Moffat's next "Three Words" (Spoilers!!!)

[Carol the Dabbler]

Exciting pre-news from Steven Moffat on Twitter:

 

Last year it was Woman, Hound, Fall. This year's three words revealed tomorrow at MGTIEF [Media Guardian Edinburgh International Television Festival] Sherlock Master Class.

more on this story as it develops!

Edited August 26, 2012 by Carol the Dabbler

[Brainy]

I'm soooooooo excited!!!

[Carol the Dabbler]

I haven't seen it on Moffat's Twitter page yet, but here's the (unofficial) word from another forum:

 

Pulled off Twitter - I'm not going to post links, as none of them are the "official" sources yet, but you can do a search for #MGEITF.

 

Three words are "Rat, Wedding, and Bow".

 

Also, Andrew Scott says "Moriarty is dead." *sniffle*

[Carol the Dabbler]

Finally, here are the 3 words, officially, from Moffat on Twitter:

 

So. The three tease words for the next run of Sherlock ... Rat. Wedding. Bow.

[Undead Medic]

Hmmm, so....

 

 

Wedding? John's getting married then? Will we be seeing Mary Morstan?

 

 

[Carol the Dabbler]

From that other forum:

 

Folks who were at the event said it was "bow" like "Take a bow", so we know it's that and not a bow tie or bow and arrow.

Thanks, kostgard!

[Carol the Dabbler]

First off, I've added the word "Spoilers" to the title of this thread (which is also located in the "Spoilers" forum), so there's no need at all to put your posts into spoiler boxes now (unless you really want to).

 

 

Here are a few interesting quotes from a Guardian article about yesterday's announcement:

 

"We have three new words – which may be misleading, are not titles, are only teases or possibly clues, but might be deliberately designed to get you into a lather. Who knows?" said Moffat.

The second series ... ended on a cliffhanger..... Fans have been ... putting forward complex theories. "Some of them are incredibly byzantine, which is amazing and it's funny and lovely that people could be so elaborate about it," said Gatiss. "[but] you can't possibly build a solution on something that can only be glimpsed when you blow up the image 65 times and then discover a continuity error."

Moffat admitted ... that he had [recently] got two of [last year's] three words wrong – they were actually Adler, Hound and Reichenbach.

 

So then --

any speculations

about those words???

Edited August 26, 2012 by Carol the Dabbler

[Undead Medic]

Steven is SO trolling the fandom with "Wedding" he knows full well what conclusion most of us will jump to...

 

As for Rat and Bow, I'm afraid my knowledge of the original stories is letting me down.

[Carol the Dabbler]

Steven is SO trolling the fandom with "Wedding" he knows full well what conclusion most of us will jump to...

Presumably. But which fans is he trolling? If it's the literal-minded innocents, he presumably expects them to look for John to be married, in which case I fear the poor man will remain a confirmed bachelor. On the other hand, if he's trolling the (*ahem*) more sophisticated fans, he may be counting on them to anticipate his trollery. Is it a bluff? Or a double bluff? Or a triple bluff?

 

I've had a quick look at the annotated Holmes that I inherited from my father, and the stories contain no mention whatsoever of Watson's wedding with Mary Morstan -- there's simply a point where he begins referring to "my wife." But there must have been a wedding, of course -- and Conan Doyle didn't spend much time on Moriarty either, so we know what Moftiss can build from just a few hints.

 

According to the internet buzz, any number of other Holmes stories involve weddings, or talk of weddings, or fake weddings. In particular, there's "The Adventure of Charles Augustus Milverton" wherein, as I (sort of) understand it, Holmes himself pretends to be engaged to a woman who is involved in the case, in order to infiltrate whatever is going on.

 

As for Rat and Bow, I'm afraid my knowledge of the original stories is letting me down.

 

I'm an ignoramus as well, but the internet consensus seems to be that "bow" probably refers to "His Last Bow," the chronologically-final Holmes story, and of course this has everyone in a dither.

 

The "rat," they say, could refer to any number of stories with ratlike animals or human characters who are described as ratlike (including Lestrade!). The most intriguing suggestion is that it refers to "The Sign of the Four," the story where Watson meets Mary Morstan -- apparently it also features some sort of large rat. I've started reading it, just in case, but haven't yet gotten to the rat part.

[Still Time]

The rat could possibly be referring to the Boscombe Valley Mystery, where the victim's last word is "...rat".

[Carol the Dabbler]

Hello, Still Time -- and welcome to Sherlock Forum!

 

As a Conan Doyle neophyte myself, I appreciate your input, and will check out that story as well. (Though of course my reading it will virtually guarantee that Moftiss had some other, very obscure, story in mind!)

