The Johnlock Conspiracy

[Arcadia]

Good morning, by the way.  

[Caya]

Good morning! Well, mid-afternoon here, but who's counting.

It's funny how subtext seems so dependent on the eye of the beholder, huh? I first came across Sherlock in S2, and never could see much in the way of Johnlock (if it had been up to me, John would have ended up with Sarah the doc), but was all like, more power to those who do. And then, with S3 happening, I could see that there had been *something* that now was no longer there, at least for me. Some kind of bond, not even necessarily sexual, which I had taken for granted and only now noted its absence. And all of a sudden I could understand what Johnlockers had been seeing all along, just interpreted a bit differently.

Can't speak for S4, alas, still can't find any desire in me to watch that one.

[Arcadia]

Yeah, I think I see what you mean. I still think it's partly the shift from John's p.o.v. to Sherlock's … the audience lost much of it's connection to John as a result, and John, in many ways, was our representative in the story. He became a more distant character, and it affected his bond with Sherlock. As did the introduction of the third wheel, Mary. Other little things like that. I wonder if any of it was intentional.

[T.o.b.y]

16 hours ago, Caya said:

Good morning! Well, mid-afternoon here, but who's counting.

It's funny how subtext seems so dependent on the eye of the beholder, huh? I first came across Sherlock in S2, and never could see much in the way of Johnlock (if it had been up to me, John would have ended up with Sarah the doc), but was all like, more power to those who do. And then, with S3 happening, I could see that there had been *something* that now was no longer there, at least for me. Some kind of bond, not even necessarily sexual, which I had taken for granted and only now noted its absence. And all of a sudden I could understand what Johnlockers had been seeing all along, just interpreted a bit differently.

This is my experience exactly. I scoffed at the idea until S3 aired and then, watching it, I went "Oooooh. I think I get it now." 

I am not sure whether the creators got it, though. They seemed even more bemused than ever about the ship and the intensity with which some fans pursued it. 

I sometimes feel like I am the only person left who just really likes the show and the relationship as it is. I appreciate what I perceive as romance but feel no desire to see it go anywhere it hasn't been yet. 

And for me, S4 brought a lovely resolution and a satisfying ending. I have a few bones to pick with the plot and with Eurus, but am perfectly happy with Sherlock's character development and how the relationship between him and John turned out. Those were the things that mattered the most to me. 

Oh gosh, I so wish I had the time to go and do a Sherlock marathon. I miss him so much. But these days, I am lucky if I can watch a ten minute YouTube video. 

[T.o.b.y]

On 12/4/2018 at 4:18 PM, littlefoot said:

Hi all, I haven't posted in quite a while because I belong to the not so small group of Sherlock fans who were so disappointed with S4 and especially the  final episode, that I'm almost tempted to call myself a former fan. I  haven't forgotten, though, how nice and civil the discussions have been here. Kudos to everyone involved here! And I have discovered recently that for some fans TJLC is still very much alive!

I won't go into detail why I was to disappointed with S4. It would take too long and would be off-topic. I've had my say in Januar 2017 anyway. Now I want to talk about TJLC. I belong to those who were totally indifferent to the shipping issue and had no dog in that particular race. So, Johnlock not having become canon hasn't been an issue for me personally and while I disliked almost everything about TFP, the very end and the place in their relationship where John and Sherlock found themselves, was fine with me. I knew of course about Johnlock and the  fandom of that specific ship, but I only learned about TJLC shortly before the last episode was aired - and I was very disturbed by the debth of time consuming and  emotional investment. The material which was gathered and the academic treatment, which sometimes had the quality of a high quality PhD thesis,was impressive and  mind boggling. And my heart was aching for those who had invested their souls in this theory because it was fairly obvious that they had set themselves up for one of the biggest disappointments of their lives. I can totally understand their yearning for some form of positive representation. But Mofftiss had shot down Johnlock as end game so frequently and sincerely, that it was obvious (at least to me) that it really would not happen. In this instance at least the creators had not lied. And yet - after having gone through the wealth of material gathered by TJLC proponents I have to admit that the "loudest subtext in the history of tv" is not a figment of their wishful imagination. It's plainly there. And while every single point can be interpreted ambigously, the sheer amount of ambigous clues cannot be dismissed as totally coincidental. While Mofftiss shot down Johnlock as canon many times, they continued to add ambiguos implications until the very end - which is unfortunate IMO. Why did they so this? I think that the accuations of queer-bating cannot be dismissed out of hand. All the gay jokes were totally funny and offen very intelligent in the beginning. But they became a bit stale over the years. And Mofftiss must've been eventually fully aware of a certain sub-set of the fandom and their specific expectations. Why didn't they tone down the gay subtext considerably? The show would've been none the worse for it. Maybe, Mofftiss simply underestimated certain fandom reactions and became a bit tone deaf in the wake of the show's huge popularity. I will come back to Mofftiss and their somewhat antagonistic relationship with the Sherlock fandom later.

