Ok it's like there's a room with a dead granny in it, standing over her is Alan Titmarsh and Dr Harold Shipman.
Titmarsh may have offed her, but he deserves a greater amount of benefit of the doubt.
Like I say I can't believe you're convincing yourself.
Quote: sootyj @ 4th January 2014, 7:57 PM GMTLike I say I can't believe you're convincing yourself.
Okay.
Nice to see you agree.
Quote: sootyj @ 4th January 2014, 7:59 PM GMTNice to see you agree.
I could never disagree with you, Sooty.
Quote: Marc P @ 4th January 2014, 6:44 PM GMTActually it's never okay Matthew unless you are writing soap opera at its poorest level. And it wasn't directly it was two years later and Sherlock lived as we all know. If hand on heart you tell me you actually give a shit about the real story from the only possible 19 or whatever (I mean really?) possible explanations for something so trite I will eat your socks. Who shot JR Who shot Phil off eastenders How did something that never happened happen. Mind boggling.
Stotty may disagree, but personally I *did* want to know how the suicide was faked, if only because Moffat did several interviews in which he said that they planned out how Sherlock did it and had filmed extra location scenes already in order to explain it properly.
It was supposed to be the exact opposite of the "make it up as we go along" policy that understandably applies to most TV shows, which made it much more interesting to speculate and much less satisfying when they jerked us around in the latest episode
Quote: Kevin Murphy @ 4th January 2014, 11:43 PM GMTStotty may disagree, but personally I *did* want to know how the suicide was faked, if only because Moffat did several interviews in which he said that they planned out how Sherlock did it and had filmed extra location scenes already in order to explain it properly.
It was supposed to be the exact opposite of the "make it up as we go along" policy that understandably applies to most TV shows, which made it much more interesting to speculate and much less satisfying when they jerked us around in the latest episode
That's not drama though is it Kevin. He didn't die. He was never going to die... Who cares? After all terrorists have a toggle switch on their bombs apparently? Be clever if you are going to do Sherlock ... Isn't that what Doyle created?
Quote: Marc P @ 5th January 2014, 12:03 AM GMTThat's not drama though is it Kevin. He didn't die. He was never going to die... Who cares? After all terrorists have a toggle switch on their bombs apparently? Be clever if you are going to do Sherlock ... Isn't that what Doyle created?
I agree that the episode was shit drama.
I agree with pretty much all of the criticisms you've leveled against the show in the last few days. I wish you'd expressed them in better English (to avoid confusion) but as far as I understand what you said, I agree with it.
I'm just pointing out that one of the main writers/producers/showrunners of the show has explicitly said on the public record several times that the cliffhanger had been thoroughly worked out and shot before the second series ended.
As somebody who pays close attention to the writing on shows I enjoy, I wanted a decent explanation. And I was well pissed off when I got shortchanged so badly.
It's phenomenally weak stuff and shows a mixture of arrogance and complete lack of confidence.
They wrote themselves into a corner in the last season and were desperate to sort of copy Conan Doyle.
Fine, lots of shows do that. But rather than use it as an excuse to conclude the old story and start with maybe a fresh angle.
They keep going back to it, like it was interesting, which it isn't. There was no story andthat's what TV, all TV is about ultimately.
I don't think they wrote themselves into a corner. There were plenty of ways the suicide could have been explained in a satisfactory manner.
I meant the Moriarty thread, they'd made him so impossibly powerful, he was like Voldemort with an army of hidden snipers and an ability to stick a bomb on anyone.
And the completely unnecessary and unsatisfactory answer was: Mycroft is Voldemort now.
I found the idea of the hidden sniper trained on Watson even though he was moving around London in an impossible to predict way a little ridiculous. He only has to approach the hospital from another direction for the sniper to be in completely the wrong place. Same goes for all the supposedly carefully plotted out fake-suicide plans - none of them work if Watson gets to the hospital at any other moment or from any other direction or doesn't answer his phone at that exact spot. They kind of did write themselves into a corner, but if they had not told us all that it was definitely all planned out in great detail we possibly would have let it slide a little when they were vague and non-committal. It's surprising to me that a team so connected with the audience responses to the show would so badly misjudge what the audience would want from that episode.
Quote: Kevin Murphy @ 5th January 2014, 1:29 AM GMTAnd the completely unnecessary and unsatisfactory answer was: Mycroft is Voldemort now.
It's just weak writing, the suicide thing was just easy to write off.
The funny thing is I can't think of a truly good scifi show on either side of the Atlantic in the last few years.
In fairness the US has got even worse with Falling Skies, Haven and all sorts of rubbish.
And of course Agents of Shield.
Quote: Harridan @ 5th January 2014, 1:34 AM GMTI found the idea of the hidden sniper trained on Watson even though he was moving around London in an impossible to predict way a little ridiculous. He only has to approach the hospital from another direction for the sniper to be in completely the wrong place. Same goes for all the supposedly carefully plotted out fake-suicide plans - none of them work if Watson gets to the hospital at any other moment or from any other direction or doesn't answer his phone at that exact spot. They kind of did write themselves into a corner, but if they had not told us all that it was definitely all planned out in great detail we possibly would have let it slide a little when they were vague and non-committal. It's surprising to me that a team so connected with the audience responses to the show would so badly misjudge what the audience would want from that episode.
Absolutely, it's like the Avengers 60s UK and the Prisoner got away with some deranged plots and utter surrealism. Because at the core they were fundamentally faitful to their script bibles and stories.
Quote: Kevin Murphy @ 5th January 2014, 1:13 AM GMTI don't think they wrote themselves into a corner. There were plenty of ways the suicide could have been explained in a satisfactory manner.
And also having spent episodes making it clear that Mycroft and his agency were pretty hopeless, suddenly they're like super ninjas.
It's as bad as Rory blowing up a cyberman fleet.
If you change the rules all the time, then there's no tension ever.
I don't think Sherlock is sci-fi, Sooty. It's a crime drama. With a few laughs thrown in.
Quote: Ben @ 5th January 2014, 9:03 AM GMTI don't think Sherlock is sci-fi, Sooty. It's a crime drama. With a few laughs thrown in.
Yep, not sci-fi. I think genre television would be a better description.
It's back on again tonight and it has a wedding (woo). I really, really hope there is a gag involving someone mistaking Sherlock and Watson for a gay couple getting married, that would be hilarious.
One last criticism for The Empty Hearse - Sherlock states that he has been away for two years and no longer understands human nature...and then proceeds to do lots of caring and sympathetic things, including visiting the cop who called him a fake and hated his guts.
