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almaviva90Well, call me Harry and paint my bottom bright purple, if it isn't already the 3rd of August. Sorry...entering Stephen Fry mode back there; I still can't believe that I met him in person to be honest. But anyways and moving on, it's now August (a somewhat frightening fact, to be quite frank) and in a month or so, it'll be September and with it the start of my third and final year at HKU will I can safely assume will be the most arduous year yet seeing I've got lots to credits to fulfill in order to graduate.
But while I'm alternately cursing about this fact or reading various books/articles for my upcoming dissertation, I also finally got the chance last night to watch the first episode of the new Sherlock series from the BBC (why, oh why does the BBC produce the most coolest things ever and alas not allow ppl from outside the UK to view them on BBC iPlayer? *sigh*). Now everyone knows that I simply see Jeremy Brett as the only definitive Holmes there is (as with David Suchet as Poirot) and initially I thought it was going to be a bad idea making a new series, especially when it was obvious they were going to set in our modern day and age: the 21st Century. Instead of hansom cabs and telegrams, we get taxi cabs, emails and SMSs. Sherlock Holmes and Dr Watson now have blogs of their own (Holmes even has his own website, unsurprisingly named 'The Science of Deduction') and they are decidedly modern in their ways. Holmes no longer smokes his famous pipe, he instead uses nicotine patches and the writers make a fun twist of the familiar Holmes' saying: 'This is a three pipe problem' to 'This is a three patch problem'. Watson too is not a veteran of the Second Anglo-Afghan War of 1878-80 but of the recent war in Afghanistan instead and suffers from the occasional post-traumatic stress disorder.
Though on paper this sounds ludicrous and undoable, on film it surprisingly works very well. Though the century is no longer the 19th, the basics remain the same: Holmes is still very much the proud, arrogant genius and Watson is still very much the same steady, brave and capable doctor and soldier. What makes the series more believable too is the chemistry between the newest incarnations of Holmes and Watson; Benedict Cumberbatch (who I'm sure that![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
cerulean88 will remember very well seeing that he was a wonderful Pitt the Younger in Amazing Grace) and Martin Freeman (who almost everyone remembers as Arthur Dent from the film adaptation of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy) as seen below.
Cumberbatch captures the manic eccentricity of Holmes perfectly but in a different way from Brett. Brett's Holmes was energetic, leaping about the place, clapping his hands and crying exclamations when the solution finally came to him. Cumberbatch is noticeably more quiet and makes it very obvious that Holmes has no social connection with the world whatsoever apart from the times when it relates to his work and forces him to socialise with others to obtain information. But that isn't to say he isn't energetic; there are chase scenes across London, fights to the death and a rather bizarre but totally in-character scene of Holmes frantically beating a corpse with a riding crop (the latter of which is part of a forensic experiment, don't worry). Also, he also conveys to the audience quite clearly that Holmes is only 'alive' when he's on the trail of a criminal and the somewhat childish delight that enters his face when he realises he's got a serial killer on his hands in the first episode is so totally Sherlock Holmes.
The opposite of Holmes is Freeman's steady Watson who continually finds himself struggling to keep up with Holmes' frantic pace of mind but nevertheless trusts his new flatmate enough to venture off on sudden investigations and refuses to give up any information about his new friend and colleague. Watson here is obviously at times frustrated at Holmes' seeming lack of concern for his feelings and well-being (he once leaves Watson in the middle of London after dashing off to investigate a new clue despite the fact that Watson still needs a cane to get about due to his wounds) but isn't as bitchy (thankfully) as Jude Law's Watson in last year's film.
The episode/series also has its comedic moments; a friend of Holmes who owns a restaurant assumes that Holmes and his new friend Watson are partners (in the romantic sense...and not surprising since there's been loads of slash fics written about these two) to which Watson repeatedly declares: 'I'm NOT his date!' and Holmes' sending continuous messages to Watson's phone where the audience can actually see the text pop up in white lettering on the television screen is pretty cool. The use of SMS to send one of Holmes' most famous and maddening requests to Watson was also a brilliant idea: 'Come at once if convenient. SH'...a few minutes later...'If inconvenient come anyway. SH' XDDD Another hilarious moment was between Holmes and Lestrade (played by Rupert Graves who I haven't seen in anything since watching A Room with a View and Fortunes of War):
Holmes: Shut up.
Lestrade [utterly perplexed]: I didn't say anything.
Holmes: You were thinking. It's annoying.
Though it's obviously not pure Sherlock Holmes, the series does manage to put in a lot of references to the original work and thus pay admirable homage to Conan Doyle's genius.
As a result, I'm greatly looking forward to the final episode (I've already watched part of the second episode and will watch more of it later). Though it surprises me, I wouldn't mind at all if the BBC really does decide to commission more episodes to be written and filmed since the current series are obviously quite non-canon but strangely appealing all the same.
