Sherlock fans, rejoice!

[Travis]

Having just finished the new Season 3 opener, I feel I can say safely say that, if you're a fan of the series, you'll be immensely satisfied. It's like watching a great magic trick, and one of our own even makes a brief appearance. Yes, I think this entire episode will have particular appeal to magicians for several reasons.

[Jonathan Pendragon]

Derren Brown, I knew it, it was the only logical explanation. As a SH buff since childhood this makes you nearly divine in my eyes.

[Jonathan Townsend]

It'll be over there ( this sunday ) before it starts showing here.

* spoilers *
Bungee cords? Masks? near look-alikes?

Very tight belts?

Any word on a new series of Mrs. Brown's Boys?

[mrgoat]

It'll be over there ( this sunday ) before it starts showing here.

Didn't you get the memo? It's totally fine to pirate TV content, it's just pirating magic DVDs that is bad.

[Bob Cunningham]

No pirating here. Sherlock is being shown here in the US on our Public Broadcasting Stations (PBS). They license many of your best shows for broadcast in the US. If previous patterns hold, season 3 will be available for purchase on iTunes within the next few months

[Jonathan Townsend]

It starts showing on BBCA on the nineteenth of this month.

[Bob Cunningham]

PBS on the same day.

[Tom Pilling]

Enjoy, chaps. The second episode is, well, very funny indeed....

[AJM]

Ah now Mrs Brown's Boys, that is truly magic...

[Q. Kumber]

As a fan of anything Sherlockian, I found episode 1 of series 3 to be so far-fetched as to be silly.

[Tom Pilling]

As a fan of anything Sherlockian, I found episode 1 of series 3 to be so far-fetched as to be silly.

Very silly, but with some lovely scripting. I would say the same about episode two. My wife and I laughed a lot, which I generally see as a good thing.

Are you a fan of the Basil Rathbone films?

[Q. Kumber]

Basil Rathbone and Jeremy Brett were the two best 'Holmes'. It is a pity the Rathbone films did not stick closer to the original stories.

In any fictional world there are certain criteria and limitations as to what the characters can do. In the X-Men, each superhero has one specific power or ability. I think it was the second X-Men movie where the villain had multiple powers. For me that burst the bubble of credibility and I lost interest in going to see any of the following movies in the series.

In the recent Sherlock, admittedly with some good lines and moments, it was pushing the credibility factor.

Val Andrews, amongst others, wrote some Holmes novels, many with a well known magician involved in the story. However my favourite Holmes novel by Val was the Holmes in Greyfriars school, which would mean nothing to the reader unless he or she was familiar with the Billy Bunter stories.

Bunter was a fictional English schoolboy character at Greyfriars school whose exploits were chronicled in a weekly magazine/comic The Magnet, and after WW2 in novels.

[Tom Pilling]

Basil Rathbone and Jeremy Brett were the two best 'Holmes'. It is a pity the Rathbone films did not stick closer to the original stories.

In any fictional world there are certain criteria and limitations as to what the characters can do. In the X-Men, each superhero has one specific power or ability. I think it was the second X-Men movie where the villain had multiple powers. For me that burst the bubble of credibility and I lost interest in going to see any of the following movies in the series.

In the recent Sherlock, admittedly with some good lines and moments, it was pushing the credibility factor.

Val Andrews, amongst others, wrote some Holmes novels, many with a well known magician involved in the story. However my favourite Holmes novel by Val was the Holmes in Greyfriars school, which would mean nothing to the reader unless he or she was familiar with the Billy Bunter stories.

Bunter was a fictional English schoolboy character at Greyfriars school whose exploits were chronicled in a weekly magazine/comic The Magnet, and after WW2 in novels.

Ooh! I am familiar with the Owl of the Remove, I will have to get hold of that; thanks for the information.

[AJM]

Doesn't Sherlock visiting Billy Bunter's school stretch the bounds of credibility?

I do have a Val Andrews Holmes novel somewhere, I must look it out.

One of my favourite non-Conan Doyle Holmes novels was The Italian Secretary by Caleb Carr (sp?) - Holmes and Watson visit Edinburgh.

[Jonathan Townsend]

Alan Moore's League of Extraordinary Gentlemen v1 and Warren Ellis's story Planetary make use of the Sherlock Holmes story/world.

Sherlock Holmes's Smarter Brother?

[AJM]

Incidentally, the writer of the current Sherlock series (and Mycroft himself), Mark Gatiss, wrote a trilogy of 'Lucifer Box' novels a few years back.

Each featured intrepid crime-solver Lucifer Box at different stages of his career - very similar to Holmes in style but rather more 'risqué', which is to be expected if you're familiar with the Gatiss style of humour.

