US TV to re-make Sherlock, but completely differently & call it something else....

[NoNoRehab]

Yes, he's an actor, comedian, novelist, horror film historian and all around BAMF.

He's "just" a writer when it comes to Dr. Who is what I meant (in addition to a small acting part in The Wedding of River Song). Which is nothing to sneeze at, but is small compared to what he does on Sherlock (where he's co-creator, writer, executive producer, showrunner and has a sizable acting role as Mycroft).

[Novice]

You forgot radio presenter.

BAMF? Hardly, he's a nice middle class boy & very pleasant thxyouverymuch.

[NoNoRehab]

Ooo, have you met him, Novice? I'm jealous.

[NoNoRehab]

Jonny Lee Miller is a Brit, and he's playing a Holmes who's displaced in New York.

I saw the extended preview for Elementary and it could be a promising show if they just didn't try to connect it to Sherlock Holmes. Because aside from the names and using the word "deduce" once or twice, I saw nothing at all that was connected to Conan Doyle's stories (Sherlock is modern, too, but it uses actual ACD stories as the basis for episodes and further sprinkles a ton more allusions in each ep).

Also, changing Watson to a woman is offensive. Not because they they switched genders, but because in the process they totally erased Watson's defining characteristics. He's not as smart as Holmes, of course, but he's a decent soldier and a good soldier and a loyal friend. But I guess a woman can't be those things? Because they made "Joan" an ex-doctor who fucked up and lost her license somehow and is now getting paid to be Sherlock's "sober coach" (which fucks up the dynamics of their relationship, BTW, because now they don't choose to be together).

[BBDSP]

I have often wondered this too. I think they do it because of decency standards and syndication. They have a magic number that they have to reach to be able to syndicate a show. BBC focuses mainly on quality writing over quantity of shows. They also are allowed to say and do things on the BBC that we can't on American tv. I watched Sherlock and it awesome. I prefer the BBC versions over ours.

I think you are right about the business aspects. I believe 5 seasons is the magic number in the US for a show to succeed in syndication, and taking a successful British show and turning it into an American one that runs forever is just too tempting for the bean-counters. Plus, Hollywood is presently devoid of creativity, as the surfeit of reality shows and movie remakes shows.

When the US remakes a British TV series I just assume it's going to be bad. And I'm not generally a snobby person who thinks only the British can make good TV. I love me some Arrested Development, The Sopranos, and The Wire, and those I think are uniquely American. It's just the remake issue--as well as the tendency here to prolong the life of series way past their prime.

[NoNoRehab]

And I'm not generally a snobby person who thinks only the British can make good TV. I love me some Arrested Development, The Sopranos, and The Wire, and those I think are uniquely American.

There's great stuff on cable, but I can't remember the last decent network drama I've watched.

[BBDSP]

There's great stuff on cable, but I can't remember the last decent network drama I've watched.

Yeah, that's true. I think it's been mentioned before that one of the big differences between the UK and US is that there are just so many more shows on here in the US and the range in quality is huge.

The only time I watch network dramas these days is when I intentionally want to watch something formulaic and comforting, a la Law and Order.

[NoNoRehab]

For me, I think it would be House, back in its early days (roughly the first four seasons) was the last network drama I was wow'ed by. I watch Law & Order: SVU sometimes but I'm not going to argue that it's good.

The Sopranos, The Wire, Breaking Bad, Nurse Jackie, etc...all the best US series are/were on cable. Networks are too afraid to do shit.

[Novice]

Yeah, that's true. I think it's been mentioned before that one of the big differences between the UK and US is that there are just so many more shows on here in the US and the range in quality is huge.

The only time I watch network dramas these days is when I intentionally want to watch something formulaic and comforting, a la Law and Order.

Or, alternatively, only the quality UK shows travel, whereas any US show can be bought by another tv station.

[BBDSP]

My teenage daughter and I have really enjoyed watching Outnumbered lately. It seems like it took awhile to make its way over here.

[Novice]

Sherlock creator leaves new clues for latest series after thousands try to work out cliffhanger death

• Holmes is seen falling to his apparent death at end of last episode but then appears at his own funeral
• Creator Steven Moffat announced three words which are hints about series three - 'rat' 'wedding' and 'bow'
• Eight million watched the programme on television, with millions more tuning in via iPlayer

By Liz Thomas
PUBLISHED: 20:13, 24 August 2012 | UPDATED: 21:18, 24 August 2012

• Comments (11)
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It was one of the most thrilling cliffhangers in modern television.
Now the man behind the BBC's hit revival of Sherlock Holmes, has added to the suspense of how the detective faked his own death at the end of the last series by giving three clues about the new run.
In a speech at the Edinburgh TV Festival, show creator Steven Moffat announced three words which are hints about series three.

