The Glade 4.0

Sherlock

No, not the movie Sherlock Holmes. The PBS Masterpiece Mystery 'Sherlock.' Created and written by Steven Moffat (Coupling, Doctor Who) and Mark Gatiss (Doctor Who). Anyone else catch it?

To quote Andy Levy:

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"Dress cops up as soldiers, give them military equipment, train them in military tactics, tell them they’re fighting a ‘war,’ and the consequences are predictable." —Radley Balko

I liked it, it followed the "a study in scarlet" story closely enough, (but with some differences), that it didn't feel contrived. I'm looking forward to the next story.

Love the dialogue. "I am not a psychopath. I’m a high functioning sociopath. Do your research.”

I didn't catch these in their initial run (bad FarSky, bad!), but one cold, snowy Sunday afternoon, I picked these up on iTunes because I'd heard such great things.

It. is. fantastic.

Acting, writing, direction, all of it: top-notch. I cannot wait until the next season (another set of three 90-minute movies), but they won't premiere until the fall, due to Stephen Moffat's Doctor Who schedule.

DAMNNN YOUUUU, WHOOOOOO!

Go get this and watch it. Serious. Do it. Do it now. Seriously.

Damn you, FarSky. Now I have to get them.

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Well Ali Baba had them forty thieves, Scheherezade had a thousand tales
But master you in luck 'cause up your sleeves you got a brand of magic never fails...
...Mister Aladdin, sir, What will your pleasure be?
Let me take your order, Jot it down -You ain't never had a friend like me
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I think you'll love it. It's sort of Sherlock Holmes by way of House, which is of course itself a riff on Holmes.

The modernization looks, on paper, rather questionable, but in execution it's brilliant.

I should take the opportunity now to publicly thank Farskee on this front.

The thing that sells it for me are all the little touches in how they extrapolate Holmes' personality and eccentricities to the modern setting.

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"Aaaah! Emotions are weird!" - Amdee
"... Mirrorshades prevent the forces of normalcy from realizing that one is crazed and possibly dangerous. They are the symbol of the sun-staring visionary, the biker, the rocker, the policeman, and similar outlaws." - Bruce Sterling, preface to Mirrorshades

It's not on any of the online streaming services? NOOOOOOOO

Yeah, I had been holding out for it to hit Netflix or something, but just break down and buy it on iTunes or Amazon Video on Demand or something. It's well and truly worth the $20 for the season (that's for HD).

How long is the season? It's up for rent on netflix, but it looks like between 2 disks there's only 3 episodes? Added to queue regardless.

Three 90-minute "episodes" (that really play more like movies, to be honest).

Yeah, the double-length nature of the "episodes" isn't very loudly proclaimed. I sat down to watch the first episode and thought, "hey, that was pretty good. Lemme fire up the second one." That finished, and I was all like "WTF, where did my evening go? Why is it 1am!?"

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"Aaaah! Emotions are weird!" - Amdee
"... Mirrorshades prevent the forces of normalcy from realizing that one is crazed and possibly dangerous. They are the symbol of the sun-staring visionary, the biker, the rocker, the policeman, and similar outlaws." - Bruce Sterling, preface to Mirrorshades

Cool. Bumped to top of queue! (Very long wait, NOOOOOOOOOOO)

There is also a 60 minute unaired pilot.

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Well Ali Baba had them forty thieves, Scheherezade had a thousand tales
But master you in luck 'cause up your sleeves you got a brand of magic never fails...
...Mister Aladdin, sir, What will your pleasure be?
Let me take your order, Jot it down -You ain't never had a friend like me
█ ♣ █

Heh this is weird... I just got the DVD last week. I know we had a thread on this, and I meant to track it down, but never quite got to it... then lo and behold here it is not only bumped, but with active discussion. :p

...anyway, definitely seconding Mr FarSky here! I cried when I found out there were only 3 episodes, and cried a thousand times more when I found out season 2 is also only going to be 3 episodes. They're really, really entertaining!

I haven't read any of the original Sherlock Holmes works, so I find it hard to describe the series accurately. It has all sorts of ties to the original stories, taking most/all of the plot substance from them (though in 2 of the 3 episodes, plot elements from two original stories each are combined per episode). Small changes are made here and there, from what I've researched a bit on it, so it's not 100% rehashed yet still keeping pretty true to the originals. They're modernized quite well -- it never forces anything awkwardly, so the end result is perfectly natural.

