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3 July 2017 at 13:29 #60263
Well I’m late as usual – just reading through everyone’s comments!
I love the Missy passing her ring to the Doctor theory @wolfweed . I have no doubt the Master will return in future Who by some means or other – there did seem to be some unspoken communication passing between them. And like you @nick I am still hoping for a Valeyard story – Capaldi’s desire not to regenerate as a manifestation of his anxiety about the imminent arrival of his shadow-self.
I would really have loved a future Missy, on a redemption path thanks to Capaldi-Doc, meeting the next, and Valeyard, regeneration of the Doctor and asking “Am I the good last of the Time Lords now? Are you the bad one?” (shameless Buffy rip-off). Yes, I know Gallifrey is no longer destroyed.
What if the TARDIS has taken Capaldi to visit Hartnell so they can defeat the Valeyard together? A very fitting full-circle for a show-runner whose tenure has been characterized by time-loops, counter-directions in time, and circularities.
Michelle Gomez – what a delight. And this version of the Simm Master was much more menacing having dialled down the tantrums.
Did you see that Moffat toyed (somewhat tongue-in-cheek) with the idea of Missy announcing she was pregnant to the Doctor and the Simm Master, leaving us viewers to speculate wildly about which of them was the father?
Heh – it would have been a great story-line in many ways, but as Moff clearly realised, unfair to Chibnall to land him with such a giant plot direction not of his own making.
There’s a lot more to say – not least Moffat’s eternal desire to defeat death. Clara and Bill both died on their adventures with the Doctor, taken by the Raven and cyberised, and yet they are living an after-life thanks to Time-Lord/ alien tech.
3 June 2017 at 23:46 #58446@Phaseshift I am horribly late responding to this – got side-tracked by work – but thanks for the lovely considered response.
I did know previously about the reds and blues as a deliberate part of the costumery and did a public fishy victory dance somewhere lost in the threads of time 🙂 But I didn’t know all the other elements re Clara and poppies etc. I’ll have to hunt for that interview.
But, absolutely, as an inveterate close-reader of televisual text, I frequently come across the “you’re reading too much into it” brigade, and I always respond – that no one is nerdier than production teams and that nothing on camera is placed there without a consideration of its visual contribution to the narrative grammar.
3 June 2017 at 23:29 #58445Hi folks – missed a couple of episodes with you all, so will have to catch up! Has the painting and ship thread diappeared? I certainly spotted the ship this episode (Doctor’s fake prison ship – couldn’t really miss it) but was there a painting? I guess there was a painting of a monk in Bill’s apartment?
This is turning out to be my favourite Capaldi season. His Doctor’s frock coats are gorgeous, his insouciance is charming, and his relationship with Bill is funny, warm, genuine and totally believable.
It helps that Pearl Mackie is a very, very good actor. I must say that I prefer her to Clara.
Heh – I suspect “fake news central” is a sly insider’s dig at the BBC, as well as, of course, a comment on the Trump era (humanity not learning from its previous mistakes re dictators, as per the Doctor and Bill’s closing conversation).
I’ve very much enjoyed the story thread developing over several episodes, and, well, who doesn’t love a zombie monk.
i think there are deliberate echoes in this, Moffat’s final season, of his “glory” moments past, from his writers’ team. For instance, the Doctor tied up and begging Bill not to fry her brain by merging with zombie monk central strongly recalled, for me, David Tenant’s Doctor in the same position, at River’s death scene in Silence in the Library/ Forest of the Dead. And of course, a nod here also to Moffat’s most iconic original “monster” – the Weeping Angels.
Capaldi and Gomez are mesmerising to watch together. Her version of the Master is just delicious. And of course, Missy’s weepy remorse scene is an act – pul-ea-ase. Is the Doctor actually falling for it, though?
Some cheesy elements to be sure – Bill’s image of her Mum as the love-saves-the-day sub-routine and Missy’s enclosure somewhat resembling Hannbal Lecter’s.
Still, overall, I’d say this was a lovely little gem of an episode, myself. I did gasp when I saw the regeneration energy just in case they were pulling a shocker, and smart one Bill – did you notice she shot him in both hearts? No flies on her.
Even Nardole didn’t irritate me too much this week. Although, his dating history is ever more ridiculous.
Oh and (edit) I forgot to add, that for those still playing the spot the Who/ Sherlock cross-ver references – there was the Vitruvian Man (which appears in Sherlock’s The Sign of Three) with the monk’s face superimposed on it. For those of us still hoping S4 of Sherlock was an altered reality (thanks to TD-12 etc.) this could be taken as another little hint, given the altered reality theme of this Who episode.
25 April 2017 at 21:43 #56721@mersey and @jimthefish
The “meaningless clues” vs “extra level of detail” debate re Moffat and teams’ work (on Who and Sherlock) does get to the heart of one of the elements of his work which can be both wonderful and infuriating.
Sometimes the clues have really gone somewhere, narratively speakng, like the build up to ganger Amy – first introducing gangers as a concept, then the TARDIS reading of Amy in two states, pregnant and not pregnant, leading eventually to ganger Amy herself.
Sometimes, like the tarot iconography last season, they have added another interpretive layer to the narrative without being plot-essential.
I really enjoy both of these varieties of “clue”.
And sometimes, as happened in Sherlock S4 in my view, they wrap their fingers round the throat of the narrative and strangle it (the sharks, Chekhov’s rifle, TD-12) because they are Schrodinger’s clues which mean everything and, apparently, nothing.
I think it’s because there’s a flip between leaving a trail of bread-crumbs for those so inclined (such as ourselves) to follow (in which case there is an invitation to “play with”) and leaving a trail of blind-alleys and dead-ends (in which case there is an invitation to “play against” – sort ot indecipherable text vs detective audience, where the writers aim to “win” by producing an insoluble puzzle). I prefer the “playing with” to “playing against” form of engagement.
24 April 2017 at 18:54 #56655Fair enough – true the last frost fair was twenty years before Victoria ascended the throne.
I wonder if the Doctor is going to run into River (or most likely, see her from a distance – ouch – clutches heart). She returned to the Storm Cage after a visit with the Doctor to one of the frost fairs in A Good Man Goes to War.
Nice spot in terms of The Raft of the Medusa (and that painting is from the same period as the last frost fair).
That means we now have two shipwrecks – last week’s Marie Celeste and this week’s Medusa, together with two self-portraits, last week’s Rembrandt and this week’s Van Gogh. A wrecked ship and a self-portrait?
Perhaps what’s in that vault is the Valeyard’s wrecked TARDIS?
@Thane15 Hi Puro – Yes, Cosey was a very engaging speaker. Emotionally honest and and also fun. Her autobiography sounds like a great read. On my list.
23 April 2017 at 21:50 #56617Bit late to the party – was out listening to Cosi Fanni Tutti last night (the experimental musician/ artist, not the opera).
Great catch @pedant @mudlark and everyone on the Vada as proto Vashta Nerada.
@mersey now that is interesting – second self portrait. I wonder if the Doctor’s 13th incarnation (The Valeyard) is locked in that vault?! Which would be the Doctor keeping watch over a self-portrait, of sorts.
I refuse to believe Moffat would pass up the chance to visit the delicious story-telling the Valeyard offers – it’s such a great development from the past just waiting to be told in the now. Maybe not, however, given that we’ve been through a “dark Doctor” War Doctor story throught the Nu Who arc…
As for Erehwon @phaseshift I haven’t read it. BUT it’s a rich title to have referenced. It was a written (in 1872) as a satire on Victorian society, and lo and behold, Victorian London is the Doctor’s next stop.
Also, apparently, Butler was the first to write about the fact that machines might develop consciousness by Darwinian selection. There are no machines in Erewhon because the populace deemed them dangerous.
So the future Erewhon the Doctor and Bill visit is a reverse-mirror of the 1872 Erewhon is some respects. Machines have indeed evolved as feared – the nano-bot robotic Vada are a new species.
A reverse mirror – another Valeyard clue (the Valeyard being the dark reverse reflection of the Doctor in his other incarnations)?
15 April 2017 at 22:02 #56223I did also notice that the words “Marie Celeste” were on the walls of the vault as Bill crept down the stairs to see what the Doctor and Nardole were up to.
A mysteriously wrecked ship…. Time-lordy perhaps.
But interestingly, one Arthur Conan Doyle apparently (thanks Wikipedia) published a re-telling of the story of the Marie Celeste in 1884 in The Cornhill magazine, titled J.Habakuk Jephson’s Statement.
Probably just Moffat messing with us, with a wee bit of meta-textual cross-over.
15 April 2017 at 20:45 #56215Hi everyone <waves excitedly>
Well Peter Capaldi is giving the best Doctor of his life.
I love him as a university tutor in his musty old-skool office (blimey I don’t think it’s that posh at Bristol) with photos of River and Susan his grand-daughter on his desk (awww – emotional progress!) playing rock guitar in the back. Heh – bet he doesn’t answer his e-mail.
Those photos juxtaposed gave me a timey-wimey thrill. Maybe River and the Doctor did have a kid and Susan is their grand-daughter – huh. Yes, I know Eleven didn’t know who River was and if she’d shacked up with Doctor One that shouldn’t be the case – but hello Time-Lordy mind-wipe.
I’m in love with Bill already. Pearl Mackie gives her the most winning curiosity. She’s obviously an accomplished actor, as this first episode certainly put her through her paces – from dealing with her somewhat feckless adoptive Mum, to crushing over the girl with the star in her eye, to experiencing the TARDIS for the first time (I’m betting she got thoroughly lost looking for the loo).
The Doctor, sentimental creature, nipping back in time to take some pictures of Bill’s Mum for her and then popping them in a shoe-box for her to find. What a softie!
