Lucy Worsley's "Killing Sherlock" (TV series)

[besleybean]

Didn't know where to stick this!

Currently watching the third episode....

work nights I have to go to bed early, so I have the first two taped.

It follows Conan Doyle and his most famous character.

[Carol the Dabbler]

3 hours ago, besleybean said:

Didn't know where to stick this!

I've moved it to "General Sherlock Holmes Discussion," Bev.

 

For anyone who (like me) hadn't already heard of this show, it's a three-episode documentary, an analysis of the love-hate relationship between Doyle

and Holmes, and Doyle's attempts to kill off Holmes.  It apparently ran on BBC Channel Two in the UK, and ended tonight.

 

We'll await your review of the series, Bev (and/or anyone else who's seen it).  If it becomes available on DVD, do you think it's worth buying?

 

[besleybean]

BBC show, yeah not sure if it will appear on TV.

I do like her as a historian and she is a Sherlock fan.

So it seemed bizarre that when she was talking about the fake Holmes stories, during the Hiatus...

she said it made her think of Whovians and their fan fiction.

[Carol the Dabbler]

34 minutes ago, besleybean said:

BBC show, yeah not sure if it will appear on TV.

Where did you see it?  And what is Channel Two?  I suppose British TV (or whatever) is no more complicated that what we now have over here, but I know even less about it.

34 minutes ago, besleybean said:

she was talking about the fake Holmes stories, during the Hiatus..

Which fake Holmes stories, during which hiatus?  (Sorry, I'm starting to lose track.)

 

[besleybean]

Post Reichenbach, pre the Empty House.

Titbits  publishers off London's Strand, started accepting non Conan Doyle Sherlock Holmes stories....mainly inventing a love life, quelle surprise.

Yes, the show aired on BBC 2.

[Carol the Dabbler]

12 hours ago, besleybean said:

Post Reichenbach, pre the Empty House.

OK, gotcha.  So she said the goofy "reviews" (on Amazon) of the forthcoming series reminded her of Dr. Who fanfic?  I suppose the Whovian source material would lend itself to some pretty unbridled interpretations, compared to Sherlock series 1 & 2.  (Compared to series 3 & 4, though ....)

12 hours ago, besleybean said:

Titbits  publishers off London's Strand, started accepting non Conan Doyle Sherlock Holmes stories....mainly inventing a love life, quelle surprise.

If that started post-Final Problem / pre-Empty House, it's hard to fault them.  Even ACD thought he was done writing any new Holmes stories.

12 hours ago, besleybean said:

Yes, the show aired on BBC 2.

And that's "over the air" TV broadcast.  OK, I misunderstood you.  You meant that you don't know whether they'll show it again.

I'd never thought of this, but the UK apparently uses the term "channel" in a very different way from what the US does.  The UK is large enough that one single broadcast tower surely could not serve the entire area.  Therefore, BBC 2 (for example) presumably uses multiple towers, all operating at the same frequency and broadcasting the same material simultaneously.  We have nothing like that, at least not on that scale.  Even our PBS stations maintain their separate local identities, although they, like our commercial network stations, often run the same material at the same time.

Even though Americans commonly use the terms "channel" and "station" more or less as synonyms, they're not.  A channel number merely denote a broadcast frequency.  A station is a business entity that owns and operates studios and broadcast facilities in a particular area.  It cannot actually broadcast unless it has a current government license to broadcast on a certain channel in that area; it may or may not be currently affiliated with a network.  So channel 5 may be a CBS station in one area, an NBC station in another, and a local-content station in yet another.  The current arrangements are of course subject to change over time, though they tend to remain in place for decades.

 

[besleybean]

No, I really am as clear as mud aren't I?!

Apparently there were a number of writers around writing 'not real' Sherlock Holmes stories, in ACD's day.

Lucy said the stories reminded her of Who fan fic....

so it sounds like she is totally uaware of Sherlock fan fic.

[Carol the Dabbler]

Actually, that's pretty much what you said the first time -- but I somehow managed to misinterpret it.  Thanks for clearing that up!

5 minutes ago, besleybean said:

I really am as clear as mud aren't I?!

