So I finally finished Sherlock.

[apocalypsos]

The good:

-- On the face of it, I do like the way they portray Sherlock and Watson, although I do lay that mainly at the feet of the actors. They both take some fairly questionable material and do some fantastic things with it.

-- The way clues and text messages appear in the air like that is very cool.

-- The guy playing Moriarty is apparently having the time of his life chewing the hell out of the scenery, so I really can't wait to see how much more fun he gets to get up to.

-- I want more Sherlock and Mycroft. What can I say? I like brotherly stuff.

-- Oh, and also more Anthea. Because she gives me a Pam-from-True Blood vibe and I dig that.

The bad:

-- I'm sort of sick and tired of the "The incredibly smart white guy must have a flaw, so we'll make him a sexist, racist, classist douchebag" cliche. It's pretty much on the same level as the "I wrote a teenage girl character and she needed a flaw, so I made her clumsy!" cliche. My grasp on Original Flavor Sherlock is fairly tenuous -- I read a few stories when I was a teenager, but that's about it -- but I wasn't taking the long way around yesterday when I made the House comparison. By the end, I felt exactly the way I did at the beginning, which was that it felt like the show had been written by someone who either hadn't read the original books or hadn't read them in a while, but knew that House was based on Holmes and worked off that. I'll admit I'm probably getting that vibe simply because of the "incredibly smart white genius is a douchebag" cliche, though.

-- I can't remember whose LJ reaction post I read it on, but it hit on exactly why I was "meh" on the ending -- I'm tiring of season-ending cliffhangers where the main characters are in a life-threatening situation. They're not going to die. What, are you kidding me? Of COURSE they're not going to die, which only makes it interesting if you can then rest the cliffhanger's strength on, "Oh, no, how are they going to get out of this one?!" Which works as a stressful situation if your main characters are everyday run-of-the-mill people who don't figure out shit like this on a regular basis, not when one of them is Sherlock fucking Holmes.

Comments

[apiphile.livejournal.com]

Self and friend were discussing the Holmes flaw thing, and we came to the conclusion that it's more to do with needing something to make him as objectionable/aloof/difficult to stomach to modern audiences as he would have been to the social mores of the Victorians. We're used to people being a Bit Rude and A Bit Absorbed now, so it's not quite the shock. His vague sociopathy/uninterest in other people's feelings aggravates and insults the audiences about as much as original flavour Holmes's lack of interest in the deeply hypocritical Victorian moral code does, so success.

[cherusha.livejournal.com]

I wished they'd made the police a little less inept. I mean Sherlock had to explain the right-hand, left-hand thing. Really? And actually the entire second episode was such a screaming pile of racefail anyway, I like to pretend it didn't happen.

[apocalypsos.livejournal.com]

Yeah, that was another thing. You shouldn't have to make Sherlock Holmes look smarter by having other people -- particularly trained professional members of law enforcement -- be idiots. They kept doing that to the point where none of the cops seemed to know or notice a damn thing and Sherlock was supposed to look brilliant for recognizing which hand the dead man favored. Hell, give me a dead body and I could tell you what hand he favored while alive.

[heather.livejournal.com]

In the end I think my issues with the show outweigh the benefits. Original Flavor Sherlock is full of racism/post-colonial exoticism and misogyny, but doing a modern reboot doesn't mean dragging that shit with you. And I think the House-Sherlock comparison is very, very apt, and it's a trope I'm SICK of. The fact that he's smarter than literally everyone, every time, including any number of professionals he interacts with every day, makes the whole thing kind of unsatisfying dramatically, and to top it off he isn't likeable.

And yeah, this guy's privilege pours off him, and it's not cute, and I don't care that he just might have a heart underneath because I deeply dislike him on a human level.

On the other hand I really liked Watson?

[apocalypsos.livejournal.com]

Original Flavor Sherlock is full of racism/post-colonial exoticism and misogyny, but doing a modern reboot doesn't mean dragging that shit with you.

Exactly. It would be one thing if the show were set during Victorian times, but it's not.

[onelittlesleep.livejournal.com]

HM. It always seemed to me, in the stories, that Holmes was written in such a way that his own creative genius was a fault! It kept him from making good relationships (made him impossible to relate to and understand by others) and required drugs to soothe and calm enough for him to relax and SLEEP. To ME, that was flawed enough.

[apocalypsos.livejournal.com]

I know, right? He even says as much in the first episode, where he's sort of like, "How do you people wander through life having to be so obtuse?!" Being an incredible genius can put someone at just as profound a social impasse as being a belligerent dickweed without them having to actually BE a raging dickweed.

[scary-being-me.livejournal.com]

I haven't seen the show; but here's my take on the "sexist, racist, classist douchebag" issue.

You have to look at when Holmes was written and set. Those were the attitudes of the day. It would be anacronistic if he wasn't sexist, classist, and a somewhat racist.