I think the first one was called The Devil in Amber - check em out.

Cheers

Andrew

[mrgoat]

Incidentally, the writer of the current Sherlock series (and Mycroft himself), Mark Gatiss, wrote a trilogy of 'Lucifer Box' novels a few years back.

Each featured intrepid crime-solver Lucifer Box at different stages of his career - very similar to Holmes in style but rather more 'risqué', which is to be expected if you're familiar with the Gatiss style of humour.

I think the first one was called The Devil in Amber - check em out.

Cheers

Andrew

Ooh thanks, sounds good. Wonder if they are on netflix...

[Jonathan Townsend]

The books, the radio play (BBC so could be available online from there) or something else?

Something about mixing detective fiction of the pure analytical trope of Sherlock with risque (not to mention gay) references seems counterproductive unless perhaps everyone but the detective notices them.

[Tom Pilling]

Anything not by Conan Doyle is de facto not the 'real' Holmes.

Homosexuality, Billy Bunter, et al may be written in by whomever takes up the pen and publishes. We can stick to the original text, or we can enjoy, or not, the derivations.

The Raffles books, by Doyle's brother-in-law, are hugely entertaining in their own way, and are more significantly linked to the original Holmes than anything else that I am aware of. For fans of the great detective, who have not read these stories, I suggest trying to find un-bowlderised versions. They are rife with "clubbable anti-semitism", Victorian sentiment, and over-laden with genuine homo-eroticism. Go look, you won't be disappointed.

Oh, and they mention cricket quite a lot, which can only be a good thing. Eh, Watson?

[Jonathan Townsend]

seems the BBC did an audio drama of the second Lucifer Fox story. I'll ask my friends if they kept it on audio file so I can listen.

BTW Neal Stephenson took the Victorian sentiment thing into an interesting context in his novel The Diamond Age.

[Tom Pilling]

I will look at The Diamond Age, thanks.

[Q. Kumber]

In Val's novel about Holmes in Greyfriars school, the story is about Mr Quelch's missing manuscript and the head, Dr Locke asks his old friend, Dr Watson if he could get Holmes to investigate. Sadly, I have lost the book.

[Master Payne]

I rejoiced by having breakfast at Speedy's last Monday. No sign of Holmes. But he apparently left his hat behind

[Travis]

Excellent, Master Payne!

[Tom Pilling]

In Val's novel about Holmes in Greyfriars school, the story is about Mr Quelch's missing manuscript and the head, Dr Locke asks his old friend, Dr Watson if he could get Holmes to investigate. Sadly, I have lost the book.

Old Quelchy, eh? He was always a rum cove.

[Jonathan Pendragon]

How brilliant would a high functioning sociopath be? Doyle certainly didn't write the character's skill set as they are envisioned on "Sherlock." Regardless of your preference, acting, storyline... Johnny Lee Miller's Holmes on "Elementary" is closer to the original intellectually. Holmes is a thinking machine, but too often on "Sherlock" his instant access to data (autism) is too broad and too extreme for even a high functioning sociopath.

I know you guys (UK members) invented him, but it doesn't mean we across the pond don't appreciate Doyle's creations as well. Famously, there are many examples of inaccurate observations in the stories, "A man with so large a brain must have something in it."

[Tom Pilling]

Jonathan, I believe the stories are more widely read in the USA than they here, these days. It is very pleasing to me, as an Englishman, and great to fun to talk about across the Atlantic.

My attitude is iconoclastic, although I have read all of Doyle's fiction, good and bad. We have seen so many incarnations in the past, so many re-imaginings, that perhaps the present incarnation is a welcome, albeit very silly deviation from the norm on this side of the pond.

I think you are right; 'Sherlock' is not Sherlock, although that does make me sound like Magritte. More crucial to me, in its departure from the conventional trope, is the characterisation of the Agape which exists between the two protagonists. Gone is the sense of silent devotion, the idea of staunch, unspeaking camaraderie; the characteristically English stiff upper lip has started to wobble.

It is the 'autism' in this reading of Holmes which allows for the breakdown of Victorian sentiment, whilst exploring the 'David and Jonathan' relationship between the characters. This Holmes baits Watson mercilessly, dangling his feelings in front of him, seemingly without empathy.

From a psychological standpoint, the moments of tenderness between the two characters are inconsistent with sociopathy, and therefore undermine the sociopathic conceit. Well, nothing is perfect.

On the other hand, it's jolly good fun, what?

