Sherlock Holmes—his limits. Geology.—Practical, but limited. Chemistry.—Profound. Anatomy.—Accurate, but unsystematic. Plays the violin well. One of the finest boxers of his weight that I have ever seen.
Holmes looked at me thoughtfully and shook his head. “I never get your limits, Watson,” said he. “There are unexplored possibilities about you.”
Benedict Cumberbatch’s latest film, Ironbark, is due to begin filming later this month in London and the south-east.
The Cold War spy thriller tells the true story of British businessman
Greville Wynne (Cumberbatch) who, together with his Russian source Oleg
Penkovsky, helped the CIA infiltrate the Soviet nuclear programme,
ultimately contributing to the resolution of the Cuban Missile Crisis.
Dominic Cooke directs Ironbark from Tom O’Connor’s screenplay; the pair also executive producer alongside Cumberbatch and Leah Clarke.
The producers are Adam Ackland for Sunnymarch alongside Rory Aitken, Ben Pugh and Ben Browning.
Cumberbatch and Ackland founded Sunnymarch in 2013; the company has
since gone on to produce The Child in Time for BBC One and Patrick
Melrose for Sky Atlantic and Showtime, and has several projects in
development including The War Magician and How to Stop Time.
Watson’s description of Holmes’ three pipe problem thinking pose was so splendid. …bonus angry boisson Watson!
SORRY I’VE BEEN AWAY FOR A WEEK!! I was working a lot, in Chicago on Friday, Saturday I had a football game and a fancy banquet I had to be at WAH SO MUCH. Sunday I was supposed to get a new phone but didn’t. And Monday I met Hank Green!
Also I kinda needed a break from Tumblr, but I’m back now!
Okay, for the sake of argument, let’s assume the johnlock conspiracy is true. Let’s assume Mark & Steven have been planning it from the beginning, and want it to be the biggest gay relationship reveal to date.
I know the common theory is that both Ben and Martin have known since casting, and that their “acting choices” throughout the show reflect that they have been given this information. In this meta I’m going to offer an alternative possibility.
If tjlc is true, Mofftiss has good reason not tell Martin Freeman about it. Even if Johnlock is endgame, at this point, Martin might still not know.
During the s4 CC Panel in 2016, the producers discussed withholding information from their actors in order to keep from revealing too much of the twist too soon. In this case, it was in regard to the Mary twist in HLV. Amanda Abbington was not informed that Mary would be revealed to be an assassin until the last possible moment. They kept key information about Mary’s character from Amanda for as long as they could in order to influence her performance.
Sue Vertue said [to Amanda]:
“It’s quite good though that you didn’t know number three.”
Amanda says:
“Absolutely. I would have played it differently had I known that that was the outcome in episode three. I would’ve played her with more of an edge and more…knowing. But the beauty of [me] not knowing was that you thought, oh, she’s a real mild-mannered, very sweet, charming character, and actually she was ruthless.”
Mark Gatiss says:
“…And eventually I said to him [unnamed actor], ‘pretend you know nothing.’ It is actually easier when you’re trying to disguise yourself, rather than playing the result… It’s better not to know, because then you don’t present anything, and then we don’t give anything away to the audience. There are no tells.”
Cumberbatch has to know something, given the fact that they’ve been having him play a lovesick puppy:
They clearly want to communicate Sherlock’s feelings to the audience. They want those ‘tells’. They’re clues for us. Maybe Ben doesn’t know whether or not Sherlock’s feelings are bound to be requited, but he’s clearly been told that Sherlock has some sort of romantic feelings for John. Sherlock pining over his lost love was the focal point for s3. In fact, Mofftiss might have even told him that Sherlock’s feelings wouldn’t be requited, that they will remain as unspoken subtext, same as Sherlock’s sexuality. That way, Ben expresses a specific sort of emotion that translates to, ‘what if, woulda coulda shoulda, but it’s for the best and I’ll suffer in silence long beyond my dying day’. You know, typical, self-sacrificing, pining Sherlock.
The London Underground in The Empty Hearse: Part 1 – Basics of the Underground
I love the tube almost as much as I love Sherlock Holmes, and so the London Underground plot line in TEH is super interesting for me – especially because it’s full of tube-based plot holes and inaccuracies! I’m really excited to combine these two fields of interest in some analytical posts. This series may help non-Londoners if you’re writing fic about the tube, or you may just find it interesting as there’s lots of cool trivia about the tube and London in it, and if that’s not for you, there’s also a lot of pretty screenshots of John and Sherlock coming up. Something for everyone!
