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Sherlock (BBC)


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Sherlock is heading to US theaters for the first time in 2016! Don’t miss the new special Sherlock: The Abominable Bride in theaters nationwide January 5th and 6th only!
Tickets will go on sale FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 6th at Fathom Events: http://bit.ly/fshlck15.

http://www.fathomevents.com/event/sherlock


Why would I go see it 4 days after I already saw it at home? They should have it in theaters before the TV date or not bother!

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I concur. Our Canadian friends did it right last year with Corner Gas: The Movie with the theatrical run (about four days long) preceding the TV broadcasts and followed that with a quick home video release in time for Christmas.

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  • 2 weeks later...
  • 1 month later...

Select JT Cinemas will be showing The Abominable Bride (without subtitles) in the Netherlands on January 1st. I've got my tickets!


https://www.jt.nl/films/film/sherlock-the-abominable-bride-special

And according to the website, the theatrical version will be 20 minutes longer than the TV broadcast!

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This is the first I've heard of 20 additional minutes of material. Has this been reported elsewhere?

Anyway, I'm excited for this. Nothing like brand new Sherlock to kick off the new year. And on the big screen, no less!

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20 extra minutes? That's a lot!

Last I remember the theater version was coming out like 4 days after the tv premiere. That's so lame if still true; I'd go to the theater if I could see it day of airing!

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"In addition to the 90-minute standalone episode, cinema goers will be treated to exclusive bonus material, including a guided tour of 221B Baker Street from Steven Moffat and a look behind the scenes at how the special episode was made featuring all the lead cast and crew."

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  • 2 weeks later...

 

Sherlock: The Abominable Bride

 

Starts out rather curiously with a short recap of scenes from the first 3 seasons. I assumed it was to highlight the difference between a Sherlock set in modern times and one set in it's original Victorian era.

 

As many Sherlock holmes adaptations it begins with the famous scene where Hplmes and Watson agree to live together. Though this one closely patterned on the one in A Study In Pink.

 

After that it really sets off. In many ways it is Sherlock, but set in a different era. So the characters behave slightly different. Though Sherlock is much the same in any era. Watson is a bit more stoic. Mrs Watson is indeed more a maid now, though complaints that she hardly ever gets any lines in John's stories and Mycroft is very fat.

 

The TV show always had fun taking situations from the stories and modernizing them. This time there are taking situations from the TV show and showing them in an different light..

There is however, and actual mystery here. A woman who has killed herself, has apparently risen from the grave and keeps murdering!

This sets the scene for some really wonderful acting, great dialogue and clever situations, which are mostly directed in the same snappy manner as the regular TV show.

Slowly things start to tilt a bit though. The name Moriarty gets dropped at an odd instant early on. Victorian era Mycroft mentions the anachronistic phrase "A virus in the data"

 

Nevertheless it's rather a shock to be pulled from the magnificently designed Victorian splendor to...the plane we saw at the end of season 3.

 

From there on Sherlock, which has already become the most meta TV show currently around, has a lot of fun it itself!

 

So this is NOT a completely separate story just for the sake of it. It's part of the whole. But thankfully after Sherlock awoke from his drug fuelled mind palace slumber, the case of the abominable bride is not forgotten (that would make the first half completely pointless). The episode swiftly and cleverly swifts from one era to another, eventually ending up at what must be Sherlock's seventh level of Hell. The Reichenbach fall, with his nemesis waiting. But thankfully also his closest friend.

 

This kind of story telling could very easily fall apart if every aspect wasn't top notch in some way.

It often does on Doctor Who, which is in many ways a companion show to Sherlock in style. This kind of layered, self referential writing, constantly jumping back and fort and doubling back on itself has become grating there.

 

On Sherlock it actually might be it's strongest asset. Though you have to accept that it's gone beyond a show where a modern Holmes and Watson just solve cases.

This is brainfood for geeks, who will watch it time and again, make flowcharts, discus it on forums like like this one etc etc.

 

With The Abominable Bride Sherlock has gone wibbly wobbly timey wimey, and actually does a fantastic job of it.

 

Oh and the cast is naturally superb. Cumberbatch with short hair and a suit has more presence then ever.

 

The show more or less end on the following line:

 

"Moriarty is absolutely dead! The question is what he's gonna do next?"

 

It's gonna be a long year!

 

 

 

 

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Was I imagining it, or did I hear a little homage to the late composer Patrick Gowers when the Baker Street sign is seen near the beginning of the episode?  Gowers was the composer of the music for The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes series in the 1980s and it sounded to me like a reference to the theme music.

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12 minutes ago, Omen II said:

Was I imagining it, or did I hear a little homage to the late composer Patrick Gowers when the Baker Street sign is seen near the beginning of the episode?  Gowers was the composer of the music for The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes series in the 1980s and it sounded to me like a reference to the theme music.

 

I'm sure it was a deliberate homage. The shot is even set up in the same was as the title sequence to the Granada series, I think.

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I thought the second half was incredibly disappointing. This would have been the ideal opportunity to play 'a case' straight, but the story got entirely buried under the weight of its heavy-handed postmodern metafictionality.

They could have kept a couple of the early - already very obvious but compared to the second half actually subtle - references to the present day (such as the use of the wrong pronoun), and end with the final conversation scene, without any of the plane or drug dream sequences, and this would have made it all the more effective, surely.

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What fommes said.

 

It was an irresistible opportunity to do a standalone story set in the stories' original era and we weren't to worry about how, where and why it fitted with the modernised version because it didn't, Moffat had told us. And for the first hour or so, that's precisely what it was and was tremendous fun because of it.

 

Then, they pulled the big 'reveal' and I spent the remaining half-hour alternating between pissed-off and confused.  

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Did Moffat really say that it would be a complete stand-alone or is that just what we all assumed?

 

Not that it would have mattered. Moffat doesnt mind deceiving his audiences if he thinks it will increase the WTF factor of his plot twists. I take everything he says with a grain of salt.

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Like I said. I don't trust Moffat when he makes statements like that. Especially not in Sherlock which is essentially a show designed to trick the viewer as long as possible.

 

"You aren't a problem solver, you never were. You're a drama queen!" could be said of Moffat and Gatiss.

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For me, it's the second most disappointing Sherlock (dubious honour of the first goes to The Sign Of Three). 

 

I'll be approaching the next series with caution and lowered expectations.  

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Really? The Sign Of Three is my favorite!

 

Pitch perfect nonsense delivered with absolute gusto. And the best wedding speech ever given.

 

 

So anyone care to speculate who Mycroft had the word Redbeard in his notebook?

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'Fraid so ... an hour of feeding the 'shippers'/slash fanfic writers (an aspect I personally despise and which adds absolutely nothing to the programme for me), and then the mystery-solving shoved into the last half-hour almost as an afterthought. IMO.   

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Really? I thought the solution was very effective. I also liked that it wasnt directly linked to another super brilliant mega villain.

 

The Sign Of Three and The Hounds Of Baskerville are the only stories so far where the actual mystery investigated isnt connected with an arch nemesis in any way.

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I sat down expecting a fun standalone episode.

 

What I got was something completely different and far more enjoyable. 

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