--- In [email protected], Share Long wrote: > > Or turq it could be that the writer is simply being a creative artist and playing with the material, the character. OTOH, I've read several authors who say that at some point they really don't have much to say about how a character acts, that it's as if the character has its own life, its own internal integrity, its own path of unfolding. And the writer simply records, sort of going along for the ride!
Whatever. It could be just that -- a "change-up pitch" thrown out to confuse the batter. It IS interesting, however, to see all the critical reaction -- some of it near-hysterical -- to nothing more than showing narcissistic, sociopathic Sherlock Holmes, master of Being In Control, acting like a bumbling oaf and being stumped by a rather simple plot. (Heck, even *I* figured out what was up and who the villain was as soon as the wedding party began.) Audiences who hero-worship are notoriously fickle when someone presents a hero they've fixated on as infallible and "always in control" as...uh...fallible and...uh...not. We saw this in one of Clint Eastwood's early roles, in "The Beguiled." Audiences had by then gotten used to seeing the "always in control" Clint -- as Rowdy Yates in "Rawhide," as the Man With No Name in "A Fistful Of Dollars," and "For A Few Dollars More" and "The Good, The Bad, And The Ugly," as the stand-up guy in "Hang 'Em High" and "Coogan's Bluff," and as a war hero in "Kelly's Heroes." Then comes "The Beguiled," and he not only loses out, he loses to a house full of women. The movie BOMBED at the box office. People HATED it. It was as if they weren't about to allow someone they had projected all their hero fantasies onto to ever become anything but. I would suggest that the same thing is going on for some of these people freaking out at seeing Sherlock Holmes bumble his way through trying to act like a human being for once. They just "won't stand for it." It's almost as if they're like TMers worshiping a narcissopath they'd put up on a pedestal for being even more stuck in his head they they are and freaking out when he's revealed as rather less than heroic. :-) It's also interesting to see that the meanest and nastiest of the mean, nasty reviews of this episode come from women. It's like listening to guys who have been forced by their girlfriends to watch a "chick flick" going on and on about how horrible it was. :-) All in all, I didn't think it was a terribly strong episode, but there have been weak episodes in this series before, and it's not only survived but prospered in spite of the occasional lapse. I suspect it will again. It may even turn out that the friendship for Watson that Holmes has been forced to admit in this episode will become crucial in the next episode, and thus this whole episode is a "set-up." Who knows? It's just a TV show. Just like FFL is just an Internet chat room. Who could possibly get their panties in a twist over something said in an Internet chat room? :-) > On Monday, January 6, 2014 6:46 AM, TurquoiseB turquoiseb@... wrote: > > --- In [email protected], wrote: > > > > Just finished watching the second episode in the new series of Sherlock and I can inform FFLifers it was the most self-indulgent pile of crap I've ever witnessed on TV. Two-thirds of the story was devoted to Sherlock and Watson's relationship with some cringe-worthy attempts at humour and generous dollops of mawkish buddy-bonding. The third segment devoted to an actual attempt at crime-solving was leaden and unconvincing. > > You have been warned - ignore any favourable reviews.. > > I see that you're not alone in feeling this way, given some of the reviews. But I think you've missed the *cause* of why you feel that way. This episode was not "cringe-worthy" but "cringe-inducing." Many people get supremely uncomfortable watching social awkwardness and ineptness, even if it's just on a TV screen. > > I have no idea why the creators of "Sherlock" chose to create an entire hour and a half of social discomfort. Maybe it was a lapse, maybe it ties into some future plot point in their "long game." Dunno. I thought parts of it were OK, and that some of the funny parts were, in fact, funny. Others, not so much. I'm not sure how this episode will tie into the rest of the series, or even if it will. It seemed to be an attempt to humanize someone who even describes *himself* as a "high-functioning sociopath." > > It's not as if the episode was written by someone without a track record. The fellow who wrote it also wrote "The Reichenbach Fall" (last season's final episode," which was strong) and "The Blind Banker" (which wasn't one of my faves). Maybe they did it for a lark. Then again, maybe the creators went this route simply to fuck with the audience and show them how attached *they* had become to the high-functioning sociopath, and how uncomfortable they get when he changes, even a little. >
