I was perusing YouTube and was recommended a great YouTube video called ROBLOX_OOF.mp3 by hbomberguy. It's a phenomenal video. You probably already know that since it has over 3.6 million views at the time of writing. Naturally, I skimmed the YouTube recommendation side bar to see what algorithm is drooling on me with the video and found another essay by hbomberguy. Titled "Sherlock is Garbage, And Here's Why," I had the typical human reaction. I simply denied his opinion. "Nope, nitpicky and bias. This take is invalid." Keep in mind, I didn't even click on the video. I simply closed the tab and groveled in my couch. You know, like a reasonable adult man.
Despite making fun of nerd cringe, I am no better at times. When presented with a harsh contrary opinion to my own, I get defensive. And in this case, I couldn't help but take it personally. Because here's the thing, I love Sherlock. I hold this show very close to my heart. I was 14. I was practically the perfect age for this kind of stuff. This and the Guy Ritchie films got me not just into Sherlock Holmes but the entire mystery genre which to this day is still one of my favorite genres. I read some of the short stories. I daydreamed and fan wrote Sherlock-esque mysteries. I got into opioids. I lived and breathed Sherlock!
So yeah, now you understand why I took it personally. Sherlock was a very important show for me. And while I know it isn't perfect, I wouldn't call it bad. I would definitely not call it garbage. To hear someone with thoughtful and well-researched opinions on matters call a thing I love trash, it challenged me.
Keep in mind, I still haven't watched the video.
That's because, before my opinion is tainted by another reviewer, I thought I revisit the series one episode at a time. It's high time I answer the question and see Sherlock from a new perspective. It's been a hot minute since I watched Sherlock. I was practically a different person when the show ended more than five years ago. So with that said, let's see how Sherlock holds up.
Be aware that spoilers for every episode of BBC Sherlock are included. You have been warned.
A Study in Pink
We are greeted by what may be one of the most hype theme openings of all time. It is like when a song you grew up with plays on the radio. The memories of cheerfully listening to this song as it signaled an end to a long wait as seasons were two years apart, and you could easily digest them in half a day thus starting the two year wait again.
Take this as another disclaimer that I am going in with rose tinted glasses. And I think a way to combat that is to start off shitting on it.
I'm aware one of the criticisms is the queerbaiting aspects of the show. And at the time, I never really got that sense. But dang, I must not remember the show very well. The first episode alone has a ton of gay panic jokes. One scene in particular, done fairly humorlessly, has Watson actually press Sherlock about his sexuality to which he tellingly gives a vague answer. Yeah, that's a bit queerbaiting alright.
The jokes as a whole are very broad and mostly miss, but they thankfully don't dwell too much in this episode.
Anyway, we got some introductions as well as some first season wonkiness. Some of it is actually good. Some of which is a little hand wavy.
First the good. I love Watson in this episode. His arc of wanting some danger in his life is expertly portrayed thanks in large part to Martin Freeman. They also do a smart job of establishing why Sherlock and Watson pair so well with each other. Which aside from the books, I don't think was done well until this show.
I was also surprise how much restraint Sherlock has in his notorious asshole behavior. Sure later in the episode, he starts to get to the level of condescension I expected from this version. But at the beginning, I like how a lot of his interactions stem from him just being hyper focus and unaware of his social faux paus rather any intentional maliciousness. I am going to savor this as much as I can, because I know it is only going to get more flanderized from here on out.
Lastly, before I move on to the next episode, we see the iconic visual style that we will see for the rest of the show. This first episode certainly hasn't aged the best with a lot of shaky cam and shots that have an early 2010s TV feel. One chase montage in particular I would almost describe as nauseating. Thankfully, I know these sequences and production value will get better over time. I greatly look forward to that one episode in season 3.
But that's one episode down. Overall, it is a decent start to the series with a couple of stumbles. I love the process to this episode's mystery. I like the taxi driver played by English character Phil Davis who gave a nice chilling performance. If he wasn't a one off baddie, I would easily put him in the ranks of the best Sherlock Holmes villains. A lot of baddies in this show will claim to 'understand' Sherlock, but the taxi driver was one of the few that acted like they meant it.
