Menaced by Moriarty

First of all, it’s worth saying that I enjoyed Sherlock and, overall, thought it was a good watch. In fact, I think that the first series was excellent, except for one major problem which I’ll get to later. However, in the second series, there are some things that bugged me about it. I thought I’d focus on those as you’re also getting another view focussing on the best bits (we spoil you).

Jostling for position at the top of my list of complaints is the start of the second series. Seriously, it looked as if the writers wrote the cliffhanger for the first series finale, then just said “how will he get out of this using his cunning, fuck it we’ll decide later”. Sherlock escapes by Moriarty basically just going: “meh, fuck it, I’m off now. It’s stuffy and smells of chlorine in here”. Then it ‘all tied in’ at the end of the episode. It was lazy, and even with suspended disbelief set to maximum; it was as weak as a drop of Robinson’s in the Pacific.

Now on to another main problem: the characters. Sherlock, himself, was not all too bad. He was similar enough to be recognisable as the character. At times, he was a bit of moody prick, when in the books he is blunt but charming. With women, he is a gentleman, but just shows no sexual interest in them. The show does pretty much capture the essence of him well, and who doesn’t love Benny C?

The major problem, mentioned above, was Jim Moriarty. He was terrible, I’m sorry, but he was that’s a fact. Well, obviously it’s not a fact as it’s my opinion, but shhhh. Moriarty in absolutely no way resembled the figure of Professor Moriarty in the novels, except for being Sherlock’s enemy and the bad guy. In the books, he is an elderly, softly spoken man, who is well respected by society and who couldn’t have a bad word said about in the press, as people would think it was libel. You could say that, as it’s a show, it can take artistic licence. I just think they took too much. The core of the character, and his personality, was so fundamentally changed that they basically shared a name and that’s all. In the show, he was a cut and paste of The Master from Doctor Who. He wasn’t scary and sinister at all. He was way too openly crazy for you to find him intimidating, basically like an angry chav. The shouting down the phone of skinning people sounded like a bad impression of Ari Gold from Entourage.

So we move on down my hit list of whinging, which, I can assure you, has left the Felix office a cold, dark place as nobody agrees with me (I have been ostracised). The next target is Irene Adler. I won’t get into a feminism debate here. I have noticed that Steven Moffat is not good at writing strong, sexy women. To be fair, I can’t either, and that’s probably because neither of us are strong, sexy women. They usually end up turning out cringey and sounding like Jay from The Inbetweeners (“what me? Yeah I fuck people ALL THE TIME”). Another example is River Song from Doctor Who. In fact, that whole episode was a bit dumb really. Why fundamentally change the plot so much when the original plot was so good, and easily modernisable. Plus, while I’m at it, why did her phone suddenly have text to unlock it when she showed it to Sherlock, when before it was a password and why, if they were so anxious to get rid of the photos, did they need the passcode? Why not just blow the phone up/melt it down? Also, why change Irene Adler from ‘the women who beat him’, to ‘the woman who, with a lot of help, sort of won, but actually in the end didn’t’. The run time of that episode didn’t really help it out: it felt a bit dragged out at times.

What is the point in having a great set of characters and stories to use if you’re just going to end up throwing half of them away in a montage, and the other half alter beyond recognition. The Hound of the Baskervilles could have been so good. Why did they come up will all the bullshit stuff? How could you not reread it and decide that it’s actually not an improvement on the original.

In summary, Sherlock is good and an enjoyable watch. The first series was excellent, the second not as good but still fun and worth checking out; I just like to moan, and besides, it’s my personal opinion. In fact, that’s the wonderful thing about all art forms. They are all personal to you, in this case more so than many others. My version of Sherlock Holmes is a certain way, and my image of him in my head is Jeremy Brett (from the old BBC dramatization). If Sherlock is your introduction to the sleuth, you may find the books weird and feel like they are wrong, as things aren’t how you picture them. So it’s all about point of view, and how much spare time you manage to make for yourself to write an article like this.