummerbund, has landed himself the role as Star Trek 2's main baddy.
http://www.totalfilm.com/news/benedict-cumberbatch-is-star-trek-2-villain
Quote from: Stupot+ on Thu 05/01/2012 17:19:21
It seems Sherlock himself, Mr Bendy Cummerbund, has landed himself the role as Star Trek 2's main baddy.
http://www.totalfilm.com/news/benedict-cumberbatch-is-star-trek-2-villain
Well I said it before, the guy looks like an alien.
onT: great news about season 2, I've really liked s1 and I have recently watched the movie and so as InC said, it's the right timing...in fact, they might have even set it to be aired just after majority of people see SH: Game of shadows.
I haven't seen either of the movies. Don't really care too much. But the BBC show really is just great. The episode we've just seen was so full of twists and sleights of hand, it was a joy to be led down so many garden paths by some of the best writing on television today.
Watched Belgravia yesterday... Felt more boring than Season 1 although ending kind of made it up. Romance and Sherlock won't mix really. I seriously hope Sherlock won't evolve into superman, because it's surely moving that direction - fight scenes so far have been ridiculous, single-hit knockouts only happen in MMA and Boxing where men have hands like hammers, not ones of violin players.
The guy from book and recent movies fight with skill in boxing and stick fighting, relying on skill mostly. The fights in modern Sherlock looked like this Krav Maga magic Jason Bourne does, but guy doesn't really look like a cage fighter who could outlast more than a round. In other words, if punches are needed to be thrown, he'd better throw them carefully like a man trained in fighting, and not single cheap knockouts Macgyver/any US tv-series since 1980- style.
Modern Moriarty sucks. He looks like crazed, overworked, spoilt-kid stock broker and not the evil genius.
Quote from: InCreator on Fri 06/01/2012 06:59:32
Modern Moriarty sucks. He looks like crazed, overworked, spoilt-kid stock broker and not the evil genius.
That was also my only "complain" of this awesome serie...
Quote from: »Arj0n« on Fri 06/01/2012 10:46:44
Quote from: InCreator on Fri 06/01/2012 06:59:32
Modern Moriarty sucks. He looks like crazed, overworked, spoilt-kid stock broker and not the evil genius.
That was also my only "complain" of this awesome serie...
Yeah, I'm kind of in agreement there. He's just seems like some rich kid who's off his tits and playing big-boy games. Doesn't seem like someone with the potential to outwit Sherlock.
Agreed, IMHO Moriarty would look more proper with a moustache.
I found Moriarty portrayed in second movie excellent: That reddish beard, that double front tooth, sinister, empty look in eyes... perfect villain. The moment he said "I can play this game too" (or something along the lines during final thought duel) my body temperature dropped to -20C
The BBC Sherlock has updated and put a wry twist on well known characters, so I don't see why you'd want to see the new Holmes face the old Moriarty. Are you telling me it's difficult to imagine a psychopathic young stockbroker terrorizing society?
I agree he isn't quite so well transposed as other characters, but I think a young man with a Dr Mabuse-like criminal mind is a very contemporary kind of villain.
Dunno. I'd switch the roles (and faces) of BBC Moriarty and Mycroft. Intelligence dude sounds more dangerous (and powerful) than office worker and in book, Mycroft was an analyst, much more fitting to stock broker I think.
I found the BBC Moriarty hilarious. What were they thinking? He was more threatening when he pretended to be a gay IT guy.
[SPAM] Sherlock Series 2 'A Scandal In Belgravia' is repeated tonight on BBC3 at 7pm. [/ SPAM]
I'm guessing that the lack of activity in this thread following episode 2, The Hounds of Baskerville, means that I'm not the only one who thought this was a pretty disappointing episode?
That's borderline spoiler Stupot, now I know not to expect wonders ;D I had to record it and will watch it tomorrow, so I'll tell you want I think too.
You can rest easily knowing it was still better than basically anything else on British TV, but frankly killing John Watson off like that was just unforgivable. :-\
I was red tapped by the double posting rule:-X
Spoiler
But... yeah pretty disapointing. :'(
I "solved" most of it by 35:00 then wait, wait and wait until the story followed. It was so obvious that it was narcotic, and anyway...It makes me remember of some poorly written 11th hour or Late House M.D. I never saw Sherlock as disorganised. I was waiting for an extra plan to trick the killer or a punch inside a punch or anything but... no.
