Just watched the post-S***r Bowl episode, The Deductionist. Some change of pace. The Big Bad was known from the start, the object was to find him, which of course entailed figuring out his motivation, etc. Nice variation. The show has really needed it.
A bit predictable about the surgery and the sister’s role.
Hated the profiler. And not just because she was Holmes’ rival, etc. But terrible actor, terrible character, very shallowly written. I was rooting for her to die.
Nice to see some development of Watson’s investigative skills. Looking forward to more of that.
The Holmes backstory filler was crap. A lot of backstory to the backstory is needed to really explain anything.
The sister looked familiar. Checking IMDb: Jessica Hecht was Gretchen on Breaking Bad and Ross’ ex-wife’s partner on Friends.
Yeah, I thought it was pretty good too. I notice the Surface made another appearance, but at least he didn’t fondle it this time, and called it “my tablet” instead of “my Surface” or “My Microsoft:trade_mark: Surface:trade_mark: Tablet.” (yeah, okay, facetious, but still…)
Damn, product placement has become so universal now that I don’t even notice. As oxymoronic as it sounds, it’s become a sort of ‘in your face’ form of subliminal advertising.
I was wondering what possessed me to buy that 6 pack of Dr. Pepper the last time I was shopping.
I’m with you- the few times I’ve watched the show, I’ve liked it, but I DON’T think the leads bear any real resemblance to anyone I read about in Arthur Conan Doyle’s stories.
I enjoy the show more when I just pretend they’re entirely new characters.
Makes sense that they would be different people, most of them being American and all raised in a different time and culture from what Doyle wrote about.
Still waiting for the all-clever Sherlock to figure out that Watson is no longer on daddy’s payroll and working off the books. I would have assumed his recent phone call to dear old dad would have confirmed this, but apparently this little nugget of info is either not yet known or Sherlock is waiting for the right moment to bring it up?
I’m guessing he’s already figured out but for whatever reasons of his own just hasn’t said anything about it yet. Maybe because he obviously likes Watson and considers her a valuable ally in his work, so he’s afraid if he lets on he knows, he’ll lose her. Dunno. It’ll be interesting to see how it plays out.
I think the fact that Watson let the super off so easily - by just demanding he pay for moving her stuff into storage - indicates that this was a convenient excuse for doing what she wanted to do anyway. And I think on some level she realizes that even if she may not be prepared to consciously admit it. If that’s what’s going on, that’s the sort of complexity that I don’t think you see that often in characters on tv serials.
As for Holmes, I think he knows his father well enough that he suspected Watson was full of shit as soon as she told him that his father agreed to extend her contract just based her “concerns.” I have no idea what would have possessed the father to hire her in the first place but the impression I get is that his motivations aren’t really tied to Holmes’ well-being.
Keep in mind, about all we know about the father comes from his son, who is obviously not an entirely reliable narrator, given his obvious emotional issues about that relationship.
I agree Holmes’s issues with his father color his perceptions, but I also think that from Holmes’s tone he was fairly certain that Watson was lying when she said his father was paying her to remain. I think he figured she needed the cover so he let her get away with it. Don’t know why he hasn’t busted her on it yet, just waiting for the right time?
Also wonder on Holmes’s father’s motivations for hiring Watson in the first place. “It’s the way things are done”? He’s satisfied the form so now doesn’t need to continue paying for it?
Irishman: Something I realized in reading your post; it’s probably more than a coincidence that Holmes was shipped off to the US to do his rehab, especially if preserving appearances was the primary motivation of his father. Either that, or he was exiled to the US first and then forced to go into rehab; I’m still a little unclear on that point.
Right- so different that the writers might just as well have started from scratch, and not bothered pretending their characters were Holmes and Watson.
I remember that, years ago, Robert B. Parker said ***Spenser for Hire ***wasn’t a bad show (he liked Avery Brooks as Hawk a lot), but that he didn’t think it had anything to do with the characters who appeared in his books. He said it was easier for him to enjoy if he just pretended Robert Urich was playing a wholly different detective, like Rockford or Magnum.
Same principle applies- I like the show on its own, but it’s easier to enjoy if I pretend these are entirely new characters with no connection to Doyle.
Oh god the gun talk on this episode was unbearably stupid. First off, they identify the shooter as having a “semiautomatic mp5”, and it makes me wonder when the media fucks this one up - deliberately or accidentally - what the fuck they think “semi” means. Do they think it means super duper automatic?
But he goes further. “I can tell from the pattern of the holes that the bullets were fired in three round bursts” (semi-automatic 3 round bursts I’m sure) “from a rifled barrel, as opposed to a smooth bore, which suggests that whoever is behind the attack has access to high level firearm augmentation”
… Really? You’ve already identified the weapon as a “semi-automatic mp5”, but you think the default state of such a thing is to be smooth bored and requires high level gunsmithing skills to install a rifled barrel?
To those of you who don’t know, pretty much all guns made since the mid 1860s had rifled barrels. So this is sort of like saying “I can tell from the tire treads that this car used gasoline, and doesn’t run on steam power, so our suspect must be an expert mechanic to have modified his car in this way” - actually, it’s worse than that, since they specifically identified the weapon and mislabelled it as semi-automatic. So it’s more like “I can tell from the tire tracks that this came from a 600 horsepower Ford Fiesta. But these tracks clearly came from a gasoline powered vehicle, not a steam powered one like you’d expect a Ford Fiesta to be, so our suspect must be an expert mechanic with access to car modifying facilities”
I’m only 5 minutes into it. I wonder if it gets worse from here.
Sometimes Jonny Lee Miller’s tics and expressions remind me of another actor. It’s tickling the back of my mind, but I haven’t figured it out yet, though I suspect he’s also British and it’s a deliberate emulation. I’ll leap off my couch one day when I finally get it, I’m sure.
totally ridiculous observation - this role is the first time I could imagine Jonny Lee Miller and Angelina Jolie being a couple (they were married at one time). In his previous roles I would think “That has to be a mistake; can’t imagine those two together.” Well now I can.
end totally ridiculous observation
He frowns so much, he’s starting to remind me of Grumpy Cat. I’m not kidding.
I love the show, but he’s getting almost as bad, tic-wise, as Tim Roth on “Lie To Me” (another show I liked a lot, but those tics sure were distracting!)
(yeah, okay, facetious, but still…)