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Episode 1.1, "A Study In Pink"


Undead Medic

What did you think of "A Study In Pink?"  

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14 hours ago, Hikari said:

Boton is correct in observing the longstanding social phenomenon re. mating, but it sure isn't flattering about the human race, is it?  She's poshed up her language but essentially men are looking for a hot, young lay, no matter how ignorant or poor she is and women will hold their nose and put up with any old goat, so long as he's got money.  It goes without saying that he will remind her often, if not several times daily that his is her intellectual and economic superior.

Is it down to the fragility of the male ego, do you suppose?  Men are so intimidated by a woman who knows some big words they don't or who makes more money that it's a boner-killer? 

 

I think it can be as you say, or it can be mutually advantageous.  Men get the benefit of a woman who is attractive to them (and men are often the more visual creatures), and they have the advantage of a woman who is likely more fertile and better able to carry children.  Women get both financial and physical protection, plus they get the stabilizing influence of an older man when they are finishing their own maturation.

Of course, the reverse arrangement happens (older woman/younger man), but it typically doesn't result in marriage as often. But it is, IMHO, part of the reason that a "Mrs. Robinson" situation still gets a wink and a nudge ("lucky guy"). The idea of a woman at her sexual peak but not her reproductive peak temporarily choosing a young man at his sexual peak is also engrained.

I also don't think women look for "any old goat" with money. Part of that "marrying up" package is a man who is successful, able to be protective, and demonstrating more typically masculine qualities. The older a man gets and the more he loses some of the markers of masculinity, the more wealth he needs to have to be attractive, until we notice the pretty young thing with the old goat.  But that circumstance is more rare; I think the biological urge is probably more toward mating with a man that is 10-15 years the woman's senior at most.

I don't blame men or think that them wanting to "marry down" is a fragile ego problem or even a fault.  It is, as I've been arguing, partially a biological imperative. The challenge for women like me (and most of us on here) is how we are going to deal with it. I chose to try to play up any physical benefits I had going for me and play down anything other than intelligence, which I was never successful at hiding, and hope for the best.  Turns out my hubby later told me he was actively looking for an intelligent woman because having someone to talk to was important to him.  (I fell for him on sight, so there's that.)

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Boton,

How fortunate that you, an intelligent woman and your husband found each other because he was actively looking for an intelligent mate.  I would hope that a lot of men would be looking for the same, even if they openly express it in words.   One would hope that the advantage to being a civilized race is that we could eventually use reason and compassion and more highly developed skills like that to supercede base biological imperatives, especially as we mature.  I don't deny that these imperatives exist, but your own relationship is proof that not all men are determined to 'marry down' to some dumb bunny with a hot bod and a Daddy complex.

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28 minutes ago, Hikari said:

Boton,

How fortunate that you, an intelligent woman and your husband found each other because he was actively looking for an intelligent mate.  I would hope that a lot of men would be looking for the same, even if they openly express it in words.   One would hope that the advantage to being a civilized race is that we could eventually use reason and compassion and more highly developed skills like that to supercede base biological imperatives, especially as we mature.  I don't deny that these imperatives exist, but your own relationship is proof that not all men are determined to 'marry down' to some dumb bunny with a hot bod and a Daddy complex.

I did get a good one.  :D

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2 hours ago, Boton said:

I did get a good one.  :D

Has he got any single and like-minded buds?  I'm very smart . . and very available.  :)

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Hm, personally, I have never felt any urge or imperative, biological or otherwise, to look for an older guy. Or any guy, really... But then, I met my husband when we were both very young, way too young to be "looking" for anything serious, we became friends, then lovers, then one day got married. I guess neither of us was ever "on the market". He is a few months younger than myself. We are a good fit for each other, I think... Don't know what either of us would gain from a greater age difference. I certainly never felt like I had to play dumb for him. Our first conversation was about math. I remember he drew some kind of graph on a paper napkin. Ah, the memories... :lol2:

Goodness, how did we get from Sherlock to human mating behavior? That's certainly not something he seems very interested in, certainly not in S1...

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20 hours ago, T.o.b.y said:

Goodness, how did we get from Sherlock to human mating behavior? That's certainly not something he seems very interested in, certainly not in S1...

I kind of think Sherlock would be interested in the kind of conversation we've been having, predicting human behavior from understanding mating as an anthropological thing, not an emotional one. 

"Oscillating on the pavement means it's a love affair gone wrong.  She's young and possesses symmetrical features typically considered a marker of good health and therefore attractiveness, but she is wearing an engagement ring far too expensive for the majority of men her age to afford, so likely an older fiance...."

