At long last, Sherlock has returned to our screens!
[yt]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WfKDf_SGoss[/yt]
[yt]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WfKDf_SGoss[/yt]
Sherlock - "The Abominable Bride" Grade and Discussion thread
- Thread starter The Nth Doctor
- Start date
Well, I, for one, loved it. 
Yeah, it's a bit bonkers, but for the very fact that the episode was self-aware and mocked itself in the third act is part of why I enjoyed the episode so much. I suppose it helps if you like the premise of the mind palace (I love it, both here and its use in Doctor Who) as this episode is simply an extended run of that gimmick.
With that, it was a great deal of fun watching our favorite characters dressed up in the late 19th century in the original setting of Sherlock Holmes, but with the actors' own take of the characters spun from their 20th century take. I loved seeing Molly posing as a man, as well as Anderson being Anderson, and so forth. I just wish Donovan had also made a brief appearance, alas. And even though it wouldn't have made sense within the confines of the story, I kept expecting to see Irene pop up while they were in the church. At least she got a shout-out and photo cameo.
As for the case itself, the solution wasn't as clever as the previous stories, but the real web was the overall nature of the story. Early on in Holmes' first conversation with Moriaty, I began to wonder if this whole thing was suppose to be a clue about last series' cliffhanger, so I wasn't surprised when the curtain was drawn back. From there, I simply enjoyed the ride of shifting back and forth between the two narrative realities.
Of course, Moriaty is dead, as if Sherlock can hear the fans' rabid speculations of the past two years. Now, we have another year to speculate what Moriaty is going to do next.
Yeah, it's a bit bonkers, but for the very fact that the episode was self-aware and mocked itself in the third act is part of why I enjoyed the episode so much. I suppose it helps if you like the premise of the mind palace (I love it, both here and its use in Doctor Who) as this episode is simply an extended run of that gimmick.
With that, it was a great deal of fun watching our favorite characters dressed up in the late 19th century in the original setting of Sherlock Holmes, but with the actors' own take of the characters spun from their 20th century take. I loved seeing Molly posing as a man, as well as Anderson being Anderson, and so forth. I just wish Donovan had also made a brief appearance, alas. And even though it wouldn't have made sense within the confines of the story, I kept expecting to see Irene pop up while they were in the church. At least she got a shout-out and photo cameo.
As for the case itself, the solution wasn't as clever as the previous stories, but the real web was the overall nature of the story. Early on in Holmes' first conversation with Moriaty, I began to wonder if this whole thing was suppose to be a clue about last series' cliffhanger, so I wasn't surprised when the curtain was drawn back. From there, I simply enjoyed the ride of shifting back and forth between the two narrative realities.
Of course, Moriaty is dead, as if Sherlock can hear the fans' rabid speculations of the past two years. Now, we have another year to speculate what Moriaty is going to do next.
Had it maintained its Victorian one-off setting, I would have enjoyed it a lot more. Fannying about with the mind palace is essentially the equivalent of a holodeck episode.
I cannot abide this gurning cartoon version of Moriarty either. It's such a ridiculous portrayal. Time to move on.
I cannot abide this gurning cartoon version of Moriarty either. It's such a ridiculous portrayal. Time to move on.
Excellent, excellent episode. I could spot so many lovely nods to other Holmes movies and TV series I love.
Yup!Anyone else think the "It's never twins!" was protesting a bit too much?
Anyone else think the "It's never twins!" was protesting a bit too much?
It's not lupus!
This was self-indulgent, but reasonably fun. I basically figured out what was happening as soon as Holmes said "How did he survive?" in the morgue instead of "she." At that point I went, "Ah, he's in the mind palace." Although the first clue was that they recapped the whole series to date at the beginning. Why do that if this was an out-of-continuity tale unconnected to the whole? That immediately got me thinking that the story would have some connection to the continuity after all, so I was primed to notice the "he" clue and realize how the cases paralleled each other.
So is all of the Holmes literary canon just Sherlock projecting himself back into Victorian/Edwardian times, or is all of Sherlock just Holmes extrapolating the future? I like the idea that Mycroft's grotesque qualities in the original version are Sherlock's self-satisfied joke at his brother's expense.
But clearly Sherlock's knowledge of Victorian culture is incomplete, or he would've known that no English gentleman would ever wear a deerstalker in town. That's strictly for the countryside. In the city, Holmes would always wear a top hat.
