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Lost Without Their Blogger: Sherlock in the Media

David T. Cole

By David T. Cole
in Sherlock [V]

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Anothermi
Anothermi

I may be a minority here, but I was hooked from the 1st episode.  I'm not much for picking something apart but if I leave an episode with being intrigued about something? - I stay engaged. That doesn'

Winter Rose
Winter Rose

I think it's going underappreciated simply because it's in S4 but I really do think The Lying Detective was a highlight, and the best post-TRF episode. Meanwhile the premieres and finales of S1 and S2

Winter Rose
Winter Rose

It was an interesting listen. I don't think there's anything wrong with shipping in itself and I do believe that once an author releases their story to the public, they no longer control how it's rece

ForeverAlone

ForeverAlone

(edited)

Sherlock's problem is that when people do sit down, pay attention and do some thinking, they most likely notice that the plots often collapse in on themselves under the staggering weight of implausibility (at least some of the recent episodes). When the writers want the audience to hand wave any of those plot holes and implausibilities under the guise of "Sherlock is just super smart so he can do anything", you know that is because they don't have a plausible idea of how to tell their stories. There are ways to get to the point of some of the stories they want to tell, but they need to ground those story ideas in logic and at least semi-believable plausibility about human behavior and the laws of physics. I forgive Sherlock these transgressions less than some Marvel comic show, because this show is ostensibly set in the "real world" and the characters are not imbued with any sort of supernatural powers. Sure, some of the characters are high level geniuses, but their actions should still make a modicum of sense and be able to reasonably occur in the real world, in my opinion. 

Edited by ForeverAlone
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rereader2

rereader2

6 hours ago, ForeverAlone said:

Sherlock's problem is that when people do sit down, pay attention and do some thinking, they most likely notice that the plots often collapse in on themselves under the staggering weight of implausibility (at least some of the recent episodes). 

Which is exactly what happens when you look at most of ACD's plots, too. Very canonical, that is!

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Drapers4thWife

Drapers4thWife

Mark Gatiss is to be the showrunner on a new miniseries for Channel Four in the UK called Queers, which is about the history of the LGBT struggle in Britain. There will be eight parts, exclusively written by LGBT screenwriters (including one by Mark). Five of the episodes have been written by up and coming LGBT writers who were chosen to make their television writing debuts on the series.

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LolaRuns

LolaRuns

This was an interesting take from a person on why they don't like the show. 

Their core argument is that the show hides too much information from the viewer, taking away the chance to guess along or learn actually useful deduction techniques (they also complain about mythology and the show being more about talking how great and whacky Sherlock is to the detriment of everything else, it also compares it to how Moffat wrote Dr. Who and Jekyll). 

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Amarsir

Amarsir

On 6/1/2017 at 3:29 AM, LolaRuns said:

Their core argument is that the show hides too much information from the viewer, taking away the chance to guess along or learn actually useful deduction techniques (they also complain about mythology and the show being more about talking how great and whacky Sherlock is to the detriment of everything else, it also compares it to how Moffat wrote Dr. Who and Jekyll). 

I'd sum his point up as the stories being "tell, not show" about the intelligence of Sherlock (and the super villains). That often manifests in not giving clues to the viewers to deduce alongside. But it also includes (for example) how Moriarty is treated as an icon, named in the pilot and then continually mentioned even post-death, yet doesn't really do that much in the grand scheme. (And isn't even beaten actually, but basically just gives up because he loves Sherlock too much.)

There is a lot about other Moffat works, and if someone was inclined to watch but not down for a 2 hour video, they could skip the first half hour until the dissection of Sherlock really starts.

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Winter Rose

Winter Rose

Thankfully someone in the comment section put links to when each "chapter" starts, so I just skipped to what I thought looked interesting. I didn't agree with everything but there were some good points. I don't think it's bad to give Sherlock an overarching plot (Sherlock vs. Moriarty was my favorite part of the show), or the different take on Moriarty (I can understand those wanting a more traditional Moriarty not liking him, he's my favorite and I still had to adjust my expectations after the first reveal), or that they're not doing exact retellings of the original stories. But I do think there's something to be said that they were very good at introducing interesting things and engaging you to keep watching on the promise of a payoff, but often the "payoff" was non-existent.

