Peace 47

So now that I've assuaged my 21st century conscience and expressed my reservations about some of the sexism in the show, what are everyone's favorite S1 episodes? The Galileo Seven was a really good one. I liked Kirk having to manage a rescue operation with a hostile bureaucrat hovering over his shoulder, and I liked how he just wasn't ready to give up completely when he was forced to leave the search area, and so he only inches away from the star system and keeps scanning. That standoff that Kirk has is reminiscent (in my backwards timeline of watching) of how Picard sometimes had to deal with jackasses. I liked Shatner's immensely relieved but subdued reaction at the end, too, when he heard 5 crew members had been beamed back. I wonder if he was playing some worry at wondering whether either of his two best friends were dead, since the original crew was 7: nice bit of acting there. I liked Spock's Hail Mary play at the end: he said he didn't believe in angels, but he believed in Kirk and the crew one final time. Felt awful for him that his team was questioning his every command decision, though, and that two crew members died on his first mission. The City on the Edge of Forever was really interesting. I mentioned it upthread, but Joan Collins a lovely delight in this one. I really liked McCoy's deadpan disbelief of being in the past while talking to Edith, and I enjoyed the joyful reunion among Bones, Spock and McCoy (until Edith bit the big one). It rang true that they would go nuts seeing each other again in the face of such dire odds. The pilot fascinates me as the show that never happened. I did like Majel's role a lot as "No. 1" (love that they brought that nickname back for TNG, too). Captain Pike is an interesting character, too, but pretty tightly wound. It was probably smart to go with a captain who seemed to enjoy his job for the most part. I have others, but this post is long enough.

Don't remember any others off the top of my head. I've been on a tear of watching the original Star Trek on Netflix for the first time, and two South Park homages to that series came to mind as I've been watching. The "joke machine" episode where Jimmy destroys the robot with a paradox of logic came right from the "Nomad" episode where Kirk does the same thing with a space probe. And the kids' preschool teacher being confined to that wheelchair with only beeps for communication came from a first season episode where The Enterprise's former captain was identically disabled. I didn't realize that Parker and Stone were keyed into that show at all. Fascinating. ;-)

I'm ignorant enough of TOS that I had to look up who Grace Lee Whitney was: Yoeman Rand! I see that, if Wikipedia is accurate, she claimed that the show got her hooked on diet pills from pressure to fit into the tiny uniforms (and that she was sexually assaulted by an executive on the show), and so I guess "behind the scenes" was no more empowering to women than what took place in front of the camera. It just surprised me a little bit, watching some (not all) of these episode for the very first time, that a show that in many ways was quite progressive for its time (preaching tolerance, harmony, difference races and creeds working together, etc.) takes such a dim view of women. I'm probably influenced by having just watched both the episode where Spock's brain is stolen and the very last episode of the series (where any woman who wants to be a captain is a psycho crazy lady). There is a lot that's really great about this show, though. I don't mean to discount how enjoyable that it can be. Shatner has a ton of charm in this role. He very well conveyed that roguish charm of Kirk's when he is amused: like that chess game he was playing with Spock in one of the first episodes and he's grinning while telling Spock that Spock plays an irritating game of chess (then escapes from Spock's trap! haha).