Elementary? The creator of BBC's hit revival of Sherlock Holmes, starring Benedict Cumberbatch and Martin Freeman as Holmes and Watson, has left a tantalising clue as to how the detective faked his own death

He said: 'These three words might be a title, it might be a clue. They are Rat. Wedding. Bow.'

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The show, starring Benedict Cumberbatch as Holmes and Martin Freeman as Watson is one of the BBC’s biggest hits but the cryptic ending to series two has kept viewers guessing.
Mystery man: The show's writer Steven Moffat

Millions watched the series back on BBC iPlayer to try and uncover clues as to how Holmes was able to fake his own death.
Moffat has repeatedly added to the suspense by posting comments and hints on Twitter such as telling fans that a clue is in the fact that Holmes did 'something out of character”.
He added: ‘So many people theorising – and they missed it.’
One fan wrote on his blog Barefoot on Baker Street: ‘Moffat has revealed that fans have ‘missed a vital clue’ – which has made us all turn to BBC iplayer, Sky Plus etc and watch the whole thing again in the hope of being the one to solve the mystery, a mystery worthy of the great detective himself.
The episode, entitled The Reichenbach Fall, was based on the 1893 Arthur Conan Doyle book The Final Problem, in which the author famously killed off the eccentric detective.
Viewers watched Holmes view his own funeral from a distance after minutes earlier appearing to leap to his death from a tower block.
Within minutes social networking sites such as Twitter and Facebook were flooded with fans offering conspiracy theories and explanations.
Many admitted they had watched the episodes repeatedly to try and work out how he could have survived.

A shot from the last episode - The Reichenbach Fall - shows Sherlock toppling of a London rooftop to his apparent death


Case closed? Sherlock is seen bloodied and motionless on the ground. But he then turns up at his own funeral

Although more than eight million watched the programme on television, the average number of iPlayer requests across the series topped 2 million per show, making it one of the most requested shows on the service.
Last year Moffat released three words to give hints about series two, they were Adler, hound and Reichenbach - relating to the key plots of each episode.

Read more: Sherlock creator gives new clues for latest series after thousands try to work out death cliffhanger | Mail Online

[Kathie_Moffett]

I just had a bout of the flu and watched the whole series in like two days. I am absolutely megaSherlocked. Only ep that didn't grab me was the Adler one; I dislike the way they cheapened her character into a pathetic attention whore with a dumb pseudo-crush who needs rescuin' by our hero. WTF. The original Irene was sooooo smart and she never, ever lost her cool. Sad when the Victorians do a strong female character better than a modern show...

As far as the Fall goes, husband and I figure he probably landed in that truck by the curb, the one full of what looked like bags of hospital linens/laundry, and then rolled onto the sidewalk, quickly poured a bag of blood over himself and played dead. We know he had enlisted the aid of that medical examiner woman, Molly. She could fake the paperwork for him, help smuggle him out of the hospital, etc. Thing is, someone else would still have to declare him dead first; that's not her job, she's not an ER physician. Maybe she drugged him to simulate death just long enough to get him into the morgue?

Or possibly that drug from the Baskerville story was used--the one you can use to create delusions/hallucinations. If they did that, Sherlock need not have jumped at all. But obviously having only Molly in on the plot makes the most sense. Sherlock can be sure she's on his side, but you'd need Mycroft's peeps to pull off the drug scenario and Moriarty has eyes and ears everywhere, potentially.

Certainly if he did jump, I hope the writers at least give him some broken ribs. That was a long fall, and he's Sherlock Holmes, not Superman.

I love the way you can see it was actually Cumberbatch doing the stunt. Apparently he's into sky-diving and such IRL. *shudders* nut.

His Holmes is such an interesting take on the character. Yes, his voice is simply amazing, but he IS a tremendous actor. It's marvelous how endearing he makes Sherlock despite frequent flights of incredibly bratty, narcissistic, downright mean behavior. I don't go with the "high-functioning sociopath" label though. Not sure if that's a misuse of terminology on the writers' part, or obfuscation from Holmes, because he would rather be seen as sociopathic (much cooler and more intimidating-sounding) than Asperger's (which is a little too close to what people might consider a disability, perhaps.)

