John Watson

[Carol the Dabbler]

Thanks, J.P., that's kinda what I figured.  I'm actually glad to hear that MF thinks he might have made a mistake in having John wear his hair that way.  Maybe there's hope (especially considering that John's life has changed again) that John will revert to his traditional style, and look like himself again in S5 or the next special or whatever.

 

Just -- too bad he didn't change his mind sooner!  :D

[Carol the Dabbler]

But since we seem to be stuck with the Swoop for S4 at least, then I agree, John's presumably having a midlife crisis.  Goodness knows he's had enough reasons!

 

Or -- Mary talked him into it!  ;)  Probably even styled it for him, a la CPJ styling BC's hair.

 

That probably makes more sense, considering that Mary's hairstyle changed as well.   (Must admit I hadn't noticed that, though I do seem to recall her hair being darker in S4.)

[T.o.b.y]

 

Late to this thread, so apologies if this has been covered, but have we discussed what was going on with Martin Freeman's hair in S4?

 

From https://loveismyrevolution.tumblr.com/post/167080198352/sherlocked-uk-2017-12-on-hair-styles

 

Sherlocked UK 2017 #12 on hair styles

 

During the make up workshop with Claire Pritchard-Jones I got the chance to ask some questions….. (annoying question me striking again ;-)))

Claire was talking about Ben’s wig for TAB which they made especially to have a good continuity for the modern time scenes as his own hair had to be cut short for the Victorian style

 

ME: Claire, may I ask… speaking of continuity… why did you chose for Martin’s and Amanda’s hair style to be totally different from the ones they had in HLV? Because regarding the timeline there wouldn’t be much time between the end of HLV and the start of TST?? Isn’t it?? I mean.. not enough time to grow the hair that much… innit?

 

CLAIRE: Yeah… THAT was mostly Martin’s doing… he came back from another project having this long-ish hair and ..well.. he quite liked it! And he had the oppinion that his character had moved on and that he’d like to make that visible! Same with Amanda… I mean they were married and all..they were different now and they wanted to show that on screen. And Martin was kind of really fond with his new hair style… well… and as a style artist you sometimes have to do it with what you get. You know… we try to suggest things… we talk a lot about it with the actors and of course I have a certain picture of how that would look like… but we would never force an actor into something… if they’re really not comfortable with something we’d never force them to do something they don’t like!!!! Well… and that was with Martin… he was very convinced about this idea and… well.. you know… we talked about it… and Sue was like “please just make Martin stay happy” *laughing*… so there we went…. 

I tried to ease the look a bit throughout the series though… *smirk* … if you watch closely you’ll see that the style becomes a bit more moderate… 

We were … I gues… one week into shooting, when Martin started to doubt… he came to me and said : “Did I make a mistake??”…but..you know… ther was already so much filming done, different important scenes… because of course we don’t shoot chronologically… this were scenes spread all over the episode… so we couldn’t just re-do them…. So we stayed with the style and modified it a bit… *laughing again*… we have to work with what we get!!! It isn’t always easy!!!

 

ME: But if John’s hairstyle changed because his character changed….I wonder… did you ever think about changing Sherlock’s hair style as well?? Because.. I mean… his character developed a lot too, isn’t it??? Especially as we know that Ben hates it…..

 

CLAIRE: Oh… you know… most of all Ben hates it because he cant’t handle it on his own. He just comes to me after showering, hiding under a hat or something… and his hair is like… *makes messy-hair movements around her head* *laughing*…. but then after a while when we put conditioner in and then we “twist and diffuse” you know… and then he’s fine… but he just couldn’t do that on his own… I mean.. which man possibly could  *laughing* !!!

But no, we never wanted to change that style. We put a lot of thought into that style…from the pilot on we had lot’s of talks about it and tried different things… and this is what we stayed with! And now it’s such an iconic look, we won’t change Sherlock’s look…. 

