That's not what people normally say

[sovay]

Reproduced from e-mail with nineweaving, in which I sketched my initial reactions to Sherlock (2010) and then had the revelatory idea that if I posted them, I might get discussion with people who have also seen the first series (and/or find out that all my ideas about the characters are wrong). Probably I should rewrite it for less run-on, but right now I'm going to sleep. I've noticed a disheartening number of entries recently end this way.

As mentioned previously, I really wasn't sure, both initially and when the reviews started coming out, whether Moffat's characterization of its eponymous consulting detective would work for me, and indeed for ninety percent of the pilot episode, it didn't. By stripping the character down to a monofocused intelligence whose emotional engagement with the world is nonexistent except when it annoys him by not conforming to his deductions, he seemed to have oversimplified Holmes as badly as the Rathbone films did Watson; Benedict Cumberbatch is certainly charismatic in the role, precise, restless, contemptuous, unable to comprehend except intellectually what any other people are doing on this planet when it's not helping him solve a mystery (and visually striking, the dark blue of his eyes and his burnt-red hair skinned down like a pre-Raphaelite painting to those weird Siamese bones of his), but as a person who can reliably predict plot twists from a camera angle and a question, I need more than even a wittily written brain to interest me in a character. I am not awed by genius-fast reasoning. And he seemed especially flat against Martin Freeman's Dr. John Watson, who was equally tweaked from his original in ways I wasn't sure the script was going to pull off and did. The series links two pieces of information: the fact that Conan Doyle contradicts himself on the injury that invalided Watson out of service in Afghanistan (a wounded shoulder in "A Study in Scarlet," a limp which requires a cane in The Sign of the Four) and that while Holmes is a bizarre choice of flatmate under the best of circumstances, he's especially odd for a man with some textually supported combat trauma, considering how often he endangers both their lives or at least has them running around London and related environs, mixed up with the underworld and confused as hell. Freeman's Watson really took a bullet in the shoulder and nearly died of it, but his limp is psychosomatic: it's his safeguard for staying out of action, because he isn't afraid of danger, after years in a war zone he's addicted to it—he's jumpy and depressed all day in his bedsit by himself, but his hands are steady when he's threatened by strangers in a deserted garage and he's grinning, pelting down a street after Sherlock with his cane left blocks behind—and he's a good enough doctor to know he can't go back on active duty, he'll take too many risks and get himself killed, even if he can't admit it to himself in so many words. Following Sherlock on his cases might also get him killed, but at least the man isn't an actual war zone; he's a shot of adrenaline in a scene John can control and if the price is putting up with a roommate who doesn't think to mention that he's keeping a severed head in the refrigerator to study the coagulation times of saliva after death, at least he's not lonely and suicidal. And he's a good doctor, and a good person, and one of the show's rather lovely running jokes is that where you would expect weird, intense Sherlock to be the fanservice, it's greying-young, nebbishy-looking, faintly apologetic John who keeps getting hit on. (Well, he can't get a phone number from Mycroft's gorgeous assistant, but that's just how it goes. The series is also playing explicitly with slash in that John and Sherlock are constantly assumed to be a couple no matter what either of them says. John is probably straight, or straight-ish; mostly he dislikes being automatically taken for someone's boyfriend without having had any say in the matter. Sherlock doesn't seem to be sexually attracted to anyone.) But while it's true that a good Watson is a thing of beauty and a joy etc., that still doesn't fix the other half of the partnership: and so it was with great relief that I watched the last ten minutes of "A Study in Pink," in which a high-stakes conversation between Sherlock and a serial killer reveals several things about the detective that were not apparent from the episode to that point—for starters, his deductive method isn't as infallible as he likes everyone to believe; it's a bit like the proverbial first day in prison, he makes sure his first meeting with a person is as dominant and disorienting as he can and relies on first impressions to keep them impressed, which of course doesn't work with someone who's been observing him from a distance for weeks. He can be utterly wrong about people—he thinks he has John Watson summed up the first moment they meet and the episode turns on his underestimation. And he's as much of an adrenaline junkie as John, only in his case it's intellectual, the thrill of needing to push calculation and conjecture so far, the ground could fall away from under him at any second and if his life is on the line, a real gamble, not just a theoretical exercise, so much the better. He's desperately afraid of being bored. He'll do almost anything not to be safe, surrounded by problems he can figure out by flicking a glance at them. It makes him terribly vulnerable; he hasn't noticed yet. By the climax of "The Great Game," he will.