But I digress. We got twelve feature length episodes to go. I better crack on.
The Blind Banker
Thankfully, it is not long before we get our first true great episode.
I like mysteries that focuses more on untangling a knotted cord rather than simply figuring out the who in the case, and the Blind Banker does that very well. You got two threads seemingly unrelated, a Chinese art appraiser and a white collar trader. However, we find that both have an eerie incident that happen to both. It's question of why (and a bit of how) rather than who. Most of the pieces are gathered pretty early on. This is probably my one minor complaint of the show in that it slows near the middle as Sherlock and Watson await the next development. That said, this plays with the structure of the mystery giving the show a layer of unpredictability.
This is why shows like Sherlock are leagues ahead shit like CSI or Law and Order. Sherlock ebbs and flows approaching the mystery in different fashions. It is not, how Hank Green puts it, "that guy we met in the first fifteen minutes will come back 'cause we know he did it," It's why I never got very far in Elementary. You can't proceduralize Sherlock Holmes. If the mystery is likely to bore the BBC version of Sherlock, it will likely do the same for the audience.
This in turns creates one of my favorite endings to a BBC Sherlock mystery. We find that this entire wild goose chase was started all because a guy gave his girlfriend a seemingly innocuous piece of jewelry.
This is the second time we get a tease of the inevitable appearance of Moriarty. I remember at the time being really taken by these teases. But now, I am somewhat over them. Not that they're bad. Although part of me wishes Moriarty didn't have his fingers in literally every mystery thus far. But, I have seen so many shows that do a similar thing. Off the top of my head, there is Mystery Incorporated, Extraordinary Attorney Woo, that Sandman show. The television end stinger feels played out now, and I don't want to hate it. It's the nature of the medium. I don't know. Maybe a TV writer smarter than any of us will find an innovative way to change it up.
This episode also introduces what I thought was going to be Watson's love interest for the rest of the show. In retrospect, it was absolutely stupid to expect that since she gets kidnapped, almost murdered, and worst of all being third wheeled on her first date. My teenage self wasn't the best at understanding women. Although to be fair, TV women at this point have historically tolerated worse. One wonders how no sitcom families have divorced.
But all in all, this is a great episode. God, I still don't see how someone can hate this show. And again, I am writing this review one episode at a time. We'll see if this is foreshadowing or simply a method to pad the word count.
The Great Game
Alright, let's talk about Moriarty.
At the time, Moriarty was amazing. And now-and I don't want to say it is a mix bag, but I am writing this feeling less impressed.
This is not a slight at Andrew Scott who gives his best performance. His erratic choices do the heavy lifting in informing the character. If you watch his scene in isolation with no context, you would still understand his character without any need for exposition. The contrast to how he copes with his overwhelming boredom down to his emotions fluctuating with every other sentence. It's not that he is unpredictable. It's that he can't settle being one thing or even multiple things. He is Type A manifested into a monster.
The problem though is that, and this may be controversial. Moriarty is not really a great villain as the hype claims.
There are so many directions you can go with a Sherlock Holmes story. However, making Sherlock into a comic book hero isn't one of them. There is a reason Spider-Man and Batman can have so many villains but Sherlock only has two. Yeah there are technically a larger rogues gallery, but it boils down to two. It is either a super criminal in the same intellectual league as Sherlock or they are the Irene Adler type where Sherlock has a conflicted dynamic with.
Sherlock is just about crime or mysteries. And while there is a lot you can do with that, you can't explore horizontally. This is not like Spider-Man or Batman where there is a depth to the characters. Sure, Batman also solves crimes, but he also out wits supernatural entities that could easily kill him one on one. He has to swath through the influence of police corruption and the mob. He has his no kill philosophy that makes all of this more complicated.
When comparing Moriarty to that, he is essentially Riddler without the green pajamas. He is very limited as a character.
