There are so many unnecessary “clues” pointing the other way, though. Like why bother with the otherwise pointless digression of taking time to establish that John and Mary didn’t arrive at the aquarium together? Under the silly and over the top theory, Mary was getting kitted out with a bulletproof vest and a blood pack.
But we can have our cake and eat it too. Given that Sherlock-shaming is such a major theme of the show, we say that Sherlock investigates, comes to believe the silly and over the top theory, and rushes over to John’s place to explain. At the end of his explanation, he tries to rip the wig off of bus lady’s head, only to find out it’s very real hair (for bonus points, the very real hair of Mary’s long-lost identical twin.) Sherlock was wrong! John then gets to go off on another tirade about what a terrible, awful, deluded person Sherlock is for disturbing him when he was just finding peace, and the writers get to continue to act like they’ve slipped some Serious Drama into the diet of nonstop blarney.
Halfway into ep. 2, and I think we’re back on track now.
I’m quite liking this one.
Edit: Yes, that was a totally excellent episode.
In fact, I want to see episode 1 again now, as I think I’ll appreciate it more.
And the 30 minute behind-the scenes thing they’re showing after the episode is quite good too, but if you stumble upon it having missed the actual episode, BEWARE! Do not watch.The documentary totally spoils the entire episode, scene by scene. Did they do that with episode 1? If they did, I missed it last week.
Well, now I’m bummed that my PBS station isn’t showing the documentary that you’re talking about. I’m seeing a show in my guide information called “Queen at 90.”
Aak, forget the spoiler question I just posted. I should finish watching the episode before asking things.
So they found their own way to have their cake and eat it too, though not a very Sherlock Holme-ish way. Mind you, I imagine latter-day Conan Doyle would approve of ghost Mary.
I liked the idea at the core of this episode, though it was buried under so many layers of soap twists, pointless plot machinery (the quite unnecessary drug gimmick at the start) and helicopters For No Reason* that the core idea never got a chance to shine.
Best way to sum up the episode and the show in general is that they spent a big long sequence on Sherlock doing his patented cold read technique on a very minor point, complete with lots of VFX and out in the middle of a street For No Reason.* And then they spent zero time on deductions related to the actual (generic, unnamed, unenumerated, and until the very end quite unproven) murders.
*I got the distinct feeling someone was trying to spend every dime in the budget. “But we’re a show about a man who does everything in his head - how can we spend that much money? Oh well, we’ll move the Baker Street scene out into the middle of the street. Tying up London traffic for a couple of days ought to do it.”
I enjoyed the 2nd episode and thought it did a decent job of making the first episode better in hindsight. They did telegraph the “twist” but then I dont think it was really important to them to try to hide it. It was kind of a “if you got it, cool, if not thats cool too” thing. I do hope that the final episode is the best of this season because while I have enjoyed the first two, they have been a bit lackluster when compared to previous seasons.
I don’t know who thought a suitable series closer for a Sherlock Holmes show was torture porn starring a Hannibal Lector ripoff with magic superpowers in a James Bond villain lair and a plot twist ripped off from Shutter Island (twice, because once wasn’t enough.)
And it was almost devoid of the series’s best characteristic, namely fun.
Christ that ending was cheesy. Looks like Mary’s death speech was what it seemed to be on the face of it, just bad writing. It seems Moffat has picked up a lot of RTD’s bad traits.
Mmph. Yeah, this was not a strong exit. And that’s two egregiously bad monologues for poor, shat-upon Mary.
On the other hand, I did enjoy the premier episode of Victoria, which PBS in its wisdom decided to broadcast during Sherlock’s usual “Masterpiece Mystery” timeslot.
Finally sat down and watched episode 3 last night.
And if it wasn’t an episode of “Sherlock”, it would be fairly watchable if only for the story. Maybe a movie on Lifetime or something like that. In that respect, I enjoyed it somewhat, as it was interesting. And maybe they need all of this back-story for something they have planned for the future.
In one way, I hope so, for it would be a shame to have wasted 3 episodes if they don’t use all of that in some way.
But in another way, I hope not, because I’m not watching to learn all about where Sherlock came from. I want to see him solve another good old-fashioned Conan Doyle-type mystery.
So anyway, I’m hoping that now that they got all of this out of the way, they can get back down to business in Season 5.
I didn’t hate, or even dislike Season 4. I enjoyed it, and could even appreciate the risks they took.
But I think they strayed quite far from what made this show so successful in the first place, and I’d like to see them get back to that.
I think part of my issue with Season 4 is if I had started with Season 4, I wouldn’t care if there was a Season 5. 1-3 drew me in after someone told me I should really, really watch this show. If I’d turned Season 4 on, not sure I would have even got past the first episode. Even invested in these characters as I am, I generally did not like it.
[quote=“Nesrie, post:398, topic:60419, full:true”] If I’d turned Season 4 on, not sure I would have even got past the first episode.
[/quote]
We didn’t! I’m not sure I even finished the first episode.
I’m not the only one who thinks this show completely jumped the shark, right? Probably in season 3 as much as season 4. I know it wasn’t ever realistic, but it was more grounded than this, right? Am I crazy? Was it always this absurd?
I wasn’t even a fan of the abominable bride really, and I saw that with friends in a theater surrounded by people thinking it was the best thing ever. I really miss the early episodes though, the individual cases, the intriguing questions. The last season I just felt like saying… really constantly and as someone mentioned above, torture porn fits perfectly with that last episode.
