Sherlock (the BBC character)

[Arcadia]

Why? It's still there... :-P

When?!!!! Where?!!!!!!!! Let me see, let me see!!!!! 

I definitely agree that it was made and intended for fun but lots of profundity just crept in.

 

Still, to claim none of it really mattered, that's a bit disparaging.

I think that's why I have trouble believing it means what it sounds like. Surely it's more profound.... :P

[Inge l-w]

Profound? A series based on a character whose own creator couldn't keep his timeline or names correct? A fanboy lyrical/tragicomical adaptation which made an iconic character into a killer and then had him not even showing a sign of remorse for taking a life, no matter how unworthy, and tweeting about it?

Try ST:TOS The City at the End of Forever and you will understand profundity in a tight 49 minute script, where Kirk has to sacrifice the great love of his life in the guise of Joan Collins to preserve the timeline that made the US the greatest world power for nearly 60 years after WWII and saw the sunset of the British empire.

[Surelock]

Video essay on why Cuberbatch's Sherlock is better than Robert Downey Jr.'s:

 

[Arcadia]

I'm not sure TV Sherlock sustained that level of "detectiveness" that he described. Not quite fair to compare just the one episode ... but I do agree that TV Sherlock is simply more interesting to watch than the movie version. I've yet to see either of the movies all the way through, I always get bored.

[Boton]

I think, for me, a lot of the problem that I have with the movies (and many other portrayals) is that the Victorian portrayals are just intrinsically more boring.  (Again, for me, not everyone.) So much has changed in 150 years that you either have to update the Victorian material to match modern cultural mores and scientific practice, or you keep it historically consistent and risk the audience missing the point

I think that the ACD version is quite possibly the least important Sherlock Holmes version that exists.  What is important is that people have been able to see something about themselves in Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson since the 1880s, and problems of inconsistency or failure to reflect this or that portion of the audience should pale beside the fact that if a certain portrayal is not your Sherlock Holmes, there will be another coming along any minute.  So, in that respect, the final speech in TFP is correct: the legend is more important than the men.

[HerlockSholmes]

I can't see how the Victorian Holmes can be considered boring in comparison or why things need to 'modernised' so that we can enjoy or appreciate them? We have become a 'short attention span' audience that require stories to be graphic and liberally punctuated with explosions to keep us interested. Do we need to update Shakespeare or Dickens or Thomas Hardy to make them palatable to modern sensibilities? Sherlock Holmes is the most enduring character in all of fiction. It survives and and endures in its original form without the need for modernisation or modification. We love (or some of us do) the stories because of the characters, because of the stories and because of the historical interest (and yes, romance) of the era.

The original Holmes; Doyle's Holmes, is the cornerstone or well-spring for everything that followed and so is obviously not just the most important but the best as it came directly from Doyle, we see or hear what Doyle saw or heard.

Whichever portrayal you prefer is irrelevant really. It's the stories.

I love the Cumberbatch Holmes series but, in a way it panders to our 'modern deficiencies.' All we can see is now or tomorrow. We are losing the past. History is barely taught in schools. People on quiz shows have never heard of Cromwell or Wellington. 'Progress' carries a price to pay.

The fact that it's the stories and the characters that endure is testament to the importance of the ACD stories. No matter what innovations follow Holmes and Watson will ALWAYS be Victorians.

[Boton]

Well, I can't argue with anything that you say, Herlock.  Personally, I find the ACD Holmes stories boring - the cases go on forever, the reader can solve them in about 4 paragraphs, and the interaction between the two men requires understanding Victorian social norms, which I do but not everyone now does.  I studiously avoided ACD until watching Sherlock, and I wanted to get the canon references, so I read the whole thing. I didn't enjoy really any of the stories, except for Scandal in Bohemia and Charles Augustus Milverton.  I'm hoping I like the Stark Munro letters better.  

 

But not everyone likes the classics, or all of them at any rate.  I was just in a discussion last night with two other writers, one of who is an English major by training, and neither of them like Hemingway. I just presented at a Hemingway conference, so I obviously like the guy.  I don't like everything he wrote, however, and he has a Nobel Prize that says he knew what he was doing with a typewriter.  :-)

 

We update all kinds of things.  Yes, we update Shakespeare.  The Taming of the Shrew becomes Kiss Me Kate; Romeo and Juliet is West Side Story. A lot of people use these updates to gain access to the original; understanding the basic story using your own vernacular is a trick as old as time for getting people interested in whatever is considered classic.  I'd rather someone have a glancing understanding of Sherlock Holmes through watching Sherlock than I would them not have any exposure; that would have been me, and my life has been a lot more fun since starting to explore the various versions.