I agree with your whole post, especially about this show being surprising fun*, mostly based on the good chemistry of Kirk, Spock and McCoy. And yes, I completely see why Kirk/Spock is the mother(ship) of all slash pairings and why people latched onto the close, affectionate do-anything-for-each-other bond that they have (and why The Wrath of Khan/ Search for Spock, which I had seen without the benefit of all this context, was such a payoff on their relationship). "The City on the Edge of Forever" is very sweet when Joan Collins (blew my mind when I read about the episode) mentions that it's clear that Spock's place is forever by Jim's side. Aww. (And Joan, whom I had never seen in her youth, is just radiantly sweet in that episode). *My "surprising fun" explanation: I'd never seen the show before but people on one of my social media accounts were obssessing over Kirk/Spock all of the sudden the past few months (I guess because of Netflix recently(?) adding it), so I gave it a try, thinking that I would not like it due to it being dated, even though I am a longstanding TNG fan. I've been skipping around episodes and seasons (that's how I roll), so I haven't seen the worst episodes yet. It being dated doesn't bother me in terms of effects, music, costumes, etc. It's a fun space adventure in which you can just use your imagination on things like manual switches and also appreciate how they had the foresight to imagine things like iPads. BUT I will say that the sexism in this show is terrible--truly, truly terrible. Normally with 60s shows, I just cling to the female empowerment that I can (like Samantha continuing her magic on Bewitched and being her own person not submissive to Darin), but this show is tough because women are so thoroughly portrayed as cowering, emotional, in need of protection and not as smart as the men. The only high point is Uhura being there as a senior staff officer (who is also black! even today there's often such a lack of intersectional feminism on TV) I don't like some of the lines they've put in her mouth about being frightened and whatnot, but what she could do with the role is awesome (and this wasn't a S1 episode, but in the mirror verse episode, she got to be impressively assertive in attacking mirror Spock with the rest of the gang and holding a knife to mirror Sulu). So I'm a huge Uhura fan already. That original pilot with Captain Pike looks like it actually might have been better about the sexism, though, with Majel Barrett (sp?) having more of a command position: at least she got to wear pants and go on away missions!

I am a former very frequent MSNBC watcher who transitioned to pretty much CNN-only a couple of years ago. I turned it on MSNBC tonight, though, because I was flicking around trying to get the most up-to-date information on my poor city (Charlotte). Man, BriWi is A Lot to handle. He seems to have toned it down mid-program, but he started off so patronizingly about Charlotteans being proud of their little business district in the 17th largest city in the country and how it's all devolved into chaos and how's he's been listening in on the police scanners in "Charlotte-Mecklenburg County" (it's Mecklenburg County, oh wise one) listening to the unrest. Ugh. The pomposity oozed through the screen. The poor CNN reporter is getting thrown to the ground by an agitator and still keeps it professional and factual. Take a hint, BriWi.

I was (at least at one point) a superfan of this show, and I loved the episode at the time. As I wrote after it originally aired, I needed to see it connected to the present day because at the time, it had been 2 years since the last new episode and it was 1 year to the next one. That's a long time to go without bridging the stories. Even crack-y episodes of dramas with 13-22 episodes per season frequently frame stories like this around the present day in some way. For example, didn't the X-Files do that for the one episode on a boat that was set during WWII? It would have surprised me more if TAB had been an unconnected flight of fancy. The structure made it more interesting to me to (1) try to figure out what was going on (like with the dropped clues throughout the episode, such as the plane noise on the train, or Sherlock going trance-like to ask, "How could he [not she] survive?") and (2) absorb how the reactions of the characters were a distorted mirror of how Sherlock sees those people and how he sees himself. Why in the name of everything did Sherlock have "John" give him the third degree in the greenhouse on who Sherlock was attracted to? If it was the real John asking the question of Sherlock, that is one thing (and maybe just a humorous exchange between bros about how Sherlock would rather be murdered by a ghost than answer the question), but what does it mean that Sherlock was grilling himself on why he needed to be alone? (And no, I'm not advocating "Johnlock" with that anymore, but just saying that it adds a layer of complexity.) On the subject of Mycroft, I see him as caring quite a bit. He's a ... for lack of a better analogy ... "Jack Bristow" (from Alias) type. His motives may seem murky (the writers delighting in the ambiguity, like when they would have liked the audience to believe in the first episode that this man could be Moriarty). But deep down, he cares. Mycroft said on the plane in this episode that he was there for Sherlock before and would be again. (I did sense exasperation, too, but that stands to reason when you're watching your sibling nearly kill themself). Mycroft sadly asked John to look after Sherlock before they exited the plane. The flashback of Sherlock on drugs showed Mycroft sitting down next to him to collect the list. These are not the actions of a man who does not care. The issue seems to be that for whatever reason, Sherlock is crazy resentful of Mycroft in certain contexts. (I mean, it's not all hostility because they can play Operation together or do deductions with some civility.) But there's something festering, too, that makes Sherlock act like an ass to Mycroft as Sherlock exits the plane. We'll see if it is explained.

