wildwoodflower

I know those sources! I meant the source for it within the actual show Sherlock. Which was answered thanks. That "scholarly" speculation about the father and the dark, deep secrets of the country was the inspiration for Nicolas Meyer's Seven Per Cent Solution. I always have to laugh at the idea of the Holmesian "scholar" as if his reading of the text is somehow sacrosanct and the last word and wasn't (when first published in scholarly fan newsletters and university press magazines) subject to the same arguments and disagreements between each other about how a passage could be interpreted as any fan of any show on any forum today. And boy did they argue. Old school Doctor who fans got nothing on those guys.

What do you mean by the "daddy's big secret"? He was the only one in the family who seemed quite normal to me. Yeah. Where are you getting that? ACD canon has nothing but the brother and "art in the blood" Vernet reference to relative on his mother's side (I think). Although the writers have said all iterations of Holmes are fair game as sources for material, I haven't heard anything about that. Not thatI'd mind. It would be fun. But so far we only know what we've seen on screen. If you have a source please feel free to share though.

http://www.denofgeek.us/tv/sherlock-holmes/232593/sherlock-holmes-the-original-fandom

You mean there are never any Watson children mentioned, right? Because there are governesses and they do have charges.

I always like to remind people that Sherlock Holmes was like 26 or 27 when he first met Watson. One of my favorite scenes in the very first story is when Holmes is describing his brilliant test for human blood (I believe) and how it will change forensics forever because he is so damned clever and then he pauses and takes a bow (clearly mocking himself and how up his own ass he's just been). It's a very charming scene.

I agree with you there, Fox. I think that as a very clever modern "transformation" of the Doyle stories, "Sherlock" is actually getting better and better. His Last Vow, for example, I felt was very close to the spirit of "Charles Augustus Milverton" (and if I want true to the letter, I have a Complete Sherlock Holmes lying around the house...) A lot of the original cases are not terribly clever, in my humble opinion. No they are not. And you don't have to be humble about it:-) But that's part of the problem with viewer expectation. Most people watching BBC Sherlock have never read the actual stories or novels, they've only seen films or the Granada series (which also took liberities with the stories in order to make them more interesting to a viewing audience). But part of what Holmes did in the Doyle stories was to act as an agent for people in difficulties that could not go to the police. People being blackmailed for instance.

I did enjoy it more the second time around on PBS (on my big tv screen instead of my laptop) and it did seem to be intake although they eliminated some of the swears. Also, supposedly there is a tiny TARDIS on Andersons wall of crazy. I didn't catch it.

I'm not familiar with any of those programs, so I need to ask how long is each episode? Each Sherlock episode is a true 90 minutes, or a total of four and a half hours per series. While Elementary is nominally a one-hour program, roughly a quarter of that goes to commercials, so that each actual episode is about half as long as a Sherlock episode (amazing how much they manage to pack into that 3/4 hour, though!). Breaking Bad and Mad Men were on AMC, where they're about the same - 47 minutes ish. The Wire was HBO, so a full hour with no ads. But still when you have 10+ episodes, one season of that length is still more total running time than for Sherlock. I'm a little surprised that anyone who watches television can be unaware of Breaking Bad or Mad Men. Or the Wire.which is one of the best series ever made. Breaking Bad is probably the finest series ever made, Having the time to tell a story over the course of a series run leads to more complex storytelling and richer, deeper character development and arcs. I watch Elementary for Jonny Lee. He is a fabulous Sherlock Holmes,

Okay, Watson met and married Mary Morstan between "The Sign of Four" and "The Final Problem" and died during "The Great Hiatus". A second wife in mentioned in "The Adventure of the Illustrious Client" and "The Adventure of the Blanched Soldier." Never named, never described. The same goes for a third wife mentioned after "The Adventure of the Illustrious Client" in Oct. 1902. This has become the job of the fans - to figure out how to make all the pieces fit of stories written by a guy who was sick of the character, tryied to kill him off, only to be persuaded to bring him back (for a lot of money) and couldn't be arsed to remember the names of Watson's wives or perhaps even to bother naming them.

Right, and when she got teary eyed and clutched him it may well have been in gratitude because she may be a former "wetworks engineer" but having a baby by yourself is hard yo. I was going with that as motivating factor for her grateful reaction (even though I am, in principle, in complete agreement with T.O.B.Y. on the matter of double standards there). I was left by my husband when our son was two months old and I don't wish it on anyone - even fictional people.

