(no subject)
Oh, Sherlock. Pull my attention tight enough and you can play me like a violin, which the last episode did so virtuosically that all I could do in its final minutes was sit there squeaking, "Undo it! Undo it!" like Spike in Pangs.
Knowing that the Moff is not above keeping us hanging for eternity (the final episode of Press Gang still haunts me, in a good way), I fixed my hope on a Buffy paradox of old: when you're the hero, staying alive is your best shot at keeping everyone else safe. Sacrificing your life on the promise of a madman is not guarantee enough: that's what my head was telling me, but my heart was being wrung inside out all the same. That final shot stilled my rising panic and sent the world spiralling into conjecture: but for all the smoke and mirrors in that rooftop scene, there was a cut-glass emotional truth to it that was as earned as any deep-rooted plot twist.
One of the things that often strikes me about Moffat's Doctor Who is that he doesn't conceal his clues. He pegs them out on a washing line in front of you, and you sit there noting, "hmmm, unusual pants," or, "three socks?", without quite making the connections that the big reveal exposes. He is the Rolf Harris of plotting. It's why I adored the dénouement to "I am locked": it's so brazen and yet somehow you don't see it coming. All through The Reichenbach Fall I found myself filing away details that seemed to matter - the title included - but though I can find any number of ways of fitting them together, they jar. Who needs a tidy solution at this point? Not me. I am happy enough sitting back and basking, idly watching the washing as it whips back and forth in a whirlwind of who and what and how.
This was an episode played out of the park by everyone, to the point that I would run out of superlatives if I tried. Fortunately, I have exclamation marks as back up. Mrs Hudson! Molly! Moriarty! John! Rossini! Bach! (who makes maths sing, which is more-or-less exactly what I love about the show.) Nina Simone!
Benedict Cumberbatch's Sherlock had me at Coat! and has been steadily reeling me in ever since. His uprightness. I don't mean morally. It's his bearing: like somehow gravity is just that little bit more in his thrall than it is for the rest of us. And the way he inhabits the immediate space; there is a distinct vibe of don't get too close, and yet he has a way of walking all over other people's personal space when he chooses.
At this point the trajectory of my fannish crush was all one way, but you know what they say about what goes up. I rewatched A Scandal in Belgravia and, still luxuriating in an expertly enunciated, "Photographs of whom?", was brought abruptly back to earth by this:
"Did you know there were other people after her too, Mycroft, before you sent John and I in there?"
::cries:: This is my pet grammar hate. "Me and him did this" I can live with. It's not trying to be right. It just doesn't care. But "you sent John and I" is somebody going against what they naturally want to do with the aim of being correct, and it irks me when ordinary humans do it, never mind never-wrong practically-super-humans. You can't have the most authoritative voice in recent TV history and do that with it. ::pouts::
Over Christmas I started reading an article about Sherlock in the Times magazine, but lost interest fairly early on and abandoned it to the recycling. So near and yet! Fortunately, this week I managed to track down another copy in the recycling at work (I have no shame) and scanned it hurriedly before it escaped me again. I accidentally scanned my hand as well, from which you can probably deduce my credit card details, shoe size, and first pet's name: here.
Last week's Radio Times featured an interview with Sherlock's women, which I also scanned, sans hand this time. I see what they're doing with the title, but really, that's what you're going with? That aside, I loved this mostly for its group fangirling. It's a bit squished here, but less so if you download it.
This reminds me: On the whole, I like Caitlin Moran's writing immensely - her TV reviews are funny and unabashedly fannish, and her columns are warm and wise. I'd been a wee bit wary of her book, How to be a woman, having heard it described on - I want to say Newsnight Review, but that can't be right - as a bit share-y. Newsnight Review or not, I think I must be paraphrasing. Anyway! I can't agree with every single thing she writes, and now and again it feels like the motivation slips into shock-factor, but mostly it is just gloriously sensible and I nodded like the Churchill dog all the way through.
Since its cast list is essentially a convention of my TV crushes, I had been daydreaming The Hobbit into the prettiest film ever. Links to the trailer popped up all over my friends list, and I clicked in a flutter of anticipation. I had sort of forgotten that they would all be hobbits and dwarves and animated dragons. ;) /shallow.