Nardole wasn’t too annoying (I’m not a particular fan) and the water-alien was pretty nifty CGI.
The sequence where the Doctor takes them into an old battle of his with the Daleks (was that on Skaro?) was genuinely scary, because it gave a really sharp window into what a terrifying creature the Doctor himself can be. Running straight into Dalek fire with young Bill? Tsk Doctor, your thrill-seeking reckless self is showing. Bill, so innocent, is excited not scared. She has not yet learned what a Dalek really is.
That end of the universe planet with the waving purple cactus plants looked an awful lot like the place Eleven took Rose where she saw the flying sting-ray. Intentional call-back (Army of Ghosts, 2×12)? Certainly Bill serving chips was a deliberate Rose call-back (remember when she served them undercover in the episode in which she met Sarah Jane (School Reunion 2×03)?
I love that Bill is LGBT and I love that there won’t be any romantic undertones between the Doctor and this companion on either side. That’s a first since Donna.
All in all, a pretty delightful opener.
Oh, and what the frilly heck is in that vault?
20 February 2017 at 19:55 #55614To return to our discussions about the Hewlett interviews on Radio 4 with Eddie Mare @craig @thane15 and others – sadly PM announced today that Hewlett died this morning in hospital.
Lots of moving tributes from his journalist colleagues, as well as an outpouring from R4 listeners on Twitter.
He would be pleased, I think, that his last journalistic impact resonated so widely.
Our journey through life and death is, for certain, better for the company of others alongside us.
13 February 2017 at 21:16 #55537I’ve been listening to it too – Mair is an excellent interviewer striking just the right tone for Hewlett I think.
Apparently the Royal Marsden has been flooded with letters for Hewlett from R4 listeners.
Hewlett talked a little bit today about being aware of the impact of his PM interviews and what it’s like to be part of what has become a “major news story”.
Even the Daily Fail covered it sympathetically yesterday without bashing either the BBC or the Guardian (whilst quoting a Guardian story). Wonders will never cease!
It is ground-breaking radio and it must be, as a broadcaster, a really moving experience, when you know your craft (even at death’s door) is impacting so significantly.
We (meaning the Brits) rarely talk publicly about cancer and of course so many are affected. We, perhaps even more rarely, talk about death. In some ways I think the Victorians “did” death better than us – with their mourning clothes, their publc acknowlegment of the time-span of mourning (a long time – not just a couple of weeks).
Very sorry you had to go through that with your wife.
Mortality is very difficult to wrap one’s head around.
12 February 2017 at 23:56 #55531Did you miss me
Yes, obviously…
Delighted to have you back… glad things feel a bit less grim, despite the new world order of “alternative facts”.
Interesting re Moffat’s Sherlock and Who as written in parallel and their inter-textual relationship with one another.
Hypertext is specifically a word from a digital text context, so I’m not sure I’d call them hypertexts of each other, although that’s a perfectly reasonable slippage.
They are somewhat written in conversation with one another, in the same way that some of Shakespeare’s sonnets clearly “speak to each other”. 29 and 30 are often considered a particular pair, but the whole sequence of “dark lady” and “fair youth” sonnets are also linked. However, they are “same universe”, whereas Moffat’s Who and Sherlock are not. As in, these Moffat texts do not canonically cross-over (yet!) although – on poor Anderson’s wall of theories in The Empty Hearse there is a drawing of a TARDIS for the eagle-eyed!
Now that you come to mention this intertextuality, I think this year’s Who Christmas Special, The Return of Doctor Mysterio, very deliberately referenced the Sherlock subtext upcomng in S4, which, as we look back after the three S4 episodes (still holding out for a fourth Lost Special) is very apparent.
Two people who live together, Lucy and Grant, one of them has a baby (the other parent is absent) and the other has extraordinary powers. Well, hello John and Sherlock at the end of The Final Problem (whether that ending is in-show “real world” or John’s injured brain fantasy).
Lucy and Grant are secretly in love with each other, but neither has admitted it to the other until the Doctor plays match-maker (and Lucy has not admitted it to herself yet either). Again, for subtext readers of Sherlock, hello John and Sherlock. Grant’s sexuality (in his persona as The Ghost) is the subject of public speculation because he flies around town with a big “G” on his chest (heh). Hello Sherlock, whose sexuality has been the subtext of much in-show speculation (just to give one example -remember Kitty the reporter in The Reichenbach Fall cornering Sherlock in the loos to ask “You and John Watson – just platonic?”).
I won’t even go into all the ways in which ghosts in literature have historically stood in for sexual “deviance” of some kind (then perceived as such).
Plus – for really Inception-level inter-textuality – Nardole is seen holding a toy stuffed elephant at one point in The Return of Doctor Mysterio. Elephants have been a big feature of Sherlock’s set-dressing narrative since The Sign of Three when Sherlock mentioned the case “The Elephant in the Room” during his wedding speech. In subtext, that elephant is of course, Sherlock and John’s romantic feelings for one another. In particular, in The Abominable Bride, an elephant ornament falls from the mantel-piece in Baker Street as Victorian Sherlock makes the final transition to modern day Sherlock (suggesting, to subtext readers, that perhaps the constraints of 1895 can be thrown off in the present).
Then there’s the question of whether Sherlock S4 messes with time significantly. Culverton hints that some of our (viewer) memories “may also be corrupted” with his little fourth wall break. Is time squiffy, nay timey-wimey, in S4? I suspect it is (one possibility being that John is shot in the head and lying in a coma throughout) and thus not only does The Return of Doctor Mysterio reference the subtext of Sherlock, but the subtext of Sherlock S4 references all the timey-wimeyness of Moffat’s tenure on Who.
Yes, I think Moffat was having more than a little inter-textual fun with Who/ Sherlock this year.
Re the question of established “real world” and Sherlock S4. I certainly do not mean to suggest that BBC Sherlock’s world is equivalent to our “real world”. And your point about Sherlock’s fantasy life (perhaps in keeping with his romantic attachment to being a pirate) as peopled by arch-nemeses etc, perhaps in a rather Bond-esque fashion, is well made.
However, what I mean is that several key established elements of BBC Sherlock are broken so spectacularly in The Final Problem that I see them as part of the fabric of hints that we should read that episode as “mind palace” (perhaps Sherlock’s but likely John’s).
For example, we know from His Last Vow that John Watson can break every bone in a man’s body while naming them (he threatens Billy at the smack-den with this). Yet, down the well in The Final Problem he cannot distinguish between dog and human bones (initially).
To give another example, John whispers “Vatican Cameos” to Sherlock via ear-piece (whilst Sherlock is visiting Eurus alone in her cell). We know that’s their mutual code-word for “someone’s going to die” (ergo take immediate action) as established in A Scandal in Belgravia and explicitly in The Sign of Three. Yet Sherlock ignores this signal from John and takes his earpiece out in The Final Problem.
It’s because I think the show is breaking its own codes of “reality” so flagrantly in The Final Problem that I see a reading of it as “mind palace” rather than in-show “real world” as likely, in particular given the precedent for such mind-palace incursions set by The Abominable Bride.
I enjoyed your meditations on Bond and Sherlock S4 a lot.
But, I don’t think they stand in opposition to a reading of S4 as wholly or partly taking place in an altered state (some combination of TD-12 drugging of John and Sherlock, or injured John/ drugged Sherlock mind-palace). And in fact, in the Sherlock official para-text, John Watson’s Blog, which was kept by Joe Lidster officially for the BBC throughout S1-3 (part of the mystery of S4 being the blog header saying “John Watson is no longer updating this blog”) has John specifically mentioning James Bond and promising Sherlock a “Bond night” as Sherlock (in keeping with his habit of deleting “useless” information from his “hard drive”) was clueless about the character:
http://www.johnwatsonblog.co.uk/blog/23march
More evidence I think that the Bond-esque flavour to S4 may indicate a John Watson mind-palace POV rather than in-show “real world”.
And on that note I will cease my musings on the Who/ Sherlock space/time continuum for the night!
Welcome back 🙂
@TheConsultingDoctor <waves> just to note your point about Eurus as one of four Greek Gods of the winds, the Anemoi, yes indeed – more evidence pointing to a fourth episode perhaps, rather than a fourth Holmes sibiling necessarily.
6 February 2017 at 16:16 #55443aqua @ichabod – solidarity from this side of the pond.
I was very impressed by the Women’s March, and the Science March on DC planned for Earth Day (April 22nd) is an excellent way to oppose the global impact of Trump’s pro-oil climate change irresponsibility. There are sister marches in a number of other countries planned already. I will try and make it to the London one:
https://www.marchforscience.com
The Doctor would approve, I’ve no doubt.
@TheConsultingDoctor – good idea to check what’s happening at minute 40 in the original Study In Pink pilot (it’s an extra on the second DVD of S1 of Sherlock). I’ve checked and in that version (unlike in the eventually broadcast finished version of Study in Pink) the taxi driver serial killer drugs Sherlock and abducts him – and he drugs him (we see the needle sticking out of his neck) at 40 mins in!
So – that brings the TD-12 theory to the fore re S4 – the idea that S4 is “corrupted” (as Culverton says) because our POV (perhaps a mixture of Sherlock and John’s POVs) has been drugged. Of course it also leaves the Sherlock is still drugged on the plane at the end of His Last Vow and the whole of S4 takes place in his drugged mind theory very much in play too.
Either way, I firmly believe that the “reality” we see in S4 is corrupted one way or another – whether the entirety is in Sherlock’s drugged Mind Palace (as perhaps this minute 40 clue suggests) or whether it’s a combo of John and Sherlock’s drugged POV’s and John’s injured Mind Palace in The Final Problem.
