"BBC Sherlock" articles & other miscellany

[sittything]

Oh, thanks SherlockedCAMPer!

 

This part made me a little wha?!  

 

What distinguishes season 4 from previous years?

We haven’t started writing it yet, so it’s early. The first series was all about the beginning of their friendship. Second about the formative stages, the love and fear and loss and all that. The third was good days, me and my pal and my pal’s wife. Those are golden days. The missing element in a lot of Sherlock Holmes adaptations is allowing it to be funny. There’s a lot of humor in Sherlock Holmes, and it’s ignored in a lot of adaptations. [season 4] is going to be… I suppose you’d say… consequences. It’s consequences. Chickens come to roost. It’s dark in some ways—obviously it’s great fun and a Sherlock Holmes romp and all that—but there’s a sense of… things… coming back to bite you. It’s not a safe, sensible way to live. It’s hilarious and exhilarating some days, but some days it’s going to be bloody frightening.

 

They haven't started writing it yet?!  I mean I know they've got it mapped out what they're going to do, but I really would have thought it would have been written by now, or they would have at least started it!

 

And the 3rd series was the good 'ole days?!  Like I get they're saying it's going to get darker, but HLV and the whole Mary thing seemed very dark for me.  I guess you could make the argument for TEH and TSOT being more the good 'ole days, but then in TSOT there is the sadness built around their changing relationship with John getting married sooo....

 

[Carol the Dabbler]

Sherlock is up for 2 BAFTA technical/craft awards - editing and sound.

 

http://www.bafta.org/press/press-releases/bafta-television-craft-awards-nominations-2015

 

And, according to that article, "Nominations for the Television Awards will be announced at a live press conference on Wednesday 8 April."  I assume that's referring to nominations for the acting awards and such, so stay tuned!

 

They haven't started writing it yet?!  I mean I know they've got it mapped out what they're going to do, but I really would have thought it would have been written by now, or they would have at least started it!

Maybe they're like me -- it's not the very last minute yet!  ;)

 

And the 3rd series was the good 'ole days?!  Like I get they're saying it's going to get darker, but HLV and the whole Mary thing seemed very dark for me.  I guess you could make the argument for TEH and TSOT being more the good 'ole days, but then in TSOT there is the sadness built around their changing relationship with John getting married sooo....

 

That part kinda surprised me too.  But then I suppose if you've been a Holmes fan since you were a little boy (accent on the "boy" part), then your definition of "golden days" could be a bit -- different.

 

[Inge l-w]

Dear fellow members, if we are serious Sherlock fans and not fan girls, let's use our collective common sense.

There are several premises in Mr Moffat's interview!

A) Although he would have quite liked a Dr Who crossover, the ACD aficionado hard-working ant Mr Gatiss seems to have talked him out of it with some support by both leading actors.

B ) He talks about consequences, we have been discussing several options, but if they stay true to canon, and that's a big IF, there can never be a baby Watson, no matter how much fun we have been having bringing up the tiny tot.

C) He talks about past mistakes, chickens come home to roost. That includes everything from Mary's murky past, to Dr Watson's past as an army doctor to Sherlock's brushes with drugs.

D ) He labels it darker and promises tough, emotional upheaval while it continues being a Sherlock romp: several interpretations are open there, from Mycroft having engineered the whole Magnussen plot with the help of Sherlock, the guards having been suborned and the emergency channel having been hijacked by Mycroft himself, in a last-ditch attempt to keep his younger brother alive with the knowledge of Lady Smallwood ( she would make a perfect M after Judi Dench, but one can only dream) and Mycroft's role being a much more scheming one, to Janine being a Moriarty.

E) The thing which everyone seems to have missed is the actual firearm that Sherlock pulls on Magnussen, together with the impossibility of Magnussen keeping such a vast store of information (he even has a file on the rather unimportant Mrs Hudson) in his brain. In the administrative meeting, Mycroft talks about familial sentiment, a weapon wielded with precision and talks of the "other one".

Brother or simple agent?

It's going to be a roller coaster ride, but I should like to explore what he said and what he left unspoken a bit further with the help of anyone interested in deductive reasoning: as dear Shadowdweller says, we are Sherlockians, so we should be able to reach a workable hypothesis!

[SherlockedCAMPer]

Dear fellow members, if we are serious Sherlock fans and not fan girls, let's use our collective common sense.

There are several premises in Mr Moffat's interview!

A) Although he would have quite liked a Dr Who crossover, the ACD aficionado hard-working ant Mr Gatiss seems to have talked him out of it with some support by both leading actors.