I don't know if a slight tone shift would have done the trick, though, since TJLC eventually became a quasi-religious movement, and the members started to interpret everything as an affirmation of what they believed to be the true end game. And the most amazing and very disturbing thing: a considerable number of Johnlock fans still believe in this particular end game! How so? Well, one argument is, that the BBC didn't allow Mofftiss to go through with their grand plan. So, what did they do? They f..cked up S4 and specifically TFP deliberately and made it so ludicrous and over the top that it would be obvious to every intelligent fan, that S4 couldn't be taken seriously. Exibit A: of course the John-Locke (Marc Gatiss) portrait weeping bloody tears because Johnlock wasn't allowed to blossom openly! I have to admit there is some true  ingeniousness in this argument, since I have also marveled how and why this initially so brilliant and intelligent show could go so off-the-rail and finish with an episode which felt  less like the "brainy is the new sexy" Sherlock of the first two seasons, but more like a bad cross of James-Bond, Hannibal, Saw and Superhero movies with a liberal sprinkling of Shutter Island,  and wasn't grounded anymore in at least a resemblance of physical laws.  IMO Mofftiss truly and wholeheartedly jumped the shark -  no, they lovingly embraced the shark, and the big question is: why?? I have no intelligent answer to this. But I was startled to discover that some TJLC proponents have taken the conspiracy to the next level: I read a very well researched 70plus page thesis which argued that S4 was just the fourth act of a five-act story arc, and that a fifth season was always mandatorily planned and mapped out from the very beginnining by Mofftiss. And S4 was deliberately bad and totally different from the other three seasons  - well, because the fourth act of a drama is often the weakest. One cited example are the Hannibal novels by Thomas Harris, where the fourth installment is apparently so legendarily bad, that it's almost ridiculous. And according to the argument of this thesis Mofftiss set out to deliberately mirror the Hannibal novels - in order to right the ship in a powerful fifth season, where Johnlock would be finally be allowed to blossom and become canon! The scary thing  is the high academic level and the amount of quality research which has gone into this thesis. It totally  sucks you in - until you realize how unrealistic this line of thought really is. How likely is it that Mofftiss made S4  deliberately bad and totally "un-sherlocky" because their grand plan was all along to redeem themselves in a final fifth season, where Johnlock becomes canon - and everybody and their grandmother is totally okay with it because it feels absolutely right after the botched and implausible fourth season. If that really was the grand plan, then there was a very obvious glitch: there may not be a fifth season for a very long time, and a deliberately botched S4 certainly doesn't exactly help! I'm fairly certain that Sherlock will eventually be revisited. Maybe there will be a fully fledged fifth season, or there will be stand-alone episodes like TAB.  But the sheer length and uncertainty of the downtime in between seasons doesn't allow the pursuit of a grand overall endgame anymore. And the majority of the more conventional fandom simply won't grasp the finicky differences between Kant-influenced  and Hegel-influenced  story arcs 😉

Meanwhile, the phenomenon and the vehement reactions of the TJLC community after S4 had been aired has attracted the attention of the social sciences, and they have become the subject of academic studies. This is an indication that we are looking at something which is more than the ordinary displeasure of certain fans with their favorite TV Show.  So, what happened? My guess ist that after S2 Sherlock became such a huge media phenomenon that it was almost impossible to handle the expectations of the various fan factions. Not only The Johnlock shippers who had the clearest sociopolitical agenda, felt let down after all. Those brainiacs  who had skillfully investigated every little apparently deliberately planted clue, in order to predict what would happen, felt equally let down because very little got ever fully and plausibly explained - although Mofftiss had clearly encouraged the fans initially  to hunt for hidden clues. And like the true believers of the TJLC community, there are still people out in the Tumblr realm who continue to analyse clues and develop elaborate theories, just like in the good old times after TRF had been aired in 2012!  And just like those who see clues for Johnlock-as-endgame everywhere, these remaining clue hunters are convinced that what they discover is real. And they are probably quite right to a certain degree. Yes, the clues are there sp- probably because the makers sprinkled them deliberately in order to be free to pursue a variety of different story lines later. This is a very common practice in script writing for multiple-season TV shows. The Problem with Sherlock was the huge surge in Popularität and fandom Activity after the second season. This led to so many speculations that someone must've eventually have come very close to the intended solutions - and Mofftiss reacted accordingly. In S3 they introduced selfawareness and a sort of half mocking fan service into the show. And they tried to beat everybody's expectations by evading all clear cut explanations and solutions. This is especially evident if we look at the three explanations of how Sherlock survived his fall, which have been offered and then immediately called into doubt in TEH. This introduced a certain amount of antagonism between Mofftiss and certain factions of the fandom. And I really believe it influenced their writing since they must've felt compelled to up the ante continuosly in order to stay unpredictable and  stay one step ahead of those pesky fans and their many different demands, lol! The long downtime in between seasons may have had a very negative effect insofar as everybody - makers and fans alike - had too much time for evaluating and turning over every little detail. I think that in the end this wasn't conductive for developing a fully satisfying and  well constructed story arc and may have also led to a certain tone deafness. There have been too many outside distractions and perceived interferences. Martin Freeman once alluded to this phenomenon and explained that this was a joy killer to a certain extent.