Mark Gatiss' Mycroft is a seamless civil servant, sardonic, inscrutable, beautifully tailored; he professes to hold a minor position in the British government, which Sherlock clarifies scoffingly, "He is the British government—when he's not too busy being the British secret service. Or the CIA. On a freelance basis. Good evening, Mycroft. Try not to start a war before I get home. You know what it does to the traffic." We are so clearly intended to take him for Moriarty at his first, anonymous appearance, I knew at once who he had to be. True to the stories, he's his brother's intellectual equal or better; unlikely to be any more normal emotionally, just better at passing for something resembling it. Doesn't think twice about repurposing security cameras and public call boxes in order to pull a meeting with Watson, but his brother's infatuation with texting and e-mail gets on his nerves. Sensitive about his weight, despite the fact that he's a beanpole. A bit of a dandy, who stages himself as deliberately as his surroundings; we never hear him raise his voice and he doesn't seem like the kind of man who'd need to. His assistant lives on her cellphone and in her case it doesn't bother him at all. Rupert Graves' Detective Inspector Lestrade is, thank God, being played as a competent policeman, hardworking, harried, never quite comfortable in front of the cameras (and in this day and age, the press is unavoidable) and in the unenviable position of defending Sherlock on a near-daily basis to both his team and his superiors at Scotland Yard while trying to keep his self-respect in the face of the detective's almost absentminded disdain for everything about Lestrade from his rational faculties to his taste in raincoats; he has a resignedly apprehensive look about him, as though he knows that at any second someone is going to get in his face about something and he just doesn't have time for the next little round of games, all right, actual murders to solve here, thank you? (Gestures like casually searching Sherlock's flat in order to retrieve a piece of evidence must be immensely satisfying: "They're not, strictly speaking, on the drug squad, but they're very keen.") He's not a stupid man; he's even a smart one. He's not Sherlock Holmes and that fact is going to show him at a disadvantage forever. He's dealing with it.

It is a very male cast, which is canonical, but it seems there should be something to do about it that feels both in keeping with Conan Doyle and the twenty-first century. Eventually I will get to "A Scandal in Belgravia" and then I can join the Irene Adler argument, I suppose. She still shouldn't be the only one.

Comments

[asakiyume.livejournal.com]

Little Springtime loves this show, and she'd enjoy reading this--she'd be *delighted* to have someone expressing themselves on the show so well, and she'd definitely have things to say about Sherlock, John, and Irene.

Only two things have penetrated my woolly consciousness about the show. (1) That apparently the fan community has decided that John is made of "kittens and rage," and there's some actual knitted sweater with freaky big-eyed kittens on it that everyone likes to photoshop him into and (2) that the Hound-of-the-Baskervilles episode is flawed by the fact that a bad guy wears a novelty T-shirt with the name of the evil secret organization on it when he's committing crimes.

... I haven't seen the show myself, alas. But I'll see if I can do some good Little Springtime channelling.

[sovay]

Little Springtime loves this show, and she'd enjoy reading this--

Feel free to show her: I don't mind.

the fan community has decided that John is made of "kittens and rage," and there's some actual knitted sweater with freaky big-eyed kittens on it that everyone likes to photoshop him into

Heh. This must derive from an episode I haven't seen; he's an essentially adorable, PTSD-ish crack shot, but I wouldn't quite call it the same thing.

the Hound-of-the-Baskervilles episode is flawed by the fact that a bad guy wears a novelty T-shirt with the name of the evil secret organization on it when he's committing crimes.

I have been warned of this, yes. Maybe it's a really good novelty T-shirt . . . ?

... I haven't seen the show myself, alas.