 

Added: Could it be that Moftiss intentionally made these three words ambiguous, so that the only way we'd be sure of reading the relevant stories ahead of time would be to read all of them? Hmm, no, that's simply paranoid. Must have been accidental. Those dear, sweet gentlemen would never do that on purpose!

Edited September 2, 2012 by Carol the Dabbler

[Moriarty'sSuit]

My first thought was the Boscombe Valley Mystery, but I think they'd have a hard time stretching that out to an episode, it's not as compelling a story (or a concept) as 'The Sign of the Four'. I would LOVE to see Moftiss take on that one!

[Carol the Dabbler]

Hello, Moriarty'sSuit, and welcome to Sherlock Forum! I wonder if you're our first member from Iceland?

 

I'll definitely have to read that story, since it seems like everyone suspects it's the "rat"! It doesn't really matter how short it is -- Conan Doyle wrote only four Holmes novels, so the vast majority of the stories are shorts -- which is why the Sherlock episodes in general are either very loosely based on a story (like "Scandal"), or else (like "Great Game") are based on a combination of several stories. So an episode could be basically "Boscombe" but with a lot of other stuff thrown in.

 

I'm reading "Sign of the Four" right now, and I agree with you, it's a good one. (Besides, I would dearly love to see poor John get a real girlfriend -- or wife -- for a change!)

Edited September 6, 2012 by Carol the Dabbler

[Moriarty'sSuit]

Yes! Thank you for the reply. I was wondering how they'd update the idea of someone returning from the Victorian goldfields to rural England - diamond mining in Africa? Oil fields in the North Sea? Fascinating stuff. Can't stop rewatching episodes at the moment. I'm really appreciating the technical skill in their creation; editing, lighting, the clean, clinical peroid fashions, the 'metallic' orchestral score and the way these things accentuate the brilliant logic of Sherlock and the pared-back writing of Moftiss. I really hope 2013 won't be the last of this combination of creative geniuses.

[Carol the Dabbler]

... Can't stop rewatching episodes at the moment. ... I really hope 2013 won't be the last of this combination of creative geniuses.

Agreed! And I honestly don't see it ending any time soon.

 

 

A thought just struck me -- I read somewhere that each of the three words was read aloud by a different person -- Moffat & Gatiss (in some order) read "rat" and "wedding" and then Andrew Scott read "bow," which he pronounced to rhyme with "now," then spelled it b-o-w (so it couldn't be mistaken for "bough").

 

Most b-o-w words, of course, rhyme with "no" (e.g., as in violin bow, bow and arrow, rainbow). I believe the only two that rhyme with "now" (at least in American) are as in "take a bow" and "bow of a ship." But I'm starting to wonder whether precisely the same words are pronounced each way in Ireland. If not, maybe Andrew Scott was given "bow" precisely because his Irish pronunciation would throw people off.

 

Who here is Irish, or at least familiar with Irish pronunciation?

[Undead Medic]

Banshee isn't Irish, but she has a long-standing obsession with affection for the emerald isle.

[aely]

Andrew Scott is from Dublin, so yes, bow as in now will most certainly be 'take a bow' or 'bow of a ship' or even 'bow wave' not 'tie a bow' though a Northern Irish accent might twist them differently such as from Armargh (think Colin Morgan) or Belfast.

[Undead Medic]

And I believe Moffat himself confirmed that it was "Bow" as in "take a bow," Although I have no definitive source.

[Alice Holmes]

Oh, the art of confusion hem hem deductions...

[Banshee]

Banshee isn't Irish, but she has a long-standing obsession with affection for the emerald isle.

 

Nice self-correction there

[besleybean]

Yes it is as in : take a bow.

Are we thinking giant rats?

Tho I still think The Rat could be a person, as in Dirty rat.

Whose is the wedding?!

[ChristineT]

A Case of Identity, Boscombe Valley Mystery, His Last Bow is my guess. They could stretch the concept of BVM to an episode I reckon. I doubt we're talking Giant Rats of Sumatra here!

[Carol the Dabbler]

We have already been told (unless it was just one of those internet rumors) that the first episode will be based on "The Empty House." So, assuming (!) that the "three words" are in episode order (rat, wedding, bow), the first episode will be a combination of "The Empty House" and something to do with a rat. Moran could be thought of as a rat, I assume, but that seem awfully tenuous, so presumably the rat will be brought in from another story, and "Boscombe Valley" seems to be the popular favorite.

 

I haven't seen "A Case of Identity" mentioned before, ChristineT, but by process of elimination, you're matching it up with "Wedding." Would you care to elaborate?

[besleybean]

I thought John would think of Sherlock as ratting out on him.

[Carol the Dabbler]

Rat (verb) To desert a cause, as rats are said to desert a sinking ship.

 

Hadn't thought of that!