Q:
Are you ever surprised by questions fans have at Sherlocked?
A:
I’ve been asked an awful lot of questions about both [Dr. Who and Sherlock] so it’s quite
hard for me to hear a new one. It’s quite hard, but I can put that out
as a challenge. Ask me a new question. I’d quite like a new question,
because you do hear some of the ones you hear quite a lot.
I have a feeling that some of you are going to meet the challenge this time around. 😉
“I suppose the thing that I would say is that there’s a very, very big female following for Sherlock. While that’s true of Doctor Who as well, at Sherlock conventions to date, it’s always been that there’s more women than men.”
HAROLD THEY’RE
these are always a rollercoaster
I can’t wait to see what happens at this year’s sherlocked. Give ‘em hell if you are going
“Gatiss and Moffat may just have done what Moriarty never could, and finished off the marvellous character of Sherlock Holmes.”
#if negative reviews of sherlock make you sad don’t read this one
Agreed! But
if negative reviews of TFP make you feel justified in your upset and you enjoy witnessing a good skewering, DO read this one because its savagery is unparalleled:
Never have two writers been more intoxicated on the fumes of their own shallow talent
…
Unbelievably, it got even worse.
…
should have come with Sherlock-branded sickbags.
I wondered what run-of-the-mill, no-skin-in-the-game TV critics said about S4. This gives me some solace. I mean *I* know it was a mess, but I wondered if uninvested parties also saw a mess, of whatever sort.
I have friends who write film crit (I’ve written some stuff for/with them) and I am forever mad at first S3 and then S4 for embarrassing me in front of my critically-minded friends
Moffat told the audience at the the BFI and Radio Times Television Festival in central London: “Neither Benedict, Mark or Martin are against doing more Sherlocks. “We have a great time making them, it’s a very, very nice bunch of people and we enjoy our reunions very much.” He said everyone involved in the show is “aware, very aware” how special it is to be a part of. “And that means two things, we’d never want to do it if we didn’t think we could do it as well as we used to,” he said. “It also means, we’ll come back to it when we feel we’ve got the right idea.” He added: “It could be off the earth quite a long while now. “But I would be surprised, as I’ve said before, if we never made any more Sherlocks.” Asked if he would consider recasting Cumberbatch and Freeman, who star as duo Sherlock Holmes and Dr Watson, he replied: “Absolutely not.” “You can admire great cinematography, a great score, great writing, great direction, great production,” he said. “You can admire all those things, but you only fall in love with people. “And the people you fall in love with are Sherlock, Benedict Cumberbatch and Martin Freeman. “You cannot replace them. They are the magic, they are the show.” Moffat, who is stepping down from his role as writer and executive producer of Doctor Who, said he had “lived through my highlight”. “I mean I am never ever going to top being the guy who was in charge of Doctor Who and Sherlock at the same time,” he said. “That’s not possible. I’m not sure I would even want to top that. That’s an amazing thing.”
Boy, he just dangles that carrot, don’t he? Bet he feels a wane in popularity, but they obviously don’t know how to write themselves out of the corner they blocked themselves into.
They could have replaced Martin with a cardboard cut out this season for all his character mattered. I’m sure he’s just *itching* to come back. #fuckumoffat
“But what could that dialogue have been? Was it between Sherlock and John? Given that Rathbone Place is a reference to an earlier incarnation of Sherlock Holmes, could it have echoed that and given us some kind of classic Holmes reference? And would it have told us any more about what happens next to our partners in crime solving? Sadly, Gatiss is staying tight-lipped about that but he did point out that as the duo leap from Rathbone Place into their futures “we don’t know if they made that last step”.
What exactly does he mean by “that last step”?
This is a-grade trolling, in my opinion. The closing montage is a clod of lazy, predictable tropes that tell us precisely nothing, and reeks of a pair of writers who lost interest in their story years ago. What kind of dialogue could they have written? John threatening to beat Sherlock if he doesn’t baby sit? Mrs Hudson reciting Sweet Child of Mine to her kitchen appliances? Molly squeaking “Okay!” about the telephone scene, like she did in series one when Sherlock orders her to get him some coffee? Lestrade asking why he didn’t get some more substantial scenes? The ghost of Mary reminding then that she can access courier services from the afterlife?
There was never any closing dialogue. This is just another ham-fisted attempt by two mediocre male writers desperate for the last word, desperate to maintain control over their (largely female) fandom who they resent and envy in equal measures. Mofftiss need to get some hobbies.
Let’s talk about the inexplicable ‘Sherlock’ subplot where John Watson sexts a random woman he met on the bus.
As a dreary story about an unpleasant man having a midlife crisis, it’s perfectly typical: a tired, middle-aged father strikes up a text-based relationship with a younger woman, but ultimately decides not to follow through. But as an addition to John Watson’s characterization in ‘Sherlock,’ it’s catastrophically inappropriate.
It’s hard not to see this subplot as a transparent example of middle-aged male wish-fulfilment. Apparently seduced by the sheer animal magnetism of a 45-year-old man who embodies the word “average,” an attractive young woman approaches John Watson on the bus and gives him her phone number. While not impossible, this scenario is a thoughtlessly bizarre role-reversal of the sexual harassment women experience on public transport. Then, there’s the fact that John is actually receptive to her advances, texting another woman while he lies in bed with his wife. We’re left with a thoroughly unlikable version of Watson, who will spend the next two episodes stewing with guilt about his not-quite affair.
I was just thinking about this with the gifset about John and his ongoing misunderstanding or projection onto Sherlock, which came to an end in TLD (well, it’s more like it crashed and burned violently, really). And just as John thought Sherlock wasn’t ‘like that’, many viewers thought John wasn’t like that either, in a different way. As the article says, he’s ‘not that kind of dick’.