Moriarty being dead after all is no surprise to me. I figured all along that what we saw on the screens was some kind of prerecorded message. And now that I write it out, I have an idea about what Sherlock meant when he said he knows what the dead Moriarty will do next. It probably means that he had a contingency plan for what his organization would do in the event of his death, so that things would still unfold according to his design even after he was gone. Didn't "The Empty House" establish something similar?
That was well-made nonsense.
I went in expecting something akin to the Downey films, albeit on a BBC budget. I wasn't expecting a Victorian Inception, also on a BBC budget.
I wonder whose idea it was to embrace Sherlock's drug addiction, especially since that's such a prominent part of the rival show. I could see Cumberbatch as the driving force behind that; seeing the material his friend Miller gets weekly, he may have wanted a crack at similar material.
I don't think Andrew Scott is miscast as Moriarty, but he's certainly miswritten.
And, yes, Moriarty had an organization in the Canon, and that's why Holmes stayed hidden for three years. They were hunting him down and trying to kill him.
Mark Gatiss in the fat suit made me think of Monty Python.
I went in expecting something akin to the Downey films, albeit on a BBC budget. I wasn't expecting a Victorian Inception, also on a BBC budget.
I wonder whose idea it was to embrace Sherlock's drug addiction, especially since that's such a prominent part of the rival show. I could see Cumberbatch as the driving force behind that; seeing the material his friend Miller gets weekly, he may have wanted a crack at similar material.
I don't think Andrew Scott is miscast as Moriarty, but he's certainly miswritten.
And, yes, Moriarty had an organization in the Canon, and that's why Holmes stayed hidden for three years. They were hunting him down and trying to kill him.
Mark Gatiss in the fat suit made me think of Monty Python.
I loved it. It was just plain fun.
Yes, I also thought of Monty Python/Mr. Creosote when I first saw Fat!Mycroft. Also Jabba the Hutt.
Yes, I also thought of Monty Python/Mr. Creosote when I first saw Fat!Mycroft. Also Jabba the Hutt.
. It was out there, but well made out there. 
It was a bit silly but it was a lot of damn fun, too!
I really enjoyed it.
I really enjoyed it.
When it comes to Christmas/New Year specials by the BBC, like Doctor Who, some fans seem to take them to serious, while mostly, they are supposed to be fluff, a rump, silly entertainment. Sure, Who had a special or two that had a big impact on the storyline itself and there were things in this episode that will be important for the next season.
But mostly, it's just supposed to be a rump. Sit down to expect something very serious, you're gonna end up disappointed.
I really had a good time watching this. Silly fun, some great moments for every cast member to shine. And, as for Sherlock's last line, was that a little nod to all the fans who want a crossover between Sherlock and Doctor Who?
EDIT:
Ever since the first episode of Sherlock, I told my girlfriend that Moriarty is not an actual person. Sure, we've had the guy with the name who's dead and will stay dead. But the real Moriarty is not a person, but a group, an assembly. Something that can take a new form if discovered. The virus in the data.
But mostly, it's just supposed to be a rump. Sit down to expect something very serious, you're gonna end up disappointed.
I really had a good time watching this. Silly fun, some great moments for every cast member to shine. And, as for Sherlock's last line, was that a little nod to all the fans who want a crossover between Sherlock and Doctor Who?
EDIT:
Ever since the first episode of Sherlock, I told my girlfriend that Moriarty is not an actual person. Sure, we've had the guy with the name who's dead and will stay dead. But the real Moriarty is not a person, but a group, an assembly. Something that can take a new form if discovered. The virus in the data.
There were moments when Victorian Holmes reminded me more of Miller's Holmes than 2010s Sherlock ever did. I still think it would be fun if the two shows did episodes where they swapped lead actors and just had them play each other's characters without any acknowledgment of the change, like how Cumberbatch and Miller swapped playing Frankenstein and the Creature on alternate nights in their 2-man play.
And it occurred to me while watching "The Abominable Bride" that this is one thing Sherlock could do that Elementary could not. You couldn't have Lucy Liu playing Watson and Jon Michael Hill playing a Scotland Yard man in Victorian London. (Well, you could have Lestrade if Sean Pertwee weren't busy doing Gotham.)
Although... maybe you could do a story where it turned out the literary Watson was a front for a Chinese woman who would never be accepted as a doctor or detective by Victorian audiences. Except that the original Holmes was such a misogynist that he would've had just as much trouble accepting it. As pointed out here with Molly, that was his greatest blind spot.
I vote both. I'm very glad he isn't actually back in the main show, although I fear we'll probably be seeing more videos of him.