It ist what it is. We still have many episodes of brilliant tv! Right now I don't feel a desire for a fifth season. But I know that I will watch if there will be new Sherlock episodeds. S4 ended in a way which allows the makers to take the show into all sorts of directions. An a hiatus of several years may be helpful and heeling. But I also would not be sad if there won't be any new episodes in the forseeable future. This is a distinct possibility because of the leading actors'  jump into super stardom. Scheduling conflicts may be the greatest obstacle...

Welcome back! Thanks for giving this thread a bit of CPR. There is plenty here that I would love to discuss further. Just wait until I am home and have access to a real computer, quoting on my phone is a bother... 

Btw, if you want to rant about S4, go ahead. I doubt anybody would mind. I like the final season just fine personally but would have a hard time defending it to critics. 

[T.o.b.y]

On 12/4/2018 at 4:18 PM, littlefoot said:

I knew of course about Johnlock and the  fandom of that specific ship, but I only learned about TJLC shortly before the last episode was aired - and I was very disturbed by the debth of time consuming and  emotional investment. The material which was gathered and the academic treatment, which sometimes had the quality of a high quality PhD thesis,was impressive and  mind boggling.

Yeah, I agree, I only scratched the surface but was very surprised by the time and effort some people had put into this. I hope they at least had fun along the way.

And my heart was aching for those who had invested their souls in this theory because it was fairly obvious that they had set themselves up for one of the biggest disappointments of their lives. I can totally understand their yearning for some form of positive representation. But Mofftiss had shot down Johnlock as end game so frequently and sincerely, that it was obvious (at least to me) that it really would not happen.

To me too.

In this instance at least the creators had not lied. And yet - after having gone through the wealth of material gathered by TJLC proponents I have to admit that the "loudest subtext in the history of tv" is not a figment of their wishful imagination. It's plainly there. And while every single point can be interpreted ambigously, the sheer amount of ambigous clues cannot be dismissed as totally coincidental. While Mofftiss shot down Johnlock as canon many times, they continued to add ambiguos implications until the very end - which is unfortunate IMO. Why did they so this? I think that the accuations of queer-bating cannot be dismissed out of hand.

While I think that they were just cluess and, to a degree, tone-deaf. Very often when I heard or read especially Mr Moffat talking about it, I have found myself wanting to ask him: "Whoa, have you ever seen your own show?" I fully agree that they brought this particular ship on themselves (as opposed to, say, Mycroft / Lestrade which is totally out of left field imo) but I highly doubt there was any intention behind the process.

All the gay jokes were totally funny and offen very intelligent in the beginning. But they became a bit stale over the years.

Not to me. I have a very juvenile sense of humor sometimes. Didn't even find them offensive, even though I am usually ready to foam at the mouth over any perceived disrespect of LGBTQ+ issues.

And Mofftiss must've been eventually fully aware of a certain sub-set of the fandom and their specific expectations. Why didn't they tone down the gay subtext considerably? The show would've been none the worse for it. Maybe, Mofftiss simply underestimated certain fandom reactions and became a bit tone deaf in the wake of the show's huge popularity. I will come back to Mofftiss and their somewhat antagonistic relationship with the Sherlock fandom later.

Or, maybe they just tried to ignore the sometimes intense fan chorus as best they could and continue to make the show that they wanted how they had envisioned it in their own minds. It's the only way I could be creative so I wouldn't blame them if this was the case.

