Episode 3.3, "His Last Vow"

[Pseudonym]

I was thinking about Magnussen, he must have known about Victor because there's no way a child's disappearance wouldn't have been in the local paper. Personally I think it would have been a lot more likely, and interesting, if in his scan of Sherlock's weaknesses 'Victor' came up instead of 'Redbeard.' Would have given us all more to debate. Now whether CAM knew Victor and Redbeard were the same thing is another story.

 

I suspect he would also have known that Sherlock had a sister (assuming he wasn't working with her), as it's likely the fire would have been reported on, and whilst it's unlikely it would have been released that the little girl was responsible papers love making a point of children being made homeless, I'm pretty sure the local paper would have said a family with three children lost their home. It's likely he (CAM) would also have believed the story about her being dead, though the fact Sherlock's sister was essentially shipped off to an asylum would have been a pressure point anyway.

 

I know there was also a bit of debate about Sherlock's 'normal' porn preference over on Tumblr. Was that discussed here or are we ignoring such things? ;)

[J.P.]

Mmm… first I thought CAM cannot know everything about everyone, but then, he surely did a research on Mycroft. But then… why didn't he just threaten Mycroft to reveal the truth to Sherlock and also his parents? Okay, okay, I know. It's a story. And not even one written in one piece. :P

[Pseudonym]

Yea I was wondering that too. Going Mary ----> John ----> Sherlock ----> Mycroft seems a bit of an excessively long way around. 

[Boton]

I was thinking about Magnussen, he must have known about Victor because there's no way a child's disappearance wouldn't have been in the local paper. Personally I think it would have been a lot more likely, and interesting, if in his scan of Sherlock's weaknesses 'Victor' came up instead of 'Redbeard.' Would have given us all more to debate. Now whether CAM knew Victor and Redbeard were the same thing is another story.

 

I suspect he would also have known that Sherlock had a sister (assuming he wasn't working with her), as it's likely the fire would have been reported on, and whilst it's unlikely it would have been released that the little girl was responsible papers love making a point of children being made homeless, I'm pretty sure the local paper would have said a family with three children lost their home. It's likely he (CAM) would also have believed the story about her being dead, though the fact Sherlock's sister was essentially shipped off to an asylum would have been a pressure point anyway.

 

I know there was also a bit of debate about Sherlock's 'normal' porn preference over on Tumblr. Was that discussed here or are we ignoring such things? ;)

 

That's a good point about CAM, and I agree that he must have known a great deal about Redbeard/Victor/Eurus that he didn't let on.  There would be too many things he could track down:  news coverage, as you point out; birth certificate/baptism record, etc. (which Mycroft could potentially have pulled, but let's say he didn't); medical record if Sherlock had therapy.

 

But if the list had said "Victor," that would have led to even more Sherlock/Victor slash fics.

 

Leading to your second point, porn preference.  I think we've discussed it elsewhere, but short version of my opinion is that the only thing we can possibly glean from "normal" is that it falls within th bounds of what CAM would consider normal adult sexuality, so nothing he could use for blackmail. That is, no child porn, no odd Brony obsession, etc.

[Pseudonym]

For Victor, I think that's what would have made it fun, though I guess it would be another thing people could use as an accusation of queer baiting, so I suppose they had to avoid it. 

 

[Boton]

Oh, that's one that I think could have gotten weird very quickly.  Once certain parts of the fandom started expanding on the idea that there was an S/V romantic connection, the final revelation that Victor was a childhood friend could have gone some really iffy places where people used this to argue that S had had sexual feelings as a five year old or something.  I'm glad the took a pass on that one.

[Pseudonym]

Eurgh, yes, definitely better avoided in that case. People do seem to make all sorts of bizarre connections and claims about the true meanings of scenes. I've seen some utterly illogical things argued for. 

[Arcadia]

I'm thinking that even if CAM knew about Victor, there's no reason for him to know it's a pressure point (if it even was.) He wouldn't necessarily know Sherlock had forgotten Victor, would he? And maybe all he knew about Redbeard was the name, but not the significance.

 

It's does make you wonder if he somehow got access to Mycroft's little notebook, though. Or access to someone who had seen it.