(end of this part)

 

(please be aware, that I recount all this from my memory and therefore bring it into my own words. I have no records, so this is not word for word what the people in question actually said!! I try to word the main essence of the sometimes rather ridiculous long monologues *eyeroll* :-)))

   

 

 

So now we know who is to blame... Mr Freeman and his personal vanity. :P

 

I am very glad to hear that they consider Sherlock's hairstyle iconic at least. Damn right! I think a wig is a good solution for him, that way Benedict Cumberbatch doesn't have to deal with it outside of acting the character.

 

 

[Carol the Dabbler]

So now we know who is to blame... Mr Freeman and his personal vanity. :P

In all fairness, reverting to his former style just for Sherlock would have meant cutting his hair considerably shorter in front.  Letting it grow back out afterward would have taken several months, which would have been awkward if he was acting in some other role during that time.  He obviously preferred the way he looked with the Swoop, and if it's vanity to want to look one's best, then I guess you could call it that.  But I sure wouldn't care to go back to the way I used to wear my hair (especially in high school :P ).

 

He does seem to have reverted to his former hairstyle for Cargo, however.  Maybe he didn't have any other roles lined up right after that, or maybe he's planning to keep the style.  Guess we'll find out sooner or later.

[Pseudonym]

"Did I make a mistake?"

 

Yes. Yes, you did. 

[Boton]

OK, so we're settled on head canon then? John has had a massive midlife crisis and has decided that excessive amounts of product and blow drying are just what he needs?  :D

[T.o.b.y]

OK, so we're settled on head canon then? John has had a massive midlife crisis and has decided that excessive amounts of product and blow drying are just what he needs? :D

:-D Seems so!

 

He certainly had some kind of crisis. And no wonder, first his best friend faked suicide, then his wife had an unplanned pregnancy, then it turned out she was a completely different person and then the friend who wasn't dead after all shot someone else in the head.

 

John certainly seems "off" in series 4. It's not just the hair. I guess nobody could have that much shit happen to him and remain undamaged.

[Pseudonym]

It's actually a cry for a help and a sign of his deteriorating mental state, but all the geniuses he's surrounded by are so distracted by the hair that they can't get past it to think what it actually might mean.  :lol:

 

Rosie's in her crib thinking 'bloody hell, Dad's lost it and Mum hasn't realised. If only I could speak.'

[T.o.b.y]

You know, I wouldn't want her to become a major character or anything, but part of me really wants to know how Rosie is going to turn out.

[Pseudonym]

If they brought out a new series in a few years time, where an early twenties Rosie was essentially a female Sherlock would you watch it? 

 

I don't know if I would, part of me finds it a cringey idea, like one of those terrible Disney sequels where they tell the same story as the original except with the kids, and I'm always torn whether I could deal with a female Sherlock anyway, but I probably would tune in just out of morbid curiosity. I think as long as Sherlock and John weren't actually in it. 

 

I can never quite put my finger on why the idea of a female Sherlock makes me cringe, maybe it's because I can't see a female Sherlock getting away with the same things the male version would without sacrificing too much of what makes the character interesting. They'd either come across as too obviously autistic, or too bitchy... I don't know. I'd love to see it done well, I just don't know if it would be. 

[T.o.b.y]

I would love, love, LOVE a female Holmes. In fact, if I had the time and the talent, I would write one.

 

But that's not who I think Rosie should be though. I just feel curious about her - almost as if I knew her.

 

If the team behind Sherlock made a spin-off with a grown-up Rosie I would give it a chance. I think they could make it Not Suck. Especially if the casting were as good as it was for Sherlock.

[Pseudonym]

I don’t think she would be like Sherlock, was just curious really if you’d watch that kind of thing. I wonder if she’d join the Army since both parents apparently had military/combat training.

Ha, apparently my phone has a male and female detective pop up for ‘Sherlock.’

[Boton]

It's actually a cry for a help and a sign of his deteriorating mental state, but all the geniuses he's surrounded by are so distracted by the hair that they can't get past it to think what it actually might mean.  :lol:

 

Rosie's in her crib thinking 'bloody hell, Dad's lost it and Mum hasn't realised. If only I could speak.'