I spent a lot of time in Budapest a few years ago for work reasons but haven't been back since. Why is Budapest considered a potential security disaster? Why is it any worse than, say, Rome? I could see that it could be just as vulnerable as Paris, though. I saw Malcolm Gladwell on TV a couple of weeks ago arguing a point that I had been considering, as well. It's a wonderful concept in theory to have athletes from around the world gather in one place, but it's just not practical in reality for the host country/ city to run up a staggering debt (with new venues, security, etc.) to do it. What country can justify $20 billion+ anymore on a single Games? (Although I know Rio has good plans to dismantle/ recycle venues to benefit the city long-term.) They need to have one city host swimming, one host track, etc., and divide and conquer among, say 5 cities (and have those same cities host more than once per century to recycle venues). Just do a satellite-linked opening/ closing ceremony. With more modest bids for only certain pieces, bids could be 20% of what they are now. I'm not sure that would help solve IOC corruption or make the security situation much less complex, though.

I agree that it would be hypocritical for people to do that, but I understood from the coverage of Lilly King's remarks that she also had words for Justin Gatlin, and so I don't think she was being hypocritical, just passionate. I don't blame athletes who are competing clean for being angry about potential violations: in competitions like the Olympics, losing to someone who cheated in the past (and could still be cheating, because let's face it, people like Marion Jones used and were not caught by testing), could cost the clean athletes real money in medal-related endorsements and recognition. I'm only a casual Olympics-watching fan and no authority on track and field at all, but from what little I've seen, it seems as though in the early 2000s, track and field was on the precipice between losing itself to acceptance of a massive "you have to dope to win" culture like cycling (where everyone who won was cheating, at least during the Armstrong years) and something like swimming, where maybe they have weeded out most rampant drug cheating (but maybe I'm naïve). If Gatlin is clean now, good for him, but it's difficult to take him seriously when during that Chris Collingsworth interview that aired last night on NBC, he claimed he was the victim of a vindictive masseuse who used steroid cream on him. That sounds a lot like the Lance Armstrong excuse he had for testing positive (used a cream unknowingly that had drugs in it) that one time before he fessed up to Oprah.

There was a Hillary-Obama debate back in the day during the primary process. I think this was from March 2008. I just watched this a few months ago for some reason, which is why I thought to link to it. They've done some decent stuff during the "Jay as Obama" era (another that comes to mind is the one where he is making an Obama Care speech, and the members of the public he keeps citing are embarrassing in some way, and it ends with "Jesse Pinkman" talking about his friend with cancer being forced to sell meth). Nothing has approached the brilliance of Key and Peele's take, though.

I'm sorry to see both Jay and Taran go because I think they've both been major contributors. I actually got the sense a couple of months before last season's end, though, that Taran may have been a little checked out. I don't really know how to describe it other than his seeming a little less "present" (emotionally) in some of the sketches in which he appeared and also not appearing (physically) quite as often as he seemed to be in episodes prior. If he's been very busy prepping his Schwartzenager movie, though, that might explain it. From reading his exit interview, it sounds as though he really wanted to stay. Jay brings so many impressions to the table that I'm shocked they would lose him over, say, Sasheer, who doesn't really do impressions or have funny characters or Weekend Update guest shots or memorable pretaped sketches like some of the others. She always plays the straight woman. I know they can't just rely on Jay to amaze with his soundalike abilities, week-in and week-out, but man, that seems like a loss.

I think the battle of preserving the sanctity of canon was lost somewhere between Irene Adler being a self-identified lesbian dominatrix who still fell in love with Sherlock Holmes and Mary Morstan being a building-scaling pregnant ninja assassin (lol), but point taken. I just really didn't like the condescension to fans that came across (to my eye) in that interview. I just hope that they learned their lesson for S4 and don't put in any more hilarious "jokes," like Mrs. Hudson (who knows them better than nearly anybody) still insisting that they were a couple.