Holmes and Watson are both fantastic. Both steal the scenes they're in individually.

Most importantly though... it's just plain fun!

The above comments are brought to you by someone who isn't really a big fan of the mystery genre. I can watch them and enjoy them when I once in awhile will (Poirot, Midsomer Murders, Murdoch Mysteries)... but ultimately I wouldn't go out of my way for them. These are definitely mysteries, but I'm pretty sure the characters alone are enough to carry the show for people that aren't generally fond of the genre to begin with.

There are some oddities here and there that I found a bit, well, unusual... but all in all I can heartily recommend this. :p

I do believe the unaired pilot is just a 60 minute version of what became the first 90 minute episode, however, so I don't know that I'd consider that as something that counts for much. Still, each episode really is a short movie in and of itself, so the fact that there are only 3 of them isn't terribly offputting. Exercise restraint and they'll last for a little!

They had me from the very beginning. I'm not sure whether it's brilliance or simply an obvious choice combined with dumb luck, but being able to set the story 123 years ahead of when it was originally supposed to be in, yet still having Dr. John Watson end up a veteran of Afghanistan who was wounded there...just a wonderful bit of congruency.

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Well Ali Baba had them forty thieves, Scheherezade had a thousand tales
But master you in luck 'cause up your sleeves you got a brand of magic never fails...
...Mister Aladdin, sir, What will your pleasure be?
Let me take your order, Jot it down -You ain't never had a friend like me
█ ♣ █

When I first read that without ever watching any, I thought something along the lines of "oh, that's.. quaint". I expected a string of similar instances where the writers pulled something from the original and found a modern analog and threw that out there to show viewers how it's Sherlock Holmes but modern day!!1!

But like I said, all of that stuff ends up coming across so naturally. I was expecting a bit of a shallow modernization but was pleasantly surprised by how well they managed to pull it off. It never stood out to me once as awkwardly forced.

Unrelated reason #2872 to watch Sherlock (2010): The lead actor's name is Benedict Cumberbatch.

Really.

My sister got me to watch it
Its really great. Pretty well thought out. Now I just need to wait till the END OF THE YEAR for the next series
groan...

For the holdouts, the first series is (FINALLY) up on netflix instant watch.

Bah. Who cares? When's the second series start?

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Well Ali Baba had them forty thieves, Scheherezade had a thousand tales
But master you in luck 'cause up your sleeves you got a brand of magic never fails...
...Mister Aladdin, sir, What will your pleasure be?
Let me take your order, Jot it down -You ain't never had a friend like me
█ ♣ █

The people who haven't seen it yet and have Netflix subscriptions.

Well, yes, if Netflix were the only way to get it.

Sadly, Netflix is not the same across borders. Netflix Canada doesn't have the same available library as Netflix USA (though it's getting better). Netflix is what I use for "channel surfing" now that I no longer have cable/satellite. If I want something specific, I'm better off using other sources.

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Well Ali Baba had them forty thieves, Scheherezade had a thousand tales
But master you in luck 'cause up your sleeves you got a brand of magic never fails...
...Mister Aladdin, sir, What will your pleasure be?
Let me take your order, Jot it down -You ain't never had a friend like me
█ ♣ █

Yes I recently discovered the suckitude that netflix-canada is. I wasn't aware there was a difference until I started recommending several shows and movies to family that lives in Calgary. "I don't see that. I don't see that one either. I don't see that one. What was that again? Nope, don't have it."

What *do* you folks have? Just Red Green, SCTV, and You Can't Do That on Television?

I sympathize with your Netflix pain.

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Les Zombis et les Loups-Garous!

Actually, there's more stuff showing up every day. They just seem to need to get licensing clearance for every individual title all over again, and it's a slow process.

I haven't checked, but I wouldn't be surprised if Sherlock is on there. There's a LOT of BBC stuff...

_________________
Well Ali Baba had them forty thieves, Scheherezade had a thousand tales
But master you in luck 'cause up your sleeves you got a brand of magic never fails...
...Mister Aladdin, sir, What will your pleasure be?
Let me take your order, Jot it down -You ain't never had a friend like me
█ ♣ █