I’m going to go through chronologically in a series of posts, pointing out things that people not familiar with the tube system may have missed, some insight into how they filmed these scenes, and a few bits of meta and headcanons we can get from this information, as well as laugh at a couple of silly plot mistakes. Feel free to message me if there’s anything specific you want to know, I love talking about this topic. Please mind the gap between the train and the platform; this hype train is ready to leave!
This first section pre-games may writing on TEH with some basics of the tube system. If you’re familiar with the tube system, you probably don’t need to read this, but feel free to anyway, I’m not gonna tell you what to do, live your dreams, but here’s you’re warning that this section isn’t really focussed on Sherlock.
Lines
The tube network has 11 official lines, but this is hotly debated amongst the TFL (Transport for London) fandom. Yes, there is such a thing. It’s mostly middle aged men. I’m very out of place there. Without going into deep fandom politics, there are other parts of the transport network which are on the tube map which aren’t underground lines, like the Docklands Light Railway (self-driving overground suburban trains), the London Overground (like the underground, but…overground) and the Croydon tram network. Don’t get bogged down with those, they aren’t as fun because they aren’t old and in tunnels.
The actual tube lines all have a line name and colour for identification. Here’s some info and stereotypes about each line:
Bakerloo line – Brown – Harrow and Wealdstone to Elephant and Castle
If your grandpa was a tube line, he’d be the bakerloo. Slow, clunky and old, with lots of war stories. He’s trying his best, but it’s not surprising that he sometimes takes the afternoon off.
Central line – Red – Epping to Ealing Broadway/West Ruislip
In the summer, this line is as hot as satan’s crotch, and just as unpleasant. In winter it can be a pleasant refuge from the cold.
Circle line – Yellow – It’s a circle… almost. More like a spiral since it was extended to Hammersmith.
Tourist line. You can’t get on a circle line train without seeing a London guidebook or someone holding a tube map upside down and looking confused.
District line – Green – Where doesn’t this line go? Upminster to Wimbledon/Richmond/Ealing Broadway/Kensington (Olympia)
Take the district line to go the same places as the circle line but avoid the tourists.
Hammersmith & City line – Pink – Hammersmith to Barking
No one even takes this line, idk. They probably got on it by accident.
Jubilee line – Grey – Stanmore to Stratford
BUSINESS MEN AT BANKS AT CANARY WHARF IN SUITS DOING THEIR SERIOUS BUSINESS COMMUTING TO WORK WHERE THEY DO BUSINESS
Metropolitan line – Purple – Aldgate to Amersham/Chesham/Watford/Uxbridge
This line goes all the way to zone 9, where the fuck. It’s more like a commuter train, not really used to get around London itself.
Northern line – Black – Morden to Edgware/Mill Hill East/High Barnet
Just a line. It’s chill.
Piccadilly line – Dark Blue – Cockfosters (ha) to Uxbridge/Heathrow Terminal 5
If you aren’t a true Londoner you take the tube from Leicester Square to Covent Garden, costing you like £3 for a 5 minute walk. This line is famously unreliable, there was a famous incident a couple of years back where leaves on the track broke all the trains.
Victoria line – Light Blue – Walthamstow Central to Brixton
Fast speedy zoom zoom line!
Waterloo & City line – Turquoise – Waterloo to Bank
This line just shuttles between these two stations. What even is the point.
General Information
Zones are how prices are decided, zone one is central London, the higher the zone number the further into the suburbs.
Station layouts are generally made up of a surface building, a ticket-barrier, and escalators or lifts down to platform level, where there are corridors leading to different platforms and trains.
Fares are paid through contactless card, Oyster card (pre-payment cards, you load them up with money at stations) or occasionally paper tickets, although (contrary to where you might see either use in TBB) most Londoners would use Oyster or contactless.
Trains are different for each line; generally the lines use all the same trains.
The tube network has more overground track than underground; in central London the tube runs underground, but in the outskirts the lines tend to emerge into the open.
Trains usually run every 2-3 minutes, from about 4am to 1am. Some lines run 24 hours on weekends, the Night Tube. Message me if you want more info on that because it’s complicated and unless you need to know about it for an actual reason, it’s not interesting.
Rush hour/busiest times are approximately 7:30-9:00am and 5:00-6:30pm.
The key etiquette rule of the tube: never make eye contact and never speak to people if it can be avoided at any cost.
Next time: John takes the tube to Baker Street. Can we work out where abouts in London John lives with Mary?
Tag stash: tagging a few people who have shown interest in this topic in the past, message me if you want in/out. There’s about 5 more posts on this to come, because I didn’t want it to be one ridiculously long thing…
Sherlock Fandom Archive 