Sigh. Moffat and Gatiss's interview has stirred up quite a turbulent wake. As the article notes, at SDCC 2016, many invested fans got very excited when Moffat spoke on a panel with Bryan Fuller and said some very thoughtful things about LGBT representation that very closely echoed theories on how John and Sherlock may get together. As background, fans have not pulled their speculations about Sherlock being in love with John out of thin air, and many of those theories are based, in part, on past extra-textual statements by the creators (not just what is in the show). Gatiss was quoted in a 2010 Guardian interview as saying that "The Private Life of Sherlock Holmes" informed a lot of what they were trying to do in Sherlock and mentioned that Sherlock "effectively falls in love" with Watson in that film (so it gave people ideas). Gatiss also was quoted as saying in 2012: "I think when the day comes that you have a big detective show where the first half hour was this man at work and he’s a maverick and all the usual things and then we went home and his boyfriend says, “Are you alright?” it was just a thing, then something would have genuinely changed." (What gets left out of the quotes is that he goes on to say it can't be that way now because gayness is always an issue.) And even Moffat, who show runs Doctor Who, has a lesbian married couple on that show as minor characters. One-half of that couple is a Victorian consulting detective for Scotland Yard and is speculated in-universe to be the inspiration for Sherlock Holmes. So again, it gave people ideas about what the producers were open to doing. I pretty much take at face value their adamant denials because not only did Vertue confirm it, but Gatiss and the show's PR minder also took to Twitter to say how accurate that article was when so many other publications twist their words. And a fan-run site that they favor with special things like set tours promoted it on their blog, out of all panels and interviews done at SDCC. And in the coup de grace, someone tweeted Gatiss to challenge him about the media twisting his words when he said that Sherlock and John were in love in "The Private Life of Sherlock Holmes," and he actually said his words were twisted--he called it a "garbled mistranslation" (an article in The Guardian, no less). They are clearly trying to send a message. They say that while they lie about other things, they are not lying about this. The problem is, that part 2 of the "offending" interview goes on to say how they lie to protect important plot points, and so many that I've seen on Tumblr have just decided that they are lying about this, as well (citing, for example, Moffat's strong insistence that TAB was a one-off Victorian fantasy not connect to the present story). I don't think anyone reading this probably agrees with my prior read on the show, but I maintain that the show did play with subtext (which Gatiss now calls a joke that may have gone too far). I might hope that some may agree that it's disheartening that while Gatiss essentially calls perceptions of Sherlock and John's status a "joke," he and Moffat also get angry about fans "trivializing" LGBT representation. (Maybe then don't make a joke of it?) It's disheartening that he calls fans (including many LGBT youth who have embraced this show fiercely--just check Tumblr) being nearly giddy at possibly seeing an iconic character being allowed to be brilliant and difficult and incidentally gay as "trivializing" the issue. (Is it a little bit trivializing to have your villain get on his knees in your most recent episode and suggestively lick the phallic symbol of a gun?) And it's disheartening that as they say on one day that it's so important for LGBT youth to see themselves portrayed onscreen, their answer the next day is "not for any leading character on my show, though." I've suspected for awhile that Gatiss especially has some contempt for the most ardent Sherlock fans. (See how ardent in-universe fans of the character of Sherlock are treated as obsessed with seeing Moriarty and Sherlock kiss in "The Empty Hearse.") I think the contempt of both of them really comes through in that interview, and I am disappointed.

That's fair, rereader2, in terms of people's assumptions. I just think the assumptions of his friends and acquaintances become part of the cumulative weight of evidence over the episodes, such that I can pick at any one example and find a counter argument to the overall conclusion, but when I look at it all holistically, I just end up going, "He's gay!" I kind of outlined how some of these factors snowballed for me into this conclusion in the Sherlock character thread awhile back, and that was before the January special when I think it went even further towards what I think is an impending disclosure of his heart's desire when he stops suppressing himself (which was at its peak in S1, and I certainly did not watch this episode for the first time and come away thinking that he was gay). I know that many people most emphatically disagree, or at the very least, think it will continue to remain an unanswered question for people to fill in the blanks as they see fit, though.

