shadowkat: (Default)
Definitely better than last week's episode, with a lot of twists and turns. Unlike other versions of "Sherlock Holmes", it's sort of hard to figure out what will happen next because the plot is rollicking past you at a 100 mph. Also, Moffat/Gatis are going for a more noirish take on the series than most. If you aren't a fan of noir tropes, I can't see you liking Sherlock all that much. (ie. lots of shady ladies, the heroes deeply flawed, and often things not ending well. In the noir, the hero stares into the abyss, and more often than not, falls in.) I think the series skates across the line of the traditional noir trope, but just barely. Noir heroes are often jerks. But never boring, and quite fascinating in a way.

Say what you will about Moffat's Sherlock, he's not boring. Wish I could say the same thing about Elementary, gave up on that finally, because I kept wandering off or going to sleep during it. I like the characters in some respects better, but dang, is it dull at times. May be the 22 episode procedural format? (shrugs)

Yes, I'm being annoyingly opinionated. Not feeling up to snuff physically, and it leaves a slight after taste of irritability. Also, I'm trying not to worry about DJT's cabinet picks. Culverton Smith, the villain in this week's Sherlock, reminded me uncomfortably of DJT. Sort of Mini-Version of DJT on speed. (You know like Doctor Evil's Mini-Me? Well Culverton Smith is Mini-DJT. Which is enough to give anyone nightmares.)

I like how the series continues pulls back the veil on our ego driven culture. Where everything is a competition, and people are broken down into winners and losers, while powerful men like Culverton Smith see themselves as untouchable and able to do anything.

Other things I like about this episode, which I found easier to follow and more emotionally satisfying than the last one. Moffat is a better writer than Gatis, who I think is a better actor. Gatis plays Mycroft Holmes. Moffat utilizes gimmicks, but not to the same degree, and far more effectively. The flashback was utilized effectively here, but in a confusing manner in the last episode.

Spoilers )

Overall, I rather enjoyed that episode. And I'm still enjoying Sherlock, even when it gets a bit muddled.

YMMV.
shadowkat: (Default)
Finally some new "Sherlock" episodes. I think there are three to four that they filmed for 2017. Not positive.

Whether you like "Sherlock" has a great deal to do with whether you like this particular portrayal of the Great Detective, the actor, Benedict Cumberbatch, the writers - Moffat and Gatis, and Martin Freeman as Watson. If any of the above irritate or turn you off for any reason, you won't like Sherlock. It is what it is. (shrugs). And let's face it there have been numerous portrayals of Sherlock not to mention versions over the years to choose from. Which one you personally prefer has more to do with you than much else. One of my New Year's resolutions is not to argue over inconsequential things. Or people's personal preferences. It's a waste of time and not very good for my blood pressure.


Anyhow, I liked last night's episode quite a bit. Had some interesting twists and turns. That said Mark Gatis's plotting was a bit off in places, so I kept getting lost and having to rewind. The series has the irritating habit of skipping over stuff, then going back and showing it long after the fact and often when the audience has forgotten about it. Which is a neat narrative trick, but risks losing the audience if done poorly. They did a bit too much of it. (I don't think it was necessary in regards to John Watson. Mary and Sherlock, yes, possibly but not John too. That was overkill. spoiler ))

Also, at times, I felt the performances and direction was tad too manic. Such as the birth of Rosalind in the car and Holmes obsession with texting everything all the time. Humorous but over the top. Lacked subtlety. That said, I get why they did it, and it was to a degree effective satire of our world's obsession with cell phones and texting constantly. I've seen people texting all the frigging time as well. At the dinner table. In theaters. In cabs. At major events. I have no idea what they are saying or texting about that could be so vitally important. And I think that was the writer's point -- except here Sherlock is solving multiple crimes via text. We have John Watson's irritation with texting - and preference for blogging as a counter-point. Effective in places, but also over-done.