I still love S1 and 2 as much as ever but I think the guy was right on point especially about S4 in its twisting and untwisting of itself. It seemed to have abandoned all pretense of something deeper going on but my theory's been that they were trying to squeeze two seasons worth of story into one because they didn't know if/when they'd be able to make more episodes.

What I'm really wondering, it's like 90 minutes in, is what happened from Moffat being so against a Sherlock Holmes backstory to being exactly what he made TFP about. That must be a really old interview but that made me laugh.

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VCRTracking

VCRTracking

22 hours ago, Winter Rose said:

What I'm really wondering, it's like 90 minutes in, is what happened from Moffat being so against a Sherlock Holmes backstory to being exactly what he made TFP about. That must be a really old interview but that made me laugh.

Me too. I think he realized or (had to admit to himself) after that panel that the show he created is only about Sherlock and exploring his character and not about solving cases concerning other people. He's not Dick Wolf, basically. He's only interested in writing about Sherlock's dysfunctional personality and relationship with Watson that than having him solve a puzzle and showing the audience how step by step. Joss Whedon before the Buffy the Vampire Slayer spinoff Angel premiered, said the show was going to be more "case of the week" show and not a soap opera like Buffy. Later he admitted he discovered he's not great at writing that type of show and it became more about Angel's character evolution.

The guy going absoulutely nuts over the boomerang scene was hilarious.

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ohjoy

ohjoy

1 hour ago, Winter Rose said:

2017 Emmy Nominations: Complete List of Nominees

Outstanding Television Movie - Sherlock: The Lying Detective

Outstanding Lead Actor in a Limited Series or Movie - Benedict Cumberbatch (Sherlock: The Lying Detective)

I didn't realize the each individual episode of the series could be nominated as a movie (interesting workaround since the series as a whole was not as great as it could have been). That being said, The Lying Detective was absolutely a standout, so I'm glad to see it recognized.

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ElectricBoogaloo

ElectricBoogaloo

Complete list of Emmy nominations for Sherlock (which were all for The Lying Detective):

OUTSTANDING TELEVISION MOVIE

OUTSTANDING LEAD ACTOR IN A LIMITED SERIES OR MOVIE - Benedict Cumberbatch

OUTSTANDING SOUND EDITING FOR A LIMITED SERIES, MOVIE OR SPECIAL

OUTSTANDING SOUND MIXING FOR A LIMITED SERIES OR MOVIE

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Peace 47

Peace 47

1 hour ago, BakerStreet said:

Did anyone else notice in Thor: Ragnarok, when Dr. Strange came round, his address was 177A Bleecker Street? And the music they played in the background was decidedly Sherlock. Easter egg?

That’s Dr. Strange’s address from the comics going back to the 1960s, and the actual street address of the writer who wrote the address into the comics.  I haven’t seen this particular film to hear the background music you mention, though.

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RealityCheck

RealityCheck

Steven Moffat On Sherlock Season 5
 

Quote

 

Steven [Moffat], who has written for the television series since it first appeared on BBC One back in 2010, admitted that there have been no plans to film the new season.

The 56-year-old revealed that they will wait "two years, at least" to release the next series while he and Sherlock co-creator Mark Gatiss work on their new project, Dracula.

He told Radio Times: "We’re not going to do Sherlock whilst we’re doing Dracula."

 

Martin Freeman Says Fan Expectations Ruined Sherlock For Him

Quote

Freeman’s issue was not with critics per se, but with the show’s extremely adoring fans, whose devotion, some apparently felt, translated into obligation.  ...However, Freeman is also willing to admit that, hey, look, maybe Sherlock really couldn’t sustain its previously lofty caliber of whodunit.  "Sherlock was frankly notably high quality from the outset. And when you start [that high] it’s pretty hard to maintain that."

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Eneya

Eneya

On 3/17/2018 at 1:22 PM, RealityCheck said:

Martin Freeman Says Fan Expectations Ruined Sherlock For Him

Did he watch the same show WE did? High caliber? In what? The mysteries were rubbish since... season 1, really. Patting yourself on the back, after that lackluster finale and COMPLAINING the fans were pissed... is acting like a prick, at worst and being completely distracted, at best.

I am extremely disappointed with everyone involved, maybe the least with Cumberbatch, who has had the presence and state of mind to point out multiple times different issues in a more open way. Good god, some of these people are obnoxious...

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Peace 47

Peace 47

(edited)

I think there’s already a media thread so this one is a duplicate.  I would link to it but I’m on my phone.

