Sherlock

[MarkB]

Did anyone else watch this on Sunday? I thought it was a surprisingly good take on the detective, enjoyable and well-acted, and worked well despite the transplanted setting.

I'll definitely be watching this as it continues.

[sblock=Plot spoiler - don't read unless you've watched it]My only minor niggle: They did seem to give away the taxi driver connection early, and felt a little embarrassed to be waiting for Holmes to catch up after he'd been so insufferably clever so far. I'm not sure if that was deliberate on the writers' part, or simply how it played out on screen.[/sblock]

 

[Morrus]

Yup, we quite liked it. Shame there are only three episodes!

 

[horacethegrey]

I thought it was a brilliant reinterpretation of the Great Detective for the modern era. Casting was great. Not sure how high Benedict Cumberbacht rates among the likes of Jeremy Brett and Robert Downey Jr., but damn was he good. And I'm glad that he plays up Holmes' more sociopathic tendencies (though I'm hoping in the future he doesn't overdo it, I don't want Holmes becoming House). And Martin Freeman plays him off well as a delightfully understated Watson. There are some genuine funny moments between the two of them(particularly Watson's insistence that they are not a couple ). The plot wasn't that special, but still enjoyable. I also like the txt messages that flash across the screen, really nice innovation.

On other forums people have noticed similarities between this and Moffat's Doctor Who, particularly in how the two leads are portrayed. Many are saying Cumberbacht is stealing notes from Matt Smith's portrayal of the Doctor, but that's a disservice. Holmes was like this even in the original stories, so it'd more fair to say the Doctor was stealing notes from him.

Looking forward to next Sunday!

 

[Morrus]

One thing I didn't understand though - how did the cab driver win the pill game four times in a row? It was never explained. As Sherlock kept saying, it's just a 50/50 chance. The cab driver kept saying he knew how people thought and thus won the game every time, but that was a really unconvincing explanation for me.

 

[Matchstick]

Wait, what? I don't know this show! I love Holmes and Watson, I'm going to have to look this up!

I wonder if it's on hulu...

 

[Morrus]

I wonder if it's on hulu...

Extraordinarily unlikely. It'll be on BBC iPlayer, though.

 

[MarkB]

One thing I didn't understand though - how did the cab driver win the pill game four times in a row? It was never explained. As Sherlock kept saying, it's just a 50/50 chance. The cab driver kept saying he knew how people thought and thus won the game every time, but that was a really unconvincing explanation for me.

It's basically just the poisoned-cup gambit from The Princess Bride. The psychology is in the opponent having to work out whether he would hand them the safe pill, or the poisoned one. His 'superiority' lies in him working out, in advance, which conclusion his victim will come to, based on his observation of them, and acting accordingly.

 

[Morrus]

It's basically just the poisoned-cup gambit from The Princess Bride. The psychology is in the opponent having to work out whether he would hand them the safe pill, or the poisoned one. His 'superiority' lies in him working out, in advance, which conclusion his victim will come to, based on his observation of them, and acting accordingly.

Well, yes- he said that. But there was no explanation of this reasoning; the rest of the deductive reasoning in the episode was explained in full, but this one was just "oh, I know how people think". It was most unfulfilling.

 

[MarkB]

Well, yes- he said that. But there was no explanation of this reasoning; the rest of the deductive reasoning in the episode was explained in full, but this one was just "oh, I know how people think". It was most unfulfilling.

True enough. The point was to leave Holmes unfulfilled on that subject, but they did the same to the audience (which maybe was the intention). A flashback to his last victim during the climactic scene would have worked to fill in the blanks, though it might have diluted the effect of that sequence.

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

It's basically just the poisoned-cup gambit from The Princess Bride. The psychology is in the opponent having to work out whether he would hand them the safe pill, or the poisoned one. His 'superiority' lies in him working out, in advance, which conclusion his victim will come to, based on his observation of them, and acting accordingly.

That's my guess, too. But I am not sure. It might really just have been random chance.

And I didn't get the feeling that Sherlock "got it" right if it was the Princess Bride gambit. He seemed to really ponder whether he should try it in the end. But maybe that's what makes Watsons action so important - he saved Sherlock from his own intellect, so to speak.