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

http://media.tumblr.com/tumblr_lz0mizGkG01r5n6jh.gif

I tried watching the doctor who pilot in netflix bc of sherlock connection and I was not feeling :(

uh it has changed style more than a few times since 1963! you would be much better starting off with either Blink (a Moffatt one-off from the RTD run) or The Eleventh Hour (the first episode of Moffatt's run as head writer/producer).

I think she means the pilot of the revived series. Anyway, I think it starts getting good with "Father's Day," which is the third episode of season 1. Stay with it, teh! #itgetsbetter

ah, they didn't do a pilot for the revival, though*! for anyone coming to it because of Moffatt, though, I would strongly advise against sitting through four years of RTD, much of which is actively awful. You can absolutely start watching with The Eleventh Hour, and if you get into it, go back and fill in gaps later. But a Sherlock fan should enjoy Blink generally.

*the first episode didn't even get finished in its production run, and had to have scenes picked up by other directors later in other blocks

ok so if i dl'd the eccleston season is that a good place to start or not

wait, five years of RTD! stupid specials.

also, Father's Day is painfully dumb

mookie - if you don't enjoy Eccleston, follow my suggestions above (or migrate to a Who thread where I will give detailed ones). there's a v good Moffatt two-parter in the Eccleston year though, so at least skip to that before abandoning.

the end of the Ecclestone year is p much not worth watching anyway though. (actually this applies to the end of ALL RTD years, only moreso)

i am fine with eccleston, i guess, since i know nothing else? in any case, i don't understand your banter, as it were

RTD?

RTD = Russell T. Davies, the first show-runner. And hell, I liked his seasons!

AND I liked the season finales as well! I'm terrible. And I'm not terribly bothered about RTD's tendency for deus ex machina.

And I assumed that teh meant the first episode when she referred to the "pilot."

who did you buy a fez for, though

I'm sure you're right in context - pilots /= first episodes tho, and they DID make a pilot in 1963!

{aside - I haven't seen the pilot since '92, but rewatched the re-mounted first ep two months ago, and it's rly great.)

who did you buy a fez for, though

It was a gift for myself!

Accents. Lestrade: Uncomplicated 'bloke', via non-posh fairly standard estuary english implying highish middle-brow education (good state school education, second-tier university).

Adler: Kensington arriviste (ie BBC-ish, but with a hint of the vulgar - slightly broader vowels/drawl iirc?). Proper Kensington/Chelsea people say things like 'nay jakes' (heard on the tube the other day).

actually cut the 'BBC-ish' thing, that's become more complicated in the last couple of decades, and can't be equated with any equally dubious concept of 'RP'. Guess I meant high middle class. People go on about the English class system; it certainly persists and is horrid, but I love it. English of all stripes are basically massive snobs.

sorry. i said pilot because i thought it was a new show based on the old one? anyway it's whatever netflix has as episode one, with secret diary of a call girl girl and mannequins trying to take over the world. does this mean i actually have to research who directed/wrote/produced each episode to determine what's worth watching? and will i miss anything in the overall story doing this?

That's the first episode of the reboot, which is more a continuation of the show rather than a new version.

I wouldn't bother with the research, just watch through consecutively from there. You'll soon figure out who the good/bad writers are.

ailsa otm, just watch the whole durn thing!!! Each season is only 13 episodes, so it won't take that long, so the time invested even in the dud episodes won't be that much (and imo the number of genuinely dire episodes is actually very low, contra sic, the bulk are mediocre but the British conception of sci-fi was pretty fresh to me when I watched). And yes, the seasons do generally develop towards a long arc, so you should watch most of them in order (INCLUDING the Christmas specials, if you're a continuity Nazi communist).

Yeek, post could've used some proofreadin'.

Note I am not getting involved.

Every series is hugely patchy but the good bits make it worth persevering. If you get through the Ecclestone series and don't like any of it (especially Dalek, The Empty Child/Doctor Dances and Father's Day) then it probably isn't going to be for you.

yeah, i'm not sure i'd recommend jumping in on something like 'Blink', i think it'd be like starting watching Buffy with 'Hush' or 'The Body'? but starting at 'eleventh hour' might work, as that's quite an introductory episode.

Blink is a) totally standalone, b) by Moffatt and c) a MYSTERY!!! hence recommended for someone coming to Dr Who blind because "the sherlock 'bloke'" does it

otherwise yes Eleventh Hour is totally introductory and...