(The funny thing for me is that I literally know an Asperger's guy, a genius webmaster and part-time sleuth, who IS Cumberbatch's Sherlock to a remarkable extent--just substitute a Pacific Northwest milieu and alcoholism instead of the drug use, and you've pretty much got it.)

I think the hardest part about updating these stories wouldn't be the technology and stuff like that. No, it's Holmes' Victorian sexism and paranoia of women and sex. These things just don't translate well. Nowadays, you can't just eschew sexual relationships without people considering you a freak. It becomes necessary to invoke Asperger's to make such a personality more understandable to a modern audience. (And they've done a good job of that, although they could really stand to emphasize Sherlock's facility with computer technology, especially hacking.)

Husband and I wondered if Moffat and Gatiss include Nicholas Meyer's "Seven Percent Solution" background for Holmes and Mycroft in their 'canon'--if you don't recall, the revelation was that Holmes' mother was having an affair with the kids' tutor, Prof. Moriarty, and the father murdered her in front of Sherlock; yup, that'll put a kid off women and relationships for good. But probably Moffat/Gatiss simply see Holmes as a neurotic, grownup nerd who can't cope with the emotionality and vulnerability of sexual relationships and prefers geeking out with his genius crime-solving abilities instead.

'Shippers' must see Holmes as their ultimate challenge and frustration... <<--and that is a mean laugh. I'm not Victorian but ffs, true friendship is such a beautiful thing and it does not NEED to be sexual and/or Twoo Wuv.

My fear is this: if the powers that be could give Doctor Who a romantic entanglement or three after thirty plus years on the air, who knows what they might be tempted to do with Sherlock. I just don't see him with a significant other. (Maaaaaybe a very atypical, progressive partner acquired late in life, as Laurie King envisioned in her excellent Holmes/Russell novels...but that's as far as I'd go.)

So those keywords are: rat, bow, wedding.

The Giant Rat of Sumatra will FINALLY appear? (Since Conan Doyle neglected to write his story...)

Hm. Wedding might be John's engagement to Mary Morstan. Who knows. Maybe Bow is a play on the Face of Boe, and John Barrowman's gonna guest-star as Watson's new boyfriend? After all Torchwood was originally a Victorian institution. Series crossover?! I kid, I kid.

oh one last thing: Cumberbatch does the funniest Alan Rickman imitation ever.

[Novice]

Don't forget that Bow is also an area of london

Sherlock: How did Holmes fake his own death?

It is the ultimate three-pipe problem. How did Sherlock Holmes appear to leap to his death from the roof of a hospital as his best friend looked on, before emerging alive and well months later?

Image 1 of 2
Benedict Cumberbatch and Martin Freeman as Holmes and Watson in the BBC One drama series Sherlock. Photo: BBC










By Matthew Holehouse

1:16PM GMT 16 Jan 2012

299 Comments


Fans of Sherlock, the BBC detective drama based on the novels of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and which ended its second series on Sunday night, have pooled their wits in a bid to crack the mystery.

In the climax to the three-part series, Sherlock Holmes, played by Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy star Benedict Cumberbatch, stood on the roof of St Bartholomew’s hospital in central London and telephoned his best friend and side-kick Dr Watson, played by The Office’s Martin Freeman, to bid him farewell.

He is then seen leaping from the parapet and striking the pavement, before being carried away without a pulse and bleeding from the head by paramedics.

His apparent motive: to deter a team of assassins working for Moriarty, his nemesis, from murdering his friends as they hunted a computer code only Holmes could reveal.

The 'public', meanwhile, is led to believe Holmes killed himself after being exposed as a fraud who had invented Moriarty to trick the police and promote himself as a genius - as a news report, posted on Dr Watson's blog, explains.