Other than that? I liked the episode a great deal and found the unraveling of the mystery interesting and sad. Not among the more uplifting episodes. Didn't realize how much I'd missed the series.
spoilers )
shadowkat: (work/reading)
[This thing is chock-ful of typos and I'm too bloody tired to proof or edit it, so...I hope you'll forgive me. I'll try and edit it tomorrow. Okay it is tomorrow, later tomorrow. ]

I am irrationally attached to your characters. There. I said it. I’ve reached a point where even if I don’t like everything a work of fiction does, I believe the characters enough to the point where I almost react to them as if they are real people. Do you know this feeling? It’s where a show or a book can fuck up and do some ridiculous plot you hate and you don’t care about but you still watch or read along because their faces and I just want to hold them all so tightly. - Mark Watches regarding Buffy the Vampire Slayer TV Series third season episode "Lovers' Walk".

http://markwatches.net/reviews/2012/02/mark-watches-buffy-the-vampire-slayer-s03e08-lovers-walk/

I don't know if this is true of anyone else. But every so often I will run across something said in a book, a post online, a blog, an email, or a tv show that sort of states clearly and succinctly what I've felt, but didn't quite realize it. It's obvious of course when I read it. And I think...yes, THIS, exactly.

Today, I came home and scan read this week's Entertainment Weekly, which had a lengthy article entitled Shippers. And it talked about how people become obsessed with relationships or characters in a television series - specifically in relation to the Twilight books (which turned shipping mainstream even if it existed long before that) and television series such Castle, Bones, Supernatural and The Vampire Diaries (four shows that I don't really ship anyone in and of the four, only one that I'm still watching.) Apparently David Boreanze (ex Angel, now Booth on Bones) has become a "mainstream" shipper icon thanks to Buffy, Angel, Bones, and the fact that he is 6 foot with chiseled model good-looks. (Which probably means James Marsters is the icon for the cult underground shippers like myself...I never did like the popular boys. Geek may have gone mainstream, but I haven't.)

And of course...there's my past history with tv shows and books or stories in general where I've fallen head over heels in love with the characters. I could care less about the writer - some nasty god or goddess who takes the characters in directions that do not always meet with my approval. I've been known to write better and more interesting outcomes for my beloved characters inside my own head.

Breaking the Fourth Wall or Die Writer Die, When Characters Become More Important than the Writer, contains spoilers for Sherlock Holmes novels, Star Trek Next Generation, Buffy, Angel, and the first version of Battle Star Galatica, also mentions Star Wars. )

Off to bed. I've got a headache. I think I've been writing too much this week. None of it creative writing. I miss that. And it boggles my mind when people tell me that they need internet programs to get themselves to write daily - at least 750 words a day. I think - if you need someone or something to make you write, maybe you shouldn't be writing? Life is to short to make yourself do things in your spare time that you don't enjoy. I love writing. I write better than I breath, unfortunately this is very true. Be better health wise and spirit wise, not to mention for sleeping and singing, if I breathed better. I don't need writing courses, I need breathing courses and singing courses...I've decided I'm going to try to learn how to sing. It's never too late for that? Right?

[This post was edited this morning. I added a few bits and corrected things. Such as Rechenbach Falls.]
shadowkat: (Default)
The apartment hunting is not going well. It's become well complicated. And work, sigh, difficult and stressful. Windows 2010 reminds me a little of how Windows ME and Windows Vista - it's a nightmare. Things that used to take seconds take 20 minutes. And it's not the only new system they are implementing. The thing of it is, and bear with me as I attempt to find the words to explain myself, - is they are taking what was once simple and complicating it to the extent that it takes longer to do the work and when we try to fix problems, new one's occur. The reason this has happened is simple - the creators of Windows 2010 wanted to please everyone - they added every possible thing imaginable. They were in a nutshell trying to do too much. And as a result what once was a simple program, become complicated.

Been thinking about this a lot lately, because it is a recurring theme in my life of late. At the Haitian Forum it struck me that this was part of the problem - the forum felt a bit chaotic. All these ideas, all these solutions, all these problems, no consensus. It reminded me a little of
my old Legislative Class professor in Law School's speech about how government in a nutshell was organized chaos. Basically what happens is everyone picks out a problem and throws it into a hat, they don't agree on what the main problem is. Then everyone has a solution and throws it into a hat, because they do not agree on what the solution should be. And you just pick them out of the hat. What my professor did not know is that is basically true about most democratically run or for that matter large organizations where there is no clear guiding voice. At the forum - there were too many ideas and no real coherent solutions. I left it feeling frustrated and scattered. Overwhelmed. Drunk on information. Felt the same way after seeing four-five apartments this week and four to five last weekend. Overwhelmed and frustrated. Clarity gone.

