Skip to main content

The World of Sherlock

I am a huge (HUGE) fan of the BBC's Sherlock series. The fact that there is no new episode this week is unsettling. (A strangely unfamiliar feeling for me when it comes to TV.)

I watch Sherlock in bed, with the laptop propped on top of a thick book. I saw the first two episodes while horribly ill with the flu and incapable of sitting up for longer than five minutes, and now it's habit. After I am done, I set the laptop on the floor, turn out my light, and lie in the dark. The episode replays itself in my mind - the drama, the dialogue, the cinematography, the music... I am in love.


I have never read any Arthur Conan Doyle, but I may now. Particularly because it turns out that Sherlock was the basis for the character of House (House & Wilson, Holmes & Watson), and I now realize, most of my other preferred crime shows.*

The "Sherlock" character is, in each scenario: exceedingly brilliant, slightly socially inept, emotionally stunted/damaged, and motivated by something other than money. They are sought out by the police force who are incapable of solving complex crimes without the expert's rapidly-firing neurons. They consistently wound their colleagues' egos, but the colleagues always rally together.

Examples: Castle, The Mentalist, Lie to Me, Bones. There are more, I'm sure.

But getting back to the BBC... Season 2 is over. Who knows when Season 3 will be!? I'm not ready to part ways with Benedict Cumberbatch - yes, that is his name - and Martin Freeman - soon to be seen in The Hobbit - for an entire year. So I am looking for friends who want to watch the series. Perhaps for the first time, or perhaps (like me) again and again and again.

If this clip intrigues you, and you live in the GTA, let me know.




*props and thanks to Jesskah & Jonathan for bringing me into the world of Sherlock via Robert Downey Jr at Christmas.

Comments

  1. Sherlock looks neat, thanks for the heads up. I usually give one show a chance at a time, but Alcatraz doesn't have any interesting&flawed&lovable characters yet and this Sherlock business is a cool 6 episodes, surmountable!

    ReplyDelete
  2. Please count me in for a dedicated viewing of the series. I have been in love with Sherlock Holmes since the age of 9 and Mr. Cumberbatch has only served to deepen my affection.

    Ah, Sherlock!

    ReplyDelete
  3. Thom. If you don't LOVE this show, I will return all the money I stole from you when we lived in Fun City. (Jokes. I'll never give it back.)

    Karen. Counted!

    ReplyDelete
  4. Yeah, Daughters of Toronto! Please do tell us more!

    ReplyDelete
  5. Just an FYI you might want to inform people that each episode is almost feature length at an hour and twenty minutes. An awesome hour and twenty minutes, but an hour and twenty minutes none the less.

    ReplyDelete
  6. mlw - coming later tonight!

    jr - yes. true... that detail was in an earlier draft of this post, but i apparently took it out. oops.

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Simone Weil: On "Forms of the Implicit Love of God"

Simone Weil time again! One of the essays in Waiting for God  is entitled "Forms of the Implicit Love of God." Her main argument is that before a soul has "direct contact" with God, there are three types of love that are implicitly  the love of God, though they seem to have a different explicit  object. That is, in loving X, you are really loving Y. (in this case, Y = God). As for the X of the equation, she lists: Love of neighbor  Love of the beauty of the world  Love of religious practices  and a special sidebar to Friendship “Each has the virtue of a sacrament,” she writes. Each of these loves is something to be respected, honoured, and understood both symbolically and concretely. On each page of this essay, I found myself underlining profound, challenging, and thought-provoking words. There's so much to consider that I've gone back several times, mulling it over and wondering how my life would look if I truly believed even half of these thi...

I Like to Keep My Issues Drawn

It's Sunday night and I am multi-tasking. Paid some bills, catching up on free musical downloads from the past month, thinking about the mix-tape I need to make and planning my last assignment for writing class. Shortly, I will abandon the laptop to write my first draft by hand. But until then, I am thinking about music. This song played for me earlier this afternoon, as I attempted to nap. I woke up somewhere between 5 and 5:30 this morning, then lay in bed until 8 o'clock flipping sides and thinking about every part of my life that exists. It wasn't stressful, but it wasn't quite restful either...This past month, I have spent a lot of time rebuffing lies and refusing to believe that the inside of my heart and mind can never change. I feel like Florence + The Machine 's song "Shake it Out" captures many of these feelings & thoughts. (addendum: is the line "I like to keep my issues strong or drawn ?" Lyrics sites have it as "stro...

Esse - Czeslaw Milosz

I'm on a bit of a poetry binge this week, and Monday afternoon found me lying on the luxurious shag rug of a friend's tiny apartment, re-reading some of my favourite poets (ee cummings, William Carlos Williams, Czeslaw Milosz). It is an adventure to re-open a collection and wonder what will pop out, knowing something you've read before will strike you afresh, or you will be reminded of a particularly moving line that you had somehow forgotten. Like this piece from Milosz, which floors me. Every. damn.* time. The first time I read it, I lay in a park with a friend (this same friend who offered me her rug as my reading burrow) and demanded that I share it with her. I spoke it carefully, and then, into the post-reading silence, I slammed the book shut, and dropped it as loudly as I could onto the grass. "I'm never reading anything again," I declared, "What else is there to say?" Esse I looked at that face, dumbfounded. The lights of métro st...