the bbc sherlock series by the dr who 'bloke' and starring tim from the office

Just the dumbest possible bullshit they could come up with to hang a bunch of unearned pathos on.

The average viewer takes little or no pleasure in intellectual pursuits, but far prefers the luxurious sensation of wallowing in unearned pathos. Pleasing that average viewer is what makes for the biggest audience and greatest commercial success. /captainobvious

people love to repaint their homes, especially when they're having a kid

I'd normally roll my eyes at nitpicking about credibility but everything about this was just egregiously terrible and insulting. The Thatcher shrine was the single most believable element.

The Scottish accent of the woman on the bus was pretty unbelievable.

Was that a Scottish accent? I thought she had some kind of a speech impediment.

I thought the repainting was because Rosamund had thrown up all over the walls? They did compare her to the girl in Excorcist in that bedroom scene.

was there ever a reason given for why watson's house had been repainted?

I'm not really a devotee of this show and was only half-watching as I walked in and out of the room doing other things but even if I was a rabid fanboy I don't think this question would ever occur to me.

it's something sherlock notices in floating text that goes nowhere.

Wow, this was senseless. At least it was a Gatiss episode.

Was Molly sitting for John at the end when Sherlock visited (i.e. was that John's place and not Molly's place)?

I think so, she is the kid's godmother after all.

wow, how bad this latest episode was !
absolutely rubbish.
As noted upthread, the fighting was stupid. The tracking over north Africa was useless (reminded me of indiana jones with the travels over maps). the mary story/traitor meh. The final shooting/sacrifice thing...
I had noticed how badly written the show was but that's a low... or maybe the long time between each episode makes me forget how bad most of them are !
At this point, the only things I still enjoy in the show are the tiny comedy bits.

or maybe I'm just too old for this and they target kids/teenagers. which is quite likely !

Yeah, I turned to my missus and said "They could just burn large piles of cash in front of the screen instead".

https://twitter.com/caslxcked/status/815701993545080832

I think Gatiss/Moffat seem to have have forgot that the main draw for the show (and most Sherlock Holmes stories in general) is clever mysteries and watching how Sherlock solves them, not the meta wankery of the previous episode or the pointless soap opera tear-jerking of this one. They're just not very good writing at writing genuine human drama, and they definitely shouldn't do it in a show that doesn't need it.

Mary's dying scene, where she had the time to say all those corny things and then died right after finishing her last sentence was already cringeworthy enough, but then they had to more to it in the form of the video will, and create more pointless melodrama by having John blame Sherlock for her death. I actually liked the drama in Sherlock's fake death and return, but that was more low-key, and before that they'd managed to make the Sherlock/John relationship tangible in a way the Mary/John relationship never was.

Also, this must be third time since season 2 that Sherlock learns the lesson that he shouldn't be so arrogant and cocksure? It's getting a bit tired, please come up with some new morals.

Also..

I know we are in the future now and all that, but a tracking device inserted into a USB stick?

I don't mind moments of unreality in Sherlock Holmes plots, whether they be snakes that climb ropes or tight belts that prevent internal hemorrhage. My test for acceptability is whether I can tell it's invented while I'm reading or watching it. I didn't know trackers weren't quite that small yet, so it was acceptable to me. Maybe it fails for others.

Perhaps the creators were thinking of RFID tags, but those require local trackers.

Thanks Tuomas.

I've been trying to rank the Gatiss episodes. This one is as bad as "The Hound of the Baskervilles" as far as narrative coherence, but not offensive in the way that "The Blind Banker" is. I can't remember what kind of naff "The Empty Hearse" is.

I think Gatiss/Moffat seem to have have forgot that the main draw for the show (and most Sherlock Holmes stories in general) is clever mysteries and watching how Sherlock solves them, not the meta wankery of the previous episode or the pointless soap opera tear-jerking of this one.

alternatively, fans of meta-wankery and pointless soap opera tear-jerking are their target audience. plus, you know, dweebs who moan about shit on the internet even tho they keep watching it.

it's 2017, it's not hard to understand that overblown emo/nerd shit draws in the viewers

I don't think "The Blind Banker" was by Gatiss, it was by the third dude who writes Sherlock, can't recall his name... Toby something?

"The Empty Hearse" was where Sherlock came back after his faked death. It wasn't half bad, the mystery was a bit daft, but IMO the Sherlock/John interactions were nicely done. I guess Sherlock/John just work better as a couple than John and Mary, even his grief for Sherlock seemed more genuine and heartfelt than for Mary here.

xxpost

Doh, you're right, Gatiss did "The Great Game", which wasn't terrible.