 

But this is all just me; I don't care for the originals, I think they are poorly written, and I'd not ever read them for fun.  But there are lots of things I like to read that other people dislike, so it's all fine.  

[T.o.b.y]

I agree with Boton on not considering Doyle a particularly good writer. Lots of my enjoyment in reading the original stories comes from finding them quaint and often ridiculous. The cases aren't exactly intellectually stimulating...

 

But I really love the original Mr Holmes. He is a very intriguing character and at the time when I first got to know him, he really hit a nerve.

 

I don't see a need to modernize anything but I do think that many works are better understood if we try to "translate" their relevance to the time and culture they were written in to our own. It's one thing to read a classic and enjoy the glimpse into times gone by it provides but it's another experience entirely to consider how when it came out, it was new and modern and relevant in ways that can get lost if we leave it forever in its original Era.

[Carol the Dabbler]

Video essay on why Cuberbatch's Sherlock is better than Robert Downey Jr.'s:

 

I agree with the video if the Sherlock comparison stops right after Hounds.  Those first five episodes were detective stories that carried us along with Sherlock's deductions as he made them.  But beginning with Reichenbach (which is nevertheless one of my very favorite episodes), it becomes more of a soap opera (or as Moftiss put it, "a show about a detective").

 

I can't see how the Victorian Holmes can be considered boring in comparison or why things need to 'modernised' so that we can enjoy or appreciate them? We have become a 'short attention span' audience that require stories to be graphic and liberally punctuated with explosions to keep us interested. Do we need to update Shakespeare or Dickens or Thomas Hardy to make them palatable to modern sensibilities? Sherlock Holmes is the most enduring character in all of fiction. It survives and and endures in its original form without the need for modernisation or modification.....

Yes, we update Shakespeare.  The Taming of the Shrew becomes Kiss Me Kate; Romeo and Juliet is West Side Story.....

 

Not only that, but it seems like every time I read a review of a current production of an actual Shakespeare play, they've done a major update of one sort or another.

 

The same goes for Holmes, going back at least as far as Rathbone and Bruce fighting the Nazis.

[HerlockSholmes]

It's all subjective of course. Perhaps it's because I never expected to be on a Sherlock Holmes forum where there are people that dont like the stories!

It's hard to hear that the stories are poorly written when they have stood the test of time.

Some may not find them intellectually stimulating but it's Doyle not Checkov that we're talking about here. They are adventure stories and many very intelligent men and women have made studies of them over the years.

[Arcadia]

Coming rather late to the party but I basically agree with everyone, if such a thing is possible ... I couldn't get into Doyle's writing, much, but I've had people say the same thing to me about my beloved JRR Tolkien, and while I think they're nutz, I also get on some level why they feel that way. The relationship between an artist and a viewer, or a writer and a reader, is strangely personal in some ways. (And totally impersonal in other ways, thank goodness. ) If it weren't, I guess art basically wouldn't exist, because we'd all like exactly the same thing and nothing new would ever come along. But it does seem odd sometimes how some people can find something utterly brilliant, whilst others find the same thing to be deadly dull, or are simply indifferent to it. If marketers ever figure out what makes us that way, they'll be rich.... :P

 

Anyway, I concede Doyle must have been a genius on some level, because he created something that endured, and how many people can really say that? So my hat's off to the original stories, even if they're not on my shelf. And I'm not averse to reading more of them some day (that shining day in the future when I have all that free time ... ha ha ha). I'm a bit jealous of people like Toby who recognize all the allusions to the original in other versions!

[HerlockSholmes]

Hi Arcadia,

I definately don't have any claims to literary expertise and I fully accept that Doyle isn't considered, probably quite correctly, as a great writer as is say Joyce or Steinbeck but I think that he deserves a lot of merit. He wrote pretty decent historical fiction, ghost stories, science fiction, crime etc. He also wrote on military matters and war etc. And to top it all he created the single most enduring character in the history of fiction (not to mention Brigadier Gerard and Professor Challenger.) Whether you enjoy or not is obviously down to individual taste.