I never liked The Hound too much at the first place. If you know the story of Doyle vs Sherlock Holmes, it was probably the one that it was the most obvious that he didn't wants to write about him. (Plus the fact that there's no word for 'Hound' in french. So The Dog of The Baskerville is.... you'll never guess... a dog!!!)
Anyway, how come Watson can succeed hiding something from Holmes ? At home ? Come on!
Quote from: Stupot+ on Mon 09/01/2012 23:34:21
You can rest easily knowing it was still better than basically anything else on British TV, but frankly killing John Watson off like that was just unforgivable. :-\
And crushing him under a particularly heavy scone... there's no dignity in that.
Just watched it, and really enjoyed it. Particularly the incidental music, for some reason. Hooray for Gatiss & Moffat!
Belgravia should have been the season final instead. In a perfect world with 14 episodes/season it will be ok, but... no.
EOF
I thought it was fantastic. Back on track after the Baskervile blip.
It didn't really feel that much like a 'mystery of the week' episode, though. More like the finale to a longer, more overarcing plot.
Spoiler
It was kind of obvious that he'd still be alive, but te scene with Watson in the graveyard still managed to tease my tearducts. And I was watching it in a crowed computer lab in uni... d'oh.
I did notice the distinct lack of Molly in the hospital in the last scenes after he said 'I need you'. I also noticed a conveniently placed open-top rubbish collection truck right next to where he fell. It's not beyond the realms of possibility that he knows the exact route of the particular truck in the area and knew that it would be passing at roughly that time. All he needed to do was wait for it to pass underneath, fall into it and roll out onto the pavement relatively unscathed. Either that, or was Molly driving the truck? Maybe, but I doubt it. I think her job was to provide blood, maybe even give Sherlock something that would temporarily stop his heart, that kind of thing.
They were right outside St. Bart's, which has a morgue iirc. So Sherlock was probably sent straight there. Molly could well have helped him out by swapping his body for a John Doe, or something far simpler, but either way, she was definitely in on it.
Quote from: LUniqueDan on Mon 09/01/2012 23:51:05
Spoiler
I never liked The Hound too much at the first place. If you know the story of Doyle vs Sherlock Holmes, it was probably the one that it was the most obvious that he didn't wants to write about him. (Plus the fact that there's no word for 'Hound' in french. So The Dog of The Baskerville is.... you'll never guess... a dog!!!)
???
Spoiler
But that's what "hound" means in English, too. No one seeing the English title would think it referred to anything other than a dog.
I would like to defend Moriarty. I thought he was threatening in an unpredictable, closet-psychopath kind of way. The old Moriarty wouldve just been too absurd for the setting i think. It worked in Victorian london but it wouldve just been ridiculous here.
@Paolo : :'( So it's reallty really that lame ? I was sure (I guess I really really wanted to see "Hound" as an allegoria for "hunter" "nemesis" "nightmare" in the comon use of the word)
Spoiler
I'm really curious to see how did Sherlock survive the fall. In the book you never see him fall so it's really easy to came up with a story of how he survived. But here he fall from a building right in front of Whatson. :-\
Quote from: Mati256 on Thu 19/01/2012 23:50:25
Spoiler
I'm really curious to see how did Sherlock survive the fall. In the book you never see him fall so it's really easy to came up with a story of how he survived. But here he fall from a building right in front of Whatson. :-\
Spoiler
Read my post above. I'm pretty sure he fell into the dump truck and then rolled out. Might watch it again some time to work on my theory :)
<Spam> For Sherlockians in the UK: You can get a free DVD copy of BBC's Sherlock series 1 in today's issue of the Daily Mail! </Spam>
wtf?!?
Planning to move to the UK...
Quote from: LUniqueDan on Fri 27/01/2012 20:55:00
<Spam> For Sherlockians in the UK: You can get a free DVD copy of BBC's Sherlock series 1 in today's issue of the Daily Mail! </Spam>
wtf?!?
Planning to move to the UK...
