Holiday-Special News ("Abominable Bride")

[sittything]

Filming at the Diogenes Club...

 

https://twitter.com/ellashammy98/status/564399896233795584

 

Martin also has a stool.

 

https://twitter.com/ellashammy98/status/564427272476954624

[Arcadia]

It just dawned on me that if that were being filmed here in the US, they'd have to recreate all those street scenes on a set somewhere. In England, you just go out on the actual street.... :D

[sittything]

Oh!  And I almost forgot... for Arcadia... smiles were seen on set yesterday:

 

https://twitter.com/Ruther2/status/564163474402861058

 

https://twitter.com/Ruther2/status/564007974822498304

[Arcadia]

Oh!  And I almost forgot... for Arcadia... smiles were seen on set yesterday:

 

https://twitter.com/Ruther2/status/564163474402861058

 

https://twitter.com/Ruther2/status/564007974822498304

Awwwww, yissss, that's what I'm talkin' about! I recognize that face!

 

I notice some of the commenters were missing it too, so now I don't feel so ... uh ... silly. ;)

 

Thanks sitty!

[Carol the Dabbler]

Seeing yet another setlock photo that includes a "WIM LOC" sign, it just dawned on me -- assuming the first three letters are indeed an episode code (so that it's short for "[episode] LOCation") -- that it may be fairly obvious what "WIM" stands for. What is the only plot point that we HAVE been told will be covered in the Special?

"Where Is Moriarty?"  (Or possibly "Who is Moriarty?"  Or "What is Moriarty?"  Or even, considering the setting, "When is Moriarty?")

Of course, that could be merely a working title.
 

Victorian does not necessarily mean to that pair of scriptwriters what it means to the rest of us. It may all be an elaborate ploy, and since the page boy is carrying suitcases, they may be setting off from Baker Str. for another location, since they have filmed both in Gloucester crypts, cathedral and in Bath, so Mr Holmes may just be setting off on another adventure, which would not necessarily be The Blue carbuncle, as that is entirely set in London. But it is the height of irony, with a touch of hypocrisy, to call older versions "museum pieces" treating the characters with too much reverence, and then proceeding to copy them to minute detail, even to the peculiarly knotted cravat.

They have come very close to saying that the Special will NOT be based on "The Blue Carbuncle" -- Mark Gatiss said in a recent interview (which I should have bookmarked) that some episodes have been adaptations of a Conan Doyle story, some have been more loosely based on one, and others such as the upcoming Special are not based on any particular story. So while there may be elements of "Carbuncle" in there, the Special apparently has its own plotline.

When you say "older versions," I assume you're talking about earlier adaptations of Holmes. Near as I recall, what Moftiss have criticized is not so much the Victorian setting as that some of them apparently treated Holmes himself as a "museum piece," whereas Conan Doyle's character was not a fossil -- he wasn't even merely a modern man, he was absolutely cutting edge. So I expect that "our" Sherlock will follow suit.

 

[Inge l-w]

You do? That is neither fish nor fowl! It is not the unnerving, super-self-confident, buoyant Sherlock of the modernised version, and it is not the appropriate face of a Victorian Sherlock. In this case, it looks more that the period costume is wearing him than the other way around.

Might it all turn out to be a huge disappointment in the end?

[Carol the Dabbler]

Maybe.  But I found it very hard to get the tone of Series 3 from seeing setlock photos in 2013, so I won't expect to have a real feel for the Special till it actually airs.  After all, most of an episode's "meat" is generally filmed indoors, and we've seen none of that, just some exterior shots.  And it's often hard to be sure what's a scene and what's the actors between takes.

 

[Carol the Dabbler]

Martin also has a stool.

 

https://twitter.com/ellashammy98/status/564427272476954624

I discovered the reason for that, here:

 

He was feeding his lines to the Paper Seller. The Paper Seller was being filmed. JW is *supposed to be in a carriage* in this scene. He is standing on a box to mimic the height he would be at if he was in a carriage, so that the Seller can appropriately direct lines at him.

[sittything]

Now they're apparently in a field and Martin is in a period military outfit.  

https://twitter.com/221Vee/status/564793262981267458

[sittything]

I'm not even sure there's a special anymore.  I think they're just messing with us.

[besleybean]

It's been suggested this scene matches John's opening scene in Study in Pink.

[T.o.b.y]

I'm not even sure there's a special anymore.  I think they're just messing with us.