I don't know if a slight tone shift would have done the trick, though, since TJLC eventually became a quasi-religious movement, and the members started to interpret everything as an affirmation of what they believed to be the true end game. And the most amazing and very disturbing thing: a considerable number of Johnlock fans still believe in this particular end game! How so? Well, one argument is, that the BBC didn't allow Mofftiss to go through with their grand plan. So, what did they do? They f..cked up S4 and specifically TFP deliberately and made it so ludicrous and over the top that it would be obvious to every intelligent fan, that S4 couldn't be taken seriously. Exibit A: of course the John-Locke (Marc Gatiss) portrait weeping bloody tears because Johnlock wasn't allowed to blossom openly! I have to admit there is some true  ingeniousness in this argument, since I have also marveled how and why this initially so brilliant and intelligent show could go so off-the-rail and finish with an episode which felt  less like the "brainy is the new sexy" Sherlock of the first two seasons, but more like a bad cross of James-Bond, Hannibal, Saw and Superhero movies with a liberal sprinkling of Shutter Island,  and wasn't grounded anymore in at least a resemblance of physical laws.  IMO Mofftiss truly and wholeheartedly jumped the shark -  no, they lovingly embraced the shark, and the big question is: why??

I dunno, but I think "they ran out of steam and also had to write and produce in a hurry because of the now famous actors' busy schedules" is a far mor plausible explanation than an elaborate conspiracy theory that assumes way more homophobia than exists nowadays at the BBC, of all places. I am dead sure that if they had wanted a gay Holmes and Watson, nobody would have "forbidden" that. It would have been difficult to market to some countries but Sherlock isn't, say, Harry Potter, where that does seem to be a consideration. It's just not a big enough deal.

I am having trouble managing quotes with the new forum software, which is whymy replies are in the quote box above and there's an empty one below.

In all, I wonder why, if people have such an active imagination, time and talent for writing, they don't just go and write fix-it fanfics to suit their preferred ending. But I guess they have their reasons.

I am not hoping for a S5 and if they make one, I am not even sure if I would watch it. I like Sherlock as a finished product and I am not as disappointed by S4 as many other people seem to be.

On 12/4/2018 at 4:18 PM, littlefoot said:

 

 

[Arcadia]

 

9 hours ago, T.o.b.y said:

And Mofftiss must've been eventually fully aware of a certain sub-set of the fandom and their specific expectations. Why didn't they tone down the gay subtext considerably? The show would've been none the worse for it. Maybe, Mofftiss simply underestimated certain fandom reactions and became a bit tone deaf in the wake of the show's huge popularity. I will come back to Mofftiss and their somewhat antagonistic relationship with the Sherlock fandom later.

Or, maybe they just tried to ignore the sometimes intense fan chorus as best they could and continue to make the show that they wanted how they had envisioned it in their own minds. It's the only way I could be creative so I wouldn't blame them if this was the case.

I am reminded of something I read after I joined this forum, which is that fandom looks a lot bigger from the inside than it actually is. (Alas, I've long since forgotten who said this, apologies for not crediting whoever it is!) And I'm also reminded of Moffat's statement that "Tumblr is not the fandom." So I feel like you're on the right track, Toby … it's not that Moftiss was tone-deaf, so much, as they had to follow their own muse, and anyway the popularity of the show was due to a lot of people who were NOT obsessed with it as much as people who were. In other words, I suspect most people who watched the show didn't have a clue what the "fandom" was saying about it. I didn't, not until I came here. So even if Moftiss had made the show they thought the viewers wanted to see, instead of, as they have often stated, making the show they themselves wanted to see … even then, it wouldn't necessarily taken into account the wishes of the Johnlockers …. because I'm very willing to bet they're in the minority. They're just louder, and therefore seem like a bigger group than they are. I suspect most viewers watch the show once, get a good laugh, maybe mention it to their friends the next day, and never think of it again. That's certainly how I react to 99.9% of the shows I watch!

[Arcadia]

9 hours ago, T.o.b.y said:

I like Sherlock as a finished product

I would too if I felt it were really finished. As it is, I feel like it just stopped, rather than ended. I liked the final montage and agree it would have made a good ending. But there was so much talk about planning both S4 and S5, and still talk about it maybe coming back some day, and hints at things that never were resolved, that I just feel I've been left to drift, instead. Phooey.

[J.P.]

About the fandom being bigger from the inside - it was me, but maybe I wasn't the only one with this observation, because I joined a year after you.  (I compared a fandom to Tardis btw).