Martin Freeman is prickly in interviews at best and kind of a dick in interviews at worst, in my opinion.  (Not to mention pretty profane—I’m not sure the c-word was necessary here, sheesh.) 

I agree with you @Eneya that the producers and actors on this show can all come across as obnoxious at times, especially when they start talking about their fans.  (Seriously, I’ve never seen a group of actors and producers whine so much about their fans—free advice to them—just stop talking about your fans altogether, it’s a no win scenario, talk about the work only, maintain the fourth wall, etc.) 

That said, and further qualified by the fact that I didn’t read the original Telegraph interview because it’s behind a paywall, the Vulture synopsis says something a little different from their headline.  It says that Martin said that part of his personal reason (speaking for himself) for not wanting to do more of the show right now is due to the poor critical reception of season 4 and that season 4 had large a challenge to maintain high quality (which, reading between the lines, he basically acknowledges that they failed).  Yeah, why would you want to be eager to do more when you don’t have creative control and no one liked what the producers saw fit to churn out before?  That’s probably the most self-aware statement that any of them have made about S4.  

He also says that the “Beatlemania” of fans wanting him to do more of the show is what has made it not fun for him to do more.  This is where it veers slightly towards the obnoxious.  It’s kind of contrarian to say that you don’t want to participate because people want it so much from you that they practically expect it.  Maybe if the publicity from the show had grossly invaded his privacy, it would be one thing, but he otherwise picks the highest-profile projects he possibly can (Hobbit, Black Panther), so it’s not like he’s a private stage actor thrust into an uncomfortable spotlight.  He and Cumberbatch and Gatiss have all made comments in the past that at least implied ambivalence that the vocal fans of this particular show seem to be majority-women (which I think the “Beatlemania” touches on tangentially).  So I side-eye him there a bit.

And not mentioned in this Vulture write-up (right?) but mentioned in some of the others (like Radio Times, I think) is that he also said that fans were disappointed that Sherlock and John didn’t get together in S4 and that was why people didn’t like it.  He said that he and Cumberbatch had never “played a scene as fucking lovers” in the show.  Which ... okay.  I’m still pretty confident in saying that people truly hating S4 had everything to do with the mess made of the story (a sister who can hypnotize men into doing her bidding????) and not the fact that the two leads didn’t live happily ever after together.  In fact, I’d say the vast majority of the fans of the show would have opposed them getting together, if Internet reactions like the ones in the show threads here are anything to go by.

Edited by Peace 47
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Winter Rose

Winter Rose

I think it's one of those, it was a blessing and a curse that the show was so successful right out of the gate. That level of success always meant expectations were high so inevitably more and more pressure would be put to maintain that level of quality. It definitely seemed with S3 and S4 that they kept trying to one-up themselves in terms of spectacle. And while I looked for, and could find some, bits to like, they seemed to move further away from compelling characterization and more towards Big Scenes. I can only hope they've gotten that out of their systems and if there is a S5, that it would be closer to S1 and S2 in spirit.

I don't know how aware they are about why a lot of people didn't like S4, I doubt anyone would be eager to bask in all the negativity surrounding their work, plus they've moved onto other projects. But fans who took to twitter to complain about Sherlock and John not getting together, who spammed the accounts of the cast and crew, who insisted on a secret episode to fix S4, who tried to get Norbury trending to call out the show for queerbaiting, I think may have drowned out anyone who didn't like S4 for reasons other than shipping. And while not representative of all the fans, I can see how that could contribute to them not having a high opinion of fandom.

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Eneya

Eneya

P.S. Martin saying that they never played a scene as fucking lovers... he is either an idiot or he is blind and has zero understanding of coding. Moffat has been been yanking the "will they, won't they" queer baiting shtick since season 1. The last issue with season 4 was that they didn't end up together however. There was one amasing video explaining why "Elementary" is the superior current interpretation of Holmes and I remember two points: 1. They spent ridiculous amount of money on the wedding and 2. The fucked up Mary, making her a fucking cheerleader of her own husband/his bff breathless and giddy queery-baity shit. There must be some respect shown to the fans and Martin is becoming less and less tolerable the more time passes and the more interviews he gives. What a dick. He looks nice but to quote Bonnie from HTGAWM, it's just his face.

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Charlesman

Charlesman

They had one good episode in season 1, one good one in season 2, season 3 wasn't terrible, and that's about all you can say about the "high quality" comment. This show was never as good as it seemed to be made out to be.

