The Series That Never Was

I thought I won't join the recent fuss a certain pilot of a legal-drama makes by NOT being made... but here is my really short note about it anyway.

So, I guess there is no need of pointing out that it's Rex Is Not Your Lawyer I'm talking about. Well, in my humble opinion even a whole episode isn't enough to judge a series properly, so the given material isn't exactly my definition of 'dream-footage'.
Nevertheless, what I can say about it is that it won't be only those people who might know David Tennant from Doctor Who who will have to get used to his 'new' accent. I'm not an expert on this topic, but somehow it manages to sound a bit like some sort of a Canadian one to me... Then again, I'm neither from Canada nor the States, so I might be wrong. On the one hand I understand why they want an American accent over there, however I don't think it's that bad as some people say.

Anyway. Taking into account what I've seen so far, I think the main reason why it was cancelled is the writing. People need a few jokes or word-games to fall in love with a show, and I can't help to detect a certain lack of it. Additionally, I'm not exactly overwhelmed by the acting, certainly not on David Tennat's part, though.

The Great Game

Someone is trying hard to drive people's attention to this show. For it looks as if the Beeb won't have another choice than giving us at least another season of this 21st century Sherlock.

So, we had our story-arch then... (and this made it official that last week's episode was really just a filler, as it seemed to be in the first place). Additionally, The Great Game showed us this series' future capacity. Come on, they could have made a whole season out of the last episode's plot alone. And after sitting through it the only thing we get is a cliff-hanger, which was a bit far-fetched IMHO. But who cares. Somehow it still managed to be amazing, and I can't wait for more.

And BTW I just love Sherlock's catchy opening-titles.

The Blind Banker

Sherlock is on its best way to become one of those save-the-date TV series. Because this was awesome. 

Sure, even the at times overly fast paced action couldn't help distracting from the fact that this was the filler of this year's season (well, I for my part hope there will be more). There were too many lose strings to speculate about. Like, what happened to the man Sherlock was fighting while John was out shopping? Why is that guy Sherlock's message for the people of the Jaria Diamond case? And most importantly, why shouldn't John know about this? And still, somehow I  have the feeling that it's not important. I guess, Thompson could have made more of these thrown away snippets.

But there were more things Sherlock did not want John to know about. Like him almost dying in Soo Lin Yao's flat. Does he want to hide the fact that their job is somewhat dangerous? Does he not want to admit that he did something stupid? Why doesn't he open the flat after entering it anyway? What's his motivation?

But otherwise, it's great to see a Sherlock Holmes adaptation in which John and Sherlock can be equals in their friendship. John is more than someone filling in for Sherlock's audience, or his skull. Well, at the same time, Sherlock does his best to irritate everyone around him, also John. It's clear that he's not trying to be nice. And John's failed attempt of having a date is somewhat foreshadowing his future. 

So, the M to which Shen was talking in the last seconds of her life is certainly Moriarty. I guess, next week things will start to become really interesting...

A Study In Pink

With no Doctor Who on until Christmas and a lot of spare time on my hand, I decided to dedicate almost ninety minutes of my afternoon to the BBC's new Sherlock Holmes adaptation of which a certain Steven Moffat's happens to be one of its co-writers.

Maybe, there is to mention, that I am, or rather was a big Sherlock Holmes fan a few years ago. Well, maybe not that big, but I read some of the books, and I remember enjoying them pretty much. Additionally, I was also quite curious about what Moffat would do with Sherlock Holmes' apparently not too temporary methods. And, luckily as far as I'm concerned, this series' opener didn't let neither of its fans down.

So, let's start with the casting... For a start, I wasn't familiar with the leading actors Benedict Cumberbatch as Sherlock Holmes and Marin Freeman who plays Doctor John Watson (John Watson on this blog.) Their mixture of sticking to the original characters and adding their (and the writers') own interpretation of them to the roles just won me over right from the start. For on the one hand Cumberbatch's Sherlock is eccentric enough so that it's not difficult to identify the world's most famous detective, but on the other hand their changed his relationship to Watson, so that he isn't only using him as someone in front of whom he can show off. And through this he appears to be nicer than in the books.
Additionally, I loved the way the team circumvented the BBC's 'not showing smoking heroes in our programmes' rule, while still sticking to Doyle's ideas of Sherlock Holems. His 'This is a three-patch problem' - line was superb.

My only, and slight critic of this opener is the plot of A Study In Pink. Until now the story didn't make too much sense, however, maybe when the Moriarty-story-arch will be finally reviled it might be possible that we won't be complaining about it anymore.

After all, this episode made me certainly curious about the following ones, for this was the best thing I've seen on TV for month.