But even if it's not the way I meant it back then , your point is also very valid. It's like the lane you drive on always seems broader than the opposite one. You know more of "your people" than others, you communicate with them, or just notice their presence, while all non-fans are just a grey mass of anonymity.

Which also means that we only know "our own" dramas. I remember reading about some other super-shippers (don't remember the show/actors though) which, by extending to shipping real people, get so far that it negatively influenced private live of those people. So it's probably a blessing that Martin and Ben are not on any social media and are keeping their lives very private. So we "only" have speculations about those two "not being the best friends". And in case there is more than that, I don't want even know about it.

[Caya]

6 hours ago, Arcadia said:

I am reminded of something I read after I joined this forum, which is that fandom looks a lot bigger from the inside than it actually is. (Alas, I've long since forgotten who said this, apologies for not crediting whoever it is!) And I'm also reminded of Moffat's statement that "Tumblr is not the fandom." So I feel like you're on the right track, Toby … it's not that Moftiss was tone-deaf, so much, as they had to follow their own muse, and anyway the popularity of the show was due to a lot of people who were NOT obsessed with it as much as people who were. In other words, I suspect most people who watched the show didn't have a clue what the "fandom" was saying about it. I didn't, not until I came here. So even if Moftiss had made the show they thought the viewers wanted to see, instead of, as they have often stated, making the show they themselves wanted to see … even then, it wouldn't necessarily taken into account the wishes of the Johnlockers …. because I'm very willing to bet they're in the minority. They're just louder, and therefore seem like a bigger group than they are. I suspect most viewers watch the show once, get a good laugh, maybe mention it to their friends the next day, and never think of it again. That's certainly how I react to 99.9% of the shows I watch!

Must creators be antagonistic to their own fans, though? Take the following with a big grain of salt, please, as I am not part of that show's fandom and only read up on the hullabaloo on broken long after it happened, but may I present, as counter-evidence, Lucifer, a show my husband introduced me to this fall since he thought I might like it (he may have noticed my penchant for fine British accents ). I saw and liked, it has amazing characters hidden under that silly crime procedural stuff, and the two leads have quite the chemistry, which brings me back to my original point.

From what I gathered (again, see grain of salt) that show is based on a DC superhero comic by Neil Gaiman, so when the fandom slowly morphed from (mostly male) comic book enthusiasts to (mostly female) shippers, some creators would probably have reacted with irritation like Mr Moffat, but Lucifer's crew was more like, Hold my beer. I really don't want to spoiler anything here, but the second-to-last episode was called "Quintessential Deckerstar", and I was all, well either they're mocking their viewers or this is gonna be good (then had to explain to my husband why the title made me react like it did, since he'd never come across a shipping name before - like you said, more people watch a show than just the core fans). Sherlock-cynical me expected mockery, but what can I say, it was sweet and well-earned and absolutely perfect (and made up for some of the lengths of S3).

Now it's certainly true that things are easier with a m/f pair of leads who were probably meant to come together at some point all along, but what I left out is that, watching Lucifer, you could see that the showrunners were quite familiar with their fanbase and also put friendly nods into the show to all the other ships. For instance, S3 introduced a main antagonist played by Tom Welling of Smallville fame, and he and the main played off well against each other, which no doubt launched plenty of ships - so they threw in an episode where the two of them go undercover as a gay couple (and while Lucifer is openly and happily pansexual, the other char not so much) and share an on-screen kiss (to half bemused and half fascinated stares by the female main ). Never shipped them, but it felt surprisingly good to watch a show where the creators don't look down on part of their fanbase.

I swear there's a point to my ramblings, namely that when Fox, as they are wont to do (Browncoats neither forget nor forgive ), canceled Lucifer after S3, the fans didn't take that lying down, but raised hell on social media, online petition platforms and especially Twitter, getting #SaveLucifer as the #1 trending hashtag till mainstream media picked up on the ruckus, which caused Netflix to have a look at the numbers and then buy Lucifer from Fox, and it's getting a S4 next year (currently shooting, afaik). And the show runners are aware and appreciative of their fans' efforts, I think, seeing as one of the S4 episodes is called "Save Lucifer". So the moral here is, be nice to your fans (or at least don't treat some of them with open disdain) and they'll be nice to you.  

 

[Carol the Dabbler]

Just curious -- is Lucifer written by men or by women or both?

 

[Caya]

Just went to check it on Wikipedia, and while the primary showrunner is male, as are most of the writers and directors (and Neil Gaiman, obviously), there are a couple women on the team. Fwiw, that Deckerstar episode was both written and directed by a woman, respectively.