 

^^^THIS

 

 

If they brought out a new series in a few years time, where an early twenties Rosie was essentially a female Sherlock would you watch it? 

 

I don't know if I would, part of me finds it a cringey idea, like one of those terrible Disney sequels where they tell the same story as the original except with the kids, and I'm always torn whether I could deal with a female Sherlock anyway, but I probably would tune in just out of morbid curiosity. I think as long as Sherlock and John weren't actually in it. 

 

I can never quite put my finger on why the idea of a female Sherlock makes me cringe, maybe it's because I can't see a female Sherlock getting away with the same things the male version would without sacrificing too much of what makes the character interesting. They'd either come across as too obviously autistic, or too bitchy... I don't know. I'd love to see it done well, I just don't know if it would be. 

 

I wouldn't.  In spite of the fact that I'm enjoying the heck out of Mystery Queen, I wouldn't watch a Sherlock 2.0 in the same universe.  Part of the magic for me is the sense that the friendship, while not unprecedented, is a bit of catching lightning in a bottle.  The whole thing works because Holmes and Watson are puzzle pieces that make each other whole. Having Rosie be enough of a copy of either Sherlock or John to even make half of the equation just wouldn't make sense to me.

 

Also, I think you are right that a female Holmes needs to wait a bit in Western culture until expectations for how women are represented calms down a notch or 10.  There is a huge difference between Seol-Ok in Mystery Queen (Korea) and Joan Watson in Elementary (US), and I think those differences are part of the reason that Seol-Ok is effective and Joan Watson is not.  I need to run out for a bit, but I can say more later if you wish.  Or not.

[Van Buren Supernova]

No spin off please. Unless it's totally different. Sherlock and John has to be in everything that has anything to do with Sherlock.

 

Without throwing a shade at Martin (I lied, definitely throwing :p) I believe most of the reason why a series loses the mojo after awhile is because of things that get harder and harder to control. Not saying Sherlock loses it, but Martin's hair actually one of my bigger complain in S4, well, together with most of John's attitudes.

 

Actually I kind of sympathize with showmakers when their show and stars get too big. Characters, locations, story lines, nasty social medias, yadda yadda.

[Hikari]

I was the one who opened (re-opened?) this can of worms about Martin's hair . . . although it slapped me in the eye as wrong for the character (too flashy, too high-maintenance), it was not actually anywhere near my biggest beef with S4.  I think it seemed even more dissonant on Martin's head due to the very dark places his character was sent to in this season.  His hair was saying 'Happy!!' or at least 'Look at me!/Lookin' to meet'  while the character was in a very bleak place.  It was jarring.

 

John Watson is known in Canon for his stalwartness, his stoicism in the face of many trials, and mostly for his predictably even-keeled warm personality in contrast to his much more temperamental flatmate.  In today's parlance, I think we'd call Sherlock Holmes bipolar.  JW has a natural equanimity of spirit.  But the circumstances of his life are far from easy, containing enough suffering and loss for several individuals to bear.  There's the loss of his parents, the estrangement from his only sibling, who eventually died, too.  There's the bullet(s) and the disease that nearly killed him in the East, derailing his career plans and leaving him with chronic pain for life.  Then there was the loss of Mary and, potentially, of their unborn child(ren).  The constant financial struggles and uncertainties of trying to make a medical practice flourish in London without the benefit of wealthy patrons or influential relatives to smooth his way.  And, last but not least, having to live with daily reminders of the deficiencies of his intellect in comparison with his 'best and wisest' friend . .who never lost an opportunity to point out these same deficiencies to Watson's face.  A personality which was more naturally prone to melancholia or self-pity would have been catatonic with half these trials. 

