I bought this book around the time we watched the film, but then didn’t enjoy the movie version at all so was reluctant to pick this up. Eventually I have managed to get round to it and glad I did because the book is so much better than the film. All the things I disliked about the film (Sherlock being smug and solving it all, the mother turning out to be a terrorist) just aren’t present in the book. Thank goodness, and it was so readable, I’m keen to see how the second one turns out.
There’s a lot not to like about this film too. To start with, it doesn’t really honour the canon of Sherlock Holmes and that’s before you even take into account that he doesn’t need to be in the film. Mention him if you must but why is he there? She could have done everything she did without his input. And it’s just a smack in the face for him to be all smug at the end having figured it all out anyway.
There’s a natural nervousness that you feel when reading a book that uses much loved characters from previous works, and this book gave me that feeling. I needn’t have worried though. It’s a book that follows Dr Watson on his travels to France during the First World War, after his adventures with Sherlock Holmes.
I’ve not enjoyed the Sherlock Holmes stories that barely feature the man himself, so I was trepidatious about reading this one. However, thankfully, it is still a fascinating book, particularly as Mr Jones was essentially training himself up to be as astute as Holmes, so we still got some of those baffling deductions to enjoy.
I can imagine that fans of Sherlock Holmes were a bit concerned when this book came out, a book approved by the Doyle estate and an official entry into the Sherlock canon. I thought it was done really well. It had all the tone and feel of the originals, certainly the writing style was an homage to but not a direct copy of Doyle’s work.
For the previous two series of Sherlock, I have written a dedicated post for each episode, celebrating the highs and lows of each series as it progressed. This year, I didn’t feel the need to do that, as my thoughts tend to cover the third series as a whole. That seems like a good place to start, the whole series didn’t seem to generate as much excitement within me as its predecessors.
Having completed the full works of Sherlock earlier this year, I was intrigued by this prequel idea - so little is known about Sherlock’s life prior to the books, Conan Doyle doesn’t give very much away. You have to take a leap of faith and accept that these have been sanctioned by the Doyle estate, because it’s essentially creating a whole new backstory for literature’s most famous detective.
What a wonderful range and variety of stories are contained within the official world of Sherlock Holmes. I’ve read a bit of Holmes here and there before but now an awful lot of what happened on screen makes sense! Contained within this complete works are the four books and 50+ stories that make up a complete chronology of Holmes and Watson’s adventures in crime.
Interestingly, I think this film had exactly the opposite problem of the first. The story was great - I thought it got off to a bit of a slow start, didn’t really need the Irene Adler bit, but once it was going, it was fantastic. The stuff on the train was epic, and the ending was genius. Sadly, it felt like there was less time to explore the relationship between the two, with just fun bits and pieces here and there - the wedding and, again, the train being two that spring to mind.
I finished up my last Sherlock review with a note on the writers trying to force emotions on us, which I don’t necessarily appreciate. However, I thought they handled the logistics of this final episode very well. We all knew what was supposed to happen, so starting the episode with a grieving Watson addressed that straight away. The story was not about the end result, it was about how we got there. (And afterwards, how it was done.)
Last weekend, I wrote up my reaction to the second episode of the latest series of Sherlock (got another post coming on the final episode just finding the time/gathering my thoughts), and prompted this reaction.
Thank you for the wonderful SPOILER. GOOD JOB.
Ever heard of a spoiler warning?
Thankfully, I have a pretty prominent spoiler alert at the very top of the post, so I feel like I did my part in trying to avoid this exact situation. Even so, I do feel slightly dismayed to think I’ve spoiled someone else’s enjoyment of the show - it’s such a good one.
The first series of this adaptation of Sherlock featured something of a sandwich of episodes, where the first and last were epic, and the centre episode was a bit of a letdown. We’re talking letdown in ridiculous terms, of course, where the worst Sherlock is still far better than the best of other TV, but when compared to itself, it was a bit of a dip.
As it turns out, I reckon this series is going to take the same shape. The first episode was incredible, and by all accounts the last is going to be amazing too. This second one, however, did not have me quite convinced.
I’m not the first to say it, but it bears repeating. It is not fair to every other TV show on earth that Sherlock is on this early in the year. What a standard to be setting. The series returns for a second run, and whilst I am still not 100% comfortable with the 3x90 minute schedule, it certainly allows for some of the best possible storytelling.
They have recommissioned Sherlock! Fabulous news, although I don’t think anyone expected any different. The intriguing part of the announcement is that it is to be another batch of three episodes, and they will each continue the format of a 90 minute sitting. After the second episode of series 1, I felt that 90 minutes was drawing things out a little, but if it helps them to tell the story, then we will have to trust them. Whilst I would like more than three episodes, I can understand why it is necessary to limit the stories. They must be quite tricky to write, and Moffat will be fitting it in between two bits of Doctor Who (more on that in a moment). Good things come in small packages, apparently. Talking of the man who has taken over the BBC, Moffat says:
Thus the series comes to an end - three episodes is clearly not enough, but at the same time, I’m not sure I’d want thirteen or so of them either.
Suddenly, all that talk about Watson’s blog and Sherlock’s website is actually impacting on the story. It starts to make sense why they actually exist. I was worried that it might be a bit too inclusive, though. I like the additional information but you shouldn’t have to read them to get it. They were careful, and I think they erred on the side of caution in this case, but it’s a fine line.
Ah, the difficult second album. I’ve seen plenty of people slating this episode, and I’ll be honest, I’m almost right there with them. I lost track of the story mid-way through but I wondered whether this was my fault more than anything else. I’ve watched it twice now, and I do think the underlying story was pretty simple but it is very dressed up and quite confusing.
The BBC played a risky game with this short series. Aimed very directly at the people that love Doctor Who, they built it up to be something enormous. Steven Moffatt spent a lot of time raving about it on Twitter, and between him and Mark Gatiss, interviews, blog posts and adverts, it was hard to escape from the glare of the descending Sherlock.
When it finally arrived, it turns out, the risk was absolutely worth it. Written to perfection, with a fine story and strong (as ever) dialogue, plus two extremely well-chosen actors in place, it’s hard to see where this episode could have been improved upon.
It’s Sherlock crazy at the moment, with the film being excellent, and the new series seemingly very popular as well. I thought I was doing the right thing and starting at the beginning of the Sherlock adventures, but it turns out there are short stories I have missed. I’m annoyed, but even so, I enjoyed the book.
I loved this up to a point. The characters were awesome, Downey Jr was as excellent as I thought he would be. The relationship between Holmes and Watson was perfect. The story left a lot to be desired, though. It started out okay, but it was a bit too mystical, and the end got all scrappy so that I wasn’t quite sure what was happening. It felt like a let down, but the characters made up for it. If they do make a sequel, which I would like, the story had better be… well, better.