Each season is only 13 episodes, so it won't take that long,

...with the Christmas specials and the final year of Tennant, this is telling someone who hasn't liked her first RTD episode "oh it's only another FORTY-SEVEN HOURS of that to sit through to get to the Steven Moffatt run!"

TEHRESA!: The Moffatt episodes in the first five years are
S01e09 and S01e10 - a two-parter of The Empty Child / The Doctor Dances
S02e04 - The Girl In The Fireplace
S03e10 - Blink
and S04e09 / S04e10 - a two-parter that's his weakest, but the only one that actually sets up stuff in his run proper. Silence In The Library / Forest Of The Dead.

Then there's a year without a series number, and Moffat has been in charge through S05 and S06. S05e01 is The Eleventh Hour.

You will ABSOLUTELY NOT miss anything by only watching his episodes* - if you find you enjoy a certain Doctor/companion combination, you can go back and fill-in later. I have tested this method on ladyn00bs before (with 3 optional non-Moffatt eps thrown in, including the one you've watched) and it has been totally effective.

*the Doctor is an alien with a blue box that travels in time and space, and his face changes periodically. OK, you're set.

this is telling someone who hasn't liked her first RTD episode "oh it's only another FORTY-SEVEN HOURS of that to sit through to get to the Steven Moffatt run!"

Wait, NOBODY liked "Rose" all that much! This is cutting the nose to spite the face for real, especially when there's great non-Moff episodes like "School Reunion," "Human Nature"/"Family of Blood," "Midnight," and "The Shakespeare Code." (I should note that I've found Moff's run to be incredibly disappointing, what with its phallocentrism and such.)

The sixth season was disappointing, but the fifth season to me was perfect and everything I ever wanted from this show. Well, except for the Silurians.

teensy lol that "hey, mark gatiss wrote some doctor who episodes too!" has not come up as a selling point thus far.

IT NEVER WILL.

Just thinking about The Idiot's Lantern annoys me.

I read one of Gatiss' Who novels that was quite good. And one of his audios that was trying hard but non-entirely-awful. All his TV eps until Night Terrors have about five minutes of great business and otherwise suck terribly though. Night Terrors is PERFECTLY DECENT Dr Who, there I said it

Wait, NOBODY liked "Rose" all that much!

Almost everything shitty about Rose is Boak stuff they couldn't reshoot, it's Davies' best-written episode IMO - does an amazing job of setting up the premise and characters for new and old viewers alike, establishing the tone of the series, grounding it in present-day reality and very steadily opening up the alien and adventure aspects. It LOOKS absolutely awful (especially in hindsight), but in 45 minutes singlehandedly invented a working paradigm for a massively successful family-friendly C21st version of Dr Who. I p much hold RTD on estimation with JNT as a showrunner, but the dude is a TV genius for the way he envisioned and enacted nu-Who, and most of that is encapsulated in Rose.

This is cutting the nose to spite the face for real, especially when there's great non-Moff episodes like "School Reunion,"

<3 the hell out of School Reunion, but it's of 0 use to Tehresa trying to get into the sherlock "bloke"'s other series.

"Human Nature"/"Family of Blood,"

OK-ish adaptation for most of the time, but soooo much lesser than the novel, which is still free on archive.org. and the ending is so infuriating that I'd write the entire two-parter off even if it was original. iirc me and st3v3m argued abt that on the Who thread of the year tho.

"Midnight,"

RTD purposefully trying to write a Moffatt-style episode, but let down by his own complete disinterest in plotting that makes sense.

and "The Shakespeare Code."

dude c'mon

Rose, Spearhead and Eleventh: the only good "new Doctor" episodes ever.

Night Terrors is no shoddier than Hounds Of Baskerville

</on the real>

No place in that list for Robot? Really?

<I>OK-ish adaptation for most of the time, but soooo much lesser than the novel, which is still free on archive.org. and the ending is so infuriating that I'd write the entire two-parter off even if it was original. iirc me and st3v3m argued abt that on the Who thread of the year tho.</I>

This is some pretty severe challops dude, it's one of the three or four best Tennant episodes, admittedly partly because of the lack of Tennant-as-Doctor, also a feature in Blink and Love & Monsters (and I'm well aware that my love for the latter is challops).