I agree with you on Tolkien too. A genius as far as I'm concerned. I try to read The Lord Of The Rings every few years so I'm about due for a re-read. What an imagination?

[Arcadia]

Yeah, I used to reread LOTR every 2-3 years, but I reread it right after the 3rd movie came out and haven't touched it since. Needed to shake the movies out of my system, it was too weird reading it otherwise. Might be safe to dip my toe back in now, though ....

[Carol the Dabbler]

I've always loved The Hobbit, but have been kinda lukewarm about LotR.  After re-re-reading it again a few years ago, though (about the time the Hobbit movies were coming out), I'm warming to it.  I even find Tom Bombadil tolerable, bordering on likable.

 

[J.P.]

Hah, to me LOTR books is a great example how not to write. Every single no-go in storytelling is there. :P I also cannot see anything great in the most classics. They are often suffering from too many words. (Even the fact that Joseph Conrad wasn't native English speaker and a fellow countryman doesn't help)

 

As for canon stories - even Doyle hated them. :D

[Carol the Dabbler]

I can't argue with any of that -- but then again I've never been all that impressed by "rules" when it comes to language.

 

Take The Hobbit, for example. It's episodic as all get-out, not a proper novel at all, nor is it a series of short stories. But whatever it is, I've loved since the first time I read it, well over half a lifetime ago.

[Arcadia]

I can't help but think one of the things that allowed Tolkien to capture so many readers' imaginations was because he didn't follow "the rules." He just followed his heart.
 
My dad gave me The Hobbit when he came back from a trip. I loved it so much I immediately went to the library to find out if Tolkien had written anything else. I found a copy of the Two Towers. Fortunately, the librarian was a fan too, and rounded up the other two tomes for me, and gave me permission to check out three books at once, instead of the usual two. And from that day on, LOTR is the standard to which I have compared all other fiction, and nothing else has ever measured up. Not fair to either the other fiction or LOTR, but there you have it. I relive the wonder every time I read it. Except for the last time, which is why I haven't read it since.
 
Interestingly enough, once the movies were made, I sort of lost interest in both movie-going and reading. :( I rarely partake of either any more. Of course, the former consume a lot of money, and the latter consume a lot of time; two commodities of which I am in short supply. But I also wonder, now that I've "seen" Middle-earth, if I just don't feel the need to seek out that kind of magic any more, because I "know" nothing will ever top it. Hm. Don't know.
 
Having written that, I just realized ... I love Sherlock, but not for the story. I almost don't care what story they tell. I love, primarily, the way it looks, followed closely by the acting and the cleverness and the passion that oozes out of its every pore. Whereas with LOTR and the Hobbit, they are far from being my favorite movies, but I still love the story they tell above all others.

 

Geez, no wonder I'm a mess. :D

[Van Buren Supernova]

I found original ACD a bit unengaging at first, but mostly because on my first story I was stuck in the Study in Scarlett lengthy background story and I blame myself being too exhausted to read much before bed.

Upon some occasions where I could steal time and read couple of stories I actually enjoyed them, but many many more to go before I consider my opinion valid enough.

 

But I agree with you who said ACD was/is (?) a genius, imho, he really is, probably close enough to Sherlock level of genius since he was using not ordinary methods for his detective stories; finger print, ballistics, footprint, handwriting, that many are proven actually usable in real forensic world.

 

It's remarkable really.

Not to mention his real life detective work. He is proper genius in my eyes.

[Van Buren Supernova]

On lighter side, as I need a fun break from thinking about work..

 

If Sherlock's fictional world has websites that ask readers to contribute stories about worst flatmate, what are the odds of John's posts make it to the Top Ten list?

 

- my roommate kept severed head, thumbs in the fridge and put beer next to feet. He offered me the beer though.

 

- my roommate arranged, showed up at my date and almost got us killed.

 

- I got an ASBO for graffiti that I didn't make while he ran away, and he ran fast.

 

- Our flat had been drug busted for so many time, last one by his big brother who then tried to threaten me.

 

- Oh and both brothers peeked into my writing script, one insulted and the other, again, threatened to make me disappear.

 

- His acquaintance peed on our fire place.

 

- Off the record, I had to kill a murderer for him because he is an idiot with massive intellect.