[Carol the Dabbler]

I think that's part of the reason that our culture (and I'm speaking specifically about the US but generally about the West) is getting so contentious and easily offended.  Piece by piece, we've created a world where we can each control our input so that we only consume things that we want, whether it is TV shows or news or social media posts or whatever. So, when something we don't like intrudes on our carefully-created little silos, we are just so put out about it!

 

Not just put out, but astonished and bewildered, like "where did that come from!"?  Like the New Yorkers who couldn't understand how W could have won the presidency in 2000, because "everybody I know voted for Gore."

[Boton]

 

I think that's part of the reason that our culture (and I'm speaking specifically about the US but generally about the West) is getting so contentious and easily offended.  Piece by piece, we've created a world where we can each control our input so that we only consume things that we want, whether it is TV shows or news or social media posts or whatever. So, when something we don't like intrudes on our carefully-created little silos, we are just so put out about it!

 

Not just put out, but astonished and bewildered, like "where did that come from!"?  Like the New Yorkers who couldn't understand how W could have won the presidency in 2000, because "everybody I know voted for Gore."

 

 

Or even the most recent election.  I don't want to get political in this thread (or at all), but this last election has spawned an entire genre of books dedicated generally to "how could people have voted for" either side.  It is fine to be surprised or happy or disappointed at the election results, but one hopefully shouldn't need to read an ethnography to understand how people in their own country could vote a certain way.

 

[/politics]

 

Back on Sherlock, I was talking to my in-laws this weekend, and I believe my parents-in-law just finished watching S4, and my nephew is back on SiB (and enjoying it immensely, if the sly grin was any indication).  In any event, we started talking about plot holes, and we finally all decided that the big difference between British TV and American TV is that British TV is more forgiving of leaving plot holes that you are just supposed to assume have logical explanations behind them and move on.  I wasn't the one who said that, but it did make me wonder if sometimes the fandom expects something from Sherlock that is not part of its culture of origin.

[Pseudonym]

Well I'm British and watch a fair bit of British TV, but season 4 seems particularly glaring to me. 

[J.P.]

That's really interesting. As we are mostly fed with US productions, it may be our expectations were… maybe not to high, but misplaced?

[Pseudonym]

What other UK programs do you say have plot holes?

[Arcadia]

Huh. That's interesting, because something similar is often said about Japanese animation (or at least, was, back when I was immersed in it) ... they seemed to have no problem with ambiguous sequences and open-ended conclusions. (Or "non-endings", if you will.) I hadn't thought of this before, but maybe that's another reason HLV doesn't bother me in that regard as much as it does some people; I'm used to it. (Although I still think it's mostly just because I like that kind of thing. )
 
Still, I watch quite a bit of British TV too, thanks to our local PBS channel, and ... well, I can't really compare Sherlock to anything else I've ever seen out of the UK, at least on TV. Certainly not any other detective/police procedural. And, no, I don't remember plot holes in something like Inspector Morse. Don't remember any flapping coats or shooting the walls either. Different DNA. Sherlock's bloodline is closer to something like Fawlty Towers. :D 

[J.P.]

We crossposted, Pseud. So you don't agree? Okay. I don't watch many series, and surely not as close as Sherlock.

[Boton]

What other UK programs do you say have plot holes?

 

It isn't quite the same thing, but I loved Doc Martin, and it had some of the flavor of quirky genius, (medical) mysteries, and attempts to mix humor and serious plot lines.  I found myself yelling at the screen a lot until I just told myself that it made sense in Doc Martin-land, and to just sit back and enjoy the show.

[Pseudonym]

We crossposted, Pseud. So you don't agree? Okay. I don't watch many series, and surely not as close as Sherlock.

 

No I don't. I don't think I like that idea to be honest - it's full of plot holes because it's British? Seems a bit sweeping and, well, a tad insulting. 

 

Haven't seen Doc Martin, it's the type of thing I avoid so I can't comment there. 

[J.P.]

I don't see it that extreme or like a accusation. More like a matter of style. It's like you wouldn't hear much swearing in the US pre watershed shows. :P

[Boton]

Yeah, I didn't mean it as an insult to British TV, nor did anyone that I was talking to in the conversation that generated the ideas.  I'm not married to the theory, but it does seem to me that British TV gives the audience a bit more credit for being able to fill in the blanks, and the pacing is different than American TV.  To me, American TV seems geared a touch more to the perspective that if we didn't see it, it didn't happen.  British TV seems more like, if you can connect two dots on your own, it isn't always necessary for the show to do it for you.  I actually like British TV better than American TV, but American TV is easier to multitask during.   :P

[Pseudonym]

Ah ok, fair enough.

