Laurie R. King Virtual Book Club discussion

I just saw the PBS Masterpiece schedule has Sherlock season 3 premiering January 19th! Who else is excited??

And! It's a double-feature with Downton Abbey season 4. If only I could stay up that late on a Sunday night =P

Erin - that's what the DVR is for!

I am over the moon. New Downton season. New Midwife season. And Sherlock. Life is good.

Oh! And Season 2 of Bletchley Circle! Who else is a fan of that show?

PBS in NY is running both Season 1 and 2 of Sherlock right now. Also, when is Season 2 of Bletchley Circle going to be broadcast?

I didn't know they were doing another season of Bletchley! And Midwife!! Awesome. Going to be a good year for PBS shows.

Karen: this is what free streaming online is for too ;-)

Bletchley season 1 and Midwife. seasons 1 & 2 are on Netflix. Amazon Prime streaming may have them too. They are both on my wishlist to view when I find time between books. :)

I stayed up late last night to watch the Downton Abbey premiere. Which I will probably be regretting by the end of the day today. =P I rather wanted to kick Lord Grantham.

Perhaps I should have made this thread just be "Masterpiece/BBC TV" in general, LOL.

Both Lord and Lady Grantham are coming off as rather stupid, aren't they? It appears we're going to get more downstairs drama this season.

Thought people might be interested in learning how much the Chinese appreciate the current iteration of "Sherlock." See http://news.yahoo.com/china-falls-lov...

I just got around to watching the new Sherlock yesterday (I was trying to be good and not download it early. And then it was on way too late on Sunday) and I have to admit to being rather lost. I had to mull on the plot until today to remember what the actual point of the episode was supposed to be (Mycroft's report of impending terrorist attack), given that Sherlock was flitting around apparently saying hello to various clients, etc.

And I was completely taken aback by his parents! Image! Sherlock Holmes' parents! I think I had the same feeling as Watson that one.

So what was everyone else's impression? Did you like the episode?

I thought that Gatiss and Moffat departed rather more than usually from Canon on this one, and I re-read "The Empty House" to corroborate my impression. Holmes' reappearance and the name of the villain (Moran) remain, but everything else seems different, e.g., return forced by Mycroft rather than engineered by Holmes, prompted by terrorism rather than mere (albeit vicious) criminality, the appearance of Mary Morstan without her back history from "Sign of the Four." On the other hand, I thought the new Watson's outraged response to the deception much more true-to-life than the docile acceptance Doyle wrote into the original story. And, of course, in modern times, a prattling waiter is a more reasonable pretense than a visiting antiquarian bookseller. Overall, I liked it, although I thought the extended prank at the end, when Holmes pretends to be unable to defuse the bomb in order to get Watson to talk about his feelings, was both overdone and out of character for Holmes.

I was underwhelmed by this one. It was like a worst-of-Sherlock checklist - gay jokes, fan abuse, inappropriate psychological labels - and not enough story to make up for it. I do not buy Anderson's guilt; I do not buy Mycroft's inability to deal; I do not buy John's quick acceptance of Sherlock's return in the absence of the sincere apology and reciprocal affinity of the original.

On the other hand, I love Mary Morstan. She seems like a socially-adjusted version of Sherlock - smart, incisive, self-confident - and the parallels between John's two relationships were fun to pick out. Beyond that, I like her no-nonsense attitude, her humor, her way of loving John as an equal: no domineering, no mooning. I could completely buy her as an independent woman with her own life, whose path happens to cross his.

By the way, Sherlock's parents were played by Benedict Cumberbatch's own parents, both actors with long and impressive CVs. Go figure.

I agree with both of you, Lenore and Elisabeth. I'm so over the gay jokes. And Holmes' joke at the end was cruel. Deliberately cruel. Now obviously Sherlock can be cruel, but not deliberately so.

The production is beautiful, though, and the acting wonderful. I'm just unhappy with the writing.

And I wonder, given Steven Moffat's usual female characters, where the wonderfulness of Mary came from? A good bit of her is definitely Amanda Abbingdon's acting chops, but some of that was script.

And Sherlock's parents were a nice little treat for us Benedict Cumberbatch fans.

Moffat gets a bad rap when it comes to women. Often it is justified - Irene Adler, anyone? - but he has also written many excellent female characters. It's very confusing. ;)

Shortly after watching this episode, I saw the episode of Elementary featuring the return of Moriarty. Watching the two back to back like that demonstrates Sherlock's failures of story and character with cringe-inducing acuity.

KarenB wrote: "And I wonder, given Steven Moffat's usual female characters, where the wonderfulness of Mary came from? A good bit of her is definitely Amanda Abbingdon's acting chops, but some of that was script."

I think it was entirely her acting chops. She didn't actually have all that much by way of lines in this episode. She managed to portray all that with a lot of facial expressions and emphasis on a few lines!

I totally got a kick out of her being in this; I really liked her role in Case Histories.

P.S. I really liked Irene Adler!

I liked Irene Adler, but she was massively diminished by a) falling in love with Sherlock and b) having that love cause her downfall. I felt it was an obscene distortion of the original character. An article I read recently called it "a twist that manages the neat trick of being even less progressive than the Victorian-era short story which inspired it."

ITA about Amanda Abbingdon, though. I had never seen her before, and I thought she was fabulous! Tell me more about Case Histories...

Elisabeth wrote: "Tell me more about Case Histories... "

It was a Masterpiece Mystery/BBC miniseries from like two years ago based on the series by Kate Atkinson (Case Histories). Starring Jason Isaacs! He plays Jackson Brody, a moody ex-police inspector turned PI who gets just a little too drawn in to his cases and thus has a hard time keeping balance in his own life. Amanda Abbingdon plays the DCI friend that he used to work with, but now just depends on for police info. They're chemistry was just perfect.

It was really brilliant and I wish they had done more of it. I can never really tell with the PBS/BBC shows if they are totally done or if they intend to make more, though.

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/masterpiece/c...

wheeee my library has it! thanks for the tip! :)

KarenB wrote: "... Amanda Abbingdon's acting chops ..."

She's the real-life Mary Morstan: She's Martin Freeman's (Watson's) partner and has two children with him.

Lenore, I knew that, but it does make me wonder if she's channeling her own response to both Martin and Benedict in her Mary Morstan persona - that she finds them both amusing and endearing comes through.

Louise wrote: "Oh! And Season 2 of Bletchley Circle! Who else is a fan of that show?"

I didn't know there is a second series of Bletchley Circle. Good news. Definitely I'm a fan.

Happy to hear season 2 is coming!

Just watched Bletchley Circle Season 1. Realized how little I watch Tv and as such had a hard time sitting and watching even a single episode. But definitely looking forward to Season 2. Probably have to wait til it hits netflix though.

Likewise; I was happy to discover "Bletchley Circle" is more than a one-time mini-series :)

Unfortunately, according to Wikipedia, it was not renewed for a third season.