B ) He talks about consequences, we have been discussing several options, but if they stay true to canon, and that's a big IF, there can never be a baby Watson, no matter how much fun we have been having bringing up the tiny tot.

C) He talks about past mistakes, chickens come home to roost. That includes everything from Mary's murky past, to Dr Watson's past as an army doctor to Sherlock's brushes with drugs.

D ) He labels it darker and promises tough, emotional upheaval while it continues being a Sherlock romp: several interpretations are open there, from Mycroft having engineered the whole Magnussen plot with the help of Sherlock, the guards having been suborned and the emergency channel having been hijacked by Mycroft himself, in a last-ditch attempt to keep his younger brother alive with the knowledge of Lady Smallwood ( she would make a perfect M after Judi Dench, but one can only dream) and Mycroft's role being a much more scheming one, to Janine being a Moriarty.

E) The thing which everyone seems to have missed is the actual firearm that Sherlock pulls on Magnussen, together with the impossibility of Magnussen keeping such a vast store of information (he even has a file on the rather unimportant Mrs Hudson) in his brain. In the administrative meeting, Mycroft talks about familial sentiment, a weapon wielded with precision and talks of the "other one".

Brother or simple agent?

It's going to be a roller coaster ride, but I should like to explore what he said and what he left unspoken a bit further with the help of anyone interested in deductive reasoning: as dear Shadowdweller says, we are Sherlockians, so we should be able to reach a workable hypothesis!

 

We are definitely serious Sherlock fans who happen to be majority female (there are at least 2 guys semi-active on here)

 

A) the wife also seemed not for the crossover.  I can see it both ways with doing one.  They have referenced each other at least once (or at least ACDs Sherlock was referenced along with a Tardis picture in TEH).

 

B ) all the more reason to discuss options & consequences.

 

C) We can have fun speculating about the past mistakes and the possible consequences of them

 

D) I wouldn't mind Lindsay Duncan as M.  Something needs to happen to Ralph Fiennes M first.  I think he will be a good M in Spectre.  Maybe his M will get shot off or something allowing Lindsay to play M if asked.

 

E)  Will be interesting if we find out what happened with John's gun after that whole Appledore fiasco since it is not mentioned at the end of HLV.

 

Agreed on the roller coaster ride.  It's Sherlock, I wouldn't expect anything less.

[Carol the Dabbler]

... if they stay true to canon, and that's a big IF, there can never be a baby Watson....

Fortunately or unfortunately (take your pick), their idea of "true to canon" seems to include such options as doing the opposite of canon (c.f. "Rachel") and just generally messing around with canon. Before Series 3 aired, I was insisting that they couldn't possibly make Mary into a baddie (as some people were hoping), because that wouldn't simply be non-canon, it'd be sheer anti-canon. Well, we still don't know whether she's literally a baddie or not, but she sure as hell ain't ACD's sweet little Mary Morstan. So I'm not putting my money on much of anything until I see it!

 

The thing which everyone seems to have missed is the actual firearm that Sherlock pulls on Magnussen....

I'm not following you there -- what exactly are you saying that we've all missed?

[sittything]

I'm curious what the questions are that nobody is asking, which is apparently what we're getting answers to.   lol   Or is Moffat just not that tuned in to what the fandom is or isn't asking?    Are you here Moffat? 

 

I'm really glad everyone talked Moffat out of a Dr. Who crossover.  No thanks.

 

I don't know what to even think of Baby Watson.  Canon-wise, there have been plenty of things that have happened in Sherlock outside of canon, correct?   So a Baby Watson is plausible.  But personally, I don't see how they could successfully integrate a baby into this show, especially if Mary has to die.  I don't want a "See Baby Watson.  Oops, Baby Watson was a bad idea.  Quick, how can we get rid of the kid?"

 

I just hope the consequences and roosting chickens have nothing to do with Molly helping Sherlock in TRF.  I'm not sure why I'm so hung up and paranoid about something happening to her;  I blame the internet. 

 

I'm also still willfully choosing to believe the very unlikely scenario that "the other one" is another brother played by... well, you all know who.

 

I'm soooo down with Janine being a Moriarty.  Moftiss, make this happen. 

 

[sfmpco]

I agree that there probably isn't a single topic out there about there show that hasn't been discussed ad nauseam.  So I'm not buying that there's something right in front of us that we've missed. 

[Arcadia]

My first thought was "the other one", as I thought there would be more speculation about that than there seems to have been. But I wouldn't say that's been "missed".... I agree, I doubt if anything's been actually missed.

[SherlockedCAMPer]

I agree that there probably isn't a single topic out there about there show that hasn't been discussed ad nauseam.  So I'm not buying that there's something right in front of us that we've missed. 