 

- he cracked my password, used my laptop, read my birth certificate

 

- he uses good coat and me to look taller

 

- he drank eyeball tea and suggested that I ask my mother to be the best man in my wedding

 

- I had to jump off the flat from second story because his sister sent us an explosive drone

 

- the very sister who tied me to the well, and oh who shot me, oh, who flirted with me, who gave me therapy, and oh, who tasked me to kill someone's wife. Off the record, yes?

 

- I had to almost shove my head through letter slot because he refused to let me in and I am too short to grab the fire escape ladder he used to get himself in on the first place. Oh, we were entering but not breaking a stranger's house. His idea.

 

- He stole my gun and fired shots to the wall because he was bored. The cure for his boredom was his psychopath acquaintance blowing up our windows and giant hole in opposite block.

 

- He put sugars in my coffee (I don't use sugar). Beside awful taste, it made me hallucinate about murderous hound and made me voluntarily locked myself in a cage.

 

- There were three professional assassins, pinhole camera around and in the apartment and sniper on my head, all thanks to him.

 

- He pointed a gun to my head and took me hostage.

 

- I had to wear semtex loaded jacket and made like a ventriloquist's doll with again, this is getting old, snipers on me. Oh it was cold bloody midnight in the swimming pool.

 

- At Christmas, he drugged his entire family (before dinner!) and, and, my pregnant wife! He drugged my pregnant wife with 'precise' calculation by a drug den attendant with squishy hand, stole his brother laptop, who happens to be one of the most important person in the government, tried to make a deal with a devil, and when it failed, he shot him. Christmas eve. For me.

 

I love him. Such a flatmate.

Oh. Has it exceed ten?

[Shadow Dweller]

[cackles] I definitely would vote that kind of post for the top spot.

[Boton]

On lighter side, as I need a fun break from thinking about work..

 

 

 

- At Christmas, he drugged his entire family (before dinner!) and, and, my pregnant wife! He drugged my pregnant wife with 'precise' calculation by a drug den attendant with squishy hand, stole his brother laptop, who happens to be one of the most important person in the government, tried to make a deal with a devil, and when it failed, he shot him. Christmas eve. For me.

 

 

 

But, all things considered, it was a better present than all those times he's tried to buy me jumpers. Man, for a guy who is so impeccably turned-out when he wants to be, he has absolutely no taste in clothing!  I've had to to wear that hideous navy and red thing he got me last year over and over, because he keeps a mental tally of how many times I wear it.  And it's probably going to outlive me.

 

So yeah, on the "Sherlock Holmes Scale" of gift giving, I guess I'll take offing the psychopathic media mogul.  I can't take any more awful jumpers.

[Artemis]

Yeah, I used to reread LOTR every 2-3 years, but I reread it right after the 3rd movie came out and haven't touched it since. Needed to shake the movies out of my system, it was too weird reading it otherwise. Might be safe to dip my toe back in now, though ....

 

And from that day on, LOTR is the standard to which I have compared all other fiction, and nothing else has ever measured up.

 

^ Same.

 

In fact I've mostly given up reading fiction.  Nearly all of what I've read in the last 10+ years has been non-fiction.  I still have yet to read the Harry Potter series, although I've read a ton about it.  I just can't seem to get myself into it, because I know nothing will ever compare to Tolkien for me.

 

I've never been impressed by the "modern classics" (i.e. stuff written from about 1900 onward).  I can't think of even one I read that I actually enjoyed.  Even stuff written before the 1900's is hit-or-miss.  I like Jane Austen, for example, but hardly any Dickens.

 

I haven't decided yet how I feel about ACD.  I wouldn't necessarily consider him a great writer, but I don't think that's the most important factor in his work either.  I think he was an idea man.  What I find great about his "Sherlock Holmes", what I connect with and am intrigued by, are his enduring characters and innovative ideas, some of which revolutionized both storytelling and real-world society.  Other people might find better ways of telling his stories, but the fact that they are still being gleaned and re-imagined in so many different ways I think is a testament to how imaginative and thought-provoking his originals really were.  Something about them really speaks to people in a significant way, and having that kind of impact across centuries is pretty admirable in itself, even if his presentation doesn't agree with everyone.

 

 

[Arcadia]

 

And I see VBS has been drinking the caffeine again. :p

[Van Buren Supernova]

Why you always say that when I'm pretty sure I didn't have anything caffeinated?

 

You think... it's built-in in my OS?? Default? Template? :o

 

It's past my bed time.

[Arcadia]