Clearing the Victorian Fog: Doyle's Holmes vs Sherlock
While
I am in the Sherlock mode, let me
jabber a little more about the series. I was just reading John Watson’s blog.
Yes, the blog of John H. Watson actually exists and is replete with
spin-offs from the original stories. My favourite is The Speckled Blonde! You guessed it right – it’s a cheeky
twist on The Speckled Band. In 2012, the evil stepfather is not an ex-colonial officer but a cosmetics
tycoon. The snake is a red herring, owned by the dead woman’s fiancé and the fatal weapon is a bubble bath.
This nugget of a case encapsulates Sherlock's fascinating twists on the original stories. The sci-fi thriller version of The Hound of the Baskervilles is the best. Doyle's novel portrayed a world teetering dangerously between superstition and science. Steven Moffat and Mark Gatiss (the writers of Sherlock) launch us into the terrifying milieu of chemical and biological weapons. The hound is no longer a fiendish beast covered in phosphorous but a nightmarish image created by the victims' own horrified psyche. Instead of a vengeful aristocrat we have a sinister scientist suffusing the 'moor' with noxious fumes that generate paralyzing nightmares. Exploiting contemporary paranoia about biological terrorism, the writers clear off the Victorian fog, distilling the essence of Doyle's novel.
And they do the same for the super sleuth. Holmes is stripped off all the Victorian trappings except for his scintillating deductive powers. Sherlock fans will of course delight in the brilliant update of famous deduction scenes.Instead of a watch, Holmes spews Watson's life-history from an i phone with an impish touch at the end. Holmes is spot on about everything regarding Harry Watson - his drinking, his divorce, his tenuous relationship with John. He just misses one small detail - Harry is short for Hariette - Harry is Watson's sister and not his brother!
The creators do an equally brilliant job with the new stories. The Great Game gets my vote. An unknown criminal mastermind compels Sherlock to solve 'little puzzles' within strict time limits. If Sherlock fails, a random hostage will blow up. The fascinating aspect of this episode is to see Sherlock being kept on razor's edge by a sadistic adversary. The books provide an implicit assurance of Holmes's infallibility. But as the detective's analytic prowess is strained to its ultimate limit in The Great Game, the audience worries about his potential failure. Particularly tense is the scene where Sherlock declares a painting to be fake, but the villain refuses to release the hostage until Sherlock proves why it is fake. As the clock ticks on the screen, the audience waits in feverish anticipation, wondering if the detective can actually score over his antagonist.
The anticipation is justified when we know that the antagonist is none other than James Moriarty - "the Napoleon of crime" as Doyle's detective had labelled him. Sir Arthur never fleshed out the schemes of Holmes's "intellectual equal". The series fills up this void with elan. In The Great Game, Moriarty makes Holmes dance to his tune by exploiting the detective's obsession with crime solving. The Reichenbach Fall depicts his diabolical intelligence as Moriarty nearly convinces everyone that Holmes is a fake.
Unfortunately, Andrew Scott's performance shatters the menacing charm built up by the plot. His deliberately guttural voice and melodramatic dialogue delivery reduces Moriarty into a clownish, comic-book villain. In fact Phil Davis, who played the serial killer in A Study in Pink, would have made the perfect Moriarty. His calm but chilling ruthlessness, his arrogance, his razor-sharp mind, constitute the perfect ingredients for Holmes's arch enemy.
Much like Moriarty's performance, the climax of The Reichenbach Fall is a downer. The fact that Moriarty bribes the staff instead of using a computer key code to unlock the Pentonville prison, the Bank of England and the Crown Jewels; undermines the power of this evil genius. Similarly, the plot of A Scandal in Belgravia is riddled with holes. It's utterly unconvincing that Sherlock would fail to detect that the dead woman with a disfigured face is not Irene Adler - especially since she had bared it all; walking in on Sherlock stark naked with red lipstick and red heels. In her dominatrix avatar, Holmes's THE WOMAN appears cheesy rather than seductively smart.
I hope that the writers fix these faux pas in the next series, for, episodes like A Study in Pink, The Hounds of Baskerville and The Great Game establish their smartness. Meanwhile I will satisfy my Holmes mania with Sherlock's and John's blog. And of course with the good old memoirs of Dr. John H.Watson!
