Episode 2.1, "A Scandal In Belgravia"

[Arcadia]

You know how we've debated whether or not Sherlock was already aware of Molly's crush on him before "Scandal"? I just ran across this, which doesn't answer the question completely, I guess, but points towards him NOT being aware; at least in the opinion of the person who wrote the script. I don't know where the quote came from, but it sounds familiar, for all I know it's on the DVD commentary.

[J.P.]

Yepp. Always said that :D

[J.P.]

Watching ASIB on German TV.

Did I noticed (and deleted it) that:

 

1 Sherlock deduces that Molly's crush is hopeless ("That would suggest long-term hopes, however forlorn; and that she’s seeing him tonight is evident from her make-up and what she’s wearing")

 

2 Sherlock composes and waits for John to come to show off his deduction about 1895 on John's blog. :D

[sittything]

That scene simultaneously always breaks my heart and yet still makes me go...

 

[T.o.b.y]

Sherlock must have known before that Molly had a crush on him, otherwise his strategy of manipulating her into helping him during previous episodes makes no sense. But I am very willing to believe that he did not until that moment really understand how she felt and how he was hurting her. Feelings and relationships just aren't his forté...

 

I wish real people were able to mature like Sherlock. I always used to think, back when I was in school and the boys were taunting me, that they simply didn't understand, they didn't have the faintest idea what they were actually doing to me. (Not that I was in love with any of them, of course.) I think most people who behave like shit aren't actually mean or cruel, they just lack empathy and often are very thoughtless.

[Shadow Dweller]

Not necessarily a crush or other notion of romantic interest either, partiality to facilitate his past shenanigans is enough to mark her as an enabler who he can count on to fulfill his 'needs'.

[Arcadia]

My theory is that Sherlock would have complimented any woman on her hair in an attempt at manipulation. It just happened to be Molly, on whom it worked. In other words, he didn't know why it worked, he just knew she was a woman and that women can be manipulated by flattery.

 

 

[Arcadia]

Watching ASIB on German TV.

Did I noticed (and deleted it) that:

 

1 Sherlock deduces that Molly's crush is hopeless ("That would suggest long-term hopes, however forlorn; and that she’s seeing him tonight is evident from her make-up and what she’s wearing")

 

2 Sherlock composes and waits for John to come to show off his deduction about 1895 on John's blog. :D

 

JP, were you asking, have those scenes always played out that way? If so ... Yes. :d

[Pseudonym]

I often wonder which bits get trimmed out an episode to make space for ad breaks when not broadcast on the BBC. Is it noticeable in comparison to a full DVD version?

[Arcadia]

Quite noticeable, if you've seen the full version enough times. For example, one of my favorite bits in TBB is when Sherlock spins John around to try to get him to remember the signs he saw, only to have John whip out his phone and announce he took a picture. Gone in its entirety from the edited-for-time version. :(

 

I can't recall what they edited from Scandal, though. I think a little bit of Irene's entrance, although I've seen far more risqué things on PBS, so I'm not sure why. They show Sherlock late enough at night to avoid being in the family hour, there's no need to edit for content.

 

They never edit anything that affects the story, though. At least, not that I can recall. Mostly they just edit fun bits. And that's only for the first two seasons; starting with S3, PBS simply added an extra half hour to the running time instead of editing, and added on a little "Inside Sherlock" segment at the end to fill out the 2 hours. You know you're successful when...

 

As an aside, one interesting edit was not for time, but for clarity ... John's remark about getting an "ASBO" in TBB was dubbed into something familiar to Americans (I can't remember the exact phrase, though.) My jaw dropped when I heard it, I had no idea they went that far in adapting it for American ears. Unnecessarily, imo ... it took me moments to look up "ASBO" on the interwebs.

[Carol the Dabbler]

I often wonder which bits get trimmed out an episode to make space for ad breaks when not broadcast on the BBC. Is it noticeable in comparison to a full DVD version?

 

Quite noticeable, if you've seen the full version enough times. For example, one of my favorite bits in TBB is when Sherlock spins John around to try to get him to remember the signs he saw, only to have John whip out his phone and announce he took a picture. Gone in its entirety from the edited-for-time version. :(

 

I can't recall what they edited from Scandal, though. I think a little bit of Irene's entrance, although I've seen far more risqué things on PBS, so I'm not sure why. They show Sherlock late enough at night to avoid being in the family hour, there's no need to edit for content.

 

They never edit anything that affects the story, though. At least, not that I can recall. Mostly they just edit fun bits. And that's only for the first two seasons....

 

OK, just to avoid any misunderstandings, the PBS edits were not for commercial breaks as such.  They ran their own intro at the beginning, then the edited episode (with no interruptions), then some things that sure looked like commercials (even though PBS claims to be "commercial free") -- all in a 90-minute time slot, which meant that Hartswood had to edit 8 minutes out of each episode.