Well (as we say here, at least), it's clear as mud but it covers the ground!

 

[besleybean]

Both the BBC and then ITV networks always had regional variations in their broadcasts.

Then we got 'national' channels, as In Scottish and Welsh versions.

The more recent Channel 4, followed this pattern by also providing and exclusively Welsh version.

I take your point on the channel/ station thing.

I guess it has only become an issue in more recent times, with the  wide availbality of wall to wall media.

I am old enough to recall our owning one black and white TV, which only had two channels/stations.

[Carol the Dabbler]

44 minutes ago, besleybean said:

Both the BBC and then ITV networks always had regional variations in their broadcasts.

Same with our network stations here.  They nearly always produce their own local news programs, and often have some daytime programming of their own, but tend to show mostly network programming in the evening, even though an individual station can (and sometimes does) opt out of certain programs.

Does your local content come from a local facility with its own staff?

50 minutes ago, besleybean said:

I am old enough to recall our owning one black and white TV, which only had two channels/stations.

Right!  I love that line in "Back to the Future" where Marty says his family has two TVs and the woman who will be his grandmother explains that he's only joking because "nobody has two TVs."

 

[besleybean]

Yes, there used to be many regional TV centres...more recently, even the London output has been sourced out.

Well, for the BBC at least.

Channel 4 now own the famous, old Broadcasting House in Shepherd's Bush I believe.

[Carol the Dabbler]

I don't believe we have much outsourcing of that type.  There is often competition between different stations in the same area, so there's incentive to be "local" because people appreciate that.  For example, a station will often send a news crew to the scene of some local situation.  Radio may be different, though -- for one thing, the "local" DJs often seem to be canned nowadays.  They used to ask people to phone in their song requests, or they'd have little contests, but I haven't noticed anything of that sort for years now -- probably decades.

 

[besleybean]

It isn't just in TV.

Over here, government departments outsource, well I suppose I should be more accurately saying re-locate for both sectors: to save money and stop everything being London centric.

[Carol the Dabbler]

OK, now I understand.  I don't think we have much of that here in Indiana, because (unlike London) Indianapolis really is in the center, and it's not as big as London.  It might be more of a thing in, say New York State, I suppose, since its population is heavily concentrated at the east end.

 

[kimber8ada]

Late to the party but are there any plans to broadcast this series in the states? I watch some of her programs on PBS but haven't seen or heard anything about this one.

[Carol the Dabbler]

Hey, Kim -- nice to see you here!  I'm the wrong person to ask about for US broadcast plans (nowadays I rarely watch any broadcast shows, just DVDs), but it looks like Killing Sherlock is currently available on YouTube.  Dunno how long that will last.

 

[Carol the Dabbler]

OK, there are currently two options:

YouTube:
All three episodes are currently on YouTube, with subtitles.  We tried to watch it via our TV set last night, but got only a few minutes in before it either got into serious buffering mode or just plain hung up.  This happened several times, and after half an hour we gave up.

So Alex downloaded all three videos onto his computer overnight, and we watched the first one this morning.  It ran just fine, but apparently the subtitles had not downloaded, which presented a bit of a problem, partly because there's a constant music soundtrack (and partly because using the TV as a computer monitor doesn't permit us to use our external sound system).

This morning, I watched some of the first episode on my computer, and it played just fine -- perhaps last night's problem was due to something in the TV connection, or simply due to the fact that our internet is often noticeably slower in the evening, when everyone in the neighborhood is at home.  It does have very nice subtitles, apparently actual human-produced ones, and the sound (perhaps thanks to my headset) is noticeably better.

DVD:
The three-episode DVD will be released this coming Monday (February 12), and can be pre-ordered now from Amazon UK.  It isn't currently listed on Amazon US (and I suspect it never will be), BUT Amazon UK will ship to the US (and presumably to other countries as well).  Here's the listing.

Unfortunately the listing does not mention subtitles, one way or the other.  Presumably some of the reviewers will say something eventually.  However the Amazon listing does offer a two-minute sample of the video, and the sound on there is much crisper than YouTube on either our download or my computer.  In fact, one fellow that I couldn't understand at all last night gave me no trouble this time.