The problem with Mary as a black ops super ninja is that Amanda Abington just simply doesn't look the part, she looks like a middle aged mother of two with a desk job. And I don't just mean in terms of her face but also how her physique how she stands, moves and behaves. I just can't buy it.
Mate, I reckon it goes further than that. When she's acting, when she's talking about that shit, it's not believable in the slightest. She says the lines like normal Mary, theres no confliction, no inner turmoil. When she's normal Mary, you're never thinking about her gloomy past.
Quite disappointed that our introduction to the new series basically devolved into another episode all about Mary.
I won't miss her; roll on something new.
It's following a schedule this time.
Last time the 2nd episode came out 3-4 days after so that they could move it to Sunday and then followed it up with the finale a week later.
But they had to wrap that up quick I guess. Why would we want to watch Sherlock Holmes solve a mystery?
I don't know if there's much here for me anymore. It's not that the show is suddenly awful or anything, but it's just not what I want. I don't care to watch John and Sherlock make up again. I don't like all this international espionage stuff. Those funny little segments with the random cases are starting to grind a little. I just want a real mystery again, a moment where it all comes together and everything makes sense. All the reveals here, outside of the fake car seat, just fell flat, like they were either too obvious or too obscure.
Can Sherlock and Watson go back to solving improbable mysteries without Moffat/Gatiss shoehorning an ever-increasing emotional crisis between them every series?
This nails my thoughts mostly. That first third where they were doing the goofy Sherlock comedy was just terrible IMO. Glad it got better as it went along but I too didn't really buy into any of the Mary being a black ops super spy stuff. The first episode of season 3 was poor too so hopefully it improves a bit next week.
But they had to wrap that up quick I guess. Why would we want to watch Sherlock Holmes solve a mystery?
I don't know if there's much here for me anymore. It's not that the show is suddenly awful or anything, but it's just not what I want. I don't care to watch John and Sherlock make up again. I don't like all this international espionage stuff. Those funny little segments with the random cases are starting to grind a little. I just want a real mystery again, a moment where it all comes together and everything makes sense. All the reveals here, outside of the fake car seat, just fell flat, like they were either too obvious or too obscure.
All I really want is the Scooby Doo moment - "It was _____ all along". The puzzle pieces being laid out on the table early, and assembled fully at the end. But a lot of this episode was just pulling things up, seemingly out of thin air, as events moved along. "Oh, it was all about the USB", "Oh, she was part of a team that were all murdered?", "Oh, this person was jealous for some reason". There's no route to concluding the ending with the information provided 30 minutes in.
I kind of hope they wrap up the series this season...I don't think I'd be interested in a season 5 with a gap of 2-3 years only to get episodes like this one.
This show was at its best when it was heavily based around classic Sherlock stories. This one just uses The six Napoleon's and then shoves what is probably thr worst part of the show i.e. Mary's stuff in it.
I don't think they needed to kill Mary off in yet another tragic fridging, but sweet zombie Jesus, does this show need to get back to actually solving cleverly-constructed mysteries and throw all this secret-agent-ninja-Mary stuff in the trash where it belongs.
Well that was disappointing, like what was that whole plot with redhead who was hitting on John. Unless it is some kind of clever Moriarty trick that will be revealed in next episodes, it was useless. Also did not care at all about Mary's death.
we've seen the john hates sherlock thing before and there are barely 10 episodes. Everything about Mary sucks. Everything about planning for death and post-death messages suck. Also it was really obvious - though welcome - that Mary was dying because Abington and Freeman split up.
Please just make an episode where they solve crime. No more melodrama
I enjoyed it, but I think the thing that sums it up for me is Sherlock getting the DVD, with 'Missing me?' written on it, and you think 'ah, touch obvious but at fucking last, the Big Bad is Back in Town, let's get some action' and then it's Mary again, waffling.
BORING. NEXT.
I like some emotional stuff, sure, but I cannot help but feel some subtle balance in drama vs puzzle has been disturbed.