I've spent a lot of time on Tumblr today reading trailer theories and whatnot. (I don't know why, since I've got 6 months to stew on this, but whatever, I have no impulse control.) As a general note, I think it's interesting that they seem to have scenes from all 3 episodes in this trailer. The pre-season 3 trailer had scenes only from "The Empty Hearse." So this gives a bit more flavor to the whole series than we had last time. Here is a post that has a screenshot of all of our characters in the trailer. Amanda Abbington did some shooting in Moracco(? or some place in Northern Africa, at least) a few weeks ago (per either her or some crew member's Twitter), and here, she is wearing a hijab. In HLV, Magnussen's "file" on her showed her with this dark hair (sans hijab), and so I've seen people speculating that this is a flashback to her old life. Could be a present-day Sydney Bristow wig situation, though, too. That's my instinct--that she's off taking care of unfinished business in the present. That supports my longstanding assertion that Mary is an antagonist and the real "Moran" of the story, though, so take my biases with a grain of salt. For the episode 2 issue of Sherlock actually being sick (and not faking like in the ACD story, "The Dying Detective") here is a gif of Sherlock looking like he's totally lost it and is shooting at the wall. The background has papers all over the floor and generally looks messy. He seems to be in a bad way. John is in a car that is hit (although I think the car explosion in the second gif is a separate scene). I read a few weeks ago that the set designer had tweeted some pics of a water tank and wrecked car, and some were speculating at the time that John was run off the road and into a body of water. John is standing in front of a hospital bed in the trailer, and this post debunks the thought that it was Sherlock's hospital bed from HLV (since it is clearly a different room, and in addition, although it's not mentioned in the post, that is clearly John's S4 hair). Moriarty (or Moriarty's twin) is in this too. Looks pretty good overall. That "2017" kills me at the end, though. 3 years we will have waited to see how HLV really plays out.

So if Moriarty's twin is potentially at issue (as we've speculated), that reminds me of what Mycroft said at the end of HLV. Mycroft wasn't prone to outbursts of brotherly compassion and cited his treatment of "the other one" as evidence of this. People were wondering at the time if Mycroft and Sherlock had a dead brother or sister, but what if the brotherly compassion that Mycroft failed to show was compassion for Moriarty's brother? And so what if Moriarty's brother is "the other one"? Steven Moffat spoke at a Nerdist panel at SDCC (in addition to the Sherlock panel that he, Gatiss and Abbington are doing tomorrow, out of which I really hope that there is a clip tomorrow). There's just round-ups tweets of what he said for now, but he apparently called episode 3, which he co-wrote with Gatiss, "insane wish fulfillment." The crew also tweeted about fireworks that they said they had on Cumberbatch's 40th birthday, but I've seen speculation that the fireworks are actually part of the filming for the show, which I think would make sense. Fingers crossed for a trailer or clip tomorrow!

I don't know how far you are into the show (and whether you've seen any episodes beyond this one). I would say that in this episode, signs that would point to Sherlock being gay include the fact that when John asks if Sherlock has a girlfriend, Sherlock says that girlfriends are not his area, but when John asks if Sherlock has a boyfriend, Sherlock just simply says no. (So women are not his area generally, but he just currently doesn't have a boyfriend?) Also, people who know Sherlock to varying degrees of well in this episode (Mrs. Hudson, Angelo and Mycroft) all either assume that John is Sherlock's new boyfriend or make remarks about how that must be where their relationship is heading. Mrs. Hudson questions whether they will need 2 bedrooms when John comes to look at the flat; Angelo thinks Sherlock brought a date to the restaurant (rather than a friend or colleague); Mycroft makes a snide remark about expecting a "happy announcement" after learning that John is now helping Sherlock solve crimes. Query why the assumption is that bringing a guest to dinner or getting a roommate would be viewed romantically by third parties who know Sherlock well if they knew him to be straight or ace.

I agree with you that this being mind palace could be repetitive. And in addition, John chucking Moriarty off the waterfall in TAB was (I think) meant to show Sherlock's method of dealing with his fears (which fears were personified by Moriarty). That method was to accept help from his most trusted confidante and not take on everything alone. So there's been a seeming resolution to the mind palace version of Moriarty. In S3, Andrew Scott filmed (staged?) a short scene shaking hands with Mycroft outside of St. Bart's while they were filming other stuff for "The Empty Hearse," and the cast later said that scene had been filmed only to throw off all the bystanders. That made some people think that this "Moriarty emerging from a helicopter" scene is also fake, but that makes little sense, given that he would not otherwise be on set, and who would even care except for nerds like me who eat spoilers up with a spoon? I wonder if that S3 scene will ever turn up in the show, though, since we are not done with Moriarty. I might think that this helicopter beach scene is a flashback, since we are apparently time-traveling (given the news about casting children-versions of the characters). Except that if that John and fisherman scene happened, then this couldn't be a flashback. That takes me back to twin, but it would be a little weird if Moriarty's brother was also a showy criminal mastermind. On the other hand, at the end of TAB, Sherlock said that there was "no question" that Moriarty was dead, but that more importantly, he knew exactly what Moriarty was going to do next. So that does frame the issue as being one where someone else picks up the "Moriarty" mantle. This past week, episode 1 director, Rachel Talalay, posted a picture of the crew gift that she bought the Sherlock crew: a t-shirt to represent the episode (where the designer drew something based on two producer-approved keywords: hound and shark). A shark also appeared in graffiti in the tunnel that they were shooting in for episode 1. That's strange because Magnussen was the one referred to as a shark, and he's pretty dead, but I wonder if we're not done with him, either. I always thought it was weird that both Moriarty and Magnussen both emphasized talking about people's "pressure points." That's a very specific phrase that seems more than just a writer holdover phrase.

