gloriascott93:

ghislainem70:

gloriascott93:

miadifferent:

glassofgaytea:

atikiology:

also. seriously. say the BBC wants to prevent their most successful show from having a queer ending (which was, hypothetically, the plan from the start) so they go to mofftiss and say, hey, calm those gays down and make them straight, and mofftiss are like, well ok then, now that we don’t get to do what we wanted, let’s wreck our own show to the ground. 

i’m going to be honest and say that this scenario is complete nonsense to me. 

if someone took your own work out of your hands, instead of murdering it and doing all your characters a disservice, AND spitting the thing you initially wanted to achieve (in this case LGBT representation) in the face to make sure to rub it really in. you’d just refuse to do that shit.

you can’t tell me that someone can force Vertue, Moffat and Gatiss to produce and write something they hate and then have Cumberbatch and Freeman act it out, fully knowing that it’s the opposite of what they signed up for. It’s not like those people don’t have other career opportunities you know. They are some of the most popular and hyped writers, producers and actors of our time. Someone forcing them to run their own project into the ground, a project they poured so much love and devotion (and, as i used to think, hope for a revolution) into is fucking ludicrous. I’m sorry but. If it had been their plan from the start and someone had told them “you don’t get to do it” they would have said “ok fuck you goodbye you don’t deserve the best show of the 21st century anyway.”

nah i’m telling you. they’re dead serious about this. 

exactly, and couldn’t they have taken their show to another network who would have allowed them to do it?

We’re so used to always defending them that is’t hard to break this pattern and finally hold them responsible for their actions. Unless they say otherwise, series 4 was their choice. 

Agreed.

Why in the hell would the BBC block that content?
It’s an absurd notion, they fucking celebrated Pride last year with a montage of all their LGBT content going back over 4 decades. Explicit queer content is nothing new on the BBC or on British TV generally. This argument is so nonsensical.

My local PBS station has very clearly not bought a 4th episode. The prime time Sunday schedule has the s2 premiere of a big budget PBS drama followed by Victoria.

I am going to take Moffat and Gatiss at their word. There are reviews aplenty out there now in which reviewers have called them on their now proven ongoing queerbaiting from the start. Moffat has continued their ongoing response of belittling and insulting fans’ intelligence without any embarrassment in person and to the press.

Deductive probable conclusion: there is no more rug pull.

Jenny and Vastra are it would seem enough for him. No need to do it in Sherlock.
There is in hindsight more evidence to suggest that the BBC were more open to a queer reading of the show than the showrunners. Vastly more.
Though why the BBC engaged in the s4 promo campaign they did is beyond me if they knew a queer story wasn’t what was being delivered.

In the end it came down to this:
They queer coded the show without intention to follow through.
They said they didn’t intend a queer ending.
We didn’t believe them. <—- there’s the mistake.
Why?
Because they wrote a heavily queer coded show.
There was no elaborate puzzle of codes. It was all coincidences and jumping to the wrong conclusions and being led astray by constant claims by them both that they always lie. Except that one time they didn’t:

When they said they were not trying to fuck with fans’ heads and there was no romantic endgame.

Many across this fandom, whether TJLC or like myself in some other corner, hoped they were trying to keep a lid on a surprise.

They weren’t. Or they were, but it was a psychotic evil sister locked in a tower.

That’s it. Accept it. Hate it. Be hurt by it. But please stop bargaining a better outcome by repeating the same mistake over and over.

Mofftiss made the show they wanted to make. Prior to this season’s ratings dip they sat at the top of the heap in BBC’s programming. They had the power to make the show they wanted to make, hugely inspired by TPLOSH. They queerbaited and used the romantic subtext to keep a certain audience segment’s interest, apparently– with the wholehearted support of the BBC marketing team and even the cast (“love conquers all,” BC SDCC 2016). But to be honest even at the lowest ratings for the series, we are only talking about what in sheer numbers is a small group amongst literally millions of viewers. It’s hard to see that much effort put into toying with a relatively minuscule portion of the viewership. The dedicated tumblr fandom they clearly see as delusional, shrill and angry females. They have no regard for the fandom’s mostly LGBT makeup, almost certainly again because we are (mostly) women. They are privileged white Establishment men who most certainly have little to no inclination to engage with a fandom they see as at best histrionic, and at worst potentially dangerous (a few fringe fans making death threats). Somebody brought up Stephen King’s Misery this morning, and I truly believe that is how Moftiss views us.

Now do I think the BBC will listen when thousands (hopefully) of outraged viewers write in to tell them how used, disappointed and disrespected (insert your own feeling here) they feel? Yes, I honestly think they will listen. It may give them pause in future. But the political and financial climate facing the BBC is challenging to say the least so I don’t see them, for example, renewing Sherlock with new cast and show runners, and making it explicitly gay. As for S5, if there is ever an S5, Mofftiss have made it clear that johnlock is not the story they’re telling. I for one don’t believe they would tell it in S5 even if BBC explicitly commissioned it. (I’d LOVE to be proven wrong). And I don’t think they would bow to fan pressure, outrage etc. because they have been aware of fandom’s (majority) desire for johnlock since S1 and it has never happened except in the brave acting choices of Ben and Martin. Because that’s not the story they wanted to tell, and they have said that publicly, and repeatedly. It’s up to us, and future creators who have the power to make popular media, to make it happen for ourselves.

I agree on the relative size of fandom point. Absolutely.

Well argued. Food for thought.