 

Isn't that what they've always been doing, though?

 

I'm quite looking forward to it. I don't expect it'll advance the larger plot or character development very much, but I expect 90 minutes of good fun and lovely pictures, which is more than I've been getting from other television lately.

 

(I'm just totally sold on that idea of Victorian London we get from fiction. Not the historical place with the dirt and shit and misery all over the place, the alternative story version with fog and horse-drawn cabs and the warm light of gas lamps. The BBC period piece / literary adaptation city.)

[sittything]

Oh, I wasn't trying to imply I'm not looking forward to it.    That was mostly tongue-in-cheek.  I am definitely taking this special with the mindset of it being a one-off, with no real connection to any of the other episode or overarching plot.  It's like its own little Sherlock Victorian snow globe world.

 

I'm also amused that one-off is a British term, and I had no idea because I use it all the time now.  lol   (I looked it up because I wasn't sure if it should be hyphenated)

[Carol the Dabbler]

Not meaning to scare anyone   ;)   just want to be sure I have your attention:
 

Moderator Warning:  
While I'm delighted with the recent increased activity on the forum, I'm finding that I can no longer keep up with every single thread, every single day.  So if you have a general problem, comment, suggestion, or question, please post it in the "Afghanistan or Iraq?" section of the forum, where I and the other staff members will be sure to see it.  If you have a question or comment for me personally, please either post it in "Speedy's Cafe," which I will make a special point of keeping up with, or else send me a Private Message.  Thank you!

 
(I will also post this notice in other high-traffic threads.  Sorry for the repetition -- just don't want anyone waiting patiently for a reply on a thread that I don't happen to get to.)

[sittything]

I'm not gonna lie Carol, I jumped.  lol  

[besleybean]

[joanneta1]

Aye aye, Ma'am!

[Arcadia]

I'm not even sure there's a special anymore.  I think they're just messing with us.

That would be the most awesome practical joke of all time, you almost make me wish it were true!

[Pamela]

 

I'm not even sure there's a special anymore.  I think they're just messing with us.

That would be the most awesom practical joke of all time, you almost make me wish it were true!

 

Hush, you!

[sittything]

Is that Gatiss I hear cackling out on the moor?

[Carol the Dabbler]

Yes, presumably the same Gatiss who tweeted this yesterday.  (Fans of the Jeremy Brett Holmes series may find that it looks familiar!)

 

[besleybean]

The latest pic I've seen is very nice, canonical, but of course setting Johnlock  hearts aflutter.

[joanneta1]

OK, enough is enough, is enough! If this turns out to be a huge Jeremy Brett spoof I will definitely turn monstrous. It is just not on, it is not fair play, it is not cricket, it is a backhanded compliment to the "cobwebbed" "museum piece" which I always turn to for solace after having watched HLV. And why are there so many facsimiles of the Strand Magazines with their special period Sherlock Holmes band above the announcement? Another red herring?. On the other hand, like Sherlock, he likes playing with people's minds, so I shall stick to bringing up Baby Watson for a little, thank you very much!

[sfmpco]

All we know is what Amanda Abbington cryptically said - that she's seen what people are theorizing and it's not what people think.  Well, probably some of it is!

[joanneta1]

OK, enough is enough, is enough! If this turns out to be a huge Jeremy Brett spoof I will definitely turn monstrous. It is just not on, it is not fair play, it is not cricket, it is a backhanded compliment to the "cobwebbed" "museum piece" which I always turn to for solace after having watched HLV. And why are there so many facsimiles of the Strand Magazines with their special period Sherlock Holmes band above the announcement? Another red herring?. On the other hand, like Sherlock, he likes playing with people's minds, so I shall stick to bringing up Baby Watson for a little, thank you very much!

 

The appearance certainly is, from the cumulative twitter feeds up to now, but the content could be Count Dracula or the Woman in White as far as they are concerned. They get on with whatever interests them, not their fans, they have said so repeatedly. I am still wondering why they needed to film in Bath, though, just for the Arcade and the Assembly Rooms? Then they might go even as far back as Ms Austen and P. D. James's take on Pride and Prejudice, Death comes to Pemberley, for all they care. But the one picture of

 

the white-garbed woman with a pistol who gets a bloodstains on the curtains behind her

 

also points to Valley of Fear, The Noble Bachelor, Abbey Grange, the American side of A Study in Scarlet.

Edited February 10, 2015 by Carol the Dabbler
Added spoiler box