Sherlock - The Great Game
Aug. 12th, 2010 04:33 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
daibhidcWow. That was brilliant.
First, a minor nitpick; obviously the guy in the teaser isn't going to be hanged. Sorry, Mark, but if you've got a Sherlock Holmes gag that only work prior to 1969, you can't use it in your 21st century reimagining. You and the Moff set the rules, you have to stick by them.
[Edit: It's been pointed out that this scene isn't actually in the UK. Stupid Sky+ recorder...]
I recognised elements of "The Final Problem" and "The Bruce-Parlington Plans". Moriarty's "minigame" cases felt familar without actually being recognisable[1], although the Golem seemed to be based on the Creeper from the Basil Rathbone film Pearl of Death (which, in turn, was based on "The Six Napoleons"). Also "pips" as a secret message ("The Five Orange Pips"), and Bohemia keeps cropping up (as in "A Scandal In...")
And that's not including such minor references as Sherlock shooting a smiley face on the wall out of boredom ("The Musgrave Ritual", where it's "V.R.") or the bit about comparing his mind to a hard-drive that hasn't room for trivia about whether the Earth goes round the Sun (A Study In Scarlet, where the metaphor is an attic storeroom).
Incidentally, that bit always bugged me, so I was pleased to see the episode gave a situation where knowledge of astronomy did assist Sherlock in his work. Another thing that bugs me is that whenever someone in a Sherlock Holmes story steals secret documents, they never seem to have any trouble in contacting enemy agents, so I liked the idea Joe didn't really know what to do with the memory stick once he had it.
Since I already half suspected Mycroft of being Moriarty (see, what if that comedy misdirection in the first episode was a double bluff?), I went "Guahhh?" when John came out of the changing room, even though it had already occured to me he was going to get captured. I can't believe it didn't occur to me that "Jim" was short for "James".
And the final scene, obviously, was awesome. Now, what they should do for the next season is open where we left off, Sherlock persuades Jim to let John escape, and he watches the swimming pool blow up. Caption: "Six Months Later", and John is sitting around 221B being depressed when a book salesman comes to the door...
[1]Although for most of them I was far too engrossed in the story to play "spot the reference".
[Edit: It's been pointed out that this scene isn't actually in the UK. Stupid Sky+ recorder...]
I recognised elements of "The Final Problem" and "The Bruce-Parlington Plans". Moriarty's "minigame" cases felt familar without actually being recognisable[1], although the Golem seemed to be based on the Creeper from the Basil Rathbone film Pearl of Death (which, in turn, was based on "The Six Napoleons"). Also "pips" as a secret message ("The Five Orange Pips"), and Bohemia keeps cropping up (as in "A Scandal In...")
And that's not including such minor references as Sherlock shooting a smiley face on the wall out of boredom ("The Musgrave Ritual", where it's "V.R.") or the bit about comparing his mind to a hard-drive that hasn't room for trivia about whether the Earth goes round the Sun (A Study In Scarlet, where the metaphor is an attic storeroom).
Incidentally, that bit always bugged me, so I was pleased to see the episode gave a situation where knowledge of astronomy did assist Sherlock in his work. Another thing that bugs me is that whenever someone in a Sherlock Holmes story steals secret documents, they never seem to have any trouble in contacting enemy agents, so I liked the idea Joe didn't really know what to do with the memory stick once he had it.
Since I already half suspected Mycroft of being Moriarty (see, what if that comedy misdirection in the first episode was a double bluff?), I went "Guahhh?" when John came out of the changing room, even though it had already occured to me he was going to get captured. I can't believe it didn't occur to me that "Jim" was short for "James".
And the final scene, obviously, was awesome. Now, what they should do for the next season is open where we left off, Sherlock persuades Jim to let John escape, and he watches the swimming pool blow up. Caption: "Six Months Later", and John is sitting around 221B being depressed when a book salesman comes to the door...
[1]Although for most of them I was far too engrossed in the story to play "spot the reference".
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Date: 2010-08-12 04:23 pm (UTC)The irony in all this being if it wasn't an update/re-imagining/reboot then the original ending works, because we still know how it really ends. The ITV Jeremy Brett series proved that, but it being the fnarg of Holmes means this non-ending doesn't work. The original ACD ending only worked because it wasn't (meant to be) a cliffhanger after all so the whole beginning, middle, end remained intact.