5 February 2017 at 22:16 #55436@ichabod – ah – it’s certainly a time for choosing sides – I can’t help (in a time-travelley way) thinking about the historians of the future, and how this period (of Brexit, resurgent nationalisms, and Trump) will be viewed from their place in the space/time continuum.
@TheConsultingDoctor – that’s a nice take on Sonnet 40 – it’s also about a love triangle (so the scholars say) which suggests the “fair youth” has seduced the poet’s lady love.
That perhaps ties into the Mary as a villain theory – there was certainly a love-triangle vibe coming off The Six Thatchers (Sherlock-John-Mary). That some of those late-night texts of John’s might have been to Sherlock and not Eurus is certainly a space left in the narrative.
I still wonder if we are going to find out that Eurus does not physically exist but is a mental construct of John or Sherlock or both (drugged on TD-12).
I think the Mary as secret villain theory is highly convincing given that she was coded as a villain in so many ways in S3, from the horns framing in The Sign of Three, to the fact that, as it turns out, she was still lying to John and Sherlock even when supposedly fessing up in His Last Vow – i.e. AGRA was not in fact, her initials, to the turn-ups on her jeans (also in that scene) as a call-back to Sherlock deducing in The Great Game that someone was not the parent of a child (because the turn-ups on their jeans indicated they were gay) – i.e. that perhaps baby Rosie was not John’s.
Mary as Moriarty’s plan to burn the heart out of Sherlock would be much more narratively satisfying than the current state of affairs.
5 February 2017 at 14:05 #55429@ichabod – well there is a Conan Doyle story called The Lost Special so Moffat and Gatiss are the ultimate fannish Conan Doyle audience.
The “Great Game” or the “Sherlockian Game” of trying to resolve anomalies in the ACD canon – was begun by scholars in 1902:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sherlockian_game
Essentially – bonkers theorising about Sherlock Holmes has been going on for over a century. Moffat and Gatiss are simply inviting people to the latest round (assuming thelostspecial.com website is affiliated with them in some way, which it may well not be).
@TheConsultingDoctor – re Sherlock and Shakespeare and the No 40. Well, there’s a double reading here – sonnet 40 is one of the “fair youth” sonnets again, and it’s about being head-over-heels in love:
https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems-and-poets/poems/detail/50426
Incidentally, however if you put thelostspecial.com/johnlock into that website, you get a picture with “404 error” written on it – so there’s still a denial – whether fan-created or secret show-associated created – of the romantic subtext.
40 may also refer to the 40th story in the ACD Sherlock Holmes canon which, by order of publication (including the novels) would be The Adventure of the Abbey Grange. That is the story used as the basis for The Abominable Bride.
So, that could be a hint that we are still in Sherlock’s mind palace, which would mean that my first (rather tragic) theory, that the whole of S4 takes place in Sherlock’s drugged mind-palace and that he hasn’t left his overdose on the plane after saying goodbye to John on the tarmac at the end of His Last Vow, is correct.
Or, it could be a more general hint to understand S4 as mind-palace related – leading to The Final Problem as John’s mind palace theory (but as that doesn’t explain all the S4 anomalies on its own, I think we have to add in that John and Sherlock have been drugged, perhaps by a villainous Mary working for Moriarty, with TD-12 the memory -altering drug that Culverton tells us about).
Gatiss didn’t say anything about Sherlock on Peston On Sunday btw except that he doesn’t give a monkeys about reviews and he doesn’t read them – which we blatantly know to be untrue, as he bothered to write a refutational poem in the style of Conan Doyle to The Guardian in response to a S4 review – titled “To An Undiscerning Critic”:
To an undiscerning critic… from Mark Gatiss
https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2017/jan/04/to-an-undiscerning-critic-from-mark-gatiss
He did enthuse about the possibility of a woman incarnation of the Doctor however! But that’s for another thread…
5 February 2017 at 02:08 #55413@TheConsultingDoctor and anyone else still on the trail of Moffat and Gatiss’ recreation of Conan Doyle’s Reichenbach-ing in a modern setting:
Have you seen this?
http://thelostspecial.com/solveme/
There’s dancing man code on the page (as there was in the last scenes in Baker Street in The Final Problem) which someone smarter than me has translated as reading:
“I see you stand like greyhounds upon the slips, straining at the start” – the line in Henry V before “the game’s afoot” (the speech Sherlock was declaiming in The Lying Detective).
Could be a fan-created trolling puzzle – but – I sense the game is, in fact, afoot….
Moriarty is not dead (or at least – his plan to burn the heart out of Sherlock is still go) – judging from the picture on the site – which recalls the tea Moriarty and Sherlock shared in The Reichenbach Fall when Moriarty carved IOU into an apple.
More evidence for The Lost Special…
4 February 2017 at 22:13 #55411@TheConsultingDoctor
Mmmn – all the evidence points to The Final Problem as – well – a problem – a puzzle – a connundrum – a fake-out. But here we are…. waiting.
Mark Gatiss is on Peston on Sunday tomorrow morning (not sure which country you’re based in – it’s a UK television Sunday politics show). Gatss is fairly politically outspoken and he’s on there with a bunch of politicians, so the focus is not Sherlock. Still – I will watch to see if there are any hints that something is coming….
He and his husband were interviewed just recently and he claimed that he and Moffat thought about calling The Final Problem episode “Backlash” in advance, which suggests they predicted fully the response to it (which rather does suggest a plan). The interview is here:
30 January 2017 at 21:48 #55295Oh no – Peter Capaldi has just announced on Jo Wiley (BBC R2) that he is leaving at the end of the next series.
Is this breaking news?
I think it’s breaking news.
So we’ll be saying goodbye to Capaldi and the Moffat era at the same time.
30 January 2017 at 21:31 #55294Peter Capaldi is on Jo Wiley on R2 hosting an evening of music right now! I’ve just joined (half an hour to go)
The track listing is here http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b08bqzvd
and no doubt the whole thing will be on i-player afterwards.
He’s lovely to listen to.
30 January 2017 at 10:44 #55290@TheConsultingDoctor
Ah yes, I saw that too – and what’s more 8th March is the day that Arthur Conan Doyle sat down to write the first Holmes/ Watson novel – A Study in Scarlet. I’m quite hopeful there will be an announcement of some sort on that date.
Furthermore I’ve just seen this tweet by Neville Kid – one of the cinematographers on Sherlock:
Found this pic, one of our best boards from ep2! #Sherlock pic.twitter.com/7k9Vr0SHNH
— Neville Kidd (@nevillekidd) January 30, 2017
That looks exactly like someone getting shot in the head!
The game’s afoot…
30 January 2017 at 00:41 #55280@TheConsultingDoctor – ahhh I’d missed that little detail – lovely.
The layers and layers of work which have gone into this narrative.
30 January 2017 at 00:38 #55279@TheConsultingDoctor – yes – I think your point about Ben Caron directing and the Derren Brown connection is a very good one.
Gatiss and Derren Brown are friends. And he’s already appeared in The Empty Hearse as part of Anderson’s theory of how Sherlock faked his death.
Happy anniversary to John and Sherlock indeed. Did you know some fans went and laid red roses at the statue of requited love, Anteros, in Picadilly in London today for the anniversary (a shot of which statue appeared in the original, un-aired, pilot for A Study in Pink, which is on the first dvd as a bonus)? I love the high romance of that fan gesture!
A “Lost Special” makes so much sense, in terms of the canon, and the bizarre shift in tone of S4, which seems to be crying out for a resolution.
To my mind, there’s no doubt Gatiss and Moffat have written their adaptation as, first and foremost, a love story between these men – but it’s very possible they and the BBC want to leave it platonic-romantic/ “desperately unspoken”. Even though the whole coffin/ “I love you” scenario seemed like a huge Chekov’s gun to me…
That doesn’t mean there won’t be a “Lost Special” however.
I too remain hopeful….
30 January 2017 at 00:18 #55276@TheConsultingDoctor No – I don’t think I have – what did the billboard say?
30 January 2017 at 00:06 #55274@TheConsultingDoctor – Ah – but that’s one of the great conundrums of this BBC Sherlock adaptation – it’s NOT 1895 any longer (1895 was the year of the Wilde trials).
Well, your reading is quite lovely and is certainly in the spirit of narratives within narratives, which I definitely think is the theme of the season. I really love the reference to the Star Trek “Ship in a Bottle” episode. It may be that we will never know which reading is “real world” and both yours and the “bonkers” one will continue to exist simultaneously.
One has a happy ending – John and Sherlock back together at Baker Street, and one has a tragic ending – John hallucinating himself and Sherlock back together at Baker Street as he lies mortally injured. The second reading really needs a coda (the “Lost Special”). I’m still hoping…
Just to play devil’s advocate, and because it’s bugging me, i’m going to go through the evidence for The Final Problem as happening in John’s injured mind.
This is a bit long!
Remember, the opening scene of The Lying Detective opens with a gun-shot and then an image of John, lying down. He is then at Eurus the therapist’s office, as she says, “Tell me about your morning”. The end scene of The Lying Detective is John, also in the therapist’s office, getting shot by Eurus with a gun (which doesn’t look like a tranquiliser gun at all) and then the screen turning red – like blood (and also rather like the graphics of a Bond Movie).
As The Final Problem (which is rather like a Bond movie in entirety) opens, we see an adult face lying down, close up, and one blue eye opens. This is very similar to the opening of The Lying Detective. That shot then transitions into the little girl on the plane. Question – is that John Watson’s adult face, as it was in The Lying Detective? The correspondence is striking (I know the apparent solution is that it’s Eurus).
Note – the actress playing the little girl on the plane in The Final Problem was in Sherlock’s A Scandal in Belgravia (one of two girls who sat together on a chair as Sherlock told them that people are taken to a special room and burned when they die). These girls and their dead relative turned out later in the episode to be connected to Mycroft’s “flight of the dead”, which involved a plane full of dead people – rather like the plane full of people whom the little girl in The Final Problem cannot wake up.