 

The Watson Martin gives us in S4 is much more flawed and darker than what we've seen previously.  If Sherlock Holmes is a character who is too exceptional to be true, John Watson often seems too good to be true, too, not in the brain power department or in personal charisma, but in his never seeming to let the vicissitudes of life keep him down for long.  The Watson in S4 seems to be a man who has finally broken under the strain of too many heartbreaks and betrayals, and he's done with bucking up, pasting a smile on and being everyone else's caretaker.  He's p!ssed off at his life and doesn't care who knows it.  He's tired of being Good, Old, Dependable John and doesn't have the energy for it any more.

 

I'd say there's also an element of Small Man Syndrome rage going on at just how often this Watson physically assaults his much taller friend who basically lets him do it.  The fistfight in 'Scandal in Belgravia' was funny; the 'Reunion Bloody Nose' in TEH was funny . . . but Sherlock on the floor being viciously kicked by Watson was not funny--it was abusive.  The whole season took elements that had previously given us joy and laughter and curdled them into something unrecognizable and nasty.  Martin's hair was the least of the issues I had with it.

[T.o.b.y]

I think that was rather the point of season 4... That this is a show about the men behind the legend and how they both, being human, just cannot live up to it at all times and under all circumstances. We see Sherlock mess up as a detective and John mess up as a decent human being and then we see them getting over their disappointment in themselves and each other, ditching their mutual hero worship and chosing a more genuine friendship in the end.

 

I certainly don't think that's what Doyle intended, but I like it and I find it fairly original as stories go, too.

[Hikari]

I think that was rather the point of season 4... That this is a show about the men behind the legend and how they both, being human, just cannot live up to it at all times and under all circumstances. We see Sherlock mess up as a detective and John mess up as a decent human being and then we see them getting over their disappointment in themselves and each other, ditching their mutual hero worship and chosing a more genuine friendship in the end.

 

I certainly don't think that's what Doyle intended, but I like it and I find it fairly original as stories go, too.

 

I agree that we seem to leave our duo in a good place at the end (though I seriously doubt they both jumped out of the upper story window of an exploding building unscathed.  That was a cool visual effect, but definitely some Mind Palace stuff from Mofftiss).  Both JW and SH are looking happier and healthier and more like their old selves with baby Rosie at the end.

 

Personal growth is never easy or painless.  I could applaud the decision to make both our characters go through hell and dismantle their notions of themselves and each other in order to come out as better, more fully-rounded and forgiving men in the end . . but the paces these whoo-whoo plots put them through distracted a lot for me from the whole personal growth arc.  They were far too outlandish . . James Bondian in fact . .to be taken seriously.  Mofftiss wanted to have their cake and eat it too . . .fanboy playing around with special effects and OTT plots *and* personal growth journeys for the characters, too.  The one got rather lost in their preference for the other, so basically SH comes off as a self-destructive, selfish little kid and JW comes off as peevish and mean.  It felt caustic and bad, but I guess it got resolved, sort of, in the end.  It'd be nice if we had more episodes of our Baker Street duo in this new place of acceptance and maturity, but I really do not expect it.  We, the fans, were shortchanged, I think . .and I'd say the same goes for the actors.

 

My favorite episode of the batch was 'The Lying Detective', which is a riff on ACD's 'The Dying Detective'.  SH did starve himself to simulate a fatal illness so as to catch a killer named Culverton Smith . . though by that time he'd weaned himself off the cocaine and wasn't abusing drugs any more.  When Mofftiss makes a concentrated effort to be true to their source material they can be very inventive.  "Sherlock" would have lived up to its initial early promise as a stellar adaptation had they done that consistently throughout, but SM got bored with the idea and tried to make this show more and more like Doctor Who.  It was blatant.  From 'The Abominable Bride' onwards it was a very self-indulgent slide into Who-ville for Mr. Moffat.

[Pseudonym]

I won't get into another rant on my hatred of bits a season 4, but I just wanted to pick up on what you said about the window. Why they couldn't have just stuck a cast on one of their arms and a couple of stitches on the other to show there was at least some injury I'll never know. It's not like Sherlock did a whole lot physically in TFP anyway, he could have done a lot of it with a broken arm, and the bits he couldn't wouldn't really matter. 