Knowing that the Moff is not above keeping us hanging for eternity (the final episode of Press Gang still haunts me, in a good way), I fixed my hope on a Buffy paradox of old: when you're the hero, staying alive is your best shot at keeping everyone else safe. Sacrificing your life on the promise of a madman is not guarantee enough: that's what my head was telling me, but my heart was being wrung inside out all the same. That final shot stilled my rising panic and sent the world spiralling into conjecture: but for all the smoke and mirrors in that rooftop scene, there was a cut-glass emotional truth to it that was as earned as any deep-rooted plot twist.
One of the things that often strikes me about Moffat's Doctor Who is that he doesn't conceal his clues. He pegs them out on a washing line in front of you, and you sit there noting, "hmmm, unusual pants," or, "three socks?", without quite making the connections that the big reveal exposes. He is the Rolf Harris of plotting. It's why I adored the dénouement to "I am locked": it's so brazen and yet somehow you don't see it coming. All through The Reichenbach Fall I found myself filing away details that seemed to matter - the title included - but though I can find any number of ways of fitting them together, they jar. Who needs a tidy solution at this point? Not me. I am happy enough sitting back and basking, idly watching the washing as it whips back and forth in a whirlwind of who and what and how.
This was an episode played out of the park by everyone, to the point that I would run out of superlatives if I tried. Fortunately, I have exclamation marks as back up. Mrs Hudson! Molly! Moriarty! John! Rossini! Bach! (who makes maths sing, which is more-or-less exactly what I love about the show.) Nina Simone!
Benedict Cumberbatch's Sherlock had me at Coat! and has been steadily reeling me in ever since. His uprightness. I don't mean morally. It's his bearing: like somehow gravity is just that little bit more in his thrall than it is for the rest of us. And the way he inhabits the immediate space; there is a distinct vibe of don't get too close, and yet he has a way of walking all over other people's personal space when he chooses.
At this point the trajectory of my fannish crush was all one way, but you know what they say about what goes up. I rewatched A Scandal in Belgravia and, still luxuriating in an expertly enunciated, "Photographs of whom?", was brought abruptly back to earth by this:
"Did you know there were other people after her too, Mycroft, before you sent John and I in there?"
::cries:: This is my pet grammar hate. "Me and him did this" I can live with. It's not trying to be right. It just doesn't care. But "you sent John and I" is somebody going against what they naturally want to do with the aim of being correct, and it irks me when ordinary humans do it, never mind never-wrong practically-super-humans. You can't have the most authoritative voice in recent TV history and do that with it. ::pouts::
Over Christmas I started reading an article about Sherlock in the Times magazine, but lost interest fairly early on and abandoned it to the recycling. So near and yet! Fortunately, this week I managed to track down another copy in the recycling at work (I have no shame) and scanned it hurriedly before it escaped me again. I accidentally scanned my hand as well, from which you can probably deduce my credit card details, shoe size, and first pet's name: here.
Last week's Radio Times featured an interview with Sherlock's women, which I also scanned, sans hand this time. I see what they're doing with the title, but really, that's what you're going with? That aside, I loved this mostly for its group fangirling. It's a bit squished here, but less so if you download it.
This reminds me: On the whole, I like Caitlin Moran's writing immensely - her TV reviews are funny and unabashedly fannish, and her columns are warm and wise. I'd been a wee bit wary of her book, How to be a woman, having heard it described on - I want to say Newsnight Review, but that can't be right - as a bit share-y. Newsnight Review or not, I think I must be paraphrasing. Anyway! I can't agree with every single thing she writes, and now and again it feels like the motivation slips into shock-factor, but mostly it is just gloriously sensible and I nodded like the Churchill dog all the way through.
Since its cast list is essentially a convention of my TV crushes, I had been daydreaming The Hobbit into the prettiest film ever. Links to the trailer popped up all over my friends list, and I clicked in a flutter of anticipation. I had sort of forgotten that they would all be hobbits and dwarves and animated dragons. ;) /shallow.