I really have enjoyed Andrew Scott in every appearance that he's made on this show, and so I'm interested to see what is next for him. I'm just parroting other posts I've read, but the theories run the gamut from mind palace to Moriarty's twin brother (since Moriarty had a brother in the stories and twins were reference in TAB). I mean, there's definitely a danger of going to that well too many times, but for me, he just works on that show. What is somewhat intriguing to me is some speculation that I read relating to some action on that beach that wasn't caught in any pictures, I guess, so take it with a grain of salt. Moriarty (or his minions) approached John and an elderly, taller-than-John fisherman on that beach with guns, and John and his companion raised their arms in surrender. The person who reported this said that they thought the fisherman was Sherlock in disguise. That sounds like it could be good. Someone on the production staff tweeted that they were building a cave set for use next week, and so I might guess that the boys end up (or started out at) in a cave on the cliffs at that beach. And they also cast both a young Sherlock (confirmed by Moffat's son, who said that he was too old to play the part this time around: a 6-year-old Sherlock) and apparently, a young Mycroft (which isn't confirmed). Those Tumblr detectives figured out from some other Twitter of someone who didn't get the part and who looks like this kid that these kids were auditioning for this show.

It seems that most of the dissemination of spoilers for the new season takes place on people's Tumblrs these days, but I'm still a message board gal at heart. Because I'm on the mobile site, it's not the easiest thing for me to dig out links and put them here, but the show is apparently towards the end of episode 2 filming (and filming on location at North Gower Street, i.e., the exterior for 221B, this very night). I guess earlier today, they filmed in the daylight a scene on North Gower Street where extras-as-pedestrians were scrambling away from the 221B front door after reacting to a perceived loud noise (perhaps a to-be-added post-production explosion?). They also filmed it raining at night in front of 221B later on. Sherlock apparently followed a woman out of his flat, too. This lady. [edit: apparently the photographer who took the picture is on a tear to have it removed from Tumblr, but here is a news article that also has pictures of the woman and disheveled Sherlock] That picture of her in the link is from another night of filming with Benedict, though, and not tonight. Her real-life name is Sian Brooke, and as you can see from the link, the person who posted the info thinks that she may be playing Lady Frances Carfax. Some pictures show that she has a cane or walking stick. At or around the time that they filmed the scenes with Sian Brooke in the link above, there were also scenes of Benedict stumbling through a busy street in daylight hours looking sick and disheveled. There were also "mind palace scenes" on the same road where the apparent stand-in for Toby Jones (who is playing Culverton Smith, the villain from the canon ACD story, "The Dying Detective," per his bio on some casting website) confronted Sherlock on that street. Other people were sitting around a table hooked to IVs, and yet another scene around that time had a 221B interior two-dimensional backdrop unfurled with Sherlock and Wiggins standing in front of it (presumably to be used for said mind palace scenes). There were also pictures a couple of weeks ago when they filmed at a modest residence in a neighborhood. Mary, John, Molly, Mrs. Hudson (hiding handcuffs(!) on her person) and Sherlock filmed all day at this location. There was an ambulance apparently there for Sherlock because in some takes, he would exit the residence and climb in. John was described as acting stressed or annoyed and exited the residence to climb into a car. Sian Brooks was apparently there that day, too, and trying hard to hide her face from anyone taking photos.