The first and third episodes are worth your time. I still don't find Cumberbatch as interesting a Holmes as Jeremy Brett, but I'm interested enough by the show around him—and his chemistry with Freeman's Watson, which is amazing—that I'll watch the second series and wait with everyone else for the third.

[asakiyume.livejournal.com]

I did show the entry to LS, and she too said--off her own bat (this was before your comment here)--that she prefers Jeremy Brett.

[moon-custafer.livejournal.com]

Maybe it's a "disguising yourself by being so blatantly obvious no one takes you seriously" t-shirt? Like the anarchists in The Man Who Was Thursday, or Johnny Depp's CIA agent in Once Upon a Time in Mexico, whose tourist disguise sometimes includes a tshirt with "CIA (Cleavage inspection Agency)" on it in huge letters.

[strange-selkie.livejournal.com]

For what it's worth, I do enjoy the show very much, and my television tolerance is almost nil. Sherlock likes to project "high-functioning sociopath" and he's not as much a gentleman as Brett was -- he is in fact an asshole -- but the writing is good outside from the one episode in the first series with all that terrible Orientalism.

[snowy-owlet.livejournal.com]

Doesn't this Sherlock in fact say "not psychopath, high-functioning sociopath" in one episode? I don't think I'd invent that, and I remember smiling briefly over the vocabulary lesson.

[sovay]

Watson sounds neat, Mycroft sounds interesting, and this Sherlock sounds like he would drive me away in sheer seconds (yes, I am a Brett fangirl).

Jeremy Brett would be my definitive Holmes even if I hadn't grown up on him. It's an incredibly layered performance, especially in the first series when he was paired with David Burke—he wasn't as bad as Nigel Bruce, but Edward Hardwicke never worked me for me as a Watson—and I haven't seen a characterization before or since that comes up to its complexity. Right now, Cumberbatch's Sherlock simply isn't as interesting to me as his synergy with Watson and the rest of the show around them, but it's possible he'll evolve if given sufficient time onscreen and in the meanwhile I find the combined results strong enough to keep watching. I haven't yet seen the second series.

I guess they're hoping he'll do for Holmes what he did for Who, which seems a little odd since there's already a thriving US movie franchise, but whatever.

I think you need to unpack that for me. You mean in terms of popularity? I didn't watch the Eleventh Doctor past the first three episodes.

[marlowe1.livejournal.com]

The "I'm not a psycho. I'm a high functioning sociopath" line just bugged the shit out of me. Mostly because I'm not sure if there is a difference between psychoapthy, sociopathy and anti-social personality disorder. I thought that the DSM has these as alternate names for the same condition.

Also sociopaths are not that common and they are rarely the suave remote geniuses like Dexter or Hannibal Lector. Holmes could have just self-diagnosed himself with Aspergers and it would have been annoying but not such a "hey, look at me, I'm so cool" self-diagnosis.

[barry-king.livejournal.com]

That was an interesting bit of trivia about the inconsistencies in Doyle's narrative vis John's wound. It serves to me as a touchstone that the writer has deeply studied his source material, which indicates a love for the narrative.

Which is my one quibble with this summary: Sherlock's stripped down character is not an enfeebling of the strength of the original's personality. It's more a statement on the simpler, less adorned manners of Londoners one hundred years on. One could see either Sherlock as a well-camoflaged "higher-functioning sociopath", but in the early 20th century, the game would have required more affability and pandering to fashion. But nowadays, when you see half the population wired into an iPod and texting on a cellphone, the sociopathology is itself a fashion.

Otherwise, I'm certain I could never have captured my own impressions of the show with equal precision.

[sovay]

It serves to me as a touchstone that the writer has deeply studied his source material, which indicates a love for the narrative.

The characterization of John Watson is the show's real coup as far as I'm concerned—it could have come off as gimmicky and superfluous (everything is edgy now, so let's make Watson just as fucked up as Holmes!) and instead it works beautifully both in context of the source texts and the contemporary resetting. I am also intrigued by the ways in which it raises the stakes for their partnership on both sides. Mycroft frames it in terms of John's effect on Sherlock: "He could be the making of my brother—or make him worse than ever," but the same could be said of Sherlock's effect on John, if he's the siren song of a dangerous life in London. You can't tell if they're going to be a stable chaotic system or a folie à deux. They might complement one another; they might just enable. I suspect this is one of the reasons the fandom has exploded.