Well, typically, as I've noticed on many of the forums in many fandoms (especially those in which the leads are men that fans have slashed together) female characters are often villified for doing exactly the same things the male characters do. Female character is then gotten rid of or punished (in fanfiction usually, but often in the fiction itself) so that the two men can return to the business of being soul mates bound for all eternity. It's a storytelling problem. I'm sort of pissed off that they made Mary this person because there is no way for her to escape the fate of being sacrificed or sacrifing herself in order to redeem herself. It's kind of annoying. Maybe if more women got the chance to write for television we'd get some different choices for characters. All characters. We sure as hell wouldn't get the tired old trope of the man whose wife/girlfriend/family/child was murdered as motivation and justification for deception, secretiveness, emotional withdrawal, and brooding. It's boring. Sherlock has neatly stayed away from it, even subverted the trope by making John Watson addicted to the adrenelin high of danger in action. But Elementary went there right away (and subverted the trope later). I'm going on and on and I'm sure no one really wants to engage in meta discussions of gender politics in media. Carry on:-)

A friend of mine suggested the possibility that Mary was the shooter assigned to John on that fateful day. The timing works. Magnussen says she'd stopped doing work for CIA over two years ago and was working for someone else. So she stopped aiming at John and started cultivating his "friendship" and then fell in lurve. Bam!

Also I thought it was said that he's going to be gone for six months (Sherlock may think there's a chance he won't be coming back but he doesn't share that). John seemed relieved to hear it. I think people have such high emotional expectations they can't simply enjoy the story they get. It's the fan's curse:-) I still think Mary is interesting. And yet, we hear that Sherlock and Mycroft's mother gave up her calling to be a mother. Mary gives up her former life for love. Is this noble are we supposed to think it's noble. I thought she was scary cool in that scene and I freaked out as much as the next person when she shot him, but I was also disappointed that she turned out to be bad. I so wanted another good strong female character in the show. Not one who was strong because she kills people for a living. (or spanks them, whatever.)

Can we not wish for babies to die, you know, just on general principle? I'm pro-choice and all, but once they're born I kind of wish them all the best.

Well Mary does die in canon, but I was kind of relieved to see they didn't go that route right away. ACD probably did it so he could get the gents back together at Baker Street. It's convenient and plausible given the era in which the stories were written. But I was kind of thrilled that they didn't go there, that they made her a more interesting and complicated character. At the same time I would have been content for her to be just a really smart good person who gets a long famously with her husband and his friend. Someone who isn't going to be sacrificed on the altar of the bro-bond because she gets in the way of their epic love. It's ridiculous. There is room in a person's heart for more than one. Even in Sherlock's heart. We've been shown that this series. He has a mother and father who love him, he had a dog, his brother loves him, he loves John and Mary. Life is richer and broader and more expansive than this romance novel so many fans want. Grrr. Anyway I do understand what you're saying. And why you feel the way you do. sometimes the choices writers make seem to stretch credulity, but then again it's a very big show that kind of stretched credultiy all the time. Still, I'm a teensy bit doubtful your commitment not to watch if Mary lives on. I've heard it too many times in other fandoms and the same people making the declarations are back in the fray the next time around.

I don't feel the need to justify my still liking Mary. My reasons are there in the text presented to us, and also in the characters evaluations of themselves. She was CIA and did some sort of 'wetwork' - so possibly a bit of a sociopath herself, yes? Well John LOVES himself a sociopath, doesn't he? Sherlock laid it out pretty clearly and John didn't disagree. Also it didn't seem like he forgave her quickly or easily. It appeared to me that John and Mary hadn't really talked or been in close proximity for a at least three months by the time they're all together at Christmas - she actually says something like that. Mary is a bigger-than-life character in a show about bigger-than-life people.I liked that she was ... unusual. I could be distressed that the love interests in Sherlock end up being killers or extortionists. But I can go with it because for me it made for an interesting story. Sherlock believes she didn't want to kill him. She called the ambulance and saved his life. I also trust his judgement. It's his judgement that counts here. He's the person who was shot. Anyway, I thought it was a good episode with many jaw-dropping twists. Also can I just say that I assumed Sherlock was having sex with Jeanine because that was all part of selling the lie. I didn;t hear him deny it. (Perhaps on the next viewing I will). This, as I think someone has already mentioned, was also in ACD canon. Holmes coldly wooed a maid long enough to get engaged to the poor thing just to get access to her employer. He treated her horribly but pointed out she was a dull girl and easily duped. He was kind of a dick. If Jeanine didn't get sex out of it with this 21st century version than she was an idiot. She didn't seem like an idiot to me. Didn't she go to the papers after she found out he was using her? That's what I heard. Maybe it's revealed they never really did it in that scene? I mean does not sleeping with her make him somehow more honorable in using her the way that he did? Because in my book that still makes him a dick. Moffatt and Gatiss have both said that all of Sherlock Holmes is fair game, all the films, books, pastiches, plays, etc. I'm assuming they've read all the same books I have. The name William Sherlock Scott Holmes is another one of those things (like the possible other sibling and Sherlock's birthday date) that was made up by fanboys in the past, the Baring-Gould's etc, who couched their obsessive fanboy speculations in quasi- academic language. Much in the way some old school fans of Doctor Who and Star Trek have done for lo these many years. Sherlock Holmes fandom is one of the first fandoms to gather in convention-like atmospheres for the sole purpose of picking at and trying to explain discrepencies and continuity errors in the stories. The Baker Street Irregulars (fan club) did not allow women to be official card carrying members until the 1970's I believe (although women could submit essays and type up newsletters) . I did a lot of research myself when I was writing my book, back in the days before search engines, and I have to say there is very little difference between The Encyclopaedia Sherlockania and the Star Trek Compendium or The Baker Street Journal and The 500 Year Diary. And now Moffatt and Gatiss have added their own fanfic backstory to the milieu and I'm perfectly okay with that. It's a beautiful thing.

