Well, it wasn't a turkey

[fpb]

But I wasn't happy with it either. Once again, as in the first episode, Moffatt has cheapened and flattened an opponent who was, in the original, much more interesting and many-sided. Just like Jefferson Hope, the consumptive cabman carrying out a long-delayed and well-deserved vengeance, was reduced to an assassin - however clever - in the service of Moriarty, so Irene Adler, the brilliant actress and adventuress with ambitions to respectability and who felt badly treated by her royal lover, has been flattened into a prostitute whose cleverness, again, is her only redeeming feature. And frankly I don't believe in intellectually impressive dominatrices - the trade has too much to do with taking advantage of the easy target of inadequate male self-image to provide much stimulus for the intellect. The story wasn't a failure; Moffat is a master in keeping the reader on the hop by the constant use of red herrings and surprises, which is indeed a very Holmesian thing to do, and the thread of reasoning is mostly quite ingenious. But there is a certain inability to perceive subtlety and nobility which actually seems to me a defining feature of much contemporary imagination. Just as Peter Jackson coarsened every noble character in Lord of The Rings, so Steven Moffatt coarsens and flattens Jefferson Hope and Irene Adler.

Comments

[shezan.livejournal.com]

Have now seen, and agree on Irene. But there was some fantastic writing in it, including the bleak, Pinteresque exchange between the Holmes brothers at the morgue:

"Smoking indoors, isn't there one of those... one of those law things?"

"We're in a morgue. There's only so much damage you can do."

and

"Look at them. They all care so much. Do you ever wonder if there's something wrong with us?"

"All lives end, all hearts are broken. Caring is not an advantage, Sherlock."

"This is low tar."

"Well, you barely knew her."

Very still, very impressive.

[fpb.livejournal.com]

All right, but do we WANT a Sherlock Holmes story to be "bleak, Pinteresque"?

[shezan.livejournal.com]

Surely 98% of it wasn't, but this scene provided a still centre to the story that was very affecting - Irene didn't amuse me much, but what we saw of the Sherlock-Mycroft relationship was wonderful. And both BC and MG were terrific in it - restrained and minimalist.