But while I'm alternately cursing about this fact or reading various books/articles for my upcoming dissertation, I also finally got the chance last night to watch the first episode of the new Sherlock series from the BBC (why, oh why does the BBC produce the most coolest things ever and alas not allow ppl from outside the UK to view them on BBC iPlayer? *sigh*). Now everyone knows that I simply see Jeremy Brett as the only definitive Holmes there is (as with David Suchet as Poirot) and initially I thought it was going to be a bad idea making a new series, especially when it was obvious they were going to set in our modern day and age: the 21st Century. Instead of hansom cabs and telegrams, we get taxi cabs, emails and SMSs. Sherlock Holmes and Dr Watson now have blogs of their own (Holmes even has his own website, unsurprisingly named 'The Science of Deduction') and they are decidedly modern in their ways. Holmes no longer smokes his famous pipe, he instead uses nicotine patches and the writers make a fun twist of the familiar Holmes' saying: 'This is a three pipe problem' to 'This is a three patch problem'. Watson too is not a veteran of the Second Anglo-Afghan War of 1878-80 but of the recent war in Afghanistan instead and suffers from the occasional post-traumatic stress disorder.
Though on paper this sounds ludicrous and undoable, on film it surprisingly works very well. Though the century is no longer the 19th, the basics remain the same: Holmes is still very much the proud, arrogant genius and Watson is still very much the same steady, brave and capable doctor and soldier. What makes the series more believable too is the chemistry between the newest incarnations of Holmes and Watson; Benedict Cumberbatch (who I'm sure that
cerulean88 will remember very well seeing that he was a wonderful Pitt the Younger in Amazing Grace) and Martin Freeman (who almost everyone remembers as Arthur Dent from the film adaptation of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy) as seen below. Cumberbatch captures the manic eccentricity of Holmes perfectly but in a different way from Brett. Brett's Holmes was energetic, leaping about the place, clapping his hands and crying exclamations when the solution finally came to him. Cumberbatch is noticeably more quiet and makes it very obvious that Holmes has no social connection with the world whatsoever apart from the times when it relates to his work and forces him to socialise with others to obtain information. But that isn't to say he isn't energetic; there are chase scenes across London, fights to the death and a rather bizarre but totally in-character scene of Holmes frantically beating a corpse with a riding crop (the latter of which is part of a forensic experiment, don't worry). Also, he also conveys to the audience quite clearly that Holmes is only 'alive' when he's on the trail of a criminal and the somewhat childish delight that enters his face when he realises he's got a serial killer on his hands in the first episode is so totally Sherlock Holmes.
The opposite of Holmes is Freeman's steady Watson who continually finds himself struggling to keep up with Holmes' frantic pace of mind but nevertheless trusts his new flatmate enough to venture off on sudden investigations and refuses to give up any information about his new friend and colleague. Watson here is obviously at times frustrated at Holmes' seeming lack of concern for his feelings and well-being (he once leaves Watson in the middle of London after dashing off to investigate a new clue despite the fact that Watson still needs a cane to get about due to his wounds) but isn't as bitchy (thankfully) as Jude Law's Watson in last year's film.
The episode/series also has its comedic moments; a friend of Holmes who owns a restaurant assumes that Holmes and his new friend Watson are partners (in the romantic sense...and not surprising since there's been loads of slash fics written about these two) to which Watson repeatedly declares: 'I'm NOT his date!' and Holmes' sending continuous messages to Watson's phone where the audience can actually see the text pop up in white lettering on the television screen is pretty cool. The use of SMS to send one of Holmes' most famous and maddening requests to Watson was also a brilliant idea: 'Come at once if convenient. SH'...a few minutes later...'If inconvenient come anyway. SH' XDDD Another hilarious moment was between Holmes and Lestrade (played by Rupert Graves who I haven't seen in anything since watching A Room with a View and Fortunes of War):
Holmes: Shut up.
Lestrade [utterly perplexed]: I didn't say anything.
Holmes: You were thinking. It's annoying.
Though it's obviously not pure Sherlock Holmes, the series does manage to put in a lot of references to the original work and thus pay admirable homage to Conan Doyle's genius.
As a result, I'm greatly looking forward to the final episode (I've already watched part of the second episode and will watch more of it later). Though it surprises me, I wouldn't mind at all if the BBC really does decide to commission more episodes to be written and filmed since the current series are obviously quite non-canon but strangely appealing all the same.
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Date: 2010-08-02 09:53 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-08-03 05:58 pm (UTC)Bale's all right with me (he did at least know how to act when he was little seeing that he worked in at least two films in his boyhood) but yes, I totally agree about wanting to punch Keanu Reeves in the face. He irritates me to no end and I deliberately try to avoid watching a film if he's in it.
You don't have to wait that long to watch this version of Sherlock Holmes actually...someone's already kindly uploaded the first two episodes on Youtube. Here's the link to the first part of the first ep:
www.youtube.com/watch (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KP9xo6YFVqw)
(You better watch them as soon as you can though before the BBC takes them off!)
And yes, I really do hope that they make more episodes than the current three which were intended to be the only ones made.