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Just now, Boton said:

I kind of think Sherlock would be interested in the kind of conversation we've been having, predicting human behavior from understanding mating as an anthropological thing, not an emotional one. 

"Oscillating on the pavement means it's a love affair gone wrong.  She's young and possesses symmetrical features typically considered a marker of good health and therefore attractiveness, but she is wearing an engagement ring far too expensive for the majority of men her age to afford, so likely an older fiance...."

Not to mention his observation to John in TSo3 about our values about attractiveness being formed in childhood.  A direct dodge to Watson's direct question, "Am I a pretty lady?"  rofl

I'm going 'round the pitch again with Laurie King's The Moor, #4 in her series and the last one that was good in my estimation (exactly 20 years and 10 books ago, that was.)  This is a strong entry in the series owing to the fact that Sherlock is an actual co-lead in it, not a vague figure who shambles in on page 200 or thereabouts to have a few lines.  At this point in the story, Russell and Holmes have been married for about 21/2 years, though a more unconventional marriage it would be hard to find.  They do occasionally have more conventional connubial encounters when they can arrange to be in the same room at the same time, which requires them to also be in the same city, on the same continent, too, which is not the usual state of affairs for this couple.  Anyway, a Sherlock Holmes of his vigorous late middle age seems much more comfortable with girl-people and physical expressions of something resembling affection than Dr. Watson ever allowed from SH's younger self. 

Watson did Holmes an injustice, in painting him as this cold calculating machine who, furthermore, hated women.  Sherlock is neither a misogynist nor a homosexual.  He's just very, very discriminating in his choice of companions, and most people don't pass muster--men, too.   Sherlock Holmes  only likes brainy women, evidently, is not adverse to making passes in girls who wear glasses.  Russell is a notorious myope.  Really makes her unexpected skill of being a precision knife-thrower (as taught by SH) all the more amazing.

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Yup, we briefly discussed that over on the Mary Russell / Laurie R. King thread, starting here, and hopefully we'll have more to add there in the near future.

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14 hours ago, Carol the Dabbler said:

Yup, we briefly discussed that over on the Mary Russell / Laurie R. King thread, starting here, and hopefully we'll have more to add there in the near future.

Just looked up Laurie's forthcoming book, "Island of the Mad" on Amazon the other day and saw that the publication date has been pushed back from this month, as originally announced, to June.  This is not unusual in the publishing biz, for whatever reason.  Maybe the publisher has too many titles being released at once and doesn't want them competing with each other to water down the prestigious NYT Bestseller rankings.  The release of a new King novel is a Big Deal for her publisher so perhaps they wanted to clear the field for June.  I predict that this book will reach very high on the NYT Bestseller lists, perhaps even #1, since it's been two years since the last MR-SH novel.  Though it's set in Venice, in a warm country, I don't think of it as a beach read, though.

I wonder if Laurie will take a page out of Diana Gabaldon's book and be heavily involved in the production of the show based on her books, even taking walk-on parts.  I am very keen to see the casting.  Hope they hurry up and get somewhere with this.  Perhaps the delay in the release of Book #15 has something to do with the show . . though the manuscript will have been out of Laurie's hands for the better part of a year by now.

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  • 2 weeks later...
On 3/12/2018 at 3:06 PM, Boton said:

Someone mentioned Walter White above.  For me, I didn't like Walter, but I felt a connection to him because every dumb a$$ thing he did was a response to life kicking him while he was down, repeatedly and without mercy.  

I’m not sure I agree with your assessment of Walter White.  Not all cancer victims become meth cooks with a penchant for building a drug empire as a result of their plight.  Seems more like his cancer gave him the excuse to act on the narcissism that was always there considering how much he enjoyed what he was doing.  He admitted as much to Skylar in season 5.  Also his missing out on that money from the bio firm was self inflicted since he left them, not the other way around.  I just didn’t view him as a victim of his circumstances, especially not after all he did in season 4 and 5.  I felt far worse for Jesse even though his Yo!s started to grate a bit, lol.

On 3/13/2018 at 1:30 AM, T.o.b.y said:

I doubt that other kids had a problem with Sherlock's intelligence, it was probably more the way in which he expressed it... If his adult behavior is anything to go by. 

Precisely.

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11 hours ago, gerry said:

I’m not sure I agree with your assessment of Walter White.  Not all cancer victims become meth cooks with a penchant for building a drug empire as a result of their plight.  Seems more like his cancer gave him the excuse to act on the narcissism that was always there considering how much he enjoyed what he was doing.  He admitted as much to Skylar in season 5.  Also his missing out on that money from the bio firm was self inflicted since he left them, not the other way around.  I just didn’t view him as a victim of his circumstances, especially not after all he did in season 4 and 5.  I felt far worse for Jesse even though his Yo!s started to grate a bit, lol.

