“Uni” is a pretty recent addition to British English, dating back to the mid-80s IIRC. In the previous 800 years most people had no difficulty pronouncing “university”. In some parts of the UK “college” is used the same way Americans use it, as an all inclusive word for tertiary education establishments.
Doesn’t the Internet just love a good entomological discussion :-) .
Yeah, we usually say “college.” Nobody’s ever asked me what Uni I attended.
Americans refer to University as College. When we hear “Uni” the most likely thing you’ll get is a weird look of confusion or something regarding uniforms.
I didn’t particularly care for the second episode much, felt jumbled and weird, the dude at the beginning just disappeared completely (and was utterly pointless to begin with), or yet another silly stupid detective, not to mention some mostly weird and bad fight scenes that involved magic scarves, Watson’s non-participation for comedy effect or ignorance (or both), or near uselessness.
The make it a point that Holmes doesn’t even want to tell Watson about him being assaulted and killed two or three times for some reason, though Watson is obviously not averse to violent situations (hell he just killed for Holmes). Until of course it really matters, and at that point Watson is tied up in a chair with a ballista staring his newly minted girlfriend in the face. Just kinda… blah really.
And somehow the guy in the museum with the gun managed to miss just about everything and not hit anything valuable/breakable, despite all the glass and smooth marble around. Hunh.
— Alan
Missed the line where Shan sarcastically asked Watson why it was he thought an assassin managed to shoot and miss him so many times? Because he never intended to hit his target. The point was never to kill Sherlock, but goad him into finding what they were looking for.
You’re assuming that a) Sherlock actually knew that and b) would that make a major difference in not telling Watson anything about it?
Also, there was the problem with the first murder… at first the authorities believe suicide, but an extremely simple explanation (that the bullet wasn’t fired from the owner’s gun) easily disabused the police of that notion and that Sherlock was all-knowing and completely right.
Of course, a standard routine postmortem examination–which would take place even after a suicide–would have made the same deduction fairly quickly… oh in about the same time it took the idiot detective to believe Holmes anyway. It’s like the police wouldn’t have been any further involved had Holmes not told them it was a suicide, and they never would have checked anyway and hence he is more smarter than them. Uh, no.
— Alan
Clearly New Scotland Yard takes its cues from Phoenix Wright.
Man this miniseries is good, they have to make it recurring… they just have to! Freeman is a perfect Holmes.
I thought episode 2 was weaker then the first one. Specifically, I got tired of the “every single Asian is straight out of a Fu Manchu movie” trope after about 5 minutes.
That’s the same as the original Conan Doyle stories, though…
Is this new series based on the stories, by the way? I haven’t seen it yet.
I’m not sure what you’re talking about here. Shan – undoubtedly via Moriarty – was attempting to manipulate Sherlock from the beginning. I suspected something was amiss when the assassin didn’t finish strangling Sherlock, and later when he couldn’t hit the broad side of a barn with his firearm it pretty much confirmed it. I didn’t think through the why of it, but it did seem off and there’s a logical explanation for it: they wanted Sherlock to do their dirty work (ie, find the hairpin). As for not telling Watson about the various attacks, that’s Sherlock for you. He tells Watson very little in the books, so this is par for the course.
The first episode was based on one of Doyle’s stories (A Study in Scarlet) but the second doesn’t bring to mind anything I’ve read.
Yeah I assumed the Chinese triad stereotyping was very much an intentional callback to the Conan Doyle era of Victorian adventure stories. They even opened the episode with what looked like an Arabian man attacking Sherlock with a scimitar, this is a hybrid universe.
I myself have always considered them as separate institutions (similar up to a certain point though). Colleges in the US are unable to grant doctorates if I recall correctly…
Having attended a University here in the states, I have never heard anyone call it a “Uni”.
I quite liked the third installment. Their mashing up the Bruce-Partington Plans with (what appear to be) original Moriarty mischief makes the old stories new again.
The third episode was fantastic, but man, what a cruel way to end the season…
There’s some subtle snobbery to it in the UK too. College>Uni>College. Oxbridge = “we went to college together”, a redbrick “we went to uni together”, St Alban’s College of Further Education “we went to college together”
Holmes = Cambridge (probably) Watson = London University. So a modern Watson would be likely to say Uni
Fuckin’ insects, how do they work?
That was the end of a season? Please, please tell me the series has been renewed for another. Holmes and Watson are perfect in this interpretation. Must have more.
Best tv this year easily.
They’ve really put some effort into Sherlock’s site and John’s blog . They manage to make it feel like this is bigger than the TV show with the comments in the blog and all.
Ha! This is great stuff. Thank you. And the best material is in the comments.