I’m hashing out an idea I had this morning on my way to work:
So, at the moment, the showrunners remain largely silent about the backlash that they know is happening and have apparently even anticipated; there’s been no announcement about a fifth series happening or not; there have been winks and hints from Moffat and the Sherlock YouTube channel guy about a fourth episode and plenty of reasons to believe one exists, but nothing concrete has emerged so far, even though the production team is still releasing behind-the-scenes stuff to social media; and we may have an ARG on our hands. We are definitely in a holding pattern, but we have no idea how long this could go on. It is possible that TPTB could be facing the public and talking about their “brilliant” S4 finale before we get anything else.
They are professionals at bullshitting and at keeping secrets, and Moffat and Sue have got the balls to show up at a manga signing, so I’m not convinced that they “have” to reveal something by the time, say, Radio Times Fest rolls around, lest they face hordes of disappointed fans. The disappointed fans (which includes ex-TJLCers, disgruntled casuals like Tammie and Cathy and Susan from the Masterpiece Facebook page, and people like us who think TFP is fake) don’t even want to spend money on the S4 DVD, much less on buying tickets to an event. When it comes to the latter, I think we should.
People in this fandom frequently tell me that I word good, so the idea I had was to put that to some use (apart from writing meta and going off on antis) by compiling a list of trickily worded questions that TJLCers could ask at public Q&A events in an effort to make the showrunners respond with either panicked bullshitting or sincere defensiveness. You know how we always cringe when people start asking questions at public Q&As, and how we all have questions that we wish would get asked, but don’t? Why not create an organized resource so that TJLC questions do get asked? Remember that brilliant “Are we ever going to see Mrs. Turner’s married ones?” question that made them sweat? That’s the idea. Or remember how that one person at Comic Con got that long, eloquent answer out of Moffat about representation of gay characters by asking a question that was basically pointed criticism dressed up as a question? I’m not suggesting that we make Johnlock front and center in our questioning, as that person sort of did, but instead dress up the S4 “backlash” as panel questions. I think it could be useful to have a pre-planned and organized list of community-sourced questions that are not “Why didn’t you make John and Sherlock gay?” or “Is X, Y, or Z going to happen in series 5?” or “What ice cream flavor would series 5 be if it were an ice cream flavor?” but instead “I thought it was interesting how you chose to include A, B, and C in The Final Problem. What went into your decision to write those things into the show in that way? In a previous statement, you said X about them, which differs a lot from what you ultimately chose to do with them.”
I’d create this with, and solicit suggestions, review, and feedback from, trusted and established members of the community – and most importantly, I wouldn’t share it publicly. I’d create a private document away from Tumblr to which I would grant people access once I’d verified that they were legit fandom members with an established fandom presence and with plans to attend Radio Times Fest, or Sherlocked Con, or what have you. That wouldn’t completely prevent the showrunners from being aware of fandom’s criticisms/questions and having prepared responses ready to go, but it would at least protect the element of surprise in terms of the actual questions they’d face. No one would be obligated to ask the questions on the list, but they would be there as a resource for people who really want to ask a question about, for example, obvious visual TAB/TFP parallels in such a way as to make the showrunners aware of what we think/know and require them to either engage with what we think/know or else do some serious Bullshit Improv which could be equally revealing. Previously I would have said “we shouldn’t dig too deep with our panel questions, we don’t want to force them to lie to protect spoilers” but I think in this post-TFP, insane new world, we should apply some fire to their feet about the fakeness of the episode.
Thoughts, positive or negative? Good idea? Bad idea? Is this something people would be interested in? Is there an obvious flaw that I haven’t thought of?
I think this is an excellent idea! However, the questions definitely have to be crafted carefully, I think the act of seeing them have to think of an answer is more telling than the answer itself. So anything that would force them to answer a question that doesn’t necessarily put them in a corner, a “I’m calling you out” kind of question, but more of a “the truthful answer to this is obvious to you but it is also obvious to us that the truth would spoil everything, so have fun trying to make this work,” is an approach that would be very fun.
Agreed! They’d have to be questions that would seem normal to the casual viewer, but are really prompting for answers about something that a casual viewer would not necessarily care/know about. Something backhanded in a way like “I like the ‘Adventure of the Three Garridebs’ reference you put in TFP, what inspired you to feature that story plot more heavily than other canon stories?” Only true TJLCers and Holmes fans would know they fucked it up.
This is my idea exactly. Arm people with questions that don’t come off as “I’m calling you out” questions, but instead sort of trip them up with the details of S4 – all those elephants in the room and unfired rifles hanging on the wall. Enough of the “okaaaay, but is Moriarty REALLY dead?” stuff. I want people asking them serious-sounding questions about the thought processes behind their adaptation of The Adventure of the Three Garridebs and what their inspiration was for turning Sherrinford into an island prison and stuff like that. Don’t attack them, just make them defend their choices (or try to defend them). Watch how they react. Get people asking them hard questions instead of asking them to weigh in on whether John will get a dog.
If we’re right about the show self-Reichenbaching, then it’s time for us to ask hard questions. They joked about calling an episode “Backlash.” Let’s make sure that the portion of the backlash that they get directly confronted with reflects the cleverness and observational skills of this fandom. Even if someone is angry with them about queerbaiting and attributes TFP’s badness to the degree to which they no-homoed the relationship between John and Sherlock, surely it would be more satisfying to ask questions that highlight the show-killing consequences of the apparent queerbaiting than to just have YET ANOTHER round of “look, we said multiple times that we were never going to do that,” etc.
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