I'm excited about this. I want you to understand how excited I am. I want you to feel the love! Do you know what the love is for? No? Let me enlighten you.
A few months ago I heard chatter on the interwebs that there was a new BBC series, a modern adaptation of the Sherlock Holmes stories, called "Sherlock." I was dubious. "Modern adaptations" gave us things like, oh, I don't know, Young Clone Holmes and Robot Watson. And that's just what made it onto TV. I love me some Sherlock. Have ever since I was a wee lass in fourth grade, trying to figure out what all the big words meant and what the hell was going on. I've re-read the whole kit and caboodle more times than I can count since then, and my relationship to and love of Sherlock Holmes and Dr. John Watson has evolved during that time. I've developed an appreciation for fan-led reinterpretation and re-imagining, and it's not exaggerating to say that many fan works surpass the original media sources in terms of both scale and skill. (If you're familiar with SGA and up for some hot obnoxious-Canadian-scientist-on-American-Air-Force-pilot action, you should look up "Written by the Victors." The Victorsverse is one of the most amazing collaborative efforts of fandom I've ever encountered.)
So I was pretty sure this was going to suck. a) It's the BBC, and their production values are pretty notoriously awful, I mean, come ON, they knew they weren't going to be able to compete with American studios on that basis so they developed other strengths but it's like they don't even TRY not to suck, and b) I was expecting robot Watson and teenaged clone Holmes level of "reinterpretation." (It was awful. I'm just saying it straight-out. Teenaged clones aren't always bad news--"Clone High" is a delightful little show, available on Hulu from time to time--but ugh.)
But fandom liked it. Fandom liked it a lot. And although fandom has notoriously liked some pretty godawful shows (see: The Sentinel, possibly worst-written show not featuring rich Californians ever but OH. SO. HOMOEROTIC), I looked it up, found it was available on Netflix, and thought, what the hell. I'll give it a shot.
It arrived this week and last night we finally got the chance to sit down and watch it. We're both writing papers and doing homework like crazy, and I'm still working full-time and volunteering on weekends, so it gets busy.
And that brings me back to my opener: guys, you have GOT to watch this. If there is any love for Sherlock Holmes in your ruby-red hearts (and there often is, among the geeks and nerds and weirdos of the world, since he's pretty much Spock/Data/7 of 9, not so much Odo, but you get the point), you need to watch this show. The production values are good. Not even "not distractingly terrible," but actually good. The characters are believably updated and well-acted. So far I don't even want to stab the writers in the face for sexism/misogyny! (I'm not saying there isn't any, but so far they've managed to not make it as bad as, say, SGA, where the women are mysterious and sexy [Teyla], compassionate and nuturing [Weir, Heightmayer], or evil seductresses [Chaya, every off-world woman ever].)
Although I do have to wonder whether they even bothered calling a shrink, or whether somebody just browsed a website about personality disorders and figured, hey, that's enough research. I WOULD HAVE TOLD YOU "functional sociopath" is neither a real disorder nor an accurate term. But that's nit-picking.