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Anothermi

Anothermi

I may be a minority here, but I was hooked from the 1st episode.  I'm not much for picking something apart but if I leave an episode with being intrigued about something? - I stay engaged. That doesn't mean I expect those questions to  be answered, but it is a bonus if they are. If I don't enjoy a show, I stop watching. Or if I stop being intrigued by what the writers are trying to convey? - I stop watching. I stopped Elementary after the 2nd season. I'd love to see another episode of Sherlock. Don't care how far into the future. In fact, at this point I'd say the farther the better. At least that way there might be less expectation of continuity.

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rereader2

rereader2

5 hours ago, Anothermi said:

I may be a minority here, but I was hooked from the 1st episode.  I'm not much for picking something apart but if I leave an episode with being intrigued about something? - I stay engaged. That doesn't mean I expect those questions to  be answered, but it is a bonus if they are. If I don't enjoy a show, I stop watching. Or if I stop being intrigued by what the writers are trying to convey? - I stop watching. I stopped Elementary after the 2nd season. I'd love to see another episode of Sherlock. Don't care how far into the future. In fact, at this point I'd say the farther the better. At least that way there might be less expectation of continuity.

Oh, yeah--whenever they want to do another season--or even a string of one-offs--I'm all the way in!

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Taryn74

Taryn74

22 hours ago, Anothermi said:

I may be a minority here, but I was hooked from the 1st episode. 

Agreed.  I even loved the "horrible" 4th season, and was incredibly intrigued by the possibility that Sherlock's entire personality was shaped by what happened with his sister.

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Winter Rose

Winter Rose

I think it's going underappreciated simply because it's in S4 but I really do think The Lying Detective was a highlight, and the best post-TRF episode. Meanwhile the premieres and finales of S1 and S2 are still some of my favorite TV that I've seen.

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Hannah Lee

Hannah Lee

On 3/18/2018 at 10:20 PM, Peace 47 said:

He also says that the “Beatlemania” of fans wanting him to do more of the show is what has made it not fun for him to do more.  This is where it veers slightly towards the obnoxious.  It’s kind of contrarian to say that you don’t want to participate because people want it so much from you that they practically expect it.  Maybe if the publicity from the show had grossly invaded his privacy, it would be one thing, but he otherwise picks the highest-profile projects he possibly can (Hobbit, Black Panther), so it’s not like he’s a private stage actor thrust into an uncomfortable spotlight.  He and Cumberbatch and Gatiss have all made comments in the past that at least implied ambivalence that the vocal fans of this particular show seem to be majority-women (which I think the “Beatlemania” touches on tangentially).  So I side-eye him there a bit.

 

I read the  "mini-Beatles-thing" comment and that section a bit differently.  Not that he's not interested because people want more of the show.  But this phrase: "You better f—— do this..."  and the associated parts, I read that as the "this" not being continuing to do the show in general, but very specific things within the show, ie catering to the demands/whims of a subset of fans regardless of the direction the people involved are interested in taking it.   Maybe my observation of the loudest/most strident of the complaints around S4 is coloring that, or maybe it's also him mentioning that he and BC didn't play John and Sherlock's scenes as lovers, but that's how I took it.     I mean.

But fans who took to twitter to complain about Sherlock and John not getting together, who spammed the accounts of the cast and crew, who insisted on a secret episode to fix S4, who tried to get Norbury trending to call out the show for queerbaiting, I think may have drowned out anyone who didn't like S4 for reasons other than shipping.  And after they experienced what Winter Rose describes, below, which IIRC was pretty relentless from certain vocal quarters at the time, I can imagine not being quick to sign up for more of it:

On 3/19/2018 at 11:30 AM, Winter Rose said:

But fans who took to twitter to complain about Sherlock and John not getting together, who spammed the accounts of the cast and crew, who insisted on a secret episode to fix S4, who tried to get Norbury trending to call out the show for queerbaiting, I think may have drowned out anyone who didn't like S4 for reasons other than shipping.

 

On 3/19/2018 at 11:30 AM, Winter Rose said:

It definitely seemed with S3 and S4 that they kept trying to one-up themselves in terms of spectacle. And while I looked for, and could find some, bits to like, they seemed to move further away from compelling characterization and more towards Big Scenes. I can only hope they've gotten that out of their systems and if there is a S5, that it would be closer to S1 and S2 in spirit.

