Spoilers Sherlock Series 4 Discussion Thread
- Thread starter The Nth Doctor
- Start date
I'll buy that they were influenced by Elementary, but if they were trying to better it, they didn't come close. Bigger, yes. Crazier, yes. Better? No. I said in my Locus Online essay a couple years back that Sherlock felt like a kid jumping up and down saying "Hey, look what I can do" while Elementary felt like a grownup by comparison, less showy and energetic but more focused and thoughtful. But far from growing up over the years, Sherlock has just gotten more hyperactive -- and about as coherent as a story told by a 4-year-old banging his action figures together.
I kinda figured that Euros/us/whatever had Moriarty record a variety of different messages for a variety of different contingencies, sort of like a video game character that chooses among a finite set of responses depending on what the player does. It's impossible to predict exactly what will happen in the future, but it's possible to model a range of likely possibilities.
Well, there is a commonality in that their genius is portrayed in an over-the-top way that borders on the ridiculous after a while. Although I guess that's more Bean than any of the Wigginses.
I enjoyed the new season for the most part, and enjoyed watching the finale. However, I was left with an impression of The Final Problem being similar to the last James Bond movie, Spectre, and not necessarily in a good way.
**Spoilers for the movie Spectre ahead.**
There's the gimmick of introducing a character that is understood better by long terms fans. The new character is retroactively given a place behind-the-scenes of many previous stories that were brilliant as they were before the retcon, but seem diminished by retconning the character into them. The new character is hypercompetent, yet paradoxically also cartoonishly emotionally stunted and blame the protagonist (Sherlock or James Bond) for their emotional problems. With the vast resources they've accumulated with their hypercompetent brilliance, they channel their powers and resources against their emotional scapegoat, our hero, causing untold damage and loss of life. Even though we know that the adversaries are responsible for their own emotional immaturity, and their choice to use it as an excuse to justify their petulant revenge fantasies, it still places the protagonists in a role where they've had a negative emotional impact on a terribly destructive person. It's not straightforward, but both story lines put their protagonist in a position where we might speculatively ask, have the writers accidentally made Sherlock or James Bond seem more destructive (even by proxy) than they could ever counterbalance with their successes? Spectre sullied the accomplishments of three pretty descent James Bond movies, and The Final Problem feels like a similar idea to what Specte did with all of the story lines that preceded it.
Other anecdotal thoughts. Eurus's social/moral experiments reminded me very strongly of the Joker's shenanigans in The Dark Knight. They're too rapid-fire, though, for the brain to digest at the pace that Sherlock move at, I would have to re-watch and pause frequently in order to parse and "appreciate" how disturbing Moffat and Gatiss want me to regard the scenarios.
Final thought, given Moffat and Gatiss's background as big-time fans of Doctor Who turned professional DW writers and showrunners. The whole Sherringford prison is very reminiscent of a classic third Doctor story, where the Master is imprisoned on Earth in a maximum security prison in the middle of the ocean. The Master, with his hypnotic powers, ends up running the place, even though superficially he keeps up the appearance of a maximum security prisoner by continuing to reside in his prison cell (most of the time). It's a bit more hair-raising and impressive that Eurus is mesmerizing people through sheer intellect, whereas it's easy for the Master because of his alien superpowers. Still, it obviously must have been a story in the back of Moffat and Gatiss's minds when they wrote The Final Problem.
**Spoilers for the movie Spectre ahead.**
There's the gimmick of introducing a character that is understood better by long terms fans. The new character is retroactively given a place behind-the-scenes of many previous stories that were brilliant as they were before the retcon, but seem diminished by retconning the character into them. The new character is hypercompetent, yet paradoxically also cartoonishly emotionally stunted and blame the protagonist (Sherlock or James Bond) for their emotional problems. With the vast resources they've accumulated with their hypercompetent brilliance, they channel their powers and resources against their emotional scapegoat, our hero, causing untold damage and loss of life. Even though we know that the adversaries are responsible for their own emotional immaturity, and their choice to use it as an excuse to justify their petulant revenge fantasies, it still places the protagonists in a role where they've had a negative emotional impact on a terribly destructive person. It's not straightforward, but both story lines put their protagonist in a position where we might speculatively ask, have the writers accidentally made Sherlock or James Bond seem more destructive (even by proxy) than they could ever counterbalance with their successes? Spectre sullied the accomplishments of three pretty descent James Bond movies, and The Final Problem feels like a similar idea to what Specte did with all of the story lines that preceded it.
Other anecdotal thoughts. Eurus's social/moral experiments reminded me very strongly of the Joker's shenanigans in The Dark Knight. They're too rapid-fire, though, for the brain to digest at the pace that Sherlock move at, I would have to re-watch and pause frequently in order to parse and "appreciate" how disturbing Moffat and Gatiss want me to regard the scenarios.