[T.o.b.y]

I didn't mind the ludicrous elements so very much. After all, it's not like Doyle's plots were very sophisticated either. Sure, series 1 and 2 were more to my taste but I still had a lot of fun watching the later episodes too. The only scene that I would really like to forget about was Mary's death. The explosion at Baker St was unrealistic but so what, I enjoyed it and I certainly can't say that about Mary's cliché exit with a long last minute speech and everything.

 

 

 It'd be nice if we had more episodes of our Baker Street duo in this new place of acceptance and maturity, but I really do not expect it.  We, the fans, were shortchanged, I think . .and I'd say the same goes for the actors.

 

Well, I guess there's enough out there already about a mature Sherlock Holmes and Dr Watson who solve crimes in more or less perfect amity. I think the Sherlock team set out to do something new and they succeeded pretty well, imo.

[Arcadia]

..... The whole season took elements that had previously given us joy and laughter and curdled them into something unrecognizable and nasty. .....

 

And yet I rather respect them for daring to do that. I can't say I "liked" the darkness of S4, but I can appreciate how they took what we found funny before, and presented it from an angle that showed that interpersonal violence really isn't something to laugh at. In other words, they made us think, and I like that, even if I don't particularly like what they made me think about.

 

I think that was rather the point of season 4... That this is a show about the men behind the legend and how they both, being human, just cannot live up to it at all times and under all circumstances. We see Sherlock mess up as a detective and John mess up as a decent human being and then we see them getting over their disappointment in themselves and each other, ditching their mutual hero worship and chosing a more genuine friendship in the end.

 

I certainly don't think that's what Doyle intended, but I like it and I find it fairly original as stories go, too.

 

And that too. They are, in a way, even more heroic for being "just human." Plus it touches on one of my favorite themes; those who have to suffer or struggle tend to be more capable of empathy than those who are always popular or successful ... and for me, empathy is a far nobler trait than being a winner.

 

I won't get into another rant on my hatred of bits a season 4, but I just wanted to pick up on what you said about the window. Why they couldn't have just stuck a cast on one of their arms and a couple of stitches on the other to show there was at least some injury I'll never know. It's not like Sherlock did a whole lot physically in TFP anyway, he could have done a lot of it with a broken arm, and the bits he couldn't wouldn't really matter.

Because they decided to make a James Bond film instead of a Sherlock Holmes film?

 

Am I the only one who can't see any similarities whatsoever between those two characters? Oh, okay, they're both British icons. But how anyone could conflate the farcical bombast of Bond with the cool rationality of Holmes is utterly beyond me.....

[Carol the Dabbler]

I'm not so sure that anyone is saying they made Sherlock (the character) into a James Bond clone.  More like, certain portions of Series 4  were like a Bond movie (with Holmes in it, oddly enough, instead of Bond himself).  And I can sort of see that.

[Arcadia]

Well, I'm sort of saying they did, but I get your point ... at least Sherlock's not engaging in prolonged gun battles in TFP, like Bond would be. But I still find the conflation of those two franchises distasteful. Always have done. 

[T.o.b.y]

I think some people might argue that Holmes was the Bond of his time. He didn't just have cases, after all, he had adventures, and they could be pretty action packed. He may not have had a license to kill but to a degree, he was above the law. And he was very cool and very popular and very extraordinary.

[Pseudonym]

People who say Sherlock S4 was like Bond seem to be saying it as a detractor rather than something to be happy about, so I think a lot of people find it distasteful. 

[T.o.b.y]

People who say Sherlock S4 was like Bond seem to be saying it as a detractor rather than something to be happy about, so I think a lot of people find it distasteful.

Yes, it seems so. I think many people who are into crime and detective fiction (including myself) like their entertainment to be more cerebral. Sherlock Holmes is also certainly more famous for his intellect than his "legwork", as Mycroft would put it, but if you look at the stories, there's plenty of running, jumping, shooting, fighting, hiding, stalking and traveling.

 

I liked series 1 the best myself. But I don't consider the creators iconoclasts for the direction they took later.