Question – is John Watson’s injured mind writing a narrative which re-mixes elements of the cases he has covered with Sherlock (the same little girl, the same scenario involving a “flight of the dead”)? Also note the code for Mycroft’s plan was “Bond Air is go” – and here we have a Bond-esque vibe to the whole of The Final Problem.
Let’s not forget that John Watson is a storyteller – he’s Sherlock’s blogger, and a writer of “romantic fictions” (as Sherlock describes it).
The paintings in Mycroft’s house (as the noir romance movie he is watching is disrupted) bleed blood from the eyes. Did Sherlock and John really fix that as part of their elaborate “pantomime” horror scenario?!? Question – this is one of a series of recurring images of blood in the episode – does John Watson, in some part of his mind, know he is critically injured and bleeding out somewhere (remember the ominous red cow-skin run in Eurus’ office in The Lying Detective)?
Sherlock shouting that John is family, and the ridiculous “patience grenade” explosion – could these be elements from the real world bleeding into John’s injured brain’s Bond narrative, in hospital? The explosion as the explosive event of the bullet in his brain? (I ask this because why send a grenade to blow up your brother, and John Watson, with only 3 seconds to escape it in, if you want to ensure they arrive intact at Sherrinford to play your mind-games later?!).
If you pause The Final Problem at 20.41 as the operators (supposedly at Sherrinford) repeat their message “Golf Whiskey X-ray” (note the importance of the word “X-ray”) you will see a bunch of screens in front of them. Look at the top left – it contains four brain scans. Are these in fact John’s injured brain’s understanding that he is having his brain scanned/ x-rayed in the real world, as this Bond-esque fantasy plays out in his mind? Seems a bit odd for brain scans to be on a monitor in a control tower on a prison island scanning for approaching craft!
Next note the close-up of a red panic button, the sound of a siren (an ambulance?) the, “Tell my sister I’m here” written in the sand – supposedly by Sherlock for Eurus – but John has a sister, Harry, and if he was in the hospital, but unable to communicate, he’d be trying to articulate the need to inform his sister he was there, wouldn’t he?
Also note the cut to the official in the car saying (supposedly with respect to Mycroft) “He’s not conscious, he’s severely injured, no one’s even confident he’s going to pull through”. Again – the real world bleeding through for John? He hears someone saying that about him as he lies shot in the head?
The violin – is Sherlock playing that violin to John in the hospital?
The stress scenarios Eurus puts Sherlock, John and Mycroft through – three involve guns (shooting the governor, the gun murder weapon of the Garridebs, shooting Mycroft or John). One involves a coffin. Put these together and you have a gunshot and being close to death – again – John’s injured mind’s way of understanding his situation? There are flashing red lights and clocks ticking throughout these scenarios – supposedly clips of Moriarty recorded in the past – but in fact events in the ICU?.
The phrase “I gave her a Christmas present” which Mycroft uses to describe giving “treats” to Eurus, is exactly how Sherlock described giving Mycroft’s laptop to Charles Augustus Magnussen – “a Christmas present”. Again – is John’s brain re-working phrases and events from his past adventures with Sherlock in his injured mind?
As Moriarty’s voice comes over the Sherrinford prison speakers, we get a close-up of John, specifically, getting clobbered in the back of the head, and then an intense transition that involves him spinning round as if passing out, before Queen’s “I want to break free…” starts up as we get flashback, apparently, to Moriarty arriving on the island. NB – if we are in John’s head – remember that every character is in fact a manifestation of John’s psyche (just as every character in The Abominable Bride was a manifestation of Sherlock’s). John wants to break free (from his coma or from his repressed bisexuality or both – the reading is open on both levels)…
As Eurus and Moriarty do their weird reflections-merging dance (two aspects of John’s psyche merging into one – both characters are coded as gay/bisexual in the episode – or perhaps his imagining of two aspects of Sherlock’s merging into one?) we get another transition – straight to John’s face, in extreme close-up, lying down. He opens his eyes. We see that he is on a bed supposedly in a Sherriford cell with Sherlock and Mycroft. Why are all these transitions focusing on John?!?! He grasps his head in pain.
As the shoot the Govenor scenario unfolds, Eurus, says, “This is very good, Dr. Watson, I should have fitted you with a cardio-graph”. Ok – so we’ve had x-rays, brain scans and now a cardiograph – all associated with John.
In the room with the Garridebs problem, the walls are splash painted red – they look as if they are smeared with blood. Both Sherlock and Mycroft remark that the paint is barely dry – it has been redecorated for their benefit. Remember Sherlock’s phrase from The Six Thatchers “Fresh paint to disguise another smell”? Another hint that things are not as they seem?
The rifle as Chekov’s gun is something I’ve already discussed in an earlier post. But here is the exact quote from Chekov:
“Remove everything that has no relevance to the story. If you say in the first chapter that there is a rifle hanging on the wall, in the second or third chapter it absolutely must go off. If it’s not going to be fired, it shouldn’t be hanging there…”
We have a literal rifle hanging on a wall and three men dangling over an actual cliff – cliff-hanger, Chekov’s gun…
In the coffin scenario – Sherlock deduces it’s for Molly but the description of someone 5 ft 6” (adding the head-room Sherlock mentions) “unmarried… distant from close relatives… practical about death… alone” all apply to John (no longer married as Mary is dead, estranged from his sister Harry, a soldier’s practicality about death).
The scene transition from Sherlock smashing the coffin zooms straight out to a very high aerial shot of Sherrinford – the prison clearly looks like a gun (or a penis – the Freudian readings lurking beneath) from the air. Then the scene transitions back to – John again – picking up the gun. Coffin – John – gun – linked…
John’s mind (as all three characters) keeps telling him that he has to be a solider and keep going (somehow stay alive)..?
After Sherlock refuses to shoot either Mycroft or John, finally a major transition belongs to Sherlock, as he sinks to the floor and is covered in the black goo of death. If we are in John’s mind, however, this is still an aspect of John, falling into darkness (losing greater consciousness) just after Moriarty says “This is where I get off”.
Now, the voices of the little girl and John alternate in contact with Sherlock – suggesting they are linked – perhaps both aspects of John (indeed Sherlock has to save one to save the other?) “Are you there yet?” Sherlock says to the little girl, but it is John who answers, “Yeah I’m here”. An interesting (and telling) slippage. Images of death – drowning or crashing in a plane. Their voices keep alternating like this.
Don’t you think that young Victor Trevor looks like young John Watson? The pirate patch an indication of a gun-shot wound to the head?
The solution to the Musgrave ritual includes the lines “I am lost without your love, save my soul”. Following the language of visual transition as narrative which BBC Sherlock has used consistently over its four seasons – John is Sherlock’s soul (see the transition in The Empty Hearse from Lestrade saying “God rest his soul” about Sherlock to a close up of John’s eyes).
The narrative John’s injured brain is telling him is of him and Sherlock playing pirates together (“I’m Sherlock Holmes… the pirate”). John becomes “damsel in distress” – Eurus (in a well/ on a plane) the phrase Magnussen used to describe him, and Sherlock (the dragon slayer) saves him. John gets his cheesy happy ending back at Baker Street – a story teller’s ending in which, “Who you really are – it doesn’t matter – it’s all about the legend, the stories, the adventures.” Well – he’s a romantic.
It rings odd to me – because who John and Sherlock are – their psyches – has been a major theme of this adaptation of Sherlock – the cases have played second fiddle in fact. Who they really are surely does matter?
Also, to be nitpicky (and Moffat and Gatiss are fanboys who know the canon inside out). The Baker Street Boys refers to Sherlock’s “Baker Street irregulars” – his homeless network – strictly speaking – not to John and Sherlock. A deliberate jarring note? Another clue something is “off”?
And the question remains – what was all that blood, gunshots, x-rays, brain-scans, coffin, cardiograph, sirens, red-lights symbolism about?
Did S4 end on a John is mortally wounded cliff-hanger after all?
Thanks for reading! Anyone who has made it to the end of that deserves a nice strong cup of tea!
NB – I put this together after a close re-watch, but I didn’t spot all of it first-off on my own. Credit to various Sherlock Tumblr fans for the spot of the brain scans, for the suggestion that the writing on the sand, “Tell my sister I’m here,” might be John, trying to signal someone needed to contact his sister Harry, and for Victor Trevor’s eye-patch as a possible indication that John has been shot in the eye/brain.
29 January 2017 at 00:57 #55262Excellent @blenkinsopthebrave – a convert!
Incidentally, if anyone is interested, it has been kicking off on Twitter, as young LGBT fans explain why they didn’t appreciate the way S4 was marketed to imply a John/ Sherlock relationship, but the BBC has responded to complaints by denying there has ever been any sexual or romantic interest displayed between the characters throughout the entirety of the show.
I sympathise entirely – the marketing was quite deliberate, and it’s a bit cack-handed of the BBC to try and shut down that particular reading of a text, when there is frankly a mountain of subtextual evidence to support it.
The Beeb response is either terrible PR (a much better response would have been simply to say that whilst they fully supports fans who choose to read the show that way, it is only one of several possible readings) OR something else is afoot.
Someone’s written about it at Buzzfeed:
https://www.buzzfeed.com/chrismelas/twitter-is-destroying-bbc-sherlock-right-now-2ssvd
27 January 2017 at 10:37 #55238@TheConsultingDoctor – heh “The Tower” – Sherlock still has a dragon to slay then, in order to rescue his “damsel in distress” John Watson…
The @contactSH twitter account, which I swear is show-run undercover (it links to the official para-text Sherlock blog “The Science of Deduction”) has Sherlock tweeting “”It ain;t over ’til the fat lady dies” today (Fri 27th).