To the shop! ----> Anyone want an unread newspaper?
[Edit] Hmm, maybe not. You need six differently dated tokens I can live with buying one Daily Mail, but if I bought six I'd have to shoot myself out of principle.
Quote from: LUniqueDan on Fri 27/01/2012 20:55:00
<Spam> For Sherlockians in the UK: You can get a free DVD copy of BBC's Sherlock series 1 in today's issue of the Daily Mail! </Spam>
wtf?!?
Planning to move to the UK...
When you get here, you will find that the Daily Mail gives you less joy.
Quote from: Stupot+ on Fri 27/01/2012 21:23:35
Hmm, maybe not. You need six differently dated tokens I can live with buying one Daily Mail, but if I bought six I'd have to shoot myself out of principle.
Quote from: Ali on Fri 27/01/2012 21:28:10
When you get here, you will find that the Daily Mail gives you less joy.
Come on guys! It can't be that bad!
QuoteDon't hurt my baby! Pregnant orang-utan protectively hugs her daughter as ruthless Borneo bounty hunters move in for the kill
Well... hum... well maybe postpone the travel for a while... you know... family... have important snow to shovel... things like that...
You'd never have made it to England anyway. There would have been a load of Daily Mail readers blocking your way with placards saying "Foreigners Cause Cancer!".
Quote
Stuck in a fashion rut: Jessie J wears some unflattering leopard print leggings
Quote
Reunited and it feels so good! Mark Wright and Arg continue their bromance over a candlelit meal for two
I read a comment on a DM article once, and my brain cell count dropped to critical levels.
About Sherlock, I also think the Hound of the Baskervilles episode wasn't as good as the others, quite tense though. I actually preferred the new Holmes movie over the third episode, the slow-mo sequences in A Game of Shadows were awesome.
Watched Baskerville episode yesterday... it sucked. Whole episode consisted basically someone being scared, someone walking somewhere and sherlock acting totally crazy.
Also, secret military base had less security than a square meter of Victoria station.
Spoiler
"Bad dude used gas to drug us, it's in the fog"
* Proceeds to stand in the fog and discuss it for next 15 minutes
Did they hire another writer?
Pity... Show felt much more powerful in first few episodes.
I wasn't sure about this show. I'll have to check it out.
The Sherlock Holmes movies they put out recently with Robert Downing Jr. were complete and utter embarrassments to the Holmes name. I mean, despite being a long-time Sherlockian I get that they took some artistic license with their portrayal of Holmes and Watson. Even granting that, they were still complete crap-fests which seems to be standard fair for Hollywood these days.
My favorite portrayal of Holmes remains Jeremy Brett in the Adventures of Sherlock Holmes from 84-94.
I'm not sure you'll like the BBC's Sherlock, but I found the Guy Ritchie film to be very boring and very stupid and I found Moffat and Gatiss's version to be neither of those things.
Last(? third) episode was even worse than Baskervilles' one. I admit, there were some moments when it felt almost exciting, but it was killed in mere seconds later. Ending/roof encounter made no sense to me whatsoever. Nor did the magical spell of healing
I've only seen the first Ritchie film, but yes, I found it to be a complete mess, while I like the series a lot.
Quote from: InCreator on Sun 29/01/2012 13:32:51
Watched Baskerville episode yesterday... it sucked. Whole episode consisted basically someone being scared, someone walking somewhere and sherlock acting totally crazy.
Also, secret military base had less security than a square meter of Victoria station.
Spoiler
"Bad dude used gas to drug us, it's in the fog"
* Proceeds to stand in the fog and discuss it for next 15 minutes
Honestly, this is no worse than what happened in the original Holmes books. There were some stories where
Spoiler
an obscure plant or drug from some faraway land was basically the reason for EVERYTHING that happened, including hallucinations and very bizarre deaths
So using that as a benchmark, the new BBC Sherlock is still very faithful!
I've watched only 2 episodes of the BBC Sherlock and while I enjoyed them I have to say the show is far sillier and messier than the Ritchie films, so I don''t understand the Ritchie bashing from anyone who swallows the utter ridiculousness of the BBC one (other than for the fact his films are Hollywood made).