[Jonathan Pendragon]

Agreed and beautifully said. His detachment was something I picked up on when I began reading the stories in school. Here was a man who seemed to live completely inside of his brain. I had already begun to manifest my spectrum of mental disorders (OCD...) and of all the fantastic fictional characters, I identified most with Holmes (stand between two guys arguing Batman and Superman sometime). I developed a broader understanding of the character when I read Poe's "The Murders in the Rue Morgue" and was introduced to C. Auguste Dupin. Later, I discovered Vidocq, the real life French detective who seems to be the progenitor. Holmes is not drawn too heavily from Vidocq although there are similarities to Dupin. But, I think it is Holmes inaccessibility that keeps bring the public back. He is as mysterious as the mysteries he solves.

[Jonathan Townsend]

Just heard about the dangling participle of series three. Wonderful! Yes, I did miss him.

Then again I once teased someone's cat by waiting for it to be under a glass topped table and then dangling a string.

No idea what to make of the Gatiss items like Redbeard and young Sherlock. Looking forward to the nineteenth when the episodes start to show here and then perhaps to series four.

[Tom Pilling]

Sorry about the confusing participle clause...

Have you ever looked at "The League of Gentlemen"? Gatiss, Pemberton, Dyson and Shearsmith.

If not, don't watch the feature film. Start with episode one of series one, if you can cope with very dark humour indeed. I loved it.

[AJM]

Not to be confused in any way with the film The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, which is famous only for Sean ('Big Tam' in these parts) Connery decking director Stephen Norrington and retiring from acting.

Once you've navigated The League as suggested by Tom, you can then move on to Psychoville, which features almost the same group (sans Gatiss).

Andrew

[Jonathan Townsend]

Derren Brown, I knew it, it was the only logical explanation. As a SH buff since childhood this makes you nearly divine in my eyes.

Fan fiction has its place. He might have dropped into Doctor Who's TARDIS swimming pool as did River Song.

[Tom Stone]

Sorry about the confusing participle clause...

Have you ever looked at "The League of Gentlemen"? Gatiss, Pemberton, Dyson and Shearsmith.

Shhh! That's just for local people!

[Travis]

For you 'Dr. Who' and 'Sherlock' fans that might not have yet seen it, enjoy 'Wholock'. It's extremely well done:
http://youtu.be/q3bGYljQ5Uw

And if you're curious how he did it:
http://youtu.be/1Zrn37KzxuE

[Dan LeFay]

Thank you Travis, for that delightful link. For a fanmade clip very nicely done! Reminds me of Alan Moore's concepts though he deliberately left out Sherlock from his League.

For me there are other similarities between Moffat/Gatiss and Moore because both seem to possess the unique qualities to use the medium in which they excell (television and graphic novel) to full advantage for the storytelling and the experience for the watcher/reader.

In one of the most awesome examples for Moore's scriptwriting in Promethea, there is a double page in which the characters are travelling on a Moebiusstrip while conversating in space and time. That is what I mean with unique use of the medium. Moffat & Gatiss use an equally clever and unique use of filmscripting in the way in which Magnussen descends in his "vaults".

I greatly admire this use of specific media!

[Jonathan Townsend]

So Dan, did you miss him? Wondering if we'll see more of that actor in other shows or movies.

The Promethea image is pages 8-9 of issue 15 where she visits the realm of language, with annotations here. It's also a commentary on the Alchemical process, or perhaps magical methods in general, as distraction from ones personal objectives - "the path" as trap. The eighth step in the seven step process is... anyway - it was a joy to read. I'd give the nod to Doyle too for his work in plain text at the time for creating a character whose monomania with a knowable orderly world was fascinating. Much more so for Holmes than Poe's Dupin. A locus of order in a world we experience as chaotic.

No spoilers, please.

[Jonathan Pendragon]

Wow, way over my head. I'll just watch Arrow, which Alex Kingston is guesting on, again, in a few weeks.

[Richard Stokes]

Rather than reshoot the stories within the Victorian era, the team behind Sherlock preferred a Holmes that was contemporary and up-to-date.
This, after all, was how he appeared to readers when the stories were first published.
Sherlock was not meant to be from the past.
For the original readers and for us, a century later, he was meant to be operating in the present.

[Jonathan Townsend]

Anyone up for comparing Moore's Moriarty with Moffat's Mycroft? I'm still reeling from the backstory character work Moffat brought to the screen. The Moffat/Gattis Mycroft seems pretty well realized. What would you do if plonked into a world of people who slowly live on the surface of matters?

Staging the stories in today's world also permits the Basil Rathbone type movie modern topics.

[Jonathan Pendragon]

Tough one. Moffat's Moriarty reminds me of the Joker, he wants to find others of his kind to validate his existence and have someone to play with. "Mr. Glass" in the film Unbreakable (a much underrated film) is driven by a similar desire. Moore's Moriarty was too petty and underestimated nearly all of his opponents. He is like the dog who caught the car and doesn't know what to do with it, literally. Jared Harris was wonderful in the role.