(But agree entirely about Rose - the episode's job was to get old fans and new fans simultaneously giddy, and it did a great job)

I was kind of wondering, was the point of the ending "The Reichenbach Fall" to get the viewers to apply the "Sherlock method" on the episode itself? I.e., did the makers deliberately include all the bits of information you need to decipher how Sherlock survived in the episode, and then refuse to explain it, so you'd rewatch it and try to find all the clues yourself? Because there certainly were a lot of potential clues: the ball Sherlock was toying with, Sherlock's final meeting with Molly, the biker who ran down Watson, etc. I can't see any other season why they'd end the final episode of the season with such an infuriatingly open note. (Ok, the first season ended with a cliffhanger too, but at least the mystery was solved before that.) Has the writer/director/producer addressed this after the episode ran in Britain?

He said that "everyone" had missed a crucial piece of evidence that explains how Sherlock did it, so yes, it does seem a little like they were imagining viewers could piece together the puzzle.

He still says "everyone" has missed something in The Eleventh Hour that explains everything too, so Posts Very Much In Character.

Robot is 40% good I guess? Lots of it is rly rly shaky and it doesn't have anything like the confidence of presentation that the other three do. (It's possible that ep 1 of Robot is 90+% great, I can't think what's in episode by episode. The CSO in ep 4 is bad enough to mark the entire story down though!)

I've never rewatched Love & Monsters but I think I really really like it too - it's an entirely elegant way of using the show to tell a story that's simultaneously about fandom and communities in general, and in many subtle ways about Who itself. Also a VERY elegantly-conceived and handled way of handling a 'holiday' episode for the stars!* Would have been way better without the Blue Peter villain, but that said, lol Ian Levine.

we should probably migrate to a Who thread rather than dig into Human Nature (/ any of the last couple dozen posts) here, but I note you're not counter-arguing that it's BETTER than the novel!

*I recently watched both The Aztecs and The Time Meddler for the first time in full, and these do great jobs of being busy and interesting enough that you don't miss the holidaying actors tbf

The only thing I know Moffatt's said about clues in The Eleventh Hour is that Rory's badge was a production error, so anyone looking for more is on a hiding to nothing

Moff has referred to the extra stairs as well, for example, and gone 'aaaaaah'. (No, not aaaaah. This is not an aaaaaah situation.)

I still like Ian L, but I suspect if I rewatched it I would not be as vituperative about how much of an attack it was on him. Still, paving slab blow job jokes DO NOT WANT.

The CSO and Action Man tank let Robot down, but the first ep interaction with Harry and AGLS is joyous. And I love the whole plot about the elderly scientist being taken in by the Not Nazis Honest Guv and their anti-human meeting in a school sports hall. (Agree though, this should probably be in a Who thread).

Still, paving slab blow job jokes DO NOT WANT.

I 100% agree with this, mainly because you can't use "it's a kids' show, stop moaning about it being for kids" as a defence if you're then including things that are not suitable for a kids' show. Also, blow job jokes in Doctor Who are just tacky.

OK. I think I decided this isn't actually very good. Maybe if I was 10 I would like it.

Seriously, does it get better? I only seen the first two. There's nothing too wrong with them, it's just a bit bland?

i think i like it because it makes me feel a bit like a kid, yet still an adult, obv - suspension of disbelief stuff. though the show doesn't always work to that effect, it's true.
(lol @ yr display name)

Adam, the second episode is probably the worst in the series, you should at least watch the third one, it's much better. But if the main concept (aspie guy solves outlandish crimes with the power of deduction) doesn't grab you, that isn't gonna change, though the second series at least has more interpersonal drama.

Amazon in the UK currently has the first series on region-free blu-ray for £6. I'm guessing there's not much in the way of frills on there.

bbc dvd/blu-rays are normally pretty extra-laden (cf their doctor who discs), i know these discs have commentary tracks, at the v least

old-school Dr Who extras are largely compiled by a dedicated nerd network though, not through endemic BBC policy AFAIU. (no idea about the new series ones though)

or you know, we could google

The extras on the DVD are a little thin on the ground. There are commentaries for A Study In Pink and The Great Game, along with a short ‘behind the scenes' feature, Unlocking Sherlock, and the original 60 minute pilot. To be honest, there's little point in watching the pilot, as it's a 60 minute version of A Study In Pink, but it's nice to know that it's there.

I could go and open the one that arrived from Amazon today, but I'm too lazy.

Not to drag out the Who thing, but I just wanted to point out that as awesome a sci-fi story as it is, and arguably as good a Who episode as it is, "Blink" doesn't really introduce viewers to the Doctor?