Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

I'm a '60s kid, and much too old for fangirling, even if I was the right sex, but I'm addicted to the show as much as the fangirls are (though I draw the line at "shipping"). Heck, though, Sherlock is testing my stamina as well as my hearing. Benedict Cumberbatch talks at roughly the speed computer chips used to go in the days before computer chips started going at the speed of light. Which is difficult enough for a brain like mine that only goes at the speed of clockwork, but on top of that you have the visual graffiti, those fly-past word-jumbles that litter the screen like a hallucinogenic Scrabble game every time some new character attracts Sherlock's gaze. It makes for an information-flow that is more than my cerebral cortex can process without overloading the circuits and causing smoke to leak from my ears. Still, there's always the good old BBC iPlayer where you can re-play the show at your leisure. I've seen two episodes so far, and careful analysis of the content tells me that Sherlock is still alive and Moriarty is still dead. That's about all I can say for a certainty, because in terms of comprehension I'm struggling along at the back of the pack. But certainty is not something you should look for in any case from Sherlock, which specializes in teasing the viewer. Steven Moffat is just one of three writers for the series, but it is his presence that is most strongly felt, even in episodes he didn't write. In many ways the psychology of the show occupies the same territory as Moffat's other show, Doctor Who, where comedy and drama can alternate several times within the space of a minute, and false scents and long-delayed payoffs are part of a strategy that seems increasingly audience-aware. In Episode 1, The Empty Hearse, Moffat goes as far as lampooning his own fans, or the hard-core at least, by dramatizing no less than three different solutions to Sherlock's faked death based on theories circulating on the internet since the Reichenbach Fall episode that seemingly killed him off (and then seemingly didn't). It's gone further than any show has before in breaking the "fourth wall", and is edging dangerously close to what would probably be called Deconstructionist drama, where the distinction between actors and audience is dissolved entirely, and where fictional structure falls into a Perception Paradox and implodes with a gentle sigh. No, I'm joking (I think). But say what you like about Moffat (and many bad things have been said), he's never boring. If this remarkable show is going to vanish down its own plughole, I'd like to be there to see it happen. In the meantime, here are some good reasons to keep watching: Martin Freeman as Dr Watson - surely the face-actor of all time. First seen as Tim Canterbury in The Office (UK original), Freeman can do more with a fleeting look than others can do with a whole paragraph of speech. There is a lunatic moment in Episode 2 (The Sign of Three) where, for no obvious reason, he calls Sherlock "mate". In the barely perceptible pause that follows, the merest flash of facial expression succeeds brilliantly in conveying his astonishment at himself for having used such a blokey form of address. It happens so fast that the inattentive viewer could easily miss it, but for me it was the funniest moment in an episode that contained a lot of funny moments. More than that, it reinforces the feeling I've always had that Freeman does not play Watson; Freeman *is* Watson. He is thinking and feeling everything that Watson is thinking and feeling, no acting required. A master-class. Una Stubbs as Mrs Hudson - often described in her native land as a "national treasure", which undervalues her. In my view, she's precious enough to deserve her own vault in the Bank of England with guards at the door 24/7. Older viewers will remember her in Worzel Gummidge playing opposite Jon Pertwee as Aunt Sally. (I mean she, not Jon Pertwee, was Aunt Sally.) Viewers even older than that will remember her as Rita in Till Death Us Do Part (US remake: All in the Family). Mrs Hudson, the good-hearted chatterbox, is not an easy part to play without becoming tiresome, but Stubbs hits exactly the right tone and is an essential ingredient in at least two great comic scenes. Look out for: Lars Mikkelson as Charles Augustus Magnussen, who promises to be the new Moriarty. I say "look out for", because so far we've seen only his eyes, which might or might not be a conscious echo of the eyes-only view we had of the new Doctor (Peter Capaldi) in The Day of the Doctor. Undoubtedly cast on the strength of his impressive performance in the Danish series, Forbrydelsen (The Killing), he might be a sign of a change in mood. Up to now the present season has tended more towards the comic and self-referential. Mikkelsen's appearance might be the moment when the new season turns serious. Speculate about: Mary Morstan, as played by Martin Freeman's real-life partner, Amanda Abbington. In Episode 2 she marries Watson, and Sherlock is best man. However, in the previous episode Sherlock had subjected her to his usual scrutiny at their first encounter, generating a screenful of the aforementioned word-jumbles: "linguist", "nurse", "short-sighted", "cat-lover", "bakes own bread", and several others. One that could easily be missed is "liar". Was that thrown in on a whim, or is it a time-bomb? Hmmm...... That's my