Unfortunately, he is Sherlock's most famous villain. You can't have a Sherlock series without him, right? So now, we have to have Moriarty in almost every Sherlock Holmes iteration, and practically all of them play out in similar ways.
I realize now that part of why my change in feelings isn't BBC Sherlock fault. It's that the character has been overly saturated in media.
I will have more to say on the guy, but I will save that for later. Plus I still haven't got to the episode itself yet.
Despite my negative tone through this section, this is still a great episode. It is one of the best paced episodes and acts as sort of micro series within the episode. There are five mysteries that could easily make for standalone episodes on like Elementary. But here, they go through them swimmingly cutting out all the fat.
The episode has a nice horror element as Moriarty presents himself through terrified hostages reading a message. I also nice the little fake out near the end where you think for a second that Watson was Moriarty the whole time.
A Scandal in Belgravia
Irene Adler. That is all...
Like I went in knowing what happens in this film. I thought "my asexual ass can handle Lara Pulver this time. She can't catch me off guard this time." But then, THAT scene happens, and I am frankly speechless. I watched the scene two days before writing this section, and I am still thinking about it.
If Lord of the Rings killed the high fantasy genre in movies, then Lara Pulver as Irene Adler killed the femme fatale as a character archetype.
I asked myself why this episode works so well. What makes the interactions with Adler and Holmes feel drenched in sexual tension.
Well I think the tension lies in the multiple layers of the tension. It isn't just about "will Adler and Holmes do the thing?" There is also the more titillating question of "what happened if they did?"
BBC Sherlock understands how to utilize a femme fatale. Irene Adler isn't merely a sexy lady. She is a siren that becomes extremely dangerous if she can successfully seduce you. The show makes it clear that the sex is something that everyone wants but ill advised to pursue. It's the well established danger that makes the tension exciting. And her introductory scene adds to that by making her place in the world of international importance. You know she is dangerous when the British Government and the CIA are involved before you even get the gist of the stakes.
Sex becomes the center of the power dynamic in this episode. And again, the actual mystery takes a backseat in favor of the process. I already knew what was going to happen, but I will still absorbed because how they reveal the mystery is well executed.
This is also probably the only episode where the queer teasing between Sherlock and Watson has more substance than homoerotic jokes and blatant queerbaiting. The scene between Adler and Watson is great. Again, it is about power dynamics, and Adler doesn't so much question Watson's sexuality but questions his role as Sherlock's companion. She points out that Watson needs Sherlock almost in a co-dependent way. Not to say the queerbaiting in this show is good, but I admire how this was executed in isolation.
If you asked me my favorite episode before I started rewatching this series, I probably would have said the Great Game or His Last Vow. But now, I think this is my new favorite, at least so far. I didn't even mention some of the more superficial bits. The comedic chemistry between Adler and Holmes are great. The absurdities both will go to one up each other from entering a room nude or pretending to be a robbery victim. There are lines in this episode that are gold almost in the "I'll take a potato chip and eat it" sort of way, but I love it anyways purely for how seriously they take themselves. "IT WAS A BOOMARANG" will live rent free in my head.
Thank you Lara Pulver for your great performance and for awakening the fact that I prefer to be a sub.
Hounds of Baskerville
Before I ever got into Sherlock Holmes, the Hounds of Baskerville was still a name I recognized which highlights how famous the original story was. It's likely the most iconic name associated with Sherlock Holmes. I was hyped when I saw the episode title when I opened up the DVD selection for the first time. And to my surprise, my reaction was underwhelming. And in this section, I am going to solve the mystery of the mediocrity of Hounds of Baskerville.
To the show's credit, I would read the original novel some time after my first watch and didn't care for that one either. This won't turn into the novel review as it's been years since I've read it. All I will say that what I think what makes the original Hounds of Baskerville impressive is not really impressive anymore. Hounds of Baskerville has multiple intertwining plots. I suppose that was incredible for early 1900s, but it isn't for today's television and especially for BBC Sherlock where every episode has multiple plots. Fucking Modern Family has intertwining plots. Again, this take may be nonsense, so take it with a grain of salt, but it serves as a point that this episode is pretty basic. You compare this to Study in Pink or Scandal in Belgravia that often go off script to more interesting directions than their short story counterparts. While I love both Study in Scarlett and Scandal in Bohemia, I find myself preferring the BBC adaptations for their grander sense of spectacle. I don't get that with Hounds of Baskerville.