 

I didn't notice the edits in the first-season episodes, because I saw them first on PBS and then on the DVD.  It's not so glaring when something new is added -- I merely assume that I don't remember it from having seen the show just once on television.

 

But by second season, I had heard about the cuts, so I was watching for them.  I'd already seen each episode MULTIPLE times on the Region 2 DVD before PBS ran them several months later, so as Arcadia said, many of them were quite noticeable.  I made lists of the ones I noticed:

 

I just finished watching "A Scandal in Belgravia" on PBS (which carries Sherlock here in the US). Near as I can figure, they cut about eight minutes:

 

Right after John points out that almost 2,000 people have visited his blog in the past 8 hours (and says, "There's your living, Sherlock"), I believe there's a comparison to Sherlock's own blog with its discussion of the yay-many types of tobacco ash. That's gone.

The scene where Sherlock asks to borrow the Buckingham Palace fellow's cigarette lighter is missing (probably the second-longest cut).

Right after Irene says "I know a policeman," she adds "or at least I know what he likes." That's gone.

Mycroft's "danger night" phone call to John is missing, along with John's subsequent "I'll walk your dog" conversation with his girlfriend Jeanette -- probably the longest cut.

When Irene's pretty messenger calls out to John as he leaves 221B, and asks if he has plans for the evening, he is supposed to say something like "none that can't be cancelled" etc. That's gone.

 

We watched ["The Hounds of Baskerville"] on PBS last Sunday, and even though I had already seen it on DVD just as many times as any of the other episodes (with the probable exception of "The Reichenbach Fall"), I noticed only one (very minor) specific cut, as compared to the five I noticed in "A Scandal in Belgravia." (And there clearly were cuts, because PBS again took up about eight minutes with their own material.) Apparently this episode just never engaged my attention the way the others have.

 

We just watched "The Reichenbach Fall" on PBS, and I noticed four specific cuts (though my husband and I both thought that several other non-dialog scenes were longer on the DVD):

 

1. Sherlock is put into a cell -- but we do not see that Moriarty is apparently in the adjoining cell. An odd cut.

 

2. We see Kitty Riley at her apartment door -- but we had not seen her getting out of her car, etc.

 

3. Two brief scenes near the end -- Mycroft with the newspaper at his club, and John sitting forlornly by the fireplace -- are gone.

 

4. We hear John's therapist start in mid-sentence, omitting, "The things that you wanted to say...." and John's response. This seems like a very odd cut, and I'm wondering whether it may actually have been due to the poor reception tonight. [Edited later to say: I can now understand -- though not agree with -- their rationale for abbreviating this scene: The beginning of the therapist's dialog overlaps the end of cut #3, and apparently they had already decided to make that cut. So 3 and 4 are actually just one cut.]

 

Again, the actual show ran about eight minutes short, so there were clearly more cuts than those.

 

While watching this on DVD tonight, my husband and I noticed a few other things that were not there on PBS last night:

 

5. Some of Moriarty's entrance into the courtroom was cut, including the "Would you mind sticking your hand into my pocket?" bit with the chewing gum. GOOD CUT !!! (That bit always gives me the creeps. And not in a good way!)

 

6. The judge's instructions ("You must find him guilty!") to the jury were cut, along with Sherlock's surmising of them.

 

7. After Sherlock tells John that there's something he has to do alone, and leaves, the scene stopped, without showing John turning and walking away in the opposite direction.

 

I think the worst of those were the "Danger night / walk your dog" cut in "Scandal" and cut 3 / 4 in "Reichenbach."  Neither one impacts the plot, but they are wonderful scenes nonetheless.

[Van Buren Supernova]

 

 

Whoa.. I admire your commitment and memory to recall and dig the posts. Sometimes I am grateful with the long hiatus that give us opportunity to appreciate and dissect every single things the previous series had given us.

Sometimes I wish to discuss other shows I like to this extent but nahh, I don't feel like making new online community obsession with the time I have.

 

Yes, danger night and nothing that 'I couldn't heartlessly abandon' are very important imo.

They tell us about Mycroft-Sherlock-John a lot.

[Pseudonym]

I really like that scene where Sherlock spins John around in TBB, shame that was taken out

[Arcadia]

I'm actually rather surprised PBS hasn't started showing the uncut versions when they rebroadcast Sherlock. Maybe there's some sort of copyright issue involved.

[Carol the Dabbler]

They've already paid for the custom-edited episodes.  Despite having been put through all that extra work, I should think that Hartswood would be perfectly willing to forgive all and sell them the uncut versions. 