. Just kind of splurged it. I enjoyed it in general although not as good as previous stuff like last years special,
and thought the person behind it all was a pretty funny twist
. Might watch it again later. I was also kind of self aware throughout the episode as someone that's kept up with it, that if you were just coming into this now (which is fairly plausible for a new years day special), you'd be pretty lost. But that's not to be helped anyway tbh.
I need to check the list to make sure, but this might be my favorite Gatiss episode.
I wasn't really feeling cheating Watson, but the transition between "You made a vow, you swore it" to Watson's ringing phone was so perfect that I forgive it.
final scene in the aquarium even though I did enjoy the reveal and the episode overall. I didn't like Mary on the show but her exit and it leading to an "angry Watson" episode or..God forbid... two, isn't what I had in mind.
Absolutely terrible episode. I'm not here to see a mom-Bond soap-opera, I want my mysteries with all the clues elegantly laid out for that moment of epiphany when Holmes reveals how it all hangs together. There wasn't a whiff of that in this. The closest we got was the boy in the car, and that was given a ludicrous explanation. Instead, this was dominated by a badly written character I have no reason to care about dying in ridiculous way - it was obviously the secretary from the point they bothered to give a minor character a full piece of dialogue with Sherlock in scene one and then made sure to put her in the background later on. We've already used that "it was a mundane background person" trope before already.
Bluntly, thank fuck Mary's dead, nobody cared, please leave all that behind you and go back to super detective solving mysteries.
For anyone in the US who needs a way to watch, looks like PBS is just throwing the episodes up on their website at the same time as the US premiere. God, I love that network. Donate to your local PBS station!
For anyone in the US who needs a way to watch, looks like PBS is just throwing the episodes up on their website at the same time as the US premiere. God, I love that network. Donate to your local PBS station!
Apart from this being incoherent and all over the place, how in the fuck do you turn a show about Sherlock Holmes into
a show about Watson's love escapades and some totally unbelievable lore about his wife? What's next, a Batman show in which Batman becomes the backdrop for the story of butler Alfred's love life?
And sadly, as expected they bailed out of doing something actually interesting with the last season's finale. Plus the characters, totally undeserved, don't have to deal with anything from that. But maybe that still comes up in the next episodes...
Rather than live posting/bumping this thread, a couple thoughts/notes I've been taking:
- Maybe it's the fanboy/avatar in me, but I liked it just fine, honestly.
- Sherlock's obsessed with Moriarty; Is THAT what Jim was hoping for? That Sherlock wouldn't be able to let him go, and would monopolize his thinking?
- Mary's death was to be expected, but I'm kinda getting a Skyler White vibe from a lot of the commentary? (i.e., let the boys get back to solving mysteries and get this inconvenient woman out of here)
- The cinematography was GORGEOUS
- Very obvious who the "roads we walk have demons beneath" quote was referring to now...but I'm guessing we're not done with Mary's past after tonight's episode.
- Glanced at a spoiler earlier. Did Amanda and Martin really split? That is so depressing.
- The glance of the beach we see when Mary drugs Sherlock looks suspiciously like the (trailer spoilers)
beach in the trailer where we see who I suspect is Andrew Scott
- Whatever the fuck acting Martin has in him for the next 2 weeks is going to be amazing to behold. He's the BEST. He's going to win awards.
- As a HITMAN fanboy, I was thrilled to see Marrakesh
- What's Ammo mean in Latin?
- I'm disappointed that after Abominable Bride, we'd have a direct line into what "Moriarty" was planning, and it sucks we got none of that
- The texting/cheating is SUPER out of character for John. Wonder how that's going to play out
- "You made a vow" was fucking dumb. Sorry, guys.
- Thought Sherlock's egging on of Norbury was interesting. Was meant to break her, but only pushed her to want to shoot him.
- SHERRINGFORD!!!!!!!
That was awful, I hated it. Overwrought melodrama washing over anything interesting, all capped off with a poorly executed way in driving a wedge between John and Sherlock. I hope the middle and end episodes make up for this trash.
First time I've actively disliked an episode. AB was disappointing but this was another level of bad. I'll stick it out but I've come to accept that S1 and S2 might be the exceptions.