Btw, if you want to see a series that really shows that there are women at the helm (in a good sense, mind you) check out Jessica Jones (also on Netflix). Trigger warning though, I've heard from a couple women that the way that show handles emotional trauma from being abused is quite realistic.

[Carol the Dabbler]

16 minutes ago, Caya said:

... while the primary showrunner is male, as are most of the writers and directors (and Neil Gaiman, obviously), there are a couple women on the team. Fwiw, that Deckerstar episode was both written and directed by a woman....

I'm not surprised.  Women are more involved in relationships in real life, and women likewise appear to be the biggest shippers.  So it only stands to reason that female writers, directors, etc., would tend to see the show in that light as well.

Poor Moffat and Gatis can't help being a bit clueless -- they've got those pesky Y chromosomes!

 

[J.P.]

Yes, Lucifer is a nice example. Maybe it's just a luck that the intentions of fandom and makers went the in the same direction. Or maybe the makers followed fans' ideas. But it still can end in a disaster, when the show goes in a direction fans don't like. And in this case the fans really can state the show belongs to them, because they literally made the next season happen.

[Arcadia]

Are Moftiss hostile to the fans? I've never felt so. A bit dismissive of the ones they feel are pushing too hard, perhaps, but that's not the same as hostile, to me. I've always appreciated how they've encouraged fans to go out and dream up their own versions to their hearts' content. I suppose the coda to that could be assumed to be "and leave our creation the hell alone!"  

I do feel that many of the fans are hostile to them, though, especially to Moffat … and I perceive it's for not being exactly the way the fandom wants them to be. Gatiss in particular I have seen attacked for not insisting on an openly pro-gay agenda on Sherlock. It's like … how dare he NOT be the figure-head for whatever movement they want to get behind?

Oh well. Sorry, I know I've run off about this before (push my button, off I go) … but I still tend to be a bit protective of the rights of creators to disregard the wishes of their audience, no matter how noble the cause they may be ignoring. That's no excuse for being rude to fans, though. But is Moftiss guilty of that? I don't recall reading about it, but that doesn't mean it didn't happen, of course.

At any rate, having said all that … I am willing to bet good money that if Sherlock had been your usual 1-season-per-year, 22-episodes-per-season American network show, we would have seen exactly the kind of in-joke, alternative universe stories Caya is referring to. It's almost de rigueur for cult fantasy/sci-fi to do those kinds of episodes, isn't it? Star Trek did, Babylon 5 did, Stargate, Lost; heck, Buffy and Angel reveled in it. But if those shows had been limited to three episodes every three years, I'll also bet we wouldn't have seen those kinds of stories. The makers would have been too intent on telling the stories that were most important to their core vision, instead.

Heck, now that I think on it, even Sherlock managed to pull it off … how many fannish theories were referenced in TEH? (And was subsequently criticized for being too self-referential, btw.)  Gatiss may insist he thought them all up himself, but if that's true, that just means to me that he understands the fanbase pretty dang well. If only they'd had to come up with another 75 episodes.....

 

[Arcadia]

6 hours ago, J.P. said:

Yes, Lucifer is a nice example. Maybe it's just a luck that the intentions of fandom and makers went the in the same direction. Or maybe the makers followed fans' ideas. But it still can end in a disaster, when the show goes in a direction fans don't like. And in this case the fans really can state the show belongs to them, because they literally made the next season happen.

Ah … the fans may have created the market for the next season, but it's still not their show. Imho. Creator's rights!!!!!  

[Caya]

30 minutes ago, Arcadia said:

Heck, now that I think on it, even Sherlock managed to pull it off … how many fannish theories were referenced in TEH? (And was subsequently criticized for being too self-referential, btw.)

Yeah, that's actually a pretty good example for what I meant by treating their fans with disdain. How did they reference said fan theories? By having a group of conspiracy theorists squabble about the most outlandish of them. Doesn't scream respect, to me at least.

Compare and contrast, say, Lucifer's episode Vegas with Some Radish, where they have the main and Ella (one of the most adorable chars on the show, imo) take a side trip to Vegas for a (sort of) case together, have her kick ass *and* switch into something besides her practical lab clothing for a change, and Lucifer call her ravishing and mean it. That's how you are nice to the fans of the rarer ships out there, not by having them mocked in-show even by their fellow conspiracists for their otp.

[Arcadia]

2 hours ago, Caya said:

Yeah, that's actually a pretty good example for what I meant by treating their fans with disdain. How did they reference said fan theories? By having a group of conspiracy theorists squabble about the most outlandish of them. Doesn't scream respect, to me at least.