 

I see where you're coming from, but it just seemed that every decision that Walter made or everything that should have worked somehow made his life worse.  He left the biotech firm not knowing what it would become, and it turned out making his former BFF and his former girlfriend wildly wealthy.  He married Skylar, which I'm sure seemed like a good idea at the time, but she turned out to be a raging beeyotch. (Seriously, I hated her more than I hated most of the drug kingpins.) He had a son, and that son's disabilities, while no one's fault, might mean that Walter needed to provide support forever. Skylar got pregnant with a late in life baby that would further derail any financial security.  And then Walter gets cancer while he's working a crappy HS teaching job and an even-crappier car wash job.

I mean, with a life like that, you are basically just personal scruples away from a decision to become a meth king. 

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11 hours ago, Boton said:

I mean, with a life like that, you are basically just personal scruples away from a decision to become a meth king. 

LOL!  I’m not sure I’d go that far.  He loved the danger of going against Gus, almost getting caught by his BIL, manipulating Jesse and the ego of having the best meth out there.  None of that had anything to do with WJ having disabilities or what his wife was like.  To me they are mutually exclusive.  I mean at one point he had the financial security without having to go back to the crappy job and to offset leaving the biotech firm but he didn’t want to stop so doesn’t that prove he just liked being a drug lord rather than him being forced into it?

RE Skylar, I didn’t hate her but I defintely found her annoying at times in season 1/2.  I thought the same about Marie but i really came to like Marie by the end of the show.  I didn’t realize there was so much fan vitriol about Skylar until I read message boards after watching the show.  I was surprised there was such a passionate response to that character because I didn’t quite understand what made her so polarizing for people.

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Well, you're right that Walt eventually started really enjoying the drug life, which in some ways made the show so much better.  I mean, forget about the responsible job and the respectable family; this is a man who is cut out to cook industrial quantities of meth and sell them in the underworld.  

I definitely grew to like Marie.  I will never like Skylar, but in some ways, I think that's brilliant. Can you imagine, unknowingly giving up a lucrative life with a biotech startup and possibly having a glamorous wife, and then realizing that you are stuck in a home with a decor circa 1982 and waking up next to Skylar for the rest of your life?  

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The show was definitely much better when the stakes amped up and he was getting caught combined with Gus/drug cartel angle.  I couldn’t wait for him to get his comeuppance so I was very satisfied by the finale.  I also found the drug empire building really interesting actually.  Ironically I found it an amazing and brilliant show but I’d never watch it again.  Too dark a subject matter.

Re the marriage...  I didn’t find either Skylar or Walter to be much of a prize so I guess that may be why she isn’t all that polarizing for me.  You know what I mean?  

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  • 8 months later...

???? - Which part of ASIP made you think they had a plan? I don't think that occurred to me until … well, HLV, I guess. At which point they actually did have a plan, sort of. I think. It's never clear to me if they thought of Eurus before or after the "other one" remark. But they had a sibling in mind, obviously

Before that … I don't know, I can't think of anything that seemed to point to a larger plan, especially not in ASIP, although I'm sure there were some, because I know you're not the only one to wonder about it. Enlighten me?

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1 hour ago, Arcadia said:

It's never clear to me if they thought of Eurus before or after the "other one" remark. But they had a sibling in mind, obviously.

And they were obviously keeping their gender options open.

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43 minutes ago, J.P. said:

what the Cabbie told Sherlock about killing the others, had to be a lie.

Okay, thanks! The first two I get. But I can't think what you mean about the last one. Help?

I always took "more than a man" to be a reference to the network Sherlock had to take down between TRF and TEH. I do wonder what upset Mummy, but not enough to bother me, I guess.

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8 minutes ago, Arcadia said:

I do wonder what upset Mummy,

I always thought Sherlock’s response there was a bit strange.  It sounded to me like Mycroft was saying that the brotherly feud between them was what upset her, in which case it’s implied that both of them are to blame.  But then Sherlock responded with, “I upset her?  Me?”, as if he thought Mycroft was blaming him only.

 

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Going by something that wasn't quite said in one of the DVD commentaries, they were thinking of copying the Young Sherlock Holmes plot point where Daddy Holmes had had an affair when Sherlock was small, which Sherlock had discovered (or, to be accurate, deduced) and blurted it out, at which point Mummy was of course upset.  In ASiP, i assume Mycroft was blaming Sherlock for that upset, whereas Sherlock presumably figured it was actually Daddy's fault.

At least that'd be my guess.

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