The BBC's Sherlock is certainly silly, which is no bad thing. It's also witty, atmospheric and well paced.
As far as I recall Ritchie's action sequences are tediously overblown, the jokes are too few and far between to keep the thing alive and there was no mystery.
Although there is a certain amount of fun to be had by London dwellers with the impossible geography of the journey from Westminster to Tower Bridge.
Quote from: Ali on Tue 31/01/2012 17:29:44
As far as I recall Ritchie's action sequences are tediously overblown, the jokes are too few and far between to keep the thing alive and there was no mystery.
The action sequences are visually overblown in both - the movies and the TV series (e.g. the gun in the safe sequence in 2.01), but of course in the films they go on for much longer. And - definitely - not everyone has to like the pulpy, slapstick action movie feel Ritchie went for, but if you'll say those elaborate scenes are not dynamic enough or badly designed for their length, then I'll strongly disagree.
Quote from: Ali on Tue 31/01/2012 17:29:44
The BBC's Sherlock is certainly silly, which is no bad thing. It's also witty, atmospheric and well paced.
I agree it's fun. But the atmosphere and melodrama levels alternate between something set in the real world and a Bond-like parody of it. It is not always that successfully witty either. The characters spit out sarcastic remarks with a frequency that often makes them look like insecure high schoolers trying to show the others that they are the coolest of the pack.
As for mystery or lack there of in the films - there was plenty of good mystery in the first Sherlock Holmes, but sadly almost zero in the 2nd one (which makes it a much much worse outing). In general I don't recommend A Game of Shadows that much - the first one is the one to watch.
Quote from: Ascovel on Tue 31/01/2012 18:33:24The characters spit out sarcastic remarks with a frequency that often makes them look like insecure high schoolers trying to show the others that they are the coolest of the pack.
That's because they're English ;D
What Ritchie does is making an action movie from 2011 but set in 1880. It reminds me of "The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen". Sherlock is not himself anymore, he is just an action hero. I also hated Ritchie's Watson.
What BBC does is taking the Sherlock Holmes from the books and place him in 2011 with cell phones and Internet.
I'm a big fan of the books and really like how they adapted them, "The geek interpreter" was a great joke if you know of the story.
I really like all Guy Ritchie's films, but if I had to choose I would choose BBC's Sherlock..
The first of Ritchie's Holmes movies was entertaining enough as an action movie, but a Sherlock Holmes who doesn't solve the case by keen observation and astonishing deduction (but instead some sort of mystic trance that leads to a completely unsupported insight) is no real Holmes. For all its flaws, Sherlock is the real deal.
I'm sorry, but I don't see how people get so touchy about Sherlock Holmes. SH has a problem with the fact that in essence all detective stories are kind of better for episodic stories/cases (like say Poirot) and indeed that's how the origianls were written.
That being said, the first Ritchie movie had a good amount of everything in the mix (mystery, action, comedy, old and new ideas, atmosphere etc.) and the Game of shadows turned more into an action movie. Personally I liked it, but I liked the first one more. I think the third one is gonna have trouble at box office, but I will go and see it, I like an action movie that has a lot of story in it. Because I haven't read that much of the stories, I think I have a clearer stand on the movies as movies and not as "this is not what the book said" baggage. A lot is subject to interpretaion, you might like or you might not, that's it.
I haven't yet watched the 2nd season of Sherlock (the BBC we get here is some lame thing with Weakest link and Eastenders on repeat pretty much all the time). But first season was inreresting and fun.
Quote from: Snarky on Tue 31/01/2012 21:57:46
a Sherlock Holmes who doesn't solve the case by keen observation and astonishing deduction (but instead some sort of mystic trance that leads to a completely unsupported insight) is no real Holmes.
Are you serious? That's not at all what happened. The scene that you mention was sort of a recap of facts for people in the audience who didn't remember all the clues, so that they keep up with Holmes' deductions.
Spoiler
The entire point of the movie was that the supposed supernatural events were elaborate magic tricks for goodness sakes! :P
Anyway, the only real deal are the books.
I'm sorry; Sherlock draws a pentagram on the floor and kneels in it, takes a drug, cuts his wrist with a dagger and performs some kind of ritual, has a feverish hallucinatory vision and collapses into unconsciousness. That's not a mystic trance to you? Well, whatever you call it, it's egregiously un-Holmesian.