Hmm... Last season ended (and this special was set) in 2014, and the next season is slated to begin in 2017. Three years.
Except, no, wait, they already did the thing where Sherlock faked his death and hid out for two years.
And, as for Sherlock's last line, was that a little nod to all the fans who want a crossover between Sherlock and Doctor Who?
You mean the "man out of my time" line? I figured that was just a reference to Sherlock being a modern update of a period character.
Although I still find it interesting that just about every screen adaptation of Holmes prior to 1950 was updated to the then-present day, with only three exceptions I know of (the recently-rediscovered 1916 silent film of the William Gillette play and the first two Basil Rathbone films). So Holmes wasn't really seen as a character who was inextricably linked to a single time period. It was only after 1950, as though a switch had suddenly been flipped, that it became the universal practice to portray Holmes as a Victorian character. (Even those few versions set in the present or the future had Holmes as a 19th-century man brought into his future through sci-fi means.) And now, suddenly in this decade the modernized Holmes has become the dominant paradigm once again. Although we're getting a mix of both now, with modern Holmes on TV and period Holmes on the feature screen.
Agreed. To me, Miller's Holmes evokes an updating of Jeremy Brett's performance.
I would absolutely love that. I've often wondered how Miller and Cumberbatch would approach the other's material. I can almost imagine Miller delivering the Best Man speech, and likewise I can almost imagine Cumberbatch in Kitty Winter's last episode.
I'd imagine a Victorian-era Elementary would be set in New York rather than London, but it wasn't until 1911 that the NYPD had its first black policeman -- Sam Battle -- so that would preclude Marcus Bell. It could be cool -- the police commissioner at the time was none other than Teddy Roosevelt -- but, yeah, the cast wouldn't quite work.
Scott could have worked in this episode, if he had been written more like Jared Harris' Moriarty in Game of Shadows. But writing Victorian!Moriarty like Heath Ledger's Joker from The Dark Knight dropped into 1895 wholesale didn't make any sense.
The reference to The Seven Per-Cent Solution (Holmes' mention of "the Viennan alienist") and Victorian!Mycroft's "a virus in the data" have me wonder if Moriarty was not the supervillain that Sherlock believed he was. I'm entertaining the possibility that Holmes himself is Moriarty (shades of Michael Dibdin's The Last Sherlock Holmes Story), perhaps in the throes of his drug use, and the Moriarty who blew his brains out was, at most, a minor criminal who Sherlock built up in his mind into a criminal mastermind.
And, as for Sherlock's last line, was that a little nod to all the fans who want a crossover between Sherlock and Doctor Who?
You mean the "man out of my time" line? I figured that was just a reference to Sherlock being a modern update of a period character.
For me, that was another Elementary pilferage in the episode. An episode in either season 2 or 3 began with Holmes at his Narcotics Anonymous meeting, he talks about why he took heroin (the modern world is too noisy, and the heroin dulled the noise), and he wonders if he would have been emotionally healthier with no need for drugs if he lived in the 19th-century, when the world was quieter. However, AFAIK Moffat and Gatiss aren't that familiar with Elementary to make a reference as direct as that; Cumberbatch has said they (and Freeman) haven't watched the series.
That said, I totally get your read, Christopher, that he's out of time literally because he's a character created in another time. It's the kind of meta reference that Steven Moffat likes to make.
It was enjoyable, even if a little disjointed. That is disjointed even before we get into the whole mindfuck of is this a scenario in modern Sherlock's mind palace or is modern Sherlock a scenario in Victorian Sherlock's mind palace. The story never really seemed to know what it wanted to be, was it a paranormal tale to be unraveled and rationalized? A commentary on gender inequality? A Sherlock/Watson buddy tale? We basically get all these mashed together in a manner which doesn't quite feel completely organic, and it's all capped off with some existential stuff that makes things feel far too meta and essentially serves as an extended epilogue of the last season finale with some set-up for the new season.
But oddly, it was fun to watch, seeing the characters in a sort of "alternate universe" type scenario, and while the overall story might have been lacking something, the episode was comprised of a bunch of really well-done moments which culminate into a decent viewing experience.
I suppose I might have preferred it if they had just stuck to a Victorian era setting, to be honest I was expecting some sort of reference to the modern show and some sort of indication this was all in Sherlock's head anyway. Though I was expecting it to just be restricted to the final scene, not become a whole subplot.
But oddly, it was fun to watch, seeing the characters in a sort of "alternate universe" type scenario, and while the overall story might have been lacking something, the episode was comprised of a bunch of really well-done moments which culminate into a decent viewing experience.