If you know me at all, you'll realize how ironic it is for me to complain about people complicating things. For since I was a little girl, my parents used to say - your problem is you complicate everything. You are a complicator, sk. I try not to be. But my stories always got convoluted. And my papers in school - even more so. Instead of selecting something simple - I went after what was complicated. And most of the stories I wrote had that problem - convoluted plots.


Last night, I tried to watch the third episode of Sherlock a second time. Made it all the way through, even though I kept rewinding every ten to fifteen minutes because my mind wandered.
Spoke to a friend about it today, who'd also seen the episode. And also had difficulty following it. I thought it was just me. That my brain was on overload or something. No, said my friend, it was a confusing episode, drug in places, didn't make sense in others, ended on a cliffhanger and the lead character, Sherlock, was a bit too over-the-top - to the point in which he was almost not believable. In short it was a mess. I paused and thought about it. My friend was right - the writer and director of that episode was trying to do too much. The title of the episode was The Game - and it had two complex interlocking mysteries going on at the same time, plus this mysterious third character who may or may not be involved in both (my guess - just the one).

Also this weekend, I bought, read, and reviewed the latest Buffy Comic - Issue 38 - and after reading numerous metas and reviews, it hit me why the views on this comic, much like the Sherlock episode I described above are all over the map, and diametrically opposed. The comic has the same central flaw in structure that the Sherlock episode does. It tries to do too much and in doing so, falls flat on its face.
Read more... )
shadowkat: (Default)
Having a bit of a lazy day today. Wherein I did a vaccumned, cleaned my bathroom by spraying tilex all over the tub, ate fresh homemade marshemellows (note to self marshmellows are now officially on your do not buy list - I bought fresh homemade marshmellows - I didn't make them), did some painting or watercoloring, read, and marathon watched five episodes of Supernatural...while basking in the sun that is pouring in through my windows like a cat. (there's a reason I don't call myself shadowdog, outside of the fact that it sounds really really stupid.)

Saw Sherlock last night - was not as good as the opening episode. But then it was also written by someone other than Moffat. mini-review with vague spoilers that probably won't make much sense to anyone who has not watched it )

Supernatural - I enjoyed as well, more than I thought I would. I don't do scary well, but Supernatural outside of maybe two-three episodes during the first three seasons, doesn't tend to scare me.

Here's a mini discussion between Momster and I over the phone, regarding horror films, tv shows and books. Momster isn't scared by horror. Grossed out occassionally. But that's it.

Me: Horror shows don't scare you, do they? I mean you weren't phased by Jaws or Alien at all.
Momster: Nope. Poltergeist didn't bother me either. It's rare that something does - usually pyschological horror, if that.
Me: Why?
Momster: Because I know it's not real.
Me: But.. How do you know it's not real? It could be real. You have no evidence that it isn't. It is totally possible that an alien creature could impregnant someone and leap out and devour everyone in sight, and that ghosts have taken over a house, or...see this is the problem with having a vivid imagination...


What works best for me in Supernatural is actually what works best for me in Sherlock - the B plot-line about the characters, not the mystery of the week plotline (which often serves as a way of exploring them further - if done right, which it is in shows like Supernatural.).

The story here is basically the "bro-romance". That's all this show is at its heart of hearts, one big long bro-romance. If you don't like that sort of thing? You won't like Supernatural.
So why are you hanging out here reading this review? Go away. Shoo! I don't discuss stuff I don't like. If I don't like it, I probably rarely if ever mention it. Not good for the blood-pressure.[Note I don't dislike or hate the Buffy comics - I'm frustrated with the Buffy comics, because I actually do like portions of them, but they are disappointing me, because there's so much potential and the stupid writer is falling down on the job. That's different than ranting about something you dislike or hate. Just in case you were wondering not that you were...but just in case. Now back to our regularly scheduled program.]
spoilers )
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