P.S. Fellow Holmesians can access John's blog here: <http://www.johnwatsonblog.co.uk/>
And for a real humbling experience browse through
"The Science of Deduction": <http://www.thescienceofdeduction.co.uk/>
This nugget of a case encapsulates Sherlock's fascinating twists on the original stories. The sci-fi thriller version of The Hound of the Baskervilles is the best. Doyle's novel portrayed a world teetering dangerously between superstition and science. Steven Moffat and Mark Gatiss (the writers of Sherlock) launch us into the terrifying milieu of chemical and biological weapons. The hound is no longer a fiendish beast covered in phosphorous but a nightmarish image created by the victims' own horrified psyche. Instead of a vengeful aristocrat we have a sinister scientist suffusing the 'moor' with noxious fumes that generate paralyzing nightmares. Exploiting contemporary paranoia about biological terrorism, the writers clear off the Victorian fog, distilling the essence of Doyle's novel.
And they do the same for the super sleuth. Holmes is stripped off all the Victorian trappings except for his scintillating deductive powers. Sherlock fans will of course delight in the brilliant update of famous deduction scenes.Instead of a watch, Holmes spews Watson's life-history from an i phone with an impish touch at the end. Holmes is spot on about everything regarding Harry Watson - his drinking, his divorce, his tenuous relationship with John. He just misses one small detail - Harry is short for Hariette - Harry is Watson's sister and not his brother!
The creators do an equally brilliant job with the new stories. The Great Game gets my vote. An unknown criminal mastermind compels Sherlock to solve 'little puzzles' within strict time limits. If Sherlock fails, a random hostage will blow up. The fascinating aspect of this episode is to see Sherlock being kept on razor's edge by a sadistic adversary. The books provide an implicit assurance of Holmes's infallibility. But as the detective's analytic prowess is strained to its ultimate limit in The Great Game, the audience worries about his potential failure. Particularly tense is the scene where Sherlock declares a painting to be fake, but the villain refuses to release the hostage until Sherlock proves why it is fake. As the clock ticks on the screen, the audience waits in feverish anticipation, wondering if the detective can actually score over his antagonist.
The anticipation is justified when we know that the antagonist is none other than James Moriarty - "the Napoleon of crime" as Doyle's detective had labelled him. Sir Arthur never fleshed out the schemes of Holmes's "intellectual equal". The series fills up this void with elan. In The Great Game, Moriarty makes Holmes dance to his tune by exploiting the detective's obsession with crime solving. The Reichenbach Fall depicts his diabolical intelligence as Moriarty nearly convinces everyone that Holmes is a fake.
 | ||
| Serial Killer; A Study in Pink (top); James Moriarty The Reichenbach Fall (bottom) |
Unfortunately, Andrew Scott's performance shatters the menacing charm built up by the plot. His deliberately guttural voice and melodramatic dialogue delivery reduces Moriarty into a clownish, comic-book villain. In fact Phil Davis, who played the serial killer in A Study in Pink, would have made the perfect Moriarty. His calm but chilling ruthlessness, his arrogance, his razor-sharp mind, constitute the perfect ingredients for Holmes's arch enemy.
Much like Moriarty's performance, the climax of The Reichenbach Fall is a downer. The fact that Moriarty bribes the staff instead of using a computer key code to unlock the Pentonville prison, the Bank of England and the Crown Jewels; undermines the power of this evil genius. Similarly, the plot of A Scandal in Belgravia is riddled with holes. It's utterly unconvincing that Sherlock would fail to detect that the dead woman with a disfigured face is not Irene Adler - especially since she had bared it all; walking in on Sherlock stark naked with red lipstick and red heels. In her dominatrix avatar, Holmes's THE WOMAN appears cheesy rather than seductively smart.
I hope that the writers fix these faux pas in the next series, for, episodes like A Study in Pink, The Hounds of Baskerville and The Great Game establish their smartness. Meanwhile I will satisfy my Holmes mania with Sherlock's and John's blog. And of course with the good old memoirs of Dr. John H.Watson!
P.S. Fellow Holmesians can access John's blog here: <http://www.johnwatsonblog.co.uk/>
And for a real humbling experience browse through
"The Science of Deduction": <http://www.thescienceofdeduction.co.uk/>
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