I agree with them about "Meet Your Second Wife." I love that sketch so much that it is flirting with "favorite sketch ever" territory for me. It was off YouTube and the SNL app for awhile, but I ran into it yesterday on YouTube on the SNL channel and was so happy. I also really enjoyed "Family Feud--Extended Family" (Keenan's Steve Harvey saying "Keep them off the pole" makes me laugh) and that "Golden Globes" sketch and wouldn't have minded seeing those on the list, as well as the aforementioned "God is a boob man." Oh and Mercedes AA. That was great. Mr. Bunting has to go on there for sure, though. The list has no credibility without it, and no, I don't give them a pass just because they published the list prior to the finale!

I don't think that I rewatched any of the early S4 episodes after they aired, which is probably why I don't remember her much. (She should do TV again, though: I really enjoyed her on "ER" in the last season.) I somehow missed supposebly's post when I first posted, but you mentioning her stairwell make out with Dixon finally jogged my memory. That was so random. I know a lot of people prefer S4 to S3, but I think I liked S3 better on the whole. There were some exciting, suspenseful or fun missions that season, like the Ricky Gervais episode, and the one with Syd and Vaughn in North Korea was good, too. The finale of S3 was dreadful, though. Remember when their joint task force location got all shot to hell, and as they were picking through the carnage and tending to the wounded, the camera lingered on an extra cradling his damaged printer for some reason? That was fun to mock.

I love that the spoiler thread for the very season we are still awaiting was started 2 years ago. That's precious. Has anyone seen the S4 filming pictures for episode 1 of Sherlock, John (with a 4 to 6 month old baby in a strapped-on baby carrier) and Mary with a big (bloodhound?) dog walking through Borough Market? Thoughts? S4 Filming Pictures The children playing the baby are adorable (saw them in other pictures not included in the article above), but I am so unenthusiastic about some kind of comedic situation involving doing detective work with a baby and a dog in tow. Someone also posted elsewhere on Interwebs about how there seemed to be a scene with Mary possibly giving birth in a car driven by Sherlock, with John in the backseat. Dramatic birth seems cliche for this show (for any show), but I guess we'll see. And for episode 2, there were reports of filming at Cardiff University's student union, made to look up like a children's ward of a hospital. There's a picture of Sherlock looking like death warmed over at that location, and lots of speculation that episode 2 will be a "Dying Detective" adaptation and also involve a sick Watson daughter.

I liked Janine, too. I've seen some people speculate (not based on anything concrete) that perhaps Janine is Moriarty's sister, since Moriarty had a brother in the stories and they're both Irish. I have no opinion on that theory. Don't love it. Don't hate it. They have substantially different Irish accents, though, that even my untrained ear can pick up.

Faye Dunaway would be a good guess: that was early on in the show when JJ was still involved, and I think I have heard those rumors about her, too. JJ pulled back on involvement substantially in S3, if I recall correctly, getting ready for "Lost," and so I think that it would have to be someone from S1-S2. There were not as many short-term guest actresses at that time as there were in the later seasons. (Also, don't tell me Vivica Fox is difficult: I've always really liked her.) I can't believe that as a former mega-superfan, I could not recall and had to look up Angela Bassett's role (she's mentioned as a notable guest actress at the end of the Page Six article). Even sadder is that I could not recall her role even after looking it up. She played Hayden Chase for 4 epsiodes. I guess she played the CIA Director in S4, per the Internet. Do not recall that. I fell down a YouTube rabbit hole yesterday, and one video that I watched was a blooper compilation for this show from various seasons. I love that blooper where the director (possibly Ken Olin) is setting up to say "Action" for a scene from "The Box," with Jennifer and Victor in an elevator. And just before doing the countdown, he says, "Don't anticipate the extraordinary moment that is about to take place," and Jennifer and Victor just die laughing, because if someone says that right before "Action" that's what you're going to be thinking about. Victor says something like, "Don't ever say that again." I'm going to have to look up my favorite blooper, though: Kendall saying that they have someone in "custard-y" instead of "custody." I love that one so much.

I missed Mr. Bunting last night, just watched it, and laughed so hard that I literally cried. That was the perfect amount of build for that payoff. Definitely not the point of the sketch, but I also laughed when Jay said "We made hats" as he tentatively put the hat on his head.