@blenkinsopthebrave Heh prepare to be entirely confused 🙂
One theory is that John or Sherlock or both have been dosed with TD-12 so their memories (which we are seeing) are corrupted. Another is that Eurus has mind-controlled them both – implanting the conditioning when she encountered them as “Faith” and “E” respectively.
26 January 2017 at 00:50 #55230@theconsultingdoctor
Yes, once you read The Final Problem as happening in John’s head it makes so much more sense. I think the entirety of S4 may be in John’s head, at least in part (the biggest clue being that his blog does not update in the official para-text all season, as I mentioned above). There’s a “dual time-lines” theory out there somewhere to try and make sense of whether or not John is mortally wounded all season or not.
Eurus’ powers of deduction seem like ridiculous Bond villain super-powers – but when we read them as John’s perspective on Sherlock’s deductive abilities, then they become an incredibly endearing portrait of the way John thinks about his friend.
And yes, obviously, the coffin with “I love you” written on it, if John is in a coma and we’re in his head, again acquires added sense and emotional poignancy. He knows he’s close to death in some part of his mind, and “I love you” is the thing he didn’t get to say to Sherlock.
The “patience” grenade is just ridiculous, as are the three hanging Garridebs, until we read them as coded meta-narrative for the audience – as in – have patience a “Lost Special” is on the way which will resolve this hot mess, and the Garridebs moment of Holmes professing deep affection for Watson (well known to those who know the canon and one Moffat and Gatiss have explicitly professed love for in interviews) is currently a cliff-hanger (the three men are literally hanging over a cliff!). So – S4 ended on a massive cliff-hanger after all… those crafty buggers!
I don’t know that Mary is coming back as such – she may well be dead – but I think there is still possibility for our understanding of her to be revised. If “some memories may have been corrupted” – as Culverton Smith says – that again may be a meta-narrative comment, meaning that the audience’s perspective is currently skewed, perhaps because we lack the “emotional context” that Eurus keeps going on about.
If we read Eurus as a representation of some part of Sherlock’s psyche, then John was text-flirting with Sherlock Holmes himself. This is a perfectly supportable reading of the show’s subtext. What I am not certain of is whether the show will chose to bring that subtext fully into text, or continue to cloak itself in ambiguity.
With regard to John’s alibi – I have certainly seen “John’s alibi theory” posts floating about – the theory being that John shot Mary to protect Sherlock at the aquarium and then Mycroft and Sherlock devised an alibi for him, which involved making Norbury the villain of the piece and Mary into “Saint Mary”, and we are seeing “doctored” footage as a result. I do think that theory had a basis in a fleeting shot of a post-it note – but I’m not sure in which shot of which episode!
It really is a connundrum of a season.
In some ways, looking back on the show as a whole, I do think S4 jumps the shark somewhat, even if we get a “Lost Special”, because it has become unintelligible at a surface level. The Abominable Bride managed dream/ drugged mind-palace with (more or less) finesse, but S4 feels as if Moffat and Gatiss have thrown the kitchen sink at their text in a deliberate effort to fox and confound its decoding.
In other words, they have become captivated by playing the “great game” with the detective part of their audience, and this is their grand move to out-smart them all.
However, that has, in my view, meant that the surface level of the text, where the emotional resonances you are creating should ring out like a bell even for those members of the audience not reading the subtext or the “clue-text”, has lost its fine tuning.
Clearly, if you subscribe to the “this is a modern Reichenbaching” theory, then the emotional resonances are deliberately messed with in The Final Problem to create outcry amongst the fan-base, making the full return of those emotional resonances in “The Lost Special”, presumably all the sweeter. In that, Moff and Gatiss definitely have succeeded. Ratings for the season on Amazon are divided (lots of one stars as well as five stars), the press critics are also divided, and a significant segment of the most devoted fans of the show are deeply upset.
As quite a lot of that segment are young LGBT+ fans, who have been following the romantic subtext for years, and (at present, in the absence of “The Lost Special”) feel the show’s implicit promse was peed on from a great height (the hanging three Garridebs comes across as cruel in that context), I think that’s been a sgnificant miss-step on Moffat and Gatiss’ part.
There are a number of Twitter accounts that I suspect may be para-text, as in under-cover associated with the BBC show officially – @contact_JM is one of them. They were all created in December and have been interacting with fans since. More clues that a “Lost Special” will indeed be forthcoming…?
25 January 2017 at 22:54 #55227@TheConsultingDoctor – oh – our posts crossed.
Yes, I think the John-has-been=shot theory is definitely go!
25 January 2017 at 22:50 #55226Hello @TheConsultingDoctor I am still thinking about this season too.
Is John living with Sherlock again?
The narrative leaves that deliberately ambiguous (one of the many reasons that, as it stands, The Final Problem is insufficient). We see John pick up a big bunch of unopened post back at his flat, which includes Mary’s “Miss You” DVDs (I mean – just how many DVDs do you record in advance of your death for your husband and his best friend?). That pile of post is suggestive – perhaps John has not been there in a while. If so, has he been staying with Sherlock?
However, if we believe, as I do, that The Final Problem in fact takes place internally rather than in the external world – most probably in John’s mind as he lies seriously wounded after being shot in the head, then this is John’s imagining of where he and Sherlock might end up. In other words we can use it to psychoanalyse John, just as we were able to use The Abominable Bride to psychoanalyse Sherlock.
Which would tell us that the centre of John’s hoped-for world is him, Rosie and Sherlock together at Baker Street, but he’s a bit shaky on whether or not he’d be fully moved in there. If we’re reading the subtext, Mary’s “I know what you two could become” line, if we understand it as taking place in John’s psyche, would suggest that John is hopefuly about something more intimate with Sherlock, but it’s still unspoken, longed for but not fully articulated.
I too am hopeful for a “Lost Special” (really hoping this isn’t a trick but a plan). My thoughts on some of what might be in said special, based the available narrative:
1) John is at death’s door having been shot in the head (possibly by Mary rather than Eurus)
2) This near-death brings a confession of feeling from Sherlock (as per in the ACD story The Three Garridebs)
2) Eurus may well be a fiction (representing a part of Sherlock’s psyche rather than a real Holmes sibling)
4) Either Moriarty really isn’t dead or he has an evil twin – either way he’s back in some capacity, because his final problem was always to burn the heart out of Sherlock (see John being at death’s door – aka John is Sherlock’s heart)
5) Mary is revealed as a villain (working with Moriarty or his evil twin). Perhaps she’s Moriarty’s sister or non-identical twin herself
6) Molly may have been kidnapped or put under duress by Mary/ Moriarty (the note ostensibly from John which she passes to Sherlock and tells him he doesn’t have to read now)
7) Mycroft has screwed up royally in one way or another (perhaps failing to recognise the danger posed by Mary)
8) This is sad, but baby Rosie may already be dead (Sherlock says “I’m sorry about your daughter” to Charlie’s parents in The Six Thatchers and then he forgets about Rosie in The Lying Detective). John, mortally injured, cannot face that reality, so his injured brain imagines she’s still alive
Please add to the list!
24 January 2017 at 00:05 #55193Bless you @blenkinsopthebrave for hopping on the crazy train with me.
I had a look at the Basil Rathbone movies (because of the Rathbone nod which @pedant mentioned above) and you know what?
The Spider Woman combines the Arthur Conan Doyle stories “The Adventure of the Dying Detective” (we’ve had “The Lying Detective” in this version) with “The Final Problem” (which we’ve had) and “The Sign of Four”.
Four – not three…
I just can feel something afoot. Mark Gatiss has not tweeted anything about The Final Problem and nor has Hartswood films. The last episode they tweeted about was The Lying Detective. Sue Vertue has denied there is a fourth episode BUT…
They could do a special, which would come out on its own DVD, just the way they did for The Abominable Bride, which technically would not be a fourth ep of S4 but which would hopefully make sense of it all.
By the pricking of my thumbs – something Sherlocky is still to come…
I do hope so.
23 January 2017 at 20:03 #55189@winston – you’re welcome!
I’ve been thinking about this quite a lot, as I just can’t reconcile the S4 narrative with the rest of the show without factoring in a dream-state interiority perspective (like the one we were given in The Abominable Bride).
Somene was, rightly, complaining about the number of Chekhov’s guns which were planted in S4 elsewhere on the interwebs, and then never went off – for instance the TD-12 memory-altering drug together with the explicit warning that “some memories may be corrupted” (looked like a fourth wall break there to me from Culverton in The Lying Detective) plus the explicit warning at the start of The Six Thatchers that the footage of events could be doctored.
All is not as it seems in S4 – it can’t be!
it’s either that or Moff and Gatiss have taken a boat-load of drugs a la Sherlock.
Then, I realised that a literal gun is the biggest Chekhov’s gun of all… (those buggers!)
John is properly shot at the end of The Lying Detective (that sure doesn’t look like a tranquiliser dart). And there are so many guns in the series – the gun in Eurus’ handbag, the shot Sherlock hallucinates (flashes forwards or backwards?”) as he talks to her in her disguise as “Faith” in the dawn light overlooking the river, the gun the “guilty” Garrideb used as a murder weapon, the stress-scenarios Eurus devises, which involve making a choice about shooting someone…
Chekhov’s bloody gun is a literal gun in Series 4 – we just don’t know the full story yet.
John’s blog (the official BBC para-text one http://www.johnwatsonblog.co.uk has not updated all season (despite the fact we see John apparently updating it). That is not normal – it has kept pace with S1-3.
So I think time and space and memory have all been corrupted this season. Perhaps John has been mortally shot throughout the entirety?
Someone elsewhere also pointed out the very ominous red cow-skin rug in Eurus-as-therapist’s office – looks very like a pool of blood, doesn’t it?
