1891

society if elementary wasn't a police procedural. it's good whenever watson and holmes are having mildly deranged domestic disputes at their brownstone flat but whenever it cuts to the nypd precinct it's nigh unwatchable because of the copaganda

i've never quite understood why adaptations make irene some kind of a criminal when she doesn't really do anything of that sort (ok well i get the catwoman-esque appeal of it) but it's one of those cases where holmes has sided with the wrong agency and comes to see this error by the end, not much point to this if you do actually make her moriarty's criminal accomplice or something. and see this is why xiao wei in young sherlock is a pretty good reinterpretation of adler even though that was probably not the intention here. sherlock begins by attempting to apprehend her for crimes against the british government but as the one subjected to colonial violence she's the injured party here so by the end he lets her go he does not gaf about any of those professors. plus she has a talent for disguise and of course she gives holmes the slip like three times. james and xiao wei also obviously mirrors but foils of each other. colonial subjects in 19th century england who have been victimised by bucephalus hodge but also have diametrically opposed worldviews about it in the way james seeks to later displace silas as the colonial patriarch to assume his role. i think that's quite good, adler and moriarty being inverse mirrors of each other is good! also kind of funny to imagine this holmes carrying around her photograph in the future ah yes watson she really was the most remarkable woman. shot me in my youth. oh no old boy she was in truth aiming for my father

the thing about modern holmes adaptations is that they can never make the forensic science pioneer bit work because a lot of what holmes was doing in the original stories is now commonplace analysis. so bbc sherlock introducing him through the study in scarlet scene in which he's beating up corpses with a riding crop and then cutting to him keeping severed heads in the fridge and such really makes him look like an insane person because there's no reason to be doing this anymore people have already figured it out

max irons's mycroft is the one character who was pretty unrecognisable to me because they were actually making him do investigative work even though he's famously the brother who does not do all that until i realised his entire motivation for it was that he was about to lose his respectable government job like yeah i guess that would do it

37 pages into the angel of crows and just realising that this is actually published bbc sherlock wingfic. when will i be free

sherlock being everyone's go to example for queerbaiting here is strange because if you rewatch it it will become extremely clear that actually the writers are endlessly amused by the idea of sherlock holmes being gay. every time a supporting character brings up holmes and watson's living arrangements and/or the nature of their relationship it's played as a joke