I actually liked the drama in Sherlock's fake death and return

this is the emotional climax of the doyle corpus is why

I think "The Blind Banker" still remains the worst episode in the series (though this new one comes close), because besides the daft mystery you get stupid Orientalism too.

(xpost)

Yeah, but Doyle did it way differently, you don't really get to see Watson griefing, or getting angry at Sherlock for not telling him. And I think those worked really well in the TV version, I guess largely because Bilbo and Cucumber have such good chemistry.

i checked back and yr right, i had remembered there being more. specifically what i remembered was the line "a thousand apologies, my dear watson-- i had no idea you would be so affected" which i guess i'd extrapolated into a more complex scene in my head because it is such a good line (holmes' weird only half-ingenuous emotionlessness, since even if he didn't know watson would faint he wouldn't have gone to the trouble of disguise if he didn't want to have an effect; the tenderness between them in spite of holmes' essential narcissism; the meta ghost of doyle himself, speaking to his readers) and may be all the depth you need from a sherlock holmes story. i haven't seen this show lately but i hope they used that line. yet i am also pretty grumpy about this show so i also hope they didn't.

(when i imagine doyle himself saying the line, of course he is also being disingenuous)

https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2017/jan/04/to-an-undiscerning-critic-from-mark-gatiss

well thats the worst thing ive ever fucking read

Lol @ watching any sherlock holmes based tv show that doesn't star Jeremy Brett tbh

Brett is the greatest Holmes, obviously, but that series does such straightforward adaptations that it gets a bit boring if you've read the stories and know the solutions to the mysteries already.

Brett was fantastic (which made the last episodes of his series quite sad, once he was very sick).
That said, I don't have any (major) issues with this holmes (and watson).
it's just that the stories and mysteries are very badly written/adapted, most of the times.

thats not.... major?

oh I meant no major issues with the current actors.

Not even with Martin Freeman's hair?

eheh. yup !
that said, it feels like he doesn't really care anymore. just phoning it in (especially the Mary's death scene).

This is like a David Bowie video.

it's 2017, it's not hard to understand that overblown emo/nerd shit draws in the viewers

https://twitter.com/search?f=users&vertical=default&q=cumberbatch&src=tyah

Did anyone think this episode (with Toby Jones) an improvement?

I didn't - thought TJ's villain and surrounding plot ridiculous - but many apparently did.

It was a lot better than last week's, but the whole thing is just too far off the rails now to be called good. It's not Sherlock Holmes anymore, it's a comic book superhero knockoff. Like a shitty Avengers.

way too much time tied up in character baggage

I got the impression Toby Jones was supposed to be a sort of "what if Jimmy Saville killed adults for fun instead of sexually assaulting children" with the whole keys to the hospital thing

Yes -- but he seemed also a deliberate, sometimes heavy-handed comment on Trump, presumably filmed a long time before Trump's election.

The scene early on where he got all his associates to take a memory-loss drug -- I mean, this was ludicrous, and went on and on and on while they sat around waiting for him to do his evil things to them.

Then he spent much of the rest of the episode issuing manic evil laughter.

I thought: someone this obviously horrible couldn't be so successful, but that view doesn't really work as lots of horrible people (Trump, Johnson et al) are indeed successful.

This episode was ridiculous and trashy, but it did manage to hit several of the notes that made the first season fun, and therefore was better than the previous episode. Every series runs out of worthwhile at some point. Even Conan Doyle knew he'd run out of ideas and tried like hell to extricate himself from the purgatory of fan service.

agreed with the previous comments.
It's MUCH better than the first episode (but it couldn't really be worse !).
still, the bad guy and the story were not very well written/obvious (indeed the opening scene where he repeated 10 times they wouldn't remember anything was ludicrous) and the personal/over the top emo stuffs are annoying but the whole thing had more punch and rhythm.
and the final twist was unexpected !
so overall, not bad. and even funny at moments.

Bad Moffat >>>>>>>> Good Gatiss.

Although I usually find the online enmity towards Moffat and his portrayal of women overwrought, Mary's focus on saving the two men in her life was incredibly glaring and uncomfortable.

But otherwise, agreed that this was trashy fun.

Worst episode ever?

Career suicide bad

Is this like when Alan Alda directed that one episode of M*A*S*H?

Ooft, that was horrible. Surely that's them done with it now?

just started

uh is the sister a memetic virus who wrote herself on to Sherlock years ago

I think maybe she is an avatar of Star Trek NG's holodeck nemesis The Q.

well I called that one a few minutes before they did

i called it from episode 0