Pretty darned accurate, though. 😛 

I didn't see it as disdain, but I can see how someone could. I think we all come to things with certain predispositions … some people are innately suspicious of any good deed, for example. They may even have reason to be that way. Yet the person next to them, whose had the same experiences, may take the good deed at face value. Honestly, we're all so different,  it's a wonder the human race has ever accomplished anything.

Which is just my long-winded way of saying I think this is one of those things where we'll just have to agree to disagree. Besides, for all I know, the Moftisses could be complete and utter a--holes and I'm just too naïve to see it. Wouldn't be the first time.  

[Carol the Dabbler]

21 minutes ago, Arcadia said:

... for all I know, the Moftisses could be complete and utter a--holes and I'm just too naïve to see it....

It's still my opinion that their sense of humor merely stopped developing somewhere around junior high -- which would account for just about everything.

[Artemis]

On 12/6/2018 at 10:08 PM, Caya said:

so they threw in an episode where the two of them go undercover as a gay couple (and while Lucifer is openly and happily pansexual, the other char not so much) and share an on-screen kiss

If they'd done something like that in Sherlock though, wouldn't angry fans have just pointed to it as another example of "queerbaiting" when their ship wasn't canonized?

Short of an on-screen confirmation of their ship as canon, how could Moftiss have made their Sherlock shippers happy?

 

[Caya]

Oooof, that's gonna be a longish post, so apologies in advance, but it's tricky to talk about Lt. Pierce (the other char in that example) without massive spoilers.

What could Moftiss have done differently to make shippers happy? At that point (S3/4-ish), it would've been kinda tricky, because they handled it so diffently right from the beginning. For starters, that other show's protagonist, Lucifer, is openly bisexual (well considering that angels, humans and demons are different species, more like pansexual) and nobody bats an eyelash about that (with him also openly stating that he's the former Prince of Hell, most eyelashes are kept quite busy otherwise ) or questions it. Most importantly, it's never treated as a joke the way John "I'm not gay" Watson's frequent clarifications of his orientation are, or his string of failed relationships before Mary for that matter. Fwiw, I think they did a much better job with Sherlock's "not interested, but feel free to speculate, like I would care" attitude. I don't think that whole TJLC business would've become quite that clusterF*** if they'd treated John's sexuality with a bit more respect from the beginning - if you want to bring across that your char is straight and confident in his sexuality, don't have him utter angry denials in almost every episode, and make him at least a bit competent at having a non-psycho girlfriend.

Which brings me to the second char in the above example, Pierce. Who is just that, quietly and unquestioned straight, yet he and Lucifer have a quite different kind of biblical relationship (it's that kind of show). So there is a strong connection between the two of them, never shown as sexual (but leaving room for shippers to interpret it as turning into such if they so choose). The show presents a reasonably logical (hey, it's about the literal Devil taking a vacation in Los Angeles, which puts logic under a bit of strain from the get-go ) explanation for why it's the two of them who have to play that couple, and the chars themselves are at a point in the storyline where an, er, project of theirs that's rather important to Pierce looks like a massive failure. They squabble about this at their "housewarming party", leaving the assembled neighbours to think it's a lover's spat, then when Lucifer returns and presents a heartfelt apology to Pierce, complete with the offer to keep trying to solve this together, this elicits a chorus of "Awww"s from their audience, at which point Lucifer realizes that they still have a role to play and passionately locks lips with the lieutenant, to the latter's surprise.

tl;dr: that scene is not treated like an off-hand joke, but carefully set up and fitting into the general storyline. So, to come back to your question, how could Moftiss have made Johnlockers happy? (and yes, I do realize that hindsight is 20/20)

At the danger of repeating myself, but respect plays a big part in that answer, I think. Respecting both their chars and their fans, in this particular instance. Even assuming that S1/2 (which didn't draw nearly that amount of fire) had already happened, they could have started by, say, taking Sherlock's return (and the emotional impact it has on John) a bit more seriously - they never fully explained what happened, dropped the "is Sherlock a fraud or isn't he?" storyline like a hot potato, and that dinner scene felt so jarring to me at least. Compare and contrast to the way Sherlock and John relate to each other in the marriage episode, of all places. 