One could see either Sherlock as a well-camoflaged "higher-functioning sociopath", but in the early 20th century, the game would have required more affability and pandering to fashion. But nowadays, when you see half the population wired into an iPod and texting on a cellphone, the sociopathology is itself a fashion.

I don't agree: if we assume that Moffat isn't just psychobabbling and that Sherlock really means his self-definition in the clinical rather than colloquial sense (and I'm not sure we can make either of these assumptions, but let's at least give Moffat the benefit of the doubt), sociopathy is several degrees farther out on the personality disorder spectrum than anything in Conan Doyle. You can throw a lot of diagnoses at Holmes as written—almost everybody has—but there is no evidence that he is incapable of seeing other human beings as people, only that his interactions with them are eccentric even by modern standards. "High-functioning sociopath" is a genuine reconceiving of the character and one which has the potential to close out dimensions of the character which exist on the page, not just in accumulated fandom. I'm just waiting to see what it actually means.

Otherwise, I'm certain I could never have captured my own impressions of the show with equal precision.

Thank you!

(Incidentally, I like your icon.)

[strange-selkie.livejournal.com]

I suppose it is gauche of me to say, but I really like the cut of Irene Adler's jib. And you see an awful lot of sail in her case. (I also liked that until the last 3.25 minutes of the episode, she identifies as queer. Alas.)

[darthrami.livejournal.com]

Whereas I would argue that she never un-identifies as QUEER, but the use of the word lesbian... ah, well.

says the bisexual.

also, see my email I sent you this morning about how it's rather (to me) explicitly said that it's not about sexuality, but about sherlock. (perhaps a cop-out, but something I understand.)

[sovay]

I suppose it is gauche of me to say, but I really like the cut of Irene Adler's jib. And you see an awful lot of sail in her case.

The internet has apprised me of this fact. I will undoubtedly have something to say about it—I have something to say about everything I watch unless I don't write it down.

[tithenai.livejournal.com]

It's always interesting to me to read the remarks of people who've read the books, because I haven't, and given how many iterations of Sherlock I've seen -- not an exhaustive amount, but at least The Great Mouse Detective, Rathbone, the Guy Ritchie films, arguably Mark Wade's Ruse graphic novels, and this Sherlock -- I wonder if the different interpretations will come together and form the Ur-text for me any time soon. I'm definitely looking forward to reading them, anyway.

Cumberbatch is just devastatingly beautiful to me. I can't get tired of looking at his face. Freeman I have loved in everything I've seen him in, and this is no exception. Much as I love to LOOK at Cumberbatch, I love to WATCH Freeman, because dear gods all over everything even his PORES convey endless archeologies of meaning.

[sovay]

The Great Mouse Detective

Does this mean you have also read Eve Titus' Basil of Baker Street (1958) and sequels? Because if so, that makes you maybe the second person I've ever met.

(The film is incredibly strange. I mean, it's classical steampunk—dirigibles! automata! plots against the Queen!—with mice. It was re-released in theaters when I was ten or eleven; I'd already seen it by then, probably at summer camp, and more or less convinced myself I'd hallucinated the whole thing until I saw it again. I maintain it was a reasonable assumption given the material.)

arguably Mark Wade's Ruse graphic novels

I haven't heard of these. Summary?

-- I wonder if the different interpretations will come together and form the Ur-text for me any time soon.

Honestly, I'm not sure he has an Ur-text anymore. Nobody's going to argue that Conan Doyle is non-canonical, but Holmes has become myth: and myth, like Eliot's sea, has many voices.

I'm definitely looking forward to reading them, anyway.

I genuinely like the stories; I haven't read any of them except The Hound of the Baskervilles (1902) in years, but I have very fond memories of sitting on the nubbly old white couch in the living room and tearing through my mother's giant book of the complete Conan Doyle. I formed my first impressions of Holmes and Watson before I saw any stage or film versions, in which I consider myself lucky.