 

I wonder if it is more Moffat has missed some of the discussion topics in particular some or all of the ones that we have on here.

[Inge l-w]

Dear all,

Concerning the actual firearm, you may remember that after staging his very elaborate plan with the active help of Wiggins and definitely the help of Mycroft, he has a moment in the hall with his dad, where they apparently discuss the state of John's marriage, but it would be an excellent moment for him, when he reaches for his scarf, to have delved into John's coat pocket and substituted the thing with an inoffensive flare gun or dart gun. He regularly pickpockets DI Lestrade and his brother. IF, another great fat big if, he made the substitution himself, then the whole ending of the Appledore sequence has been stage-managed.

For the moment, I feel like "WHAT did I miss?"

[SherlockedCAMPer]

Brilliant possibility Inge. That would be an interesting plot twist. That could allow for CAM to make a re-appearance.

[sfmpco]

Why, since he had asked John to bring his gun, would then go to the trouble to changing it out with something else?  He could have done that regardless.  Could have been in his own coat pocket for that matter.

[Inge l-w]

Dear sfmpco, certainly not on his own person! Unless the bodyguards had been suborned beforehand, which would involve too many people being in the know, he would take it for granted that there might be a cursory search of himself, after all he was the one who actively worked on being invited to Appledore. But that does not necessarily go for the seemingly inoffensive hanger-on. He has hold of John's coat right up until the CM helicopter arrives, when he hands it to John.

It is a bit like his trick with the off-switch in TEH.

For the moment, Mr Moffat seems like a loose canon on deck, with everybody from his wife to the leading actors trying to secure him back in place.

P. S. I hope you are giggling more and coughing less with each passing day.

[J.P.]

Hmmm... I don't try to speculate too much, and I'm not sure if you can trust anything Mofftiss say (which is an odd situation if you compare it to other movies/shows - because usually you assume that what the makers/actors say in interviews is more accurate/true than fans' speculations)

 

But as I read about the "past mistakes that backfire at you" a red alarm button flared in my head with the words CARING on it. What if the mistake was the friendship with John? *shudder*

[SherlockedCAMPer]

That would be...ugh. Can't even think how to respond to the last bit. Agree with the shudder.

[J.P.]

 

 We’ve actually set up something, I think—[co-creator Mark Gatiss] and me, we’re very exultant about a little thing we’ve set up that no one is talking about. 

 

Well it might be that the guys haven't read everything what was written in forums - but reading statements like this makes my brain automatically speed up and try to break the sound barrier. I felt like this reading about the Fermat's last theorem - a problem that seems so simple that you feel you could solve if by yourself...  What the heck is what I don't see?!

[sittything]

Hmmm... I don't try to speculate too much, and I'm not sure if you can trust anything Mofftiss say (which is an odd situation if you compare it to other movies/shows - because usually you assume that what the makers/actors say in interviews is more accurate/true than fans' speculations)

 

 

This.  I'm not sure Mofftiss are the most reliable source, are they?  They can be tricksy.

 

[J.P.]

Yessss... tricksy Mofftissess  

[SherlockedCAMPer]

So they are a little like Gollum's view of hobbitses then?

[Inge l-w]

Addenda to the premises, and I do agree with everything said above about Mr Moffat. He's making a living out of the whole thing, it's Mr Gatiss who seems to be so much more into the whole ACD canon.

F ) Magnussen takes a drink from a decanter on the side-table, and his excuse to Sherlock and Dr Watson is that he would offer them some, but it is very rare and expensive. If Sherlock has outlined his full intentions during the little restaurant scene (deal with the devil), then CAM knows for certain that even if his opponents are caught trying to sell him state secrets, his whole edifice will come tumbling around his ears, exactly because he is in news, so he is even more vulnerable in terms of the bubble reputation than either Sherlock or Dr Watson, so the drink he gulps down, which he so carefully refuses to offer his 'guests' under the cloak of rudeness is poisoned and mirrors Sherlock's drugging of the whole family party, so he goes out of his way to provoke the erratic genius by pretending his vaults are a simple utilitarian armchair and by flicking Dr Watson's face, and to add insult to injury brings Janine into the game, who may have let on about her 'relationship' even before she sold the story to his competitors. If it is poison, then it's an alkaloid, because he is still in posession of his faculties nearly a quarter of an hour before the 'firearm' is drawn. In that case, he would have given explicit orders to his bodyguards NOT to carry out a body search on both of them, knowing from his file that they have a history of armed confrontations, although in the past it was Dr Watson who pulled the trigger, so his game is complete when he manages to force Sherlock to commit an illogical act, based on his own explanation of how leverage works.