21 January 2017 at 14:04 #55180Hello everyone, belated Happy New Year!
I’ve been watching Sherlock S4 unfold aghast and could only square it in my mind by assuming we must still be in Sherlock’s drugged psyche for the entirety, because otherwise the season just doesn’t make any sense – narratively, cinematographically, logistically, emotionally.
Because of the little girl on the plane motif in The Final Problem, I figured that Sherlock was still overdosing on the same plane where we left him at the end of His Last Vow, i.e. that his awakening into the “real world” at the end of The Abominable Bride was just another false awakening (much like the one in that episode when he apparently goes to dig up the modern day grave of Emilia Ricoletti). This makes S4 unbearably tragic, but at least wraps up the bizarre discontinuities of the season into some semblance of coherence.
The Abominable Bride made use of (a Freudian flavoured) dream-narrative extensively (pointed out to us by Victorian Sherlock himself, who mentions the “Viennese alienist”) and S4 continues to do so. Sherlock’s face half-superimposed with the face of one of the Thatcher busts, in The Six Thatchers as a classic image of repression (think Thatcher, clause 28 and a reading of Sherlock as closeted), for example.
If we understand Eurus as a part of Sherlock’s psyche, his merging with her through non-existent glass and ther final symphony of violins (in which his intellect and his heart become reconciled) makes sense to me. Sherrinford, the prison-island, has the same name as one Conan Doyle toyed with for his detective before he settled on Sherlock, after all. Plus, Watson refers to Sherlock himself as “the East Wind” (“there’s an east wind coming”) as the plane prepares to land agan at the end of His Last Vow.
Reading The Final Problem as taking place in the hitherto established “real world” of BBC Sherlock makes absolutely no sense. As @mudlark says there are too many ridiculous and improbable fictions. Eurus has been able to enslave people with her mind since she was five? Then why did she stay locked up on Sherrinford for so long, if she can escape any time she likes?!?!? Why did she escape specifically so she could text-flirt with John Watson and hang out with Sherlock, leaving clues for him that she was suicidal? If we see her as a repressed part of Sherlock’s psyche – text-flirting with John Watson and feeling suicidal at their parting (on the tarmac in His Last Vow) makes some kind of sense.
Anyway, I’ve since seen a rather brilliant alternative theory elsewhere on the interwebs, which I can’t take credit for, that The Final Problem actually takes place inside John Watson’s mind and that he was in fact properly shot with a gun (not a stupid tranquiliser dart) at the end of The Lying Detective. Just as The Abominable Bride was a look inside Sherlock’s psyche (and note that a key thing which happened in his psyche was that in a competition for John Watson’s time and attention with Mary Watson, Sherlock “won” in his drugged mind-palace – Mary has to come disguised as a client to Baker Street just to catch a glimpse of her hubby) and The Final Problem is a look inside John’s.
I love this theory, because we can still understand Eurus as a part of Sherlock’s psyche, but her super-power deduction abilities now come from John’s perspective on Sherlock’s own deduction powers – phew – we’re not in an X-Men movie after all – except in John Watson’s mind! The mash-up of horror and action movie tropes in The Final Problem are not simply Moffat and Gatiss jumping the shark big-time, but John Watson’s brain telling himself a story, as he lies seriously injured somewhere!
So, I’m now fully on board the conspiracy theory train that His Last Vow is not the end of S4 and there is another “lost special” episode coming up which will make sense of it all.
This is Moffat and Gatiss’ modern version (as I’ve posted on The Graun) of Arthur Conan Doyle’s original The Final Problem, when he killed off Sherlock, only to eventually bring him back because of fan outrage and mourning. So, in other words they’ve fake-tanked their show (killing “Sherlock”) and are now watching the chaos unfold with glee – the bad reviews, the social media chaos etc. waiting to spring their reveal.
Frankly, I sincerely hope this is the case, because otherwise, for me, they really have tanked their own show.
27 December 2016 at 12:57 #54929@missy and @miapatrick <waves> Yes Capaldi did grief very well. Wouldn’t he be a lovely face to sculpt!
The only thing I was disappointed about was that, with a baby in the mix, I was expecting some “the Doctor speaks baby” jokes and we didn’t get them! What a missed opportunity! Maybe Moffat felt he’d overdone that one already, what with Baby Melody and Baby Stormaggedon but I, for one, would have welcomed hearing what the nipper had to say about his Mum and the Super-Manny (nice hidden pun on Superman btw).
26 December 2016 at 16:23 #54922Festive salutations everyone!
That was an excellent script – not too schmaltzy (like many a Christmas episode has been before). Well done Moff!
Capaldi has well and truly found his feet in the role now. His facial expressions alone are an absolute joy to behold.
The gentle riff on Superman was tremendously sweet, complete with modern day Lois and her Manny, and the nod to the Daily Planet at the top of the building.
@pedant I too liked the rubber suit and big “G” gag.
That the Doctor should find himself haplassly sorting out someone else’s topsy-turvey love-life at a time when he was mourning his own, was a gently understated emotional note which worked really well. His 24 years “of course it is” turning away comment, when Grant said the number of years he’d known Lucy for, was such a nice gentle “ouch” (24 years being the length of night on Durllium, his last night with Rver).
I enjoyed seeing the Doctor being responsible about his cock-up too, returning to check on kid Grant at intervals, a nice nod to companion show Class.
Doctor Mysterio is wonderful as the Doctor’s “super” comic book name too.
Charity Wakefield was great as the Lois character.
And of course, it was tremendously sentimental of the Doctor to choose Nardole as a companion – a way of sharing River’s memory with someone who knew her.
All in all, I’m wth @craig – the best Christmas special of the lot since Nu Who began.
Bottoms up, everyone!
27 November 2016 at 19:03 #54813Likewise, really enjoyed this episode, and even more so once it has been paired with the next one, Engine of Metaphysics.
Once we understand that the engine of metaphysics is, according to Ness, belief, then we can read Quill’s message on the chalk board “Remember, it is you who put yourselves here” (which @mudlark mentions above) in light of that.
The “secret” confessions are hard to hear, but they are only partial “truths”. In fact their power is that they reinforce the beliefs the Coal Hill Bung Hole Gang already have about themselves. Ram already believes that April doesn’t love him as much as he loves her. She tries to tell him at the end, that she is in the process of changing (which is really important for the narrative arc as a whole) and that what she said under the influence of the lava rock/ prisoner was just a moment in time, but he can’t hear it.
Just as Charlie finds that Mattheusz’ confession that he is frightened of Charlie is a confirmation of his own sense of loneliness and “alienness”, when Mattheusz tries to explain that his fear is just one facet of how he feels, again, something in process, not a fixed immutable truth.
So, growth (releasing oneself from prison) requires not listening to the voices in one’s head, whether that’s the lava rock/ alien, the Arn, or the Governors, which imprison one – as made literal in the episode by the prison-classroom (and also mirrored by Charlie’s control of Miss Quill via the Arn – her prison – and Charlie’s greatest ongoing sin). Instead, freedom, is embracing change, and understanding that relationships are a process, not a series of fixed edicts.
To live freely means, to create your reality by believing differently – to go forward.
Hats off to Ness for this double episode – which together (this one and Metaphysics) are a massive step-up in story-telling, in my view.
27 November 2016 at 18:44 #54812100% my favourite episode of the season.
The engine of metaphysics (the study of being) as belief, is a very writerly take – belief manifests the gods.
As a mirror episode to the last one, beginning and ending with the same scenario (the locking and unlocking of the kids in the space prison) the emotional journeys of Miss Quill and Prince Charlie are paralleled.
How do you come to terms with the genocide of your entire race – the part your enemies played, the part you played? How much was free will, and how much was inexorable circumstance?
It’s pretty interesting to watch one of the Doctor’s cosmic “lessons” play out in long-form. He stranded Quill and Charlie at Coal Hill to learn, as he learned, that emotional connection is the path to recovery.
The Governors are wrong ‘uns, that’s for sure, and they are putting a spanner in the works. Interesting we still don’t know their relationship to UNIT.
They gave Quill an emotional connection (to the Shapeshifter) and then deliberately set up a scenario from which only one of the two of them could walk away. And let’s be clear, they rigged it so it would always be Quill, because the weapon they left was hers, which she knew intimately how to use, whilst the Shapeshifter did not. In other words, as part of the process of taking the Rodean control creature, the Arn, out of her head, the Governors made certain to control Quill’s mind in another way. They manipulated Quill into maintaining the mindset of “I am war itself”. She trusted someone, for an instant, and it was stamped on.
Charlie, meanwhile, in the mirror episode, is forced to see that he is frightening to Matteusz, with whom he has already made a love connection. And, that he is the guiltiest person in the room – guilty of participating in the murder of millions. He also admits that he is tempted, continuously, to use the Cabinet of Souls as a weapon. Anchored by love and friendship, Charlie is having an easier path to freedom, thus far, than Miss Quill, but what will his friends think when they see the horrible reality of the Arn which he put in Quill’s head?
I was beginning to think I’d give up on Class, but this episode was worth it.
5 November 2016 at 19:24 #54576Hmmn – well – as suspected, the souls are back in play. Good on you, Tanya and Matteusz, for giving Charlie a hard time about his dubious Princely assumptions and (possible) intentions.
This was a partcularly Hollyoaks meets outer space episode, so some of the emotional notes were a bit cringe-worthy. “These young folks seem to have jumped into bed together jolly quickly,” I mutter, clasping a cup of tea and peering over my spectacles 🙂
But, I like the mysterious blood-sucking pink petal creatures. Also, the new Head teacher and her beguiling rapport with Miss Quill. She definitely works for a dodgy branch of UNIT, right?