I'm 100% with you on this.   I think it is a Moffatt tendency, to want to keep making things bigger and bigger, whereas with these characters and set up there are potentially dozens of really good smaller cases that would make for fantastic TV, but there was a tendency to want to keep upping the stakes both in the cases and for the characters personally.

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supposebly

supposebly

(edited)

Well, I stopped watching after S3, the ending was just so unlike what I expect from the character of Sherlock Holmes. And I've gotten sick of Moffatt's writing right about then when his same bag of tricks kept showing up in worse and worse disguises both on Sherlock and on Dr Who.

So, he ended S2 with Moriarty, I mean, in terms of canon, where do you go from there? You go small but Moffatt doesn't do small. It's big at the expense of character beats and development, plot logic, never even mind how he writes female characters.

I could work with the Sherlock and Watson show in S1 and I even appreciated what they did with Molly's role at the beginning of S3, but overall, ugh.

So, I never saw S4 and if it was any worse than S3, I'm glad I didn't. So if Freeman's issue is with crazy fans, he should talk to the Supernatural guys. They've been dealing with craziness for a lot longer.

Edited by supposebly
because I got the season numbers wrong
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SusanSunflower

SusanSunflower

(edited)

I disliked Ninja Assassin Mary but really lost my appetite when it appeared that she was only-in-it-for-the Sherlock (making John Watson essentially a too-dumb-to-realize it cuckold)  .... also hated the invented sister and all of the invented family (since solitary -- even virtually alone in the world -- Sherlock was essential to the development of his eccentricities (concentrated study without interruptions!) and Watson's need to protect the man from his bad habits and eccentricities ... madness and addiction to be prevented from destroying a singularly important and unique human being. 

Edited by SusanSunflower
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SusanSunflower

SusanSunflower

(edited)

It's difficult to "know" if the endless pressure to "ship" John and Sherlock is somehow "progressive" versus "regressive".  I know that when I was in school in the late 1950's / early 60's, the "gay couple" meme was used against Sherlock Holmes stories (a cerebral rather than violent crime fighter) and fans, which was shaming and homophobic.... because "they must be gay" because "real men" can't (just) be friends.    I have strong feelings about the media in general insisting on pairing all characters up, in Noah's ark fashion, with a suitable partner (romantic, and/or sexual)  affirming the awful dysfunction and "unnatural state" of being single.  (John Watson is fairly early on made a married man).  (This pairing used to be shamelessly "binary" and now includes token "diversity" which apparently has enormous meaning to some people (no matter how pandering).

I don't know the basis of Freeman's visceral disgust that "fans" persist in insisting on "shipping" the pair, but I do know that I share it.  Moreover, gay Holmes and Watson has been done and done, usually resulting in a certain winking campiness that was -- at best -- amusing in the 1970's and 80's and now seems regressive to me. 

Edited by SusanSunflower
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krankydoodle

krankydoodle

Slate's new Decoder Ring podcast just released an episode on the Johnlock Conspiracy:

Quote

Who gets to decide if Sherlock Holmes is gay? For more than a century, fans of Sherlock Holmes have been analyzing, debating, and creating new texts using Arthur Conan Doyle’s characters. Decoder Ring explores the Johnlock conspiracy, a fan theory about the BBC TV show Sherlock, which posits the inevitability of a gay romance between Sherlock Holmes and John Watson. With interviews from historians, journalists, and fans at the heart of this controversial idea, this episode explores the theory, how it played out in the real world, and whether this kind of fandom is a meaningful way of interacting with fiction.

http://www.slate.com/articles/podcasts/decoder_ring/2018/06/decoder_ring_explores_how_a_conspiracy_theory_about_a_gay_sherlock_holmes.html

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Winter Rose

Winter Rose

It was an interesting listen. I don't think there's anything wrong with shipping in itself and I do believe that once an author releases their story to the public, they no longer control how it's received. I don't enjoy writers who try to police their fans. However, that doesn't give fans the right to act like they know the story better than the writers, to demand that writers conform to a certain outcome, or attack fellow fans who see the story a different way. Nor does it entitle anyone to brag about being right before ever being proved right. I can sympathize with being disappointed a story didn't go the way one had hoped but theories don't always pan out and sometimes there isn't only one explanation for something.

The secret episode stuff though always made me think of doomsday sayers who always move the goalposts when the end of the world doesn't come.

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