I just finished watching the first episode of the new BBC drama series ‘Sherlock’. I will talk about it a bit bellow, but first I wanted to talk about the last couple of days with my mom. It has been mainly fun, although as every parent does, she’s starting to get a bit on my nerves. I don’t know if it’s because she’s getting older, but she repeats a lot. She always had a problem with that. But it seems to have transformed from a problem to the norm. I have had the same conversations with her over seven times. It is a bit sad when I think about it, but in the moment it’s very irritating.
In more positive news, we went to town yesterday. She was looking for dresses. She did find a nice one. I myself spent a small fortune on guitar equipment. I bought a gig bag for my pedal, a bunch of picks, a metronome, a couple of cleaning products, and a new set of strings. I have already cleaned and polished my guitar, all I need now is to change my strings and I’ll be able to start playing again. I am really in the mood to get back into music. After I rediscovered my enjoyment of music, I intend to rediscover my enjoyment of playing and making music. I still need to fix my violin that my mom got me and look for lessons. I really want to learn a new instrument.
Today we went to Uni. She was able to walk a lot on campus. I showed her my department and we had coffee while overlooking the lake. A joined us and I really enjoyed it. It was nice to hang out with him again, as I haven’t seen him in a few days. He had to go back to work though and my mom and I went to the lake to walk around there. As we were walking, quite slowly because she is very out of shape and quite a heavy smoker, she surprised me by suddenly picking up the tempo and being able to walk at a decent pace.
I then had a few errands to run. And then we went to town again in order to do a bit of shopping for my mom, have a drink, and then have dinner at an Indian restaurant. We however found ourselves quite hungry at the pub where we were having our drink and decided to just stay and have dinner there. We had their burgers which were quite good. The white bread and chips though didn’t sit very well, so I had to go for a bit of a walk to help digest it once we got home.
Well that’s all the ‘real life’, ‘what I’ve been up to’, stuff out of the way. Let’s talk about something really interesting: the new series ‘Sherlock’. Now, it is written by Stephen Moffat, who is the head writer of the new doctor who, so we know it’s not going to suck. Martin Freeman’s in it, and I quite like him. I know it’s only the first episode, but I quite enjoyed it. It was very well done in that it set the tone of the show and introduced the main characters very skilfully. Sherlock Holmes is the genius who is a sociopath that is addicted to discovering the answers to difficult challenges. Dr Watson is the veteran with trust issues and psychosomatic pains, he is a warrior and somehow misses the war. And it’s all set in modern day London, a place that we established in previous posts I really love.
Now as an aside, I find it very interesting, and quite like the fact, that the BBC do seem to produce a certain number of series where the main character is a genius, who is also weird and eccentric. I can think of Doctor Who as another example. Well to be honest Sherlock reminded me of Doctor Who in many ways. It seems to be a very nice reworking of some of the ingredients that make the character of the Doctor so good. Holmes is a genius who finds an assistant, Watson, who he finds interesting for some reason, and takes that assistant along on their adventures. The Doctor, like Holmes, sees things that others do not. He is far more intelligent than anyone around him, and finds it quite hard to not be rude to them because of it. He is a sociopath who doesn’t really know how to behave properly around people, and so comes off as either eccentric and loveable or as a bit of a prick.
I’ll try not to spoil the first episode while I explain what I liked and what I disliked about the series. First the characters are brilliant, the setting is fantastic, the writing is clever, the introduction of text that pops up above objects or people to explain what is being said or thought is very clever. The mood of the whole series is also very good. It is dark enough to not be childish, but is also quite accessible and has a few moments of silliness and light hearted humour. On the negative side, we all figured out a major bit of info a lot earlier than the supposed genius that is Holmes (well I say that but maybe it was just me). The foreshadowing was a bit too obvious I felt, but I might be wrong. It’s very hard to make this point without spoiling the episode, and I’d like to see if it was just me or if it was quite obvious. Also, I don’t know if all episodes will be 90 minutes, and so they needed to stretch that bit in order to fill time, or if it was properly intended.
All in all, I really recommend it. There are a few minor problems, but in the end it’s a brilliant and very well written piece of drama. The BBC have produced what could be a very good show, and a very clever reinvention of the stories of Sherlock Holmes. I’m curious to see the other episodes and see if this was a one off or if it will be consistently good. I know I’m hoping for the latter. Nothing like a good new series to make me happy.
Arab Rhizome 