Final thought, given Moffat and Gatiss's background as big-time fans of Doctor Who turned professional DW writers and showrunners. The whole Sherringford prison is very reminiscent of a classic third Doctor story, where the Master is imprisoned on Earth in a maximum security prison in the middle of the ocean. The Master, with his hypnotic powers, ends up running the place, even though superficially he keeps up the appearance of a maximum security prisoner by continuing to reside in his prison cell (most of the time). It's a bit more hair-raising and impressive that Eurus is mesmerizing people through sheer intellect, whereas it's easy for the Master because of his alien superpowers. Still, it obviously must have been a story in the back of Moffat and Gatiss's minds when they wrote The Final Problem.
Last edited:
Did I like it? Well, I skipped the bulk of the last third. Not at all interested in 'mental torture porn'. I'm married, for God's sake! Triggers!
And this applies to Who as well as Sherlock:
http://newsthump.com/2017/01/16/mis...ter-sherlock-writer-vanishes-up-his-own-arse/
And this applies to Who as well as Sherlock:
http://newsthump.com/2017/01/16/mis...ter-sherlock-writer-vanishes-up-his-own-arse/
Two things about this last episode have me curious. One is Mycroft's "You know what happened to the other one." line. This episode establishes that he didn't know what happened, so shouldn't Sherlock have been really confused? Second is how Eurus can brainwash people after talking to them for just a few minutes. Ignoring how little sense this makes, when she pretended to be the therapist John spent hours talking to her. I was expecting this to be brought up at some point but it was just ignored. Does this mean that if the series continues he could suddenly turn on everyone?
I'm not sure what you're getting at here. Mycroft said that line to that work colleague in HLV. And Sherlock didn't know he had a sister and what happened to her up till the beginning of TFP.
My reading/head-canon is that John was influenced by her, the strength of his blaming Sherlock, the physicality of his reaction, his total losing control of himself (especially that last point because John never loses control of himself - one punch okay, but not so far out of control that he has to be physically dragged off of someone who doesn't defend himself) would just suggest that. And quite honestly, it's the only reason why I can defend that he goes unpunished for what he did in the morgue. (It's not as though he's apologized to Sherlock for that, but then again, no one apologizes to Sherlock but it's expected that he grovels... urgh)
I thought, when John left the office in Sherrinford to go on the balcony and his look just before he did so, that he realized that - and consequently, what happened to all the personnell in Sherrinford.
But as I said that's my head-canon. *g*
Last edited:
My mistake. Somehow I remembered him saying that to Sherlock.
I've seen that before in one of the recent Superman stories--RED SON I think it was, where Superman was warned that Lex could talk him into suicide--here we go:
http://comicvine.gamespot.com/forum...test-opponent-luthor-could-talk-into-1671317/
The remake of THE DAY THE EARTH STOOD STILL made me angry--unabomber talk.
--and yet--Charles Dance as Karellan in CHILDHOOD'S END--I couldn't bring myself to differ with him.
So help me--I bet that man could talk a weaker willed person to jump off a building if he caught them in a funk.
And, again, I have to mention Compliance. Because of that film, I can believe Eurus could do what she did.
I enjoyed the three episodes of Sherlock but I preferred the earlier seasons and was left wondering at the end of the Final Problem where that left the show exactly. A few of my colleagues were slightly bemused as well. With three episodes very occasionally and Elementary turning out full seasons I actually prefer the US show these days, I think it's very good quality and I really like the cast.
I find Elementary more interesting and intelligent than a fair bit of TV myself, and I like Holmes and Watson, they work really well together.
The only part of the final i didn't particularly get on with was the crystal maze like element of going from set up room to set up room. It just seemed all very convenient, especially having cameras in Molly's flat where she happened to be in during the day, and having the three brothers ready to appear at the right moment outside the window. The basic idea of forcing Sherlock to solve puzzles in a psychological horror sort of way was sound, and the phone time with the girl on the plane was a clever motivator, but the game show set up i found took me out of it a bit. And I'm not convinced Moriarty's involvement was either needed or added much to it. Plus why is John so surprised he is on the video? He says "That can't be Moriarty". Dead people can be in videos, shot before they died. Given all the other setup Euros had clearly achieved at that point, it doesn't seem a stretch she would manage that.
Yeah, there's nothing to the show. It's an unremarkable procedural of the sort that the "Tiffany Network" hires producers to churn out by the yard - with "Sherlock Holmes" tacked on as a gimmick.
What I'm seeing in reviews and articles is that this is expected to be effectively the series finale, except maybe for the occasional future special, because both leads are just too darn busy with their movie careers.
If there are future specials, I kinda want Moffat and Gatiss to revisit their original idea for "The Abominable Bride." Gatiss talked about it on PBS' Masterpiece Studio podcast, and the idea was that instead of going back to the 1890s they would do the 1940s, with Holmes and Watson fighting Nazis in black and white, instead.
Similar threads