The actors who play April and Ram, Sophie Hopkins and Fady Elsayed, both did well with the material, and this episode worked as a gripping cliff-hanger.
I often particularly enjoy two-parters, as there’s more room for the narratve to breathe.
I’m still hoping for a more complex take on the Shadow-Kin however, rather than more of them being the evil-iest evil conquering hordes to ever conquer, mindlessly battling the light. Trusting this will be forthcoming in Part 2!
3 November 2016 at 10:52 #54540@mudlark and @tardigrade
Yes, it could be that the flashvision in “For Tonight We Might Die” was April’s imagining of Miss Quill and Charlie’s actual forms. We don’t have enough information yet to be certain. Although we do know for certain they’re not as they appear on earth, following this episode. I loved Miss Quill’s actual quills, so I quite hope they’re part of her true-form.
I have no doubt that the Doctor’s lesson, in leaving them with the Coal Hill Bung Hole Gang, is that, however different they look from each other, they are both from the same planet and have more in common than they at present can envision.
In fact, we’re not certain they are separate “races”, Quill and Rodian, just that they have different cultures (and it sounds as if Charlie’s lot were oppressing Miss Quill’s lot, who then fought a bloody terrorist war back).
My guess is that the Rodian Cabinet of Souls will turn out to contain the souls of all Miss Quill’s people as well as Charlie’s. Her people’s religious belief, that they do have souls but that they dissipate after they die, was very specifically brought up in her conversation with her fake Lankn-induced sister-memory this episode.
My other guess is that the souls of Rodian and Quill can’t be distinguished from one another, and if Charlie wants to save (resurrect?) his people’s souls he’ll have no choice but to resurrect Miss Quill’s people as well.
Cue – they learn either that they are the same species, or that they are not, but that they are of equal (symbiotic even) value to their world. And of course, they learn this by observing that the Coal Hill Bung Hill Gang, whilst of different skin colours, ethnic origins and religious beliefs, all get along and indeed form touching attachments to one another.
It is, in the spirit of Russell T. Davies era Who, beautifully, emotionally, didactic, beneath the adventures-with-monsters.
31 October 2016 at 22:01 #54483There’s info about where to watch BBC Class around the world here:
Looks like 2017 on BBC America.
<Waves at @jimthefish>
Yes, I rather think Miss Quill is stealing the show already.
Thanks for the Fleabag recommend – It’s been lurking at the edge of my “to possbly view” consciousness, but I’ll give it a go, if you think it’s worth it.
@pedant – the sponsors will 100% be nefarious – I trust Ness to take a swipe at forced academisation 🙂
Incidentally, @everyone – I wondered whether the title of this episode was a reference to the poem “If We Must Die” by Claude McKay?
https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems-and-poets/poems/detail/44694
He was a Harlem Renaissance poet and the poem is about the struggle of the oppressed:
https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems-and-poets/poets/detail/claude-mckay
It’s a rather fitting poem, perhaps, for the Coal Hill Bung Hole Gang (CHBHG) in Brexit Britain with its rising tide of rascism – two actual aliens, one Polish boyfriend, one black Briton, one Sikh Briton (April being the only white Briton on the team, although Charlie and Miss Quill are currently passing).
31 October 2016 at 21:43 #54482“Her ‘sister’ also confirmed that her human appearance is a disguise, facilitated by morphic resonance”
Yes, I think the flash-vision of Miss Quill with quills and Charlie with other protuberant face-markings in “For Tonight We Might Die” was of their actual forms, because (as others have said on the “For Tonight We Might Die” thread) April’s earlier imaginings of them were of humanoids in school uniform, so that felt like a reveal for us, the audience.
I’d love to see an episode where their morphic resonance malfunctions and their true-forms keep phasing in and out in the middle of the staff room and at other inopportune moments.
Vs a vs the Doctor’s decision not to free Miss Quill from her bondage to Charlie – he has form for leaving folk in “punshment learning situations” to teach them something, as when he posted Strax to that future-time to be a nurse [A Good Man Goes to War] in order to learn about the art of healing rather than his habitual Sontaran art of war. Twelve clearly believes that Charlie and Miss Quill have something to learn, together, from working with the Coal Hill Bung Hole Gang (CHBHG). Of course, the lesson is about empathy, as it usually is, with the Doctor.
@pedant – Yes, you’re right, grief is an arc theme. Charlie and Miss Quill are both grieving for their whole planet and their people, and each of the CHBHG kids are dealing with grief too (Ram’s loss of a girlfriend, Tanya’s loss of a father, April’s complicated loss of her father to alcoholism, then prison, as a result of his murder-suicide attempt).
The Doctor knows what he’s doing – these people, these beings, through their shared endeavours, will come to know each others’ grief, and thus will be better able to grapple with it and make their peace. It’s actually very touching, and connects with the larger Who arc very thoughtfully (well done, Ness) when you think that the Doctor’s Nu Who arc has taught him this.
Beginning with Nine’s connection with Rose, at a point in time when he was (or believed he was, depending on your timey wimey theory about how The Day of the Doctor worked) responsible for the genocide of his people and the destruction of his planet, the Doctor gradually learned that what gets you through terrible grief, is emotional connection with humans. Now he’s gifting that to Charlie and Miss Quill.
29 October 2016 at 21:55 #54470<waves at @whisht in return>
Yes, I haven’t forgotten the Who Forum and all you good folks on here – life has just been busy, and there has been no new Who to get our teeth into!
I’m pleased they’ve launched Class, however. We’ll see how it unfolds.
Thanks for the article link about the 50 years since regeneration 1 – I saw that on the Grauniad earlier and bookmarked it to read. It makes me think of @htpbdet bless him.
29 October 2016 at 21:40 #54469Congratulations to your eldest – I hope they enjoy the film course as much as you did.
You will be able to compare notes!
@Puroandson (son)
If you met me, you’d find I often use, “You’re right,” as an agreement-based equivalent to, “I see what you mean.”
Text-based internet misses a lot of human nuance.
I wasn’t insulting your Mum, just, in that moment in space/time chatting to @miapatrick.
29 October 2016 at 21:31 #54468This one is quite gory, and emotive, particularly for any kids dealing with bereavement. I would definitely put a warning on it for younger viewers (I know the BBC already suggests not below 16).
Good opening song-sequence, although surely the folk version would have been better, given the April folk music strand of the narrative?
Vivian Oparah as Tanya does a great job as the episode’s linchpin.
“Alien invasion or teen angst?” “No one disgraces the memory of my sister by making her nice.”
Go Miss Quill.
Ouch, all the characters who the Lankin appear to as dead loved ones, have not “let go”. So Miss Quill does have a heart under that spiny exterior – this is how you do character development. She continues to be the best drawn of the ensemble.
Souls, again? There is a whole book to be written on the scientific to spiritual turn in Who over fifty years (which, interestingly, also happened in parallel in Star Trek, from the original series to Deep Space Nine).
I’d say the pace of Class feels over-rushed. Full-tilt into a Ram/ April kiss when the guy only lost his girlfriend a blink of an alien eye ago. And I’d have liked to see Charlie work up to coming out as Rhodian to Matteusz (I do really appreciate, in these unpleasant Brexit times, the inclusion of Matteusz himself however, as a character of Polish origin, reflecting another facet of contemporary Britain). But, that’s the nature of a scrambled pitch to win a following and ensure a renewal, when you’ve only got eight initial episodes to do it in.
I would also have preferred more subtlety to the horror (as in the previous two episodes). The unpleasant Lankin umbilical cords would have had more impact, had they been revealed later.
Overall, the best episode yet.
27 October 2016 at 20:15 #54431Yes, you’re right, I also liked the master/slave ethical puzzle box the Charlie/ Miss Quill dynamic leaves us to chew over.
And when we remember that, in one time-line, the Doctor was responsible for the genocide of his own people, you can see why he’s somewhat forgiving of this pair, lasts of their kinds after a terrible war.
Agree on the young carer front. And I’m assuming the series title “Class” has a deliberate double meaning, which will allow the show to explore the dynamics of social stratification at Coal Hill, also mirrored in the dynamics of social stratification which characterised the Charlie/ Miss Quill relationship.
27 October 2016 at 19:59 #54430Ewww, that’s quite gory (flayed assistant coach). It feels a bit unnecessary. I prefer the more restrained, suggestive terror of Who.
Ok, I’m in love with Miss Quill’s bootlace tie.
“All teachers are monkeys, have you been listening to the Education Secretary?” Yes, some sweet revenge on behalf of teachers everywhere is going to be enacted by this show. It’s not hard to believe that our erstwhile Ed Sec, Gove, is alien spawn of some dubious sort.
And the robot Ofsted inspector continues the theme.
“He’s evil.”
“He’s from Ofsted – of course he’s evil.”
The school board sounds ominous.
Ooh, the dragon is doing an Alien on Mr. Armitage.
Miss Quill is already my favourite thing about this show. She’s got alien Sherlock skillz (that sequence being a little affectionate dig at Moffat’s Other Project). Yes and why not boff a robot on school premises? One of (too) many Buffy nods, I fear.
The entire premise is a flagrant Buffy AU – Miss Quill as the anti-Giles, no one with a super-power yet (although Charlie’s box of souls is clearly arc material and Ram’s new leg is bionic) but the monsters are still mirrors for the inner turmoil of youth. Tanya is my favourite Scooby – she’s a wise head on young shoulders.
I like the chess game metaphor running throughout. Knight drips blood.
Some serious Apple product placement going on BBC. No post-it notes over the logos – standards have slipped!
Nice catch on the Barbara Wright Wing @pedant and @craig .
As with the Shadow Kin, I’m not keen in the CGI dragon. Bit of a clunky conversation between Ram and said dragon – whacking us over the head with the monsters as mirrors scenario. That’s disappointing – trust your audience to figure it out on their own.