Yes! And no. No, I don't think they are meant to be gay or want to have sex with each other. John needs Mary for that and Sherlock has naked Irene running around in his mind palace - not exactly the fantasy I'd expect from a gay man... But I do feel that these lovely women are being used to keep sex out of what is otherwise a big fat love story. And that's what I think Doyle did, deliberate or not. The sad thing is, I like it, and feminism be damned. Sorry, don't understand how feminism has anything to do with it? Are you saying you like the love story? If it's a love story between two men I doubt feminism has a problem with it. And my personal dislike of romance novels does not preclude my ability to enjoy a good love story - as a feminist - straight or gay or whatevs. So again, I think you don't understand what feminism is if you think it's about the patriachal oppression that is a love story:-) What I liked about Sign of 3 is that it was made clear that two men can be friends, can love each other without having it be sexual. It's also what I like about Elementary in that we see a man and a woman in a respectful, deep friendship in which they clearly love each other and yet don't feel the need to have sex. This is how it is in real life. You can love without feeling sexual, you can feel sexual without love at all and you can have both.

I think everybody is out of character when they're drunk... Although I think I see what you mean - it's unlike him to get drunk in the first place, right? Well, he is a human being. And this is "Sherlock versus real life", as the writers announced it would be. I really liked the game of "who am I". It continued the topic of "who and what is Sherlock Holmes, anyway?" that they began in The Empty Hearse. I'm getting the impression that during the first two seasons, we've seen Sherlock more or less through John's eyes, like we do in Doyle's stories. Watson the narrator portrays Holmes in a certain way: cold, distant, reasoning machine, indestructible, habitual winner, enigmatic etc. But Holmes keeps remarking that it's far from the truth. What if the Sherlock we meet in this season is supposed to be what the writers thought might have been the truth? speaking of the game of 'who am I?' I couldn't make out the name on Watson's forhead, it looked like m with scribbles. Maybe it was m with scribbles. Can anyone clue me in?

My favorite line (of a bazillion lines that were great) is Mrs. Hudson saying "your mother has a lot to answer for." I laughed so freaking hard.

I think there was a lot of ambiguity in that scene so that the audience is meant to wonder was it real or was the conspiracy theorist having a psychotic break? At the end of the scene with the empty chair and the camera set-up and the empty chair and then Anderson ripping things off the wall weeping, I figured it had been another imagined 'how he did it".

Well, I thought the bit in the carriage of the train was vile. I mean, why was it necessary for the real emotion to be invalidated and laughed at. Why the trickery? What was it for? It was really unpleasant and kind of horrified me. I loved a lot of it, but that bit of business there disturbed the hell out of me. Sherlock displayed more genuine compassion for the young woman being tricked by her stepfather ( and good canon reference there, kudos) than he did for the genuine deep emotional trauma he caused his friend. So we think he's remorseful, that he wants forgiveness and then it's all a trick and he laughs? The scene could have been done with honest emotional imapct and still ended on a comedy note with the off switch. Why did they choose this? Sorry, it really bothered me.

But he wouldn't respect someone like that and without the respect it wouldn't be love anyway. And the woman you describe would be the classic Mary Sue, kind virtuous and patient beyond reason. Those kinds of people in real life don't waste their time on men who behave badly. Those kinds of people are busy helping humanity at large.

Yeah, he's not the coupling sort, is he? Despite fan desires that he should be coupled (that's what fanfic is for), I think the stories work best if he is the sun and everyone else are planets circling around him (even if he has forgotten some stuff about solar systems and what all.) In the case of Molly I actually think he's going to tell her that she deserves better than him and that he wants he to have a good full life and she'll take that to heart and move on. Because he is good person in there somewhere.. .

So are you linking because it's your thing or are you linking because you are horrified? Today. I was frocefully reminded why I don't hang out on the Sherlock tumblr blogs and that is because people often don't cut tag their porny illustrations - they just caption it with lines like "you're welcome everyone!" as if I've been just dying to enjoy badly rendered drawings of people having sex while I'm drinking my morning coffee. The erotic illustrations and photo manips cross the same line for me as Real Person Fic. The images are of real people who are portraying characters of fiction. They have no say in where a persons imagination goes, but I think they should have some say if that imagination is flung like monkey poop all over the internet. A person's mother could stumble across that! Probably I have now offended someone on this very site who lovingly renders porntacular images of Johnlock. I don't know since I have no access to the adult section:-)

But they aren't. And if you can name examples in anything currently on television or in films that show the roles reversed so that we can all cheer, please do. (I love the Hunger Games, but Katniss ends up without agency even when she wins, so no). I find it difficult when people use this sort of logic to make a point. To me, the fact that the roles are not reversed, that we seldom see them reversed, and, in fact, see them reversed less and less since the good old days of Buffy the Vampire Slayer is kind of the point! I could go on but I'm too tired and grumpy now.