 

[Arcadia]

Well, they could threaten to withdraw their funding and see if that gets them any freebies .... :d

[Carol the Dabbler]

Maybe if they'd just ask nicely.  On the other hand, maybe they don't see the point.  (Shall we explain it to them?)

[Van Buren Supernova]

Maybe if they'd just ask nicely. On the other hand, maybe they don't see the point. (Shall we explain it to them?)

:applause:

Please! They don't see it coming, that would be great!

 

The long term master plan is; get one of them hooked with Sherlock, pick the one that actually matters, there will be no problem with edit and screening ever again.

[Pseudonym]

This may be the product of too many Johnlock fics and too little sleep, but I was just thinking about John in the field with the laptop in the beginning. I don't believe John, who we have to remember types with two fingers and can't work a chip and pin machine would have been able to set up mobile wifi on a laptop in order to Skype Sherlock. Also, Sherlock presumably is the one who got the call about the case in the beginning rather than John. Seems obvious he told John to go in his place and to show him via Skype because he couldn't be arsed to get dressed or get out of bed. Since Sherlock is likely much more savvy about technology than John is he also, presumably, would have set up the mobile internet on John's laptop for the occasion. So does that mean John was in Sherlock's room, whilst he was naked in bed, setting up the wifi?

[Boton]

This may be the product of too many Johnlock fics and too little sleep, but I was just thinking about John in the field with the laptop in the beginning. I don't believe John, who we have to remember types with two fingers and can't work a chip and pin machine would have been able to set up mobile wifi on a laptop in order to Skype Sherlock. Also, Sherlock presumably is the one who got the call about the case in the beginning rather than John. Seems obvious he told John to go in his place and to show him via Skype because he couldn't be arsed to get dressed or get out of bed. Since Sherlock is likely much more savvy about technology than John is he also, presumably, would have set up the mobile internet on John's laptop for the occasion. So does that mean John was in Sherlock's room, whilst he was naked in bed, setting up the wifi?

 

LOL!

 

I'm with you right until the end.  I totally think Sherlock set up Skype and maybe even logged John in and set up a call between the two of them and said in a frustrated voice, "OK, John, all you have to do is open the laptop and click on the Skype icon, and we already have a call in progress.  Surely even your mind can retain that." 

 

But I think Sherlock probably did that while John was asleep or packing or something.  Maybe I'm being a wet blanket here, but I've always had the theory that the two of them don't go into each other's bedrooms as a matter of course.  Even in SiB, John just sort of peeks around the door frame several times but doesn't really walk right in and make himself at home.  Even when he hoists Sherlock back on the bed after he's drugged, he doesn't really sit on the bed and make sure Sherlock is fine; he just kind of throws him back up there like you do your drunk buddy and leaves.

 

But hey, your idea makes for a better story, in any case!

[Pseudonym]

Ha yea, I don't think they go in each other's bedrooms either, which is why it threw me when I thought of it. ;)

 

 

But if it did happen that way... I think Sherlock probably doesn't have all that many boundaries when it comes to being undressed, it's just transport after all, but I hardly think John would be comfortable standing there waiting whilst Sherlock is in bed naked. I can imagine the heat of the embarrassed/horrified blush radiating off of him, complete with awkward shuffling, but being too scared to leave in case Sherlock fetches the laptop out to him whilst completely starkers. :D

[Arcadia]

Hey, if my two-fingered typist brother can figure out how to work Skype, so can John!

[Pseudonym]

It's the 4G, or dongle, or whatever he's using I think would have him stumped. 

[Arcadia]

I guess so, because you just stumped me. A what? :d

[Boton]

Ha yea, I don't think they go in each other's bedrooms either, which is why it threw me when I thought of it. ;)

 

 

But if it did happen that way... I think Sherlock probably doesn't have all that many boundaries when it comes to being undressed, it's just transport after all, but I hardly think John would be comfortable standing there waiting whilst Sherlock is in bed naked. I can imagine the heat of the embarrassed/horrified blush radiating off of him, complete with awkward shuffling, but being too scared to leave in case Sherlock fetches the laptop out to him whilst completely starkers. :D

 

I honestly don't think either of them are all that embarrassed about being seen naked.  Sherlock because of boarding public school and uni (and just plain being Sherlock), and John because of uni and the Army.  But John seems to me not so much like he'd be embarrassed, but like he's internalized subtle ways you give someone privacy even in a shared space, like by not sitting on their bed or not looking while they change clothes.

 

I think Sherlock is just generally too lazy to go upstairs; if he wants to talk to John, he'll yell or text, and John will come down at least in his bathrobe.

 

Oh, and using Skype?  I still have to start initiating the call an hour before I actually want it to take place, because I can't quite figure out what I'm doing!   I feel for ya, John!