The team is coalescing around the Bung Hole of Time.
Well thanks to Miss Quill, I’m not out yet…
27 October 2016 at 11:58 #54428Yes, agreed @pedant – it would only have been a fourth wall break, if Tanya had then rolled her eyes at us, the audience, after April failed to get the Bechdel reference – i.e. “looked at the camera like she was on The Office” – I love the way that phrase is now used as an eyeroll to one’s online buddies whilst in a room full of offline stupid 🙂
27 October 2016 at 11:41 #54426Hi @puroandson (Puro the elder)
I’ve always loved Murray Gold’s scores. Blair Mowat is the composer listed for Class. There were some moments I liked – familiar notes as the Doctor appeared. But, it didn’t feel seamless. Obviously, with the inclusion of contemporary popular song (theme tune and at the Autumn Prom) it’s doing something different deliberately. Just, not to my taste, as yet! I always loved the bands who played at the Bronze in Buffy.
Yes, I generally deplore digs at “Media Studies”, because, under that umbrella, in fact, fall courses in Animation, Journalism, Media and Politics, Media and English, Scriptwriting, Advertising, Marketing, Public Relations, Film, Cyber-security, Coding, and more…
People who produce “the media” (in all its multiplicity) study the media. “The Media” is a tremendously powerful system(s) with which us humans are increasingly interfaced (has anyone been watching the new season of Black Mirror?). To surrender conscious study of that system(s) is to surrender oneself to control by forces, corporate and governmental, which would indeed prefer that we laugh at the idiocy of “Media Studies”. Edward Snowden would agree, no doubt.
BUT, in Patrick Ness’ case, given that he has worked as a journalist, screenwriter, television producer and lecturer, I’ll let him off, because I know it’s the insider version of the joke.
Rant over 🙂
I do agree with you @tardigrade that the Bechdel test comment (my bad – sp originally) is a meta-textual moment, because it is a moment in which the text, through the characters, comments, knowingly on itself – a wink at the audience regarding the architecture of the scene. A writerly joke, inviting a readerly audience. It;s a signal, usually a good one, that the writer wants to play with the audience at the level of structure.
Now for episode 2…
27 October 2016 at 00:30 #54411Hi folks,
Thanks for starting a thread on Class @craig . I’ve just caught up with it.
Like @tardigrade I disliked the opening sequence, which just seems like a CGI on-speed attempt at the painfully contemporary. The sound-track in general is frequently… unpleasant. But, there is always the possibility that I am just, “too old for this sort of thing” TM.
I didn’t start thinking the series had possibility until Capaldi entered and forced everyone else on camera to up their acting game.
Miss Quill and her insectoid alien demeanour of ice however – oh yes, a distnctive character already.
Charlie is a prince though, really? Why do planets have to be ruled by earth history compatible aristocracies – it’s normatively hierarchical and lazy (sorry just re-watched the Star Trek movies, and hated it when Spock likewise revealed [this is Star Trek V The Final Frontier we’re talking about] that Sybok his half-brother’s mother was a “Vulcan Princess”. Ugh.
I did love the flash vision of Charlie and Miss Quill in their native alien forms. Miss Quill has quills! And they’re telepathcally bound together, last of their (warring) kinds. The Doctor has a weakness for lasts of a species – awww.
The meta-textual rattle through the show’s predecessors in the school-based supernatural genre (Buffy, The Vampire Diaries) was a little self-conscious, as was some of the other dialogue – “You just made us fail the Bechdale test”. Although, some of that works. I did like the Gibbs probability density equation on the blackboard, which is used to study infinite systems – very appropriate for a school where tears in the space-time fabric let in detritus from an infinite number of other worlds. And the dig about Media Studies (as much as I generally deplore it) was funny, in the context of the myriad academic papers on Doctor Who!
No to the Shadow-Kin – they looked like CGI dark Ents, and the double swords were just cheesy. Give me someone in a rubber suit any day over CGI though – I prefer to watch people act.
A gay kiss right off the bat? I like the continuation of RTD’s legacy in populating the Whoniverse with LGB folk as standard, as brash and awkward as it is here. Likewise, I’m a fan of the ethnic dversity of the core ensemble. And one with a disabled Mum, one who’s had to deal with the death of a parent, one who develops PTSD after his girlfriend gets speared by an alien – these are all good character beats.
Coal Hill’s shield logo is of two dragons – more monstrously appropriate than the school board realises.
There are some other nice details – April is wearing a tiny silver heart pendant, visible as she makes the poster for the Autumn Prom, and she shortly thereafter gets her heart linked to the Shadow-Kin King (bloody aristocracy again). After the linking, at the prom, she wears an infinity symbol.
A cabinet of souls (souls are now officially “a thing” in the modern Whoniverse). And the Doc has a new neon green/ blue screwdriver.
The fact the Doctor left a bunch of teenagers in charge of an Artron energy rift definitely adds another layer of ice to his own character, particularly given the amount of gory death which seems to be happenng there.
You’re right, @pedant the list of school alumi with Susan and Clara clearly visible was a nice touch, particularly the Doctor’s pause, gven that Clara has been (as far as we know) erased from hs memory. “Time has looked at your faces, and time… never forgets.”
Someone on Tumblr has complied this list of significant mentions:
- <i>Foreman. S.</i> naturally is Susan Foreman, presumably considered dead some time after disappearing in 1963 in <i>An Unearthly Child</i>.
- <i>Fairchild. A.</i> is a bit more questionable, but may refer to Aubrey Fairchild, the Prime Minister who succeeded Harold Saxon but was later killed in the 2009 Dalek Invasion of Earth in <i>The Stolen Earth</i>. Perhaps he was a Coal Hill School alumnus?
- <i>Gibson. J.</i> and <i>Hatcher. D.</i> are Joe Gibson and Dudley Hatcher, who were two students at Coal Hill at the same time as Susan, who were killed by “The Cold” in the Telos Novella: <i>Time and Relative</i>.
- <i>A. Okehurst.</i> was a teacher killed in the same events above.
- <i>H. Parson</i> is Harvey Parson, the headmaster in 1963. He was taken control of by the Daleks and later exterminated in <i>Remembrance of the Daleks</i>.
- <i>A. Dunlop</i> is the teacher who came to get Clara in <i>The Magician’s Apprentice</i>. It is unknown when or how he died
I’ll definitely keep watching and see where this goes.
<waves at everyone>
J-Fish out.
30 May 2016 at 16:27 #52604Hi everyone <waves>
Russell T. Davies’ version of A Midsummer Night’s Dream is on BBC1 at 20.30 this evening.
Bernard Cribbins (Donna’s Grandad) is in it, amongst many others.
Worth a watch!?
Here’s a clip of Oberon, Titania and the faeries:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p03wg5dh
25 April 2016 at 09:11 #51889Hi folks,
@miapatrick and @janetteb – I haven’t visited the Guardian yet.
I think the publication of their research on BTL comments was really interesting (if both unsurprising and depressing in its findings). How they go about changing the culture there is another matter (especially as it’s bedded in now). It won’t simply be a question of more censorship – but creating a more civil cultural space. The problem is, people just go there to vent, very often, at the moment.
Pearl looks great, and she’s not that young in actuality. She’s 28, older than Billie Piper (25) and Karen Gillan (22) when they joined the TARDIS.
That is very timey wimey re her Prince T-shirt – I like the idea she’s from the ’70s or ’80s.
4 January 2016 at 20:11 #49993@todeledo – quite – we are inside Sherlock’s head for most of the episode and as the doctor of Vienna, Freud himself, is actually mentioned (by Sherlock, during the awkward “impulses” talk) we are invited to use Freud’s methods to analyse the drugged dream-state of Sherlock’s Mind Palace (those methods can be found in his Interpretation of Dreams).
At the opener, we see, in contemporary day flashback, scenes from Sherlock and Watson’s cases together, before we arrive at the Victorian “Alternatively”. This is, we later discover, literally a case of someone’s life flashing before their eyes, because Sherlock Holmes has taken a drug overdose. And the life he wants to remember in his time of dying? His life with John Watson.
Now, those initial flashbacks remind us that it was Molly Hooper who came across Sherlock beating a body with a riding crop in her morgue. But, once we jump to the Victorian AU we find that Sherlock’s drug-addled Mind Palace has switched things around, so that it is John, in his initial meeting, who sees Sherlock beating a corpse. Sherlock throws the beating stick to John and remarks, “Excellent reflexes – you’ll do”.
If we use Freud’s dream analysis method, Sherlock’s drug-fuelled unconscious thus finds him “beating the meat” when he first meets John, only to throw the “beating stick” approvingly to him. Sherlock’s unconscious thus links masturbation and sexual attraction to John Watson, however much another layer of his mind denies that he experiences such “impulses”.
Freud actually wrote a paper called “A Child is Being Beaten” about the “origin of sexual perversions”. In it, he cogitates on sexual masochism. That Sherlock’s subconscious mind is on such matters is revealed in the morgue scene, when a cross-dressed Molly Hooper (cross-dressing was certainly classed as a perversion at the time) remarks that Watson is observant when “Daddy” is out of the way (“Daddy” being Sherlock). As both cross-dressed Molly and Victorian Watson are creations of Sherlock’s drugged Mind Palace, we may note that his drugged subconscious likes the idea of Molly cross-dressed and of Watson calling him “Daddy” (a term used is BDSM).
Additionally, the year Sherlock insists his Victorian AU took place in was 1895, the year of the Wilde trials. The doorkeeper at the Diogenes club is Mr. Wilde(r) and he, Sherlock and Watson converse in a sign language (a code) in which Sherlock is well-versed, but to which Watson is only partially accustomed.
There’s a great deal more, but I must attend to other things!
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