TV REVIEW: 'SHERLOCK'
The Old Broad Finds a Mysterious Plot in the New PBS Masterpiece Mystery
A new PBS Masterpiece Mystery? Prepare! This means dinner on a tray downstairs in bed in front of the screen, tucked cozily, three pillows and my comfy feather comforter. Thus have I enjoyed David Suchet in Poirot--best of the Poirots--Miss Marple (although a bit whimsical as she knits her way through murder and clues), and Wallander with the great Kenneth Branagh, although he’s a bit depressive. My favorite is Inspector Lewis and his Oxford antics. For him I bring second helpings to avoid a trip upstairs where I might miss a clue. Here we go, pillows fluffed, soup and sandwich ready, let’s give it a try.
We begin with a scene in Minsk, Belarus. A jail of some sort. Sherlock is interviewing a prospective client. Sherlock is slouched in a chair, listening to a young Brit--a street guy with substandard usage such as “him and me” and “ain’t,” and this supercilious Holmes is correcting him as he speaks. It’s evidently a simple case. The guy stabbed his lady in a domestic argument. Holmes is not interested; he gets up to leave. The guy cries out, "You’ve got to help me. Without you, I’ll be hung!" "I doubt it," says Holmes. "But you may very well be hanged."
The whole set-up, the sub-standard Brit in Russia, is for the clever purpose of showing off that line! Now wait. Why is the Brit in Russia, and why, if Holmes knew that it was just domestic violence, did he fly all that long way? I am upset enough to slosh soup on my white duvet. What’s going on here?
Okay, this new Sherlock lives in present time London, and his sidekick Watson is a young doctor back from a stint in Afghanistan, now Sherlock’s flatmate and a blogger. He follows Sherlock and writes a blog which everyone in London reads. Even the crooks? Isn’t that a bit limiting for a detective with secrets?
Now I’m a little disturbed. Watson blogs that Sherlock is unaware of the relationship of the sun and the planets but is otherwise uncannily brilliant. Explanation by Sherlock: "This head is like a computer, and I need to keep every brain cell for necessary information, and I don’t bother with that other stuff." Like the solar system?
Just a second here. This has got to be a satire! This is Sherlock with humor! I’m out of bed, at the computer, looking up reviews from London critics and a short notice in The Hollywood Reporter. Nothing about a satire! It’s new, it’s edgy, they love it!
Edgy? Am I not able to recognize edge? I am an old gal trying my best to keep up with the times. I’m on Facebook, I get my e-mail on my cell. I love the Coen brothers' stuff--that’s edgy. I loved Pulp Fiction, except for that bad violent scene. I just turned off my earphones for that one. Okay, I don’t laugh like a hyena (when my family does) at Walking Dead, but my son explained it. "Mom, you haven’t grown up in the zombie culture." Okay by me. The show makes many jobs for makeup guys, which is good in these hard times. I buy that. And I laughed my head off in Fargo when the guy’s leg gets stuffed down the wood chipper. I think that’s sort of edgy!
So I Tivo back to the beginning and start again. Sherlock and Watson are an odd but interesting couple. Not gay, as explained by Alan Cumming in the intro. Alan also intros Boardwalk Empire and I have no trouble with that plot. Is that at all edgy? It’s a compelling plot. And I want to be as compelled by the new Sherlock as the London critics.
Second scene introduces three possible plots. On the TV, a great discovery in the art world; in the apartment, Sherlock’s brother trying to get him to take a political case--someone in the government department murdered and vital info missing; and suddenly there is a great explosion: the whole back wall of the apartment blows out. Three plots. And this great detective will easily lead me from clue to clue and help me understand how it all fits together. By this time, I’m not eating, I’m sweating. (His landlady, Mrs. Hudson, has just walked out the door that blew up, and nobody asks is she alive or is she toast?)
Then a bunch of people are being wired up with explosives and will be blown up in x hours unless Sherlock unravels the clues. Well that’s been done before, but okay. And the dead man lies bloodless on the track where he’s been left to get smashed by a train. Well even I, from watching mysteries, know that bloodless means he’s been killed elsewhere and brought here. Then somebody leaves Sherlock a clue of a pair of running shoes and he’s completely involved with trying to discover what kind of soil they have been run in. Now people are wired up with explosives, and what has any of that to do with a painting at the museum which seems to be the point of the whole story? Or the murdered guy on the railroad tracks sans blood?
Okay, I need a cup of tea to settle me and I start the whole program again, paying strict attention. While he’s analyzing the shoes, the lab assistant walks in, and behind her a new boyfriend who wants to meet Sherlock. Hey hey, that’s a guy to watch! But Sherlock looks up for a split second and says to the gal: "Gay." She’s upset and shocked. "How did you know?" asks Watson. He wears product in his hair, does something with his hairline and his eyebrows, and his underwear was sticking out. Something about the underwear was a clear indication. I suppose that anyone with “edge” would understand that clues in underwear indicate “gay.” Okay, he’s Sherlock. So why didn’t he figure out that there was a reason why the guy came in and he’s integral to the plot?! I could have told him that!
By the third watching, I am hopelessly lost. And was that Moriority who showed up at the swimming pool and wired poor Watson with explosives? Now I am really “on edge” because I still haven’t connected the three clues. And why was Sherlock walking around an unlighted swimming pool?
However, except for the plot, these are two interesting guys. As characters, this actor by the odd name of Benedict Cumberbatch and his sidekick Martin Freeman, familiar from The Office and my great favorite from Love Actually, are a neat duo. If Dexter, a nice guy, can murder, and if House, a cruel but understandable guy, can always figure out the culprit germ by the end of the hour, maybe an idiot-savant Sherlock in modern London with a blogging flatmate who seems to like him and helps him but writes down every bloody stupid thing he says for the entire world to read can be the new Sherlock Holmes and buddy. But edgy, edge-less or edge-impaired, I do require an understandable plot.
Please, young friends, if you see the second mystery (out of three being currently played) and you understand the plotline immediately, do not write me. And don’t bother to explain how the painting--the one that seems to have been the whole point of the story--had a comet in it that did not appear in the sky when the artist painted. And this was only discovered last moment by Sherlock who only learned that fact when he walked through a planetarium for a moment in a previous scene.
Please, just give me Inspector Lewis who discovers a dead woman on All Hallows Eve with a stake in her heart and a clove of garlic in her mouth. At least that I can understand.
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