Cumberbatch is just devastatingly beautiful to me. I can't get tired of looking at his face.

I don't find him so, which is slightly unusual: I like strange faces and his qualifies in spades, but I don't seem to want posters of him on my wall. I find him magnetic, though, which is very nearly as good.

Freeman I have loved in everything I've seen him in, and this is no exception.

I'd only seen him in two roles previously and they were enough to make me extremely happy when I heard he'd been cast as Bilbo in The Hobbit. Character actors when they get more than five lines! That never happens!

[britmandelo.livejournal.com]

I will quibble a bit with Irene being the only woman, because there are actually quite a lot of women in this show - they just aren't our main pair, and therefore we notice them less, since Cumberbatch steals any stage he's on and Freeman matches him so perfectly.

Mrs. Hudson is a brilliant character, and just keeps getting better. I love how complex and important they continue to make her, instead of just being the landlady.

They do a neat thing with one of the other female characters, Molly, whom we see otherwise consistently disparaged and made to look the fool, in "The Reichenbach Fall." I won't spoil it, but it's a nice contradiction to how Sherlock treats her in the story and the narrative's actual "opinion" of her.

Donovan is a good policewoman, and despite her serious dislike for Sherlock, I don't believe we're led to dislike her. Even in TRF, when you want to shake her and Anderson.

Those three are in nearly every episode, in fact. And then there's the satellite cast, including "Anthea," John's therapist, and lots of others.

It's not perfect - the first season never passes the Bechdel test, so far as I can remember - but there are women, and they are playing important parts, esp. Mrs. Hudson and Molly. Much moreso than in the original stories.

[sovay]

It's not perfect - the first season never passes the Bechdel test, so far as I can remember - but there are women, and they are playing important parts, esp. Mrs. Hudson and Molly. Much moreso than in the original stories.

Thank you. I noticed the female characters in the supporting cast, but they seemed so firmly in the orbit of the John and Sherlock Show, I wasn't sure if they would be more than background. I'll keep an eye on Mrs. Hudson and Molly.

[stillsostrange.livejournal.com]

I was also pretty happy with Sarah in the otherwise ungood Blind Banker. She was smart and capable and hit people with sticks. I wish she'd spent the climax crying less, but since I tend to cry when I'm angry, I probably shouldn't pass judgement.

[handful-ofdust.livejournal.com]

I don't have much to add, but I agree with all of this, and can totally understand why Sherlock became such insane fandom catnip.

[sovay]

don't have much to add, but I agree with all of this, and can totally understand why Sherlock became such insane fandom catnip.

Heh. Thank you!

It's almost built for fandom.

[ap-aelfwine.livejournal.com]

Interesting. Considering how many friends of mine are liking this show, I suppose I'm going to have to see some of it.

I'd agree that there ought to be something could be done about the gender balance of the cast. Perhaps they'll do something about it as the show goes on.

I think I had something more to say about this, but my mother's just after ringing me and apparently my da's being transported back to hospital with a possible heart attack. I'm told I shouldn't worry, but even if I shouldn't, I'll have to go over there to sit with her.

[sovay]

Considering how many friends of mine are liking this show, I suppose I'm going to have to see some of it.

I don't think it's the best thing since sliced Sigerson, but it's worth your time.

I'd agree that there ought to be something could be done about the gender balance of the cast. Perhaps they'll do something about it as the show goes on.

It may be better than I think; see exchanges above. I'll report back after the second series.

I'm glad the situation with your father is—last I checked—less dire than when you posted this comment.

[hylomorphist.livejournal.com]

Very interesting review and exchange. I share a lot of your observations. Also, since I mostly decompress with the help of the local Erfurt Blockbuster, which is actually decently stocked, your comments made me rent some of the Jeremy Brett episodes. Alas, they only had the second season, which is so-so...

[sovay]

your comments made me rent some of the Jeremy Brett episodes. Alas, they only had the second season, which is so-so...

Edward Hardwick is simply not as good a Watson as David Burke. I'm sorry.

Have you seen the second season of Sherlock?