G) The stylish rimless glasses Magnussen wears could have several duplicates, so that the ones he reads his information from are, in fact, an electronic aide-memoire device, which he deliberately does NOT wear in the restaurant scene, having anticipated his opponent's move.

Sometimes, I so wish were still alive, compared to him, CAM is even more of a calculating monster!

However, if the drink was poisoned, Mr Moffat had better watch out, because the concept started with Queen Berenice, trying to poison her husband, Mithridates V, back in the first century BC, so "not just planned, but planned and rehearsed," as Sherlock comments in SoT.

[Carol the Dabbler]

I agree that there probably isn't a single topic out there about there show that hasn't been discussed ad nauseam.  So I'm not buying that there's something right in front of us that we've missed.

 

I wonder if it is more Moffat has missed some of the discussion topics in particular some or all of the ones that we have on here.

 

As I posted on another thread a little while ago, when some fans "accused" Moftiss of using fan ideas in "Empty Hearse," they vehemently denied it, explaining that they had very little idea what the fans had even been saying -- in which case, how could they possibly know what we have and have not missed?  I suspect they're just messing with our heads again -- and/or they've come up with an idea they consider so utterly amazing that no one else could possibly have thought of it.

 

Concerning the actual firearm, you may remember that after staging his very elaborate plan with the active help of Wiggins and definitely the help of Mycroft, he has a moment in the hall with his dad, where they apparently discuss the state of John's marriage, but it would be an excellent moment for him, when he reaches for his scarf, to have delved into John's coat pocket and substituted the thing .... IF, another great fat big if, he made the substitution himself, then the whole ending of the Appledore sequence has been stage-managed.

Magnussen takes a drink from a decanter on the side-table, and his excuse to Sherlock and Dr Watson is that he would offer them some, but it is very rare and expensive. If Sherlock has outlined his full intentions during the little restaurant scene (deal with the devil), then CAM knows for certain that even if his opponents are caught trying to sell him state secrets, his whole edifice will come tumbling around his ears, exactly because he is in news, so he is even more vulnerable in terms of the bubble reputation than either Sherlock or Dr Watson, so the drink he gulps down, which he so carefully refuses to offer his 'guests' under the cloak of rudeness is poisoned and mirrors Sherlock's drugging of the whole family party, so he goes out of his way to provoke the erratic genius by pretending his vaults are a simple utilitarian armchair and by flicking Dr Watson's face, and to add insult to injury brings Janine into the game, who may have let on about her 'relationship' even before she sold the story to his competitors. If it is poison, then it's an alkaloid, because he is still in posession of his faculties nearly a quarter of an hour before the 'firearm' is drawn. In that case, he would have given explicit orders to his bodyguards NOT to carry out a body search on both of them, knowing from his file that they have a history of armed confrontations, although in the past it was Dr Watson who pulled the trigger, so his game is complete when he manages to force Sherlock to commit an illogical act, based on his own explanation of how leverage works.

I could certainly believe that either CAM or Sherlock had faked the shooting, but my mind is balking at the idea that they both faked it -- which would imply cooperation between them, raising the question of why. But it would have to be both, wouldn't it? Neither just a fake gun nor just CAM inexplicably falling down would do the trick. Your idea does explain why Sherlock and John weren't searched at Appledore, which otherwise seems to be a glaring plot error (and possibly "the thing that nobody noticed"?). Also, the "do you have your gun" scene seemed a bit gratuitous, and the substitution idea might help explain it. One sticky spot, though -- shooting someone in the head at point-blank range would presumably cause (to put it as gently as possible) major tissue disruption. How could they have faked that quickly enough to fool -- um, well, whoever they were trying to fool. Us and John, obviously -- even though John, an experience combat physician, was standing only a few feet away -- but apparently Mycroft as well.

 

Brilliant possibility Inge. That would be an interesting plot twist. That could allow for CAM to make a re-appearance.

That would be the down-side, wouldn't it?

[sfmpco]

Sherlock's best one-liners...

 

http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/2015/03/04/sherlock-holmes-one-liners_n_6798636.html

[jadpdr]

That photo gallery is an absolute treat! Thanks for sharing!

[joanneta1]

Would that I could take back my statement to my hapless student, it's even in his best one-liners!

Wonderful photo gallery, but I must definitely curb both my temper and my Sherlock obsession in class.

[jadpdr]

Surely, in the premises discussed above E and F are mutually exclusive. Either the Holmes brothers have stage-managed the whole thing, causing enough time tissue damage for Magnussen to fall down, but not kill him, or he himself stage-manages his suicide by poison in his drink and forcing the desperate genius into committing an entitely uncharacteristic act!