Again, Lucifer never showed the two characters mentioned in any kind of canonical sexual relationship (without getting into spoiler territory, but quite the opposite actually). And they didn't have to - grain-of-salt-time again as I'm not in that fandom, but I didn't get the impression that there was any kind of backlash about how things went down between them at the end of the third season. Fans are generally quite happy with AU fics if (!) given a reasonable frame to place them in. So, to answer the question at the long last: play out the Return differently, to give the connection between Sherlock and John a chance to reestablish in S3, don't close the door on Johnlock so vehemently both in-show and in interviews. I don't think anyone (well, there's always the odd one out, but you know what I mean) would have minded John marrying Mary then, and shipper fans probably would've loved a scene of, say, Sherlock pulling John into a kiss to hide both their faces from someone they were currently shadowing who'd unexpectedly turned around.

[Arcadia]

 

2 hours ago, Caya said:

shipper fans probably would've loved a scene of, say, Sherlock pulling John into a kiss to hide both their faces from someone they were currently shadowing who'd unexpectedly turned around.

Sorry, but I think such a scene, if not followed by the boys obviously being in an openly sexual relationship, would have enraged the conspiracy faction of the Johnlockers even more. For them there was only that one solution, they were not going to settle for anything else.

And for the non-conspiracy JLers, the ones who just liked the idea or believed it was possible without obsessing about it … I do think Moftiss left the door wide open for them. Not in S3 (where it seemed to me they shut it firmly, but others see it otherwise, so hey) but in S4 … that final montage was dead easy to interpret as JL wish fulfillment. But it wasn't precisely what certain fans wanted, and so the show got slammed.

2 hours ago, Caya said:

that scene is not treated like an off-hand joke, but carefully set up and fitting into the general storyline.

Again, though, Lucifer had around 60 episodes to play around in. Sherlock had 13. I think the impact would have been far, far different if Moftiss had incorporated the same kind of plot into theirs. And the TJLC crowd would still have raged if there was any question afterwards about the reality of their ship.

I agree that Moftiss brought in on themselves, at least in one sense, by making the gay jokes to begin with. And I agree with Carol's assessment of the maturity of their humor. But I guess that kind of humor appeals to me, because I laughed loudly at John's protestations and Mrs. H's blithe assumptions, and I still do. Because I know from personal experience how ridiculous it is to assume that just because two men live together and like each other, they ergo MUST be gay. To me that assumption is all part of the over-sexualization of modern entertainment, and I appreciated that Moftiss were, as I thought, mocking the need for everything to be about sex. Sherlock, the character and the show, were above all that, and that's one of the things I liked about him, and it.

So in short (see, I can be as long-winded as you can Caya, nyah, nyah!) the worst I can lob at Moftiss is selfishness; they wrote the show based on what THEY wanted to see, and the fans were merely invited along for the ride. But they were never offered the reins, and I personally think Moftiss had no obligation to do so. Creators' rights! (I should probably put that on a t-shirt....)

[Caya]

*gg* Creators' rights is one area where I think the two of us really have to disagree, since we're been through this before a couple times. I know that's rather easy to say for an armchair artist who's never published anything but fanfic, but I still maintain that art is a collaboration between creator and audience. Maybe because I'm also coming at this from a gamer's perspective, where you are allowed to shape the story (to a lesser or greater degree) the way you like per default.

5 hours ago, Arcadia said:

Sorry, but I think such a scene, if not followed by the boys obviously being in an openly sexual relationship, would have enraged the conspiracy faction of the Johnlockers even more. For them there was only that one solution, they were not going to settle for anything else. 

That's where it gets highly theoretical in my argument above, admittedly, since I believe that without the kind of disdain Moftiss showed some of their fanbase like the Johnlockers, that kind of rabid faction would never have formed in the first place. Takes two to tango and all that. But alternate universes, alas, are the stuff of fanfic and so we'll never know.

[Carol the Dabbler]

8 hours ago, Caya said:

... they never fully explained what happened, dropped the "is Sherlock a fraud or isn't he?" storyline like a hot potato, and that dinner scene felt so jarring to me at least.

Dinner scene?  Do you mean the succession of eateries that the threesome got kicked out of, or am I forgetting something?  In any case, would you care to elaborate on "jarring"?

I think they handled the "is he or isn't he" wrap-up fairly well for the amount of time they gave it, but I would like to have seen more detail (e.g., the role that Sherlock's cell phone presumably played).  And I fully agree about the non-explanation -- especially after all the hype about how amazing it really was, and about us missing a cruicial clue.

[J.P.]

6 hours ago, Arcadia said:

And for the non-conspiracy JLers, the ones who just liked the idea or believed it was possible without obsessing about it … I do think Moftiss left the door wide open for them.

Well, I don't think they needed an open door. When you know you are exploring an Alternative Universe, you have enough fun with the "what ifs".