But as Watson visits his friend’s grave months later, the detective is revealed to be alive and well and watching from afar.
Internet message boards were abuzz with theories yesterday as a legion of armchair sleuths pondered how Holmes, the detective known in literature for cracking difficult cases in the time it takes to smoke three pipes, faked his own death.
Eagle-eyed viewed noted that there was no crash mat or conveniently-placed skip of rubbish to provide a soft landing for the detective, who plummeted face-first over six storeys.
Some fans suggested that the body was a dummy.
Others claimed the falling man was really Moriarty, who moments earlier had himself committed suicide on the rooftop by putting a gun in his mouth. It is suggested Holmes had wrapped his nemesis in his overcoat and tipped his body over the ledge.
Significantly, as he runs to reach his apparently dying friend, Dr Watson is hit by a cyclist and tumbles, dazed, to the pavement.
Some fans suggested the crash was arranged by Holmes to buy him enough time to run from the rooftop to the street and pretend to be fatally injured before being whisked away.
Moments after the body strikes the pavement, one careful viewer noted, a refuse lorry can be seen pulling alongside – allowing the detective to swap places with a body.
Another viewer suggested the suicide act Dr Watson had witnessed never took place.
In last week’s episode, The Hounds of Baskerville, a hallucinogenic drug was used to trick the pair into seeing a terrifying wild dog. Could Sherlock have used a similar chemical agent to trick his friend?
At the heart of the riddle, viewers agreed, lies Molly Hooper, Holmes’ pathologist friend who works at St Bartholomew’s. She could have helped cover-up the fake suicide by taking charge of his post mortem examination, providing a false death certificate and even supplying cadavers.
The mystery is thickened by the fact that in The Final Problem, the short story on which the episode was based, Holmes really does die.
Sir Arthur was convinced the detective stories were distracting him from more serious literary pursuits and his hero had to be killed off. “I must save my mind for better things,” he wrote to his mother.
In the 1893 work, Dr Watson concludes Holmes and Moriarty die in a scuffle at the top of Reichenbach Falls, the Swiss waterfall, after finding footprints which show the pair toppled over the edge to their deaths.
But the ambiguity of the ending, and the lack of witnesses to Holmes’ demise, allowed Conan Doyle to delight his fans by resurrecting the detective years later.
The solution to Sunday’s enigma will be revealed in time. The show’s creators, Mark Gatiss and Steven Moffatt, confirmed on Twitter on Sunday that a third series had been commissioned.

Sherlock series three: new details revealed

Mark Gatiss, the co-creator of the BBC's Sherlock, has revealed that the new series will begin with an episode based on The Adventure of the Empty House.

Benedict Cumberbatch in series two of the BBC series 'Sherlock' Photo: BBC









2:52PM BST 03 May 2012
7 Comments


The third series of the BBC's hit drama Sherlock will begin with an episode based on Arthur Conan Doyle's short story The Adventure of the Empty House, the series' co-creator Mark Gatiss has revealed.

The new series, in which Benedict Cumberbatch and Martin Freeman will reprise their roles as Sherlock Holmes and Dr Watson, is due to begin filming in early 2013.


"There's certain things about The Adventure Of The Empty House which feel set in stone because that's how Sherlock comes back, but at the same time we feel free to invent and to introduce new stuff to it," said Gatiss.


Season two of the BBC series ended earlier this year with an episode titled The Reichenbach Fall based on the Conan Doyle 1893 short story The Final Problem. In that story Conan Doyle killed off his most famous creation after a confrontation with his nemesis Moriarty in the Swiss Alps.

The corresponding BBC episode saw the famous sleuth apparently falling to his death from the roof of St Bart's Hospital in London, before re-emerging alive at the end of the episode.



But ten years after the publication of The Final Problem Conan Doyle bowed to public pressure and brought Holmes back to life in the 1903 story The Adventure of the Empty House.
Gatiss also added that Watson's reaction to the return of his friend Holmes in season three would differ from that in the original story.
"I always found it a little unlikely that Dr Watson's only reaction was to faint for instance – as opposed to possibly a stream of terrible swear words," he said.

[Sassiness]

Oh gosh - remember when they tried to remake Red Dwarf?

No! They didn't? Fuck. The mind boggles - how the hell could they attempt to redo something so quintessentially British?

Elementary is showing on Aus tv. I was VERY skeptical of it but watched anyway, so I could sneer. But I'm not sneering.

As an adaptation of Arthur Conan Doyle, it's pretty awful. But as something *inspired* by Conan Doyle... It's not bad.

[Sassiness]

I have to admit to preferring Jeremy Brett to Rathbone but prefer Cumberbatch & Rupert Everett to the old ones. They subtler & I really liked the updating, for example Dr John Watson is back from Afganistan, 150 yrs after the first one....

Martin Freeman, not Rupert Everett.

What I like about Sherlock is that Gatiss and Moffat are such Holmes needs that they bring the story into the 21st century but keep all the elements - like Dr Watson returning from Afghanistan. Elementary doesn't do that, it just goes "hey! We made our Holmes fresh out of rehab and Watson is a GIRL!! Aren't we so edgy and hipster?"

In short: elementary is decent enough television. I'm happily watching it. But it has nothing on Sherlock.