Alright guys, I asked Mark and Steven about Garridebs!
Mark, very sincerely and personably (make of that what you will), agreed with me about the moment’s emotional importance, and expressed that he had really hoped to include the scene. He said that they (I can’t remember his wording exactly) either tried it or he ran through some possible scenarios and it wouldn’t have fit anywhere (this depends on the different opinions of “was Johnlock intended to be fulfilled or not”). He mentioned the writing phenomenon of “kill your babies” when saying how much he wanted to do the scene. He even called it “throttle the nursery” because it was such a big blow to him.
Steven said that there have been plenty of scenes where Sherlock and John’s care for each other has been shown (his exact emphatic words were “yes yes they would just say wow this is my favorite person!”) and so the Garridebs scene would not be a revelation of that care, as it was in the novels in Victorian times. He said the moment itself is “a retelling of The Red Headed League, but not as good”. I could tell that this is a question he’s been asked before or has thought on a lot, because he delivered the answer very straightforward and with an air of, he’s tired of explaining this and finds it very obvious.
So, interpret all this however you want, I mean shit I still have my strong opinions in this. But I’m just very glad to have been able to ask them both, and in a more private and informal setting, and actually get answers.
Something I thought was very strange was the fact Moffat said he doesn’t understand why so many people think BBC Sherlock is over. I mentioned that the ending Montage of S4 made it seem like a good place to end a series – that it felt like it was a purposeful ending. He scoffed, not at all understanding that TFP could wrap up the entire show. It’s like he just didn’t *get* it. To me, it’s obvious why viewers could see a comfortable ending there and absurd that he doesn’t see it.
I felt like our roles were switched. I argued that the Montage in TFP felt like an ending, he argued that it’s not the intention of that moment at all.
Make of that what you will, i feel like i sometimes slip into an AU while at this con.
I am going go with my gut feeling that OUR BOYS have both decided not to come back. Aside from the butchering of Freeman’s character, I just remember Ben commenting in the bonus footage for TAB, that when they first told him the idea, he said he thought they had ‘lost the plot’. Can you imagine what he thought of S4? He’s not there, is he? Moffat is desperate for the party to not be over. It’s just too bad he crapped on his lead actors for some badly-written girl power.
As always, I’m on the periphery of conversation, but I overhear that Moffatt described Mary as having shot Sherlock nicely. That’s a relief, because I thought it was a savage, cold blood attempt on his life. But it was nice, so I worried needlessly.
I wonder if that is a consideration in sentencing a convicted nice shooter? “Your Honour, she shot him at close range and blasted his hepatic artery open, but she was pregnant, and she was very polite about it, and she wore this really interesting black beanie, so it was a nice shooting. I recommend a suspended sentence and some booties for the new baby.”
It opens up a whole new genre of assault and homicide, doesn’t it?
To shoot someone nicely.
To stab someone nicely.
To run over someone nicely.
To burn someone’s house down nicely.
To throw someone under a bus nicely.
Or have I misunderstood? Is shooting someone nicely subtext for we forgot what happened in the other series, so we just took a guess and filled the rest in with approximations?
John beat and kicked the shit out of Sherlock nicely.
I didn’t realize people would be so salty about my brief convo with Steven about Mary. I prefer Mary to be evil cuz I think it’s more logical and hella more interesting, but to me it’s their show, they do what they want. Anyways, here’s the whole exchange while I remember it.
Me: do you think Mary was redeemed in the end, or was she still morally dubious?
Steven, surprised: well I don’t think she was morally dubious at all!
Me: uhh she did shoot Sherlock…
S: but she did it nicely, it was surgical. She was stuck in a difficult situation. If Sherlock didn’t mind it, why should we?
Me: so you think she was redeemed by her ending?
S, slightly frustrated with me: she didn’t need redemption, it’s not a scorecard. She had such a tougher background, so her movement towards humanity means more than …Sherlock is also, but he’s getting there, and John is solidly (for humanity, something like that I forget the wording, he rambled a bit, Mary took a bullet for Sherlock etc. )But she’s dead now, and there’s not a scorecard for that. It’s not black and white.
Me: ok, thanks for your time.
Sigh.
Moff’s emotional intelligence, understanding of relationships, of the natural consequences of one’s actions, and knowledge of the way to influence and impact your audience with your writing seems to be really low…
I mean even Amanda was tweeting stuff like, “Mary is a fucking psychopath”. Granted Amanda says a lot of stuff on Twitter for strokes, but like I think it’s fair to say that even she thought Mary’s arch was either going to turn out a little differently than it did, and/or felt that some of Mary’s actions in TST qualified her for ‘fucking psychopath’ status.
Also, if you set a character up to a) come between the protag and his love interest, and b) have them shoot the protag, and c) have that protag claw his way back to life just to save his love interest, and then d) have that character threaten to murder him again if he causes her to lose the man they both love, it’s only logical that an audience will assume that that character is meant to be viewed as villainous, or at the very least a clear danger and obstacle to your protag’s happiness and wellbeing.