Yes, it would be easier to give him modern morals; but if you're trying to be true to the original material, you really can't.

It'd be like, if in the Star Trek reboot, they made Kirk cautious and not a womanizer. It would completely change the character and invalidate the work. You can only reimagine something so much before you're just slapping a classic name on something only vaguely related to it.

[secretbutterfly.livejournal.com]

This is what I was thinking as well. I tried to communicate it in my comment but I think you put it better and more succinctly than I did.

[lilacsigil.livejournal.com]

But if you've updated the show to have text messages, female police and forensic medicine not done by Holmes, then not updating his (perfectly normal for his time, race and class) attitudes makes him look like, in apocalypsos's words, a raging dickweed - that's what men in this century who can't work with others, are incredibly rude and have to put down every woman in sight *are*. It would be entirely possible to make him racist, sexist and classist but still modern; this is not what the show does.

[secretbutterfly.livejournal.com]

I don't watch House (The only episode I've seen all the way through was the one Felicia Day was in.), so that didn't really color my opinion of this show as I was watching it. That, and I haven't read any Sherlock Holmes since I was probably about twelve.

Bearing that in mind, I loved the show. I found it to be very entertaining. It's probably because I don't have that knowledge of of House and the books in the forefront of my mind that I'm able to enjoy it. But tbh, I think I'd still enjoy it even if I had it because I'm not super passionate about either.

I'm not sure I completely understand why people are upset that the Sherlock Holmes character in this show is so much like House. What's the logic there? I mean *of course* he's going to be like House, you said yourself that the House show is based off of Sherlock Holmes.

They have basically the same source material and are made on two different networks and in two different countries. Is it that surprising that they have parallels in tone? Why is that a bad thing?

I'm not saying people aren't entitled to their opinions, far from it. Hell, I get ridiculously upset at True Blood for what they choose to do with its source material, so I *do* understand somewhat. In that case, I'm bitter they aren't following the books closer.

The author of the books has no creative control/input on the tv show and it's the show creator's prerogative to do what he wants. I feel like I'm not being fair or logical by being angry about that, but I don't care. I'm not sure if it's like that for you or anyone else with Sherlock, that's just where I'm coming from in situations like this. Soooo...I'm just really curious to know why you have the opinion you do.

As for not liking his flaws, which ones would you prefer Holmes have instead? Obviously he has to have some flaws or else he'd probably be branded a "Gary-Stu" or something.

I was actually kind of meh on the ending as well. That and a little annoyed, too. Just because I am tired of that kind of ending right now especially considering how often shows get canceled without a chance for them to wrap up story lines.

With this cliffhanger I'm interested to know how Watson will handle it because I think it's still a stressful situation for him. Even though they've gone through a lot in a short period of time it doesn't mean John really knows or trusts that Sherlock will get them out of it all.

I agree that it's not really that stressful for Holmes either, especially since we've been watching him deal with Moriarty toying with him throughout all of the episodes. It was like, okay here he is in person: be afraid! Meanwhile the audience is like,"....okay?"

...Anyway I hope this made sense, I'm not very good at articulating my opinions. It takes me a looooong time to write them out (Embarrassingly, I think I've spent over an hour typing this up). I don't want to anger/offend anyone so I apologize in advance if I have.

[minim_calibre]

Given the sheer number of nods to book canon (I am merrily doing my re-read at the moment), I think the writers (admitted frothing fanboys of ACD) are falling more into the Peter Jackson trap of unexamined enthusiasm for their root source than anything else.

(From the little I watched of House -- can't stomach medical shows even for Hugh Laurie -- House seems like a neurotypical White Genius Douche. What I have been enjoying about Sherlock is how neuroatypical they've made the character. The former style of WGD I cannot stomach. The latter, I identify with strongly. Sadly enough.)

[sassygirl.livejournal.com]

The sheer amount of nods to book canon make me so happy. Have been re-reading ACD as well :D

[lothlorienbaby.livejournal.com]

Actually, I found it remarkable how like the books they were. Or at least how they reinvented stuff in the books to fit their storylines. It was more obvious (and I think enjoyable) in the first episode because they were taking pretty much all of A Study in Scarlet and rewriting it. The other episodes cobbled together aspects of multiple stories to create a new story.

And as for the white genius douchebag, Sherlock Holmes sort of invented the trope. I think also, adaptations of Sherlock tend to increase his douchiness as they go along. Basil Rathbone? Not that douchey. Jeremy Brett? Kind of a douche. Benedict Cumberbatch? Super douche. Probably a reflection of what our current society would define as "douchebag" behavior since in the books Holmes isn't really all that douchey even though everyone talks about him like he is.

But oh yeah that ending was kind of cool, but I'm not biting my nails wondering if they're going to kill Sherlock or Watson. Or heck, even Moriarty! It might have been better to have Sarah in peril...then at least we might wonder if they'll really go there.