I realize I just answered the question of why Eurus had to text John recently, but it occurs to me that the real issue most people have is why John had to text Eurus. Of course, John has that issue himself, and John was doing the soul-searching and angsting himself– so he realizes it’s ‘out of character’, or the character he’d like to be– and surely, the whole point is just that he’s human. Sherlock is also human. That’s the whole point. The purely, absolutely loyal John Watson was never the reality.
This is clearly something that the fans have a really hard time with. I can empathize. We all have our hard limits, things we can and cannot accept about others. Perhaps it’s impossible to truly rationalize it, even in fiction, or perhaps especially in fiction. Like, for example, I can accept John no matter what, but I have more of a hard time with Mary and sometimes with Sherlock’s reactions. As I told Ivy recently, his absolute acceptance of the blame John heaps upon him after Mary’s death (and his acceptance of the shooting earlier) is really hard for me to accept or even fully understand. Clearly, I mean, Sherlock has really different standards of what he can accept from the people he really loves.
Maybe it’s just that Sherlock (unlike Mary, unlike John, unlike fandom) sees John truly, and isn’t surprised. That’s why he’s not angry or resentful after John rejects him so radically in TST: as @ivyblossomtold me earlier, Sherlock accepts and understands John just that much, that deeply, that radically. To Sherlock, John is a ‘loaded gun’, and he knows exactly how far John can go and exactly how much John can hurt him. How much John has hurt him in the past. So he simply makes the decision that John is worthwhile. He even agrees with John that he deserves it in the morgue scene, which I don’t agree with, but my point is that Sherlock is always with John even during the time that John isn’t with him. He knows that it’s not John’s loyalty that broke but John himself.
Fan (especially female fans’) reaction to John’s texting affair takes it a bit personally, I think, and treats the situation a bit like John had betrayed them, or their own image of him. This is definitely why I still disagree with @unreconstructedfangirl’s insistence that there’s no evidence Mary idealized John. It seems to me that everyone but Sherlock (including John!) has idealized John, maybe without even realizing it. Not in an extreme, obvious way. More of a well-meaning, admiring way. No one said John was absolutely extraordinary like they’d imagine Sherlock to be (except maybe Sherlock, actually), but he’s loyal, he’s a good man, he does love Mary– stuff like that. Of course, even people who could see what a disaster Mary and John’s marriage was tried to justify John and Mary continuing with it, either by saying John had a plan or Mary’s just waiting for John to wake up and smell the coffee. In reality, it was a case of both of them deluding themselves. It’s not really surprising that John snapped. No one could be perfectly loyal to a partner who’s already betrayed them, after being pregnant with a child neither wanted, and having to go back and try again after adding the caveat that one is still angry. The frustration has to go somewhere. He can’t even complain, because Sherlock is Mary’s friend too, and encouraged him to go back to her right after revealing it was Mary who shot him. ‘Mixed messages’, indeed. Repressing all that– anyone would crack. John is human, isn’t he?
Likability, of course, is a tricky affair. I was just talking about this in regards to Mary’s storyline: in my opinion, the way the narrative unfolded with Mary– primarily the lack of obvious consequences for her (excepting her relationship with John, which isn’t narratively acknowledged as being Mary’s fault), and the use of her as a constant mirror and conduit– made her character ultimately unlikable. But at the same time, that’s just my opinion, my response. Obviously, this isn’t the intended response, and nor is the response of plenty of people who see canon Johnlock. This is just an issue of expectations and needs, which has a complicated relationship to the actual story. As I said, I’m aware we’re supposed to like Mary, and I enjoyed a lot about her character, but I can’t fully overcome the issues I have with the portrayal. That’s a valid response to John, too, even if I didn’t have any issues relating to him or accepting him, and you could even argue John didn’t face enough consequences from Sherlock, either. So there’s a similarity there. You could argue there’s no actual reason to accept John’s humanity in TST but resent Mary’s portrayal in the same episode. You’d probably be right. In the end, though, just like the characters– we’re all only human.
steven my mansplaining buddy my patronizing pal if you could take just one (1) of the countless opportunities you’ve had to shut the fuck up i guarantee sir arthur conan doyle himself will rise from his grave and thank you for it
“He added: “The last Sherlock episode was a massive hit on any viewing metric scale. You can’t take a few commentators to be the voice of the audience.”
You tell yourself that.
When nobody praises your female characters or your show, do it yourself.
Kind of clever to do it by drawing attention to the negativity around the show and say that the criticism was about Mary dying. That makes it look like feminism is about not letting female characters die, which makes feminists look like a bunch of overreacting weirdos. And of course it sounds like that’s the only issue anyone had with the show. Are there even people who complain about Mary dying? I thought her fans were of the opinion that she was awesome. Even awesome characters die sometimes. What does that have to do with feminism?
Also, it’s cute how he keeps comparing his writing to someone’s from a century ago and seems to think that’s the thing he needs to improve on in order to make his female characters look good today. And for some reason he even thinks he succeeded at it.
Then he says Mary had to die because she died in canon. 😀
I thought they’d be thoroughly bored with more discussion about Sherlock. Apparently not.
I gotta say, the first reaction I had when reading the headline was, “BWWWHAHAHAHAHAHAH!!!!!!! SERIOUSLY????? AHAHAHAHAHAAAA!!!!!!”
Then I went, “Oh my Goddess, he IS serious!”
And deluded.
In the words of (some of) my ancestors– “Lawd JEEZUS!”
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