Quote from: Snarky on Wed 01/02/2012 01:01:34
I'm sorry; Sherlock draws a pentagram on the floor and kneels in it, takes a drug, cuts his wrist with a dagger and performs some kind of ritual, has a feverish hallucinatory vision and collapses into unconsciousness. That's not a mystic trance to you? Well, whatever you call it, it's egregiously un-Holmesian.
You can call it a trance if you want, but there's nothing "mystic" about it. Basically it's just something visually dynamic to show to the audience while Holmes goes over the facts in his head. The ritual and the pentagram are part of Holmes' search for a pattern in the killings, which were... (suprise, suprise!) ritualistic and done under the pretense of black magic (the pentagram shows the visual pattern on the map - similar to certain puzzles in Discworld Noir and Gabriel Knight).
I can agree with you to the extent that Holmes having some eerie hallucination of Blackwood can also serve as a red herring for the audience. It helps keep them wondering till the very end if perhaps there are indeed some supernatural forces at work (one of the main themes of the film). Yet there's nothing "mystic" or "unsupported insight" about the scene per se. By the end of the film all pretense of supernatural is dispersed, and at no point in the story does Holmes confess to taking the possibility of its existence into account.
I'm not saying Sherlock found the answer by actual magic, or believed that the crimes were performed by magic. I'm saying that the main scene of him solving the case is presented not as rational deduction or even a creative leap of inspiration, but as a shamanic trance. And that's something I consider an abomination in a Sherlock Holmes story. (I wouldn't really be upset if real supernatural elements were at play, as long as Holmes tackled them with his usual method.)
I don't think you can brush off the sweating, eye-rolling, chanting, falling unconscious Holmes as "going over the facts in his head," and I think the justification for staging the ritual doesn't hold up. If he knew, as we accept, that there was no actual magic involved, then the ritual is just a stage show, a distraction from the actual mechanics of the illusion. In fact, you see him "go over the facts in his head" just prior to this scene (it's presented as whispery snatches of dialog from before), but then he gives up in frustration and starts messing with the ritualistic paraphernalia.
Incidentally, there are clear echoes of From Hell (movie and comic) in this scene as well as in the mystery as a whole.
It's been several years since I saw the movie (I rewatched just this particular clip yesterday), but as I recall there is very little actual sleuthing going on, apart from some chemical analysis. Holmes doesn't collect many clues, and when he solves the case he doesn't really outline how he solved it, which is the linchpin of the whole "brilliant detective" genre.
Quote from: Snarky on Wed 01/02/2012 09:39:37
I'm not saying Sherlock found the answer by actual magic, or believed that the crimes were performed by magic. I'm saying that the main scene of him solving the case is presented not as rational deduction or even a creative leap of inspiration, but as a shamanic trance.
Then what do you understand by the expression "shamanic trance", if it doesn't involve either magic or belief in magic? Are you upset that Sherlock drinks something, then hallucinates? I don't see anything dodgy about how Holmes came to his conclusions about the killings - we never follow his thought process exactly really.
Quote from: Snarky on Wed 01/02/2012 09:39:37
It's been several years since I saw the movie (I rewatched just this particular clip yesterday), but as I recall there is very little actual sleuthing going on, apart from some chemical analysis. Holmes doesn't collect many clues, and when he solves the case he doesn't really outline how he solved it, which is the linchpin of the whole "brilliant detective" genre.
Holmes collects and observes clues at every single place visited during the movie. Towards the end he gives several very elaborate explanations on how Blackwood did what he did. He might have omitted how exactly was the scientist murdered, but as far as I can recall all the other crimes and tricks are covered. So I'd say the genre's linchpin is strong with this film.
Now, if you were to criticize A Game of Shadows, then I would agree that Moriarty proved to be a rather unremarkable opponent for Sherlock on the intellectual level, and the storyline lacks any true mystery to solve - thus the "brilliant detective" linchpin gets broken (or bent). The only time Moriarty really "fools" Holmes is based on him quickly changing his plans, knowing Holmes is hot on his trail.