[Arcadia]

Yes, most Americans shows I can multi-task (to a certain extent) and still follow the plot, simply because all you have to do is listen, not watch. I consider it a failing, myself ... it's supposed to be a visual medium, why are they talking so much? Argh.

 

I think that's one reason I'm so bothered by the altered look of S4 ... I'm very visually oriented to begin with, and so are most of my favorite programs/movies/whatever. So it jumps out at me when the visual style changes for no good reason. And it's one reason I'm so impressed with SiB, HLV and TLD ... they are simply gorgeous to look at, I can watch and enjoy even with the sound turned off. All their episodes are visually arresting, except for T6T and to some extent TFP (although the latter doesn't bother me so much, because there's a reason for it to look different ... it takes place in a prison, among other reasons. But it still lacks the visual imagination of the first 3 series.)

[Carol the Dabbler]

I think this has already been more or less stated, but I do see a difference between what I would call a plot hole (e.g., why the Black Lotus killed the only two people who might have known where the jade hairpin was) and merely not showing us everything (e.g., not seeing Sherlock apologize to Molly or John apologize to Sherlock).  If it makes sense to assume that something happened, I'm perfectly willing to assume that it did (though I may be disappointed that I didn't get to see it).  But if I notice an internal plot inconsistency, I'm not happy.  (I'm not nearly as bothered by slightly inappropriate props, by the way, or by mild continuity errors.)
 
Maybe "plot hole" is a poor term for internal inconsistencies, since it kinda sounds more like the not-showing-us-everything sort of thing.  But the "inconsistency" meaning is apparently well established.  Wikipedia says this:
 

In fiction, a plot hole, plothole or plot error is a gap or inconsistency in a storyline that goes against the flow of logic established by the story's plot. Such inconsistencies include such things as illogical or impossible events, and statements or events that contradict earlier events in the storyline.

As for British vs American, I will admit that Sherlock (for example) has a number of connect-the-dots-yourself moments.  I can think of a few in (for example) Star Trek as well (that being an American show that I know intimately), but those tend to be the omission of things that would not be allowed on broadcast television.  Now I'm trying to think of plot holes (a la Blind Banker) in Star Trek.  I can think of several overall plots that I find hard to believe, but that's not quite the same thing.

 

I'm wondering whether the tendency to not show everything is due not so much to British vs American per se, but rather to shows with fewer episodes vs those with more.  If you've got twenty-some episodes per year, every year, then you can afford to show more detail than if you have only three or six or a dozen (and maybe not every year).  For example, I can think of some omitted scenes in Leverage, a cable show that averaged 14 episodes per season.

 

I'm basing these statements and guesses on the few examples that I can think of offhand, so I could be way off, statistically.

[Pseudonym]

I don't think it's anything to do with being British, I think Sherlock is just... I don't want to say bad because obviously it's a show I really like, but I feel like it needed a supervisor who was removed enough to go over the writing and say 'people might feel cheated you omitted this,' or 'this doesn't make sense.' I have the feeling Moftiss get a bit too caught up in their heads sometimes and assume just because they know something happened we all know it too. But I don't know there was an apology, for example. A lot of people assume there was, I suspect there wasn't. But no one knows. And since that irritates the hell out of me I don't think it can be typical of UK tv or I would just shrug it off or maybe not even notice it. 

 

I will say I hate shows that feel the need to spoon-feed things, point out the blatantly obvious or talk down to me. And I've noticed a lot of American cop shows tend to have a dramatic reveal at the end of an episode that was obvious to anyone with half a brain. 

[gerry]

I watch a lot of cop shows here in America and I'm not sure I appreciate the implication about half a brain. In many cases I can guess "who did it" before it's revealed at the end but the payoff is finding out the motivation or the emotional impact to the surrounding characters. L&O and Major Crimes does this very well.

[Pseudonym]

Ah, but I didn't specify any programs, might not be anything you watch.