I suppose I might have preferred it if they had just stuck to a Victorian era setting, to be honest I was expecting some sort of reference to the modern show and some sort of indication this was all in Sherlock's head anyway. Though I was expecting it to just be restricted to the final scene, not become a whole subplot.
Which, of course, is a strength of Elementary. I've said before that while Sherlock modernizes the forms and technologies of the Holmes story, Elementary does a better job of modernizing its mindset and values. Although Sherlock does at least have Molly.
It makes sense because he wasn't part of the period simulation. He was the "virus" in Sherlock's mind palace, his mental image of the "real" Jim Moriarty intruding on the Victorian scenario and distracting Sherlock from figuring out the answer.
It seems inevitable to me that any modernization of Holmes -- in today's era where self-referential winks are routine -- would at some point include a quip acknowledging the anachronism. So it's more likely convergent evolution than borrowing.And, as for Sherlock's last line, was that a little nod to all the fans who want a crossover between Sherlock and Doctor Who?
You mean the "man out of my time" line? I figured that was just a reference to Sherlock being a modern update of a period character.
For me, that was another Elementary pilferage in the episode. An episode in either season 2 or 3 began with Holmes at his Narcotics Anonymous meeting, he talks about why he took heroin (the modern world is too noisy, and the heroin dulled the noise), and he wonders if he would have been emotionally healthier with no need for drugs if he lived in the 19th-century, when the world was quieter. However, AFAIK Moffat and Gatiss aren't that familiar with Elementary to make a reference as direct as that; Cumberbatch has said they (and Freeman) haven't watched the series.
As a Holmes fan who bailed on this show after two episodes because a contemporary, wisecracking Sherlock in London is simply not something I want one bit, I was interested in this episode... until, that is, I read the reviews.
I can't decide which of those two notions I hate more.
Hey, this is my Sherlock. To date, they do no wrong, in my book. Is it a departure from traditional Holmes? Certainly. Even more, it's quite over the top at times, but it's particularly so in a way that's designed to appeal to me, & does. I absolutely delight in the rapier wit of the performers.
This show is about characters way more than about mysteries. The mysteries don't even matter. Why should they? We live in a world inundated by CSI stories on screen, & if this episode is seen as a little silly, I'm of the opinion that it's no more so than "The Sign of Three" was, and I damn well love that episode.
I thought it was a wonderful play to put forth. It was clear to me what was going on, right around the time that Sherlock is playing the Watson wedding theme, while they argue, & interrupts them (because it wasn't moving anything forward) & then he refers to the case, which he calls very old, & he'll have to go deep into himself, etc... That were seeing all these characters not as they are, but as Sherlock perceives them, & how they relate to him
Ultimately, if Sherlock is a show about these characters, then this episode is the most centered on Sherlock himself, & though it's a departure, I like how they explore that character. It works. If they don't pull you out of it to see it for what it is, then the conversion between Sherlock & John about being in a romantic relationship is insignificant, but knowing that it's all in Sherlock's mind is quite significant. This episode isn't just a one off for the kitsch of it. It's got something to offer to the overall narrative. Had it not, I'd have been disappointed
This show is about characters way more than about mysteries. The mysteries don't even matter. Why should they? We live in a world inundated by CSI stories on screen, & if this episode is seen as a little silly, I'm of the opinion that it's no more so than "The Sign of Three" was, and I damn well love that episode.
I thought it was a wonderful play to put forth. It was clear to me what was going on, right around the time that Sherlock is playing the Watson wedding theme, while they argue, & interrupts them (because it wasn't moving anything forward) & then he refers to the case, which he calls very old, & he'll have to go deep into himself, etc... That were seeing all these characters not as they are, but as Sherlock perceives them, & how they relate to him
Ultimately, if Sherlock is a show about these characters, then this episode is the most centered on Sherlock himself, & though it's a departure, I like how they explore that character. It works. If they don't pull you out of it to see it for what it is, then the conversion between Sherlock & John about being in a romantic relationship is insignificant, but knowing that it's all in Sherlock's mind is quite significant. This episode isn't just a one off for the kitsch of it. It's got something to offer to the overall narrative. Had it not, I'd have been disappointed
I was liking the Victorian aspect of the storyline, but then trust Moffat to try some kind of mind trip. And for a while I thought the explaination of the bride might be used to explain Moriarty, but that even turned out not to be the case. I didn't like the fat Mycroft either for that matter, that must be how Sherlock sees Mycroft.