And yet Moffat seems incapable of comprehending this? The mind boggles…
So if you have a tough background and are in a tight spot, it is ok to shoot someone? I’m sure law enforcement will be happy to let you go once you explain the circumstances. I really feel sorry and maybe even a little worried for Sue to be married to a man who thinks these things. In what universe would Sherlock be ok with being shot, going through months of pain, suffering and rehab. What if Mary had shot John because she was in a tight spot. Would that have been fine? Truly, this is a man who has absolutely no understanding of consequences of actions.
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.
Some of the S4 meta out there is wildly complex, and very impressive in regards to how deeply it digs into, and transforms the text to find meaning. But here’s the thing–Moffat and Gatiss aren’t that clever. Take a look at some of their other work. A lot of it is equally mediocre.
That’s my major hang-up with trying to make sense of S4. The meta writers are far more clever than the writers. Mark and Steven just don’t think that deeply, and all the problems with the writing in S4, are problems that also occur in their other work.
Furthermore, the reason Mark and Steven aren’t really defending bad press and fan opinions of S4, isn’t because they know they still have something brilliant up their sleeve that is going to blow the world away with it’s cleverness and political impact, but because they are arrogant and sheltered enough to actually think that what they wrote for Season 4 was good. Just look at Steven’s comment here on tumblr during the Pre-S4 Question Time session, when he said that he thought TFP was the best thing he had ever written, and he hoped fans felt the same. Yikes.
They live in a bubble of yes men, especially in regards to Sherlock which was their pet project, funded by family and nepotistically cast. They could pretty much do what they wanted there with no checks and balances. Season 4 was the result.
Mark is a really good actor but his work as a writer in Doctor Who leaves a lot to be desired most of the time, oscillating in quality. I think that he’s given Sherlock his best work because both TGG and THoB were brilliant (I don’t like TEH despite its johnlock moments).
Steven has clever ideas and he’s rather gifted, he’s written fabulous TV episodes many times (I even was a Press Gang fan when I was a kid, it was a fantastic show) but he seems unable to acknowledge his weak spots… He loves drawn-out and convoluted story arcs yet he never knows how to complete them; he loves big dramatic moments but he has no idea what to do with them; he’s become very lazy when dealing with character development. Maybe giving himself some rest will be good for him, as well as for all of us lol
I agree with you that they’re too self-absorbed to contemplate that viewers might be right and also very possessive when it comes to Sherlock.
He loves drawn-out and convoluted story arcs yet he never knows how to complete them; he loves big dramatic moments but he has no idea what to do with them; he’s become very lazy when dealing with character development.
Yes! Those are exactly all the bones I have to pick with his writing, and why I stopped watching Dr. Who, actually. I feel like Steven needs to retire. The quality of his writing has been getting progressively worse over the last few years. Or, as you say, perhaps he just needs to go on a rather long hiatus to refuel.
Though, his handling of female characters has always been weak and cliched, imo.
Yes, his female characters are terrible despite sometimes promising starts. When they’re not reduced to wife/mother, they seem content to let their whole world and identity revolve around the male hero. I’m sure he believes that he’s written feminist-friendly characters a few times in recent years, but feminist re/viewers have been thrashing his depictions of women since he’s been the showrunner in DW, because of the glaring difference between the way RTD used to deal with the female companions (keeping their family connections, their agency, their world without the Doctor and their original personality, while allowing character growth of course), and the way he’s been doing it (the opposite of it all)
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!”
Inspired by the Moffat interview where he said: “Sherlock Holmes will now wear the silly hat because Mary liked it.” (X) I have to conclude that he either does not remember the episode he wrote or he is intentionally trolling us or both. But this is not what this is about.
Mary does not like the silly hat. Nor does John make Sherlock wear the damn hat. What happens, is this:
In TAB Mind Palace John tells Sherlock to wear the damn hat. Which is exactly the sentence Sherlock refers to in TLD. Both times it is Sherlock speaking to or about himself. John has nothing to do with it.
Now to the moments Steven is alluding to which are even more telling: In TLD Mary indeed says no less than three times that Sherlock should have worn the hat. But Mary is dead. She is just a figment of John’s imagination, right? This is at least what we are made to believe. But the thing is that John has never been really interested in the hat. When they discussed it in TRF, he was completely oblivious to it, being concerned solely with the “confirmed bachelor” allusions. And Mary – while she was alive – was not interested in the hat either.
So who came to regard the hat as something belonging to him, defining him in some way? Who chose to wear it for the press after his return from the dead? Who had an imaginary John tell him to wear the hat? Who is the one creating scenarios in his mind where people from real life are acting according to his own scripts? Sherlock.
Therefore I take the whole hat business as further evidence that this is not real. And to me it is the only explanation why Sherlock addresses Mary when choosing to wear the hat at the end of TLD. Even if Sherlock had deduced that John had been talking to his dead wife, he could not possibly have known that Ghost Mary had told Sherlock via John’s mind to wear the hat. I leave you to your deductions.
Thank you for this @gosherlocked. It is still a horrible interview but your point calms me down a bit. Because it at least allows for an EMP reading of the whole of S4 – which is the best we will get from it.
[…] it is her [Mary Morstan’s] legacy that they then live, it’s her saying, this is who you have to be, you have to go and consciously be Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson. Sherlock Holmes will now wear the silly hat because Mary liked it. It just felt right.
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