review. What follows below is something I posted back in September, when Amazon was offering the DVDs for Season 3 on pre-order. Which was absurdly premature, since not only had the season not been screened yet, it hadn't even been shot. We were being invited to review discs for a non-existent show. So, predictably, a lot of people took up the challenge. I couldn't resist making my own contribution, in the form of a Victorian fantasy. I should probably delete it now, since it's lost its topicality, but people seemed to like it, so I'll leave it be. ************************* (Scene: 221b Baker St, London NW1. Date: April 1st, 1895) WATSON: Pray, Holmes, instead of puffing on that ridiculously large pipe and staring moodily out of the window, apprise me of the solution to the Case of the Missing Moving-Picture Show. HOLMES: I'm cogitating, Watson. WATSON: Indeed? Well, let us hope Mrs Hudson doesn't enter unexpectedly. HOLMES: You are very droll. WATSON: I confess, Holmes, that I grow vexed at your obfuscation. You speak mysteriously of products that are for sale, yet do not exist; which can be rated and ranked and judged for quality by their customers, yet the warehouses that supposedly store them are empty. You can buy them, but cannot hold them in your hands. You speak of dogs that didn't bark in the night, of cars that didn't park in the night, and ghosts that didn't give me a fright, but still I know no more than I did at the start. HOLMES: Very well. I see that I have been remiss in not furnishing you with the fruits of my mental labours. Consider, Watson: once you have eliminated the absurd, whatever remains, however ludicrous, must be the total minus the former. WATSON: That's the latter. HOLMES: You have it precisely. WATSON: And what is it, in a nutshell? HOLMES: It's a nut, Watson, as any book on botany will reveal. WATSON: I mean, what is your conclusion in this case. HOLMES: Ah. My conclusion is that we have been conspired against by men from the future. WATSON: Good Lord! Is that possible? HOLMES: I am forced to deduce it from the evidence. Outside we hear the reassuring clip-clop of horses and the rattle of carriages, but these men, inhabiting this same street, hear the sound of machines flying overhead. WATSON: Holmes, you never cease to astonish me. But what of this conspiracy? HOLMES: Seemingly it is the doing of an inter-galactic time-traveller, who I am led to believe is a sinister Chinaman called Doctor Hu. This cosmic mischief-maker hurtles across the centuries in a stolen police-box, accompanied only by a succession of "companions", who I understand to be attractive young women who run a lot. By his agency, we -- that's you and I, Watson -- have been constrained to have our lives re-lived in some future century. And these have been recorded as images on a kinematograph, and compressed, if you can believe it, onto a single spinning disc. WATSON: You mean, like a gramophone record? HOLMES: Just so, except smaller and much more difficult to get out of its case without bending it. WATSON: Remarkable. And they have recorded our expeditions and peregrinations? HOLMES: That is my conclusion. We two, and Mrs Hudson besides, have been mimicked and made a mockery of by skilled impersonators with preposterous names, like.... Cumberdick Bendersquatch, or some such thing. He, it seems, is my alter ego, while yours is colloquially known as "Tim from the office". I am unable to ascertain what office that might be, and can only surmise that he's a renegade government clerk fallen on hard times. WATSON: But why us, Holmes? What use can be made of our lives by these ruffians from another century? HOLMES: Aha. Well, I have since delved further. And, as I suspected, there is second criminal mind at work, one that keeps to the shadows and dark places while he concocts his fiendish plots. You see, Watson, Doctor Hu is but the visible face, while the brain belongs to another. WATSON: Good Lord, Holmes, is there no end to the ingenuity of those who would bring us down? Does this mastermind have a name? HOLMES: He does, yet I can hardly bring myself to utter it. WATSON: You don't mean--? HOLMES: My nemesis? The one man of whom I fear I will never be rid? I wish it were not so. Yet I must conclude that it is. WATSON: Moffiarty! HOLMES: Exactly so, Watson. The only begetter of this devilish scheme is indeed Professor Moffiarty. And Doctor Hu is Moffiarty's creature and does his bidding in all things. WATSON: Holmes, I shudder to think that your nemesis assaults us yet again! What mischief has this demon conjured up in that future time? HOLMES: Killing, mostly. He is notorious as a killer and a destroyer of dreams. On a mere whim he has killed several of Doctor Hu's running "companions", some of them more than once, and left a trail of weeping women around the world who have followed the Doctor's adventures on the kinematograph. At any hour of the day or night their despairing wail can be heard: "Moffiarty!! Nooooooooo!!...crying now." WATSON: Then, at the very least he deserves a straight left to the chin, for I abhor the maltreatment of the gentler sex. What a bounder! HOLMES: Hush, Watson. I fancy the game is not yet afoot, still less ayard or amile. Let us ask ourselves the following questions.... [The rest of Dr Watson's journal is missing, believed lost forever, though it is still on sale at a reasonable price and can be reviewed by anyone who hasn't read it]