BBC Sherlock also leans towards sci-fi mystery which is a very hit-and-miss sub genre. It's hit-and-miss because the sci-fi tends to disrupt the fun of the mystery process. The awe of being surprised by something that was telegraphed is gone as the sci-fi explains away something you couldn't have reasonably foresaw, which BBC Sherlock does. The mystery is more susceptible to plot holes which happens to BBC Sherlock. And finally, sci-fi concepts tend to limit how the mystery resolves. Either the solution has some sci-fi explanation or some weird happenstance subverts it and there was no sci-fi reasoning needed. BBC Sherlock does that.
Not that this episode is garbage. There is a few clever moments. The bit with the cellphone was perfectly done. And I was initially put off by the red herring involving the Morse Code, but I came around seeing it as feeding it into the episode's theme of paranoia and suggestibility. The editing when they first break into the military base was also solidly done.
It's a serviceable episode. But if I were a soothsayer, I would say this episode is an omen for how the later episodes would be written. It's not bad, but it is one of weakest episodes in the series purely for being the only impure sheen on the diamond that is season 2. Well I say that not having rewatched the next episode. Let's see if this diamond has more impurities than I realized.
The Reichenbach Fall
When I first watched the season 2 finale, I didn't know the story about the Final Problem. For those unfamiliar, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle intended the Final Problem to be the last Sherlock Holmes story as he was tired of writing the character. Unfortunately, it didn't occur to him he invented one of the most timeless characters of all time. And when you invent a character as timeless as Sherlock Holmes, people want more. And so, he was forced to revive him.
It's that story that somewhat taints the season 2 finale of Sherlock. Not that this episode is bad. But too often, I kept thinking about the underwhelming episodes that follow that retroactively lessen the impact of this episode. It is like how watching Star Wars: The Force Awakens knowing that all the promise will lead to absolutely nowhere.
For that reason, the strengths of this episode are lessen by the lack of finality. The emotional crux, for example, is really effective. The whole arc of the first two seasons is Sherlock's antisocial and selfish behavior harming his relationships. And for the finale, Sherlock's flaws come back to bite him as Moriarty exploits his flaw to the point of bringing Sherlock to his knees. When watching this episode, I wondered if this episode had any plot holes or contrivances as it seemed the writing would have some when you think about it. But then I thought who cares? Regardless if the plot makes any logical sense, it succeeds in tying Sherlock's character into the central mystery and gives the Sherlock archetype more depth than what it's worth. It provides a payoff to Sherlock's character as he understands the solution to the mystery is an act of selflessness, and the tragedy of the mystery being all of this could have been avoided if Sherlock kept his ego in check. It's a shame that aspect wasn't prioritized as the following sequel hook that ends the episode feels like the show wanting to have its cake and eat it too.
Plus, the actual back and forth between Sherlock and Moriarty feels lacking compared to the Great Game. As I mention, Moriarty is very limited as a character. One of things that makes him great is the sort of cat and mouse nature of the relationship. It's one of the strengths of the Guy Richie version of the character. But again, that's about as much you can do with the character. And because of that, this episode lacks that pace. Instead, the episode feels more like a waiting game where you are wondering what Moriarty's motives are which makes this episode harder to rewatch. In fairness, this is a worthy attempt at trying something new, so I will give it credit for that. But overall, I feel the new spin doesn't do enough to elevate this minimal scope Moriarty provides.
And with that, we are done with season 2. And good God, I am fucking exhausted. I didn't expect this to take so much out of me, so I am going to make this into two parts. Look forward to the next part where I discuss the later seasons and finally answer the question of whether hbomberguy's opinion on Sherlock is full of shit.
