season 3
They certainly want you to think that Moriarty’s not dead. I don’t believe it for a moment, and if they actually go there they’re officially off the rails. There’s no narratively coherent or faithful way to deliver a living Moriarty and it’s not like we actually see a living, functional Moriarty the way we saw Sherlock at the end of season 2. Just a computer image.
As to the rest of it, I thought episodes 2 and 3 were freaking brilliant. But that’s a matter of taste.
season 3
I loved that Sherlock actually seems to grow fonder of Mary after finding out she was a bit of a sociopath herself at one point. Cumberbatch was born for this role and I honestly can’t think of anyone else who could pull it off with such finesse.
They were crap, how about some detecting, let’s have more detecting and less about Sherlock, it’s his skills I am interested in and not him. If those 2 episodes had been released as books they would have never been published, told tripe.
Conversely, I’m more interested in Cumberbatch’s portrayal of Sherlock. The mysteries have always taken a back seat to the character study that I consider the show to primarily be.
If you want a direct adaptation of the original Sherlock Holmes ouevre, there are any number of fine programs that are actually trying to be that, unlike Sherlock. I would have thought that would be obvious long before season 3.
Actually, come to think of it, there aren’t many Sherlock Holmes adaptations which can be called truthful to Conan Doyle. Jeremy Brett’s is one, and surprisingly enough, the Soviet version from the eighties is another (oh, and see the musical version they made of The Three Musketeers while you’re at it – a sample). Apart from those, it’s always been about ditching the plot to retain the characters. They had him uncover Jack the Ripper at least twice, three times if you count Sherlock Holmes of Baker Street, the “biography” of Holmes written in the sixties, and once more if you count that video game. Holmes and the Ripper, a two-man zeitgeist (two-man and one-woman, that is, for I doubt we could talk of the Victorian era without its namesake) – no wonder they’re so popular and often go together.
But on to the Conan Doyle material; off the top of my head, there has only been about half a dozen truly memorable Sherlock Holmes stories. The Hound of the Baskervilles is one because it’s the only one of the novel-length stories that doesn’t involve a backstory middle part, like A Study in Scarlet (only of interest because it introduces Holmes and Watson) or The Valley of Fear. Among the short stories, there are those which are famous for reasons other than the plot – A Scandal in Bohemia, The Final Problem, The Empty House. Then we get the really good ones. The Speckled Band is a bit nonsensical but it does have a great deal to say about Victorian society; ditto for The Solitary Cyclist. The Bruce-Partington Plans, for the ingenuity of placing a body on the top of a railway carriage. Silver Blaze, his masterpiece (where the famous line about the incident of the dog in the night-time is uttered) because it shows Conan Doyle at his most logical. And I’d add a couple of personal favourites, Devil’s Foot and Priory School. The rest I don’t even remember.
Hmm. I’m rather fond of Mr. Brown.
Well they finished the series 3 run here in the States and I while I shouldnt be surprised at the negativity here at QT3 I am. I though Series 3 was very good and I especially enjoyed the final episode. I didnt come into this show expecting a faithful, direct portrayal of Doyles Holmes. If I wanted that I would watch the BBC’s series with Jeremy Brett. In this season especially, the mysteries take a back seat to the characterizations of, and the relationship between Holmes and Watson. Cumberbatch and Freeman have made these roles their own and while they use the template provided by Doyle, they have expanded upon that template, modernized and then grown the roles into something different. As far as the Moriarty issue, what makes you think we the viewers have ever actually seen the real Moriarty? When you tell a big lie the best way to make it believable is to wrap it in truth. What if the guy we think is Moriarty is actually what he claimed to be? An actor playing a role.
I had no idea Mads Mikkelsen had a brother, but was pretty sure had to be the guy playing Magnussen by the end of the episode. Sure enough, Lars Mikkelsen. They sound almost identical, and now I want some kind of crazy Sherlock/Hannibal crossover.
I see your complaint and raise you a gif:
Mrs Hudson was a fox!
She was born in 1937??? Wow, she’s definitely aging better than most folks.
So it sounds like the Christmas special aired yesterday, and I missed it.
I have questions.
1 - It’s been so long, I can’t remember how the final episode ended. I thought helicopters or something were descending on the duo - and they were going to be arrested. But the special takes place in… uh, Victoria England? That’s awesome, but is this totally stand alone? Did I miss any episodes?!
2 - Is there any way to actually watch this since I missed it and didn’t have it set to record on the DVR?
It’s not stand-alone, and you didn’t miss anything. Saying any more would be spoiling it. :)
The new episode is a stand-alone in that it’s not the first of a new 3-part series. But it is connected, despite the setting :)
My local PBS station is running an encore on January 10. Check your local listings?
The last episode (I mean, the previous before this one) ended on Sherlock
ending
flying away as he had to be a time outside while they solve his… criminal status, as he just killed the bad guy, but just then, Moriarty appears on tv and they are WTF!?, so four minutes after takeaway the plane is called to return.
I liked this special, in parts I liked it a lot, in fact. Only weak part is
Special ending
exactly that, the ending, or at least the solution to the crime, the league of women. It takes me off a bit from the story, because in a way I see it as the writers couldn’t write a normal mystery on the nineteenth century, they couldn’t help themselves and they had to shoe-in our present times perspective and give a patronizing moral lesson to the inhabitants of that age, and by proxy a history lesson to us viewers. I stop seeing fictional characters on screen, I see the writers themselves when it happens. And more than that, it doesn’t make a lot of sense? First it’s a way too byzantine complot to just kill someone for revenge. I mean, it’s ok if you want to kill someone, but all of that! They try to explain it because that way other men would have fear but… is never explained or rationalized that way, it was presented as “crazy ghost kill husband”, not “ghost kill husband because in life he was terrible with his spouse”, so I couldn’t make the connection until the perpetrators said it literally; so the rest of people of that age would have the same problem. And hell, if you press me, I don’t know if really the cold, calculating, logic Sherlock Holmes with no regard for emotions, feelings or tact would empathize with them and leave the killer unpunished. Actually, they didn’t even solve the case, they were called by the actual perpetrators to their meeting just because. And the wife of the second murder called for Sherlock’s help just because, too (they even lamp shade that, and in that moment Moriarty appears and it’s forgotten).
In the ending too, I also liked how they tie in Moriarty and the present world.
Apparently they’re showing it in theaters so we’re going to see it Tuesday night. Unsure of why we couldn’t just watch it at home but my wife’s really looking forward to it.
Is there a feature length thing coming out early next year as well, or is this what I saw a preview for during The Force Awakens?