#proplock

What’s your favorite 221b scene in each Sherlock episode?

List your favorite 221b scene from each episode.

Tell us why it’s your fave.

Tag other other people (221 might be excessive but, uh, how about 9?).

I tag a lot of people to start off with because I really, really, really want to...

hmmmmmmmmmm.  I want to play but I'm not quite sure how.

I started to think about answers to this question, but I was having trouble figuring out exactly what I wanted to emphasize.  I can pick favorite moments that happened to be united by taking place in 221b, but...  I don't think those moments will necessarily tell you anything about my feelings about 221b.  It will be favorite lines or facial expressions or revealing character moments that could have taken place anywhere, but happen to be in 221b.  That seemed a little artificial, and not particularly useful to you.

The other issue is that if I focus on favorites, I'll wind up repeating a lot of stuff I've already said, and a lot of stuff other people will say.  Probably no one needs to hear anymore about how much I love The Great Strop of Episode 3. :) So it might be more fun to look at treasured, underappreciated moments.

Hmm.  Okay, I think I'll go for 9 moments that gave us a new view into 221b.

ASiP:

The first glimpse we get of it.  I love the way the camera swoops back and forth quite a few times to let us drink in all the marvellous little details littering the set. 

Obviously this was important for being our first view of 221b, but it has remained significant on many, many subsequent viewings because it gives us a lot of information about what Sherlock is moving in vs. what was already there, vs. what John may have contributed.  If 221b is a character, this is the scene that gives us the most backstory.

TBB:

When the apartment is filled with the victims' books.  The big boxes all stacked up give us a palpable sense of 221b as a *space*.

TGG:

Our first good view of Sherlock's laboratory/workspace/kitchen.  I love the insight this gives us into how Sherlock interacts with his environment.  It's a tight space, difficult to film, but they give us a lovely sense both of how cramped it is, and how useful Sherlock makes it.

ASiB:

Our first view of Sherlock's bedroom!  The wallpaper, the art, the furniture -- all delivering wonderful little morsels of information about the character.

THoB:

Strongly considered skipping this, as there is only one 221b scene and it doesn't really show us much, but we do get some nice proplock here.

TRF:

Sherlock climbing on the furniture to find the surveillance device again gives us a new view into 221b as a lived in space.  It makes us think about how Sherlock looks at 221b, what he notices and what he fails to notice, and how his enemies must have looked at it, psyching out how to hide something from Sherlock in his own home.

TEH:

The transition from Mycroft's office into 221b, where we get a sort of surreal cross-section of the flat.  This might actually be my favorite, but it's devilish hard to capture since it slips by in under a second. It's almost like it insinuates its way into your unconscious.

TSoT:

Napping on the stairs.  This isn't quite 221b, but I love that it gives us a new angle and POV from which to view this familiar spot.  It highlights how different this night is from all other nights -- Sherlock and John are interacting with their space in a highly unusual way.

HLV:

I'm tempted by quite a few moments in this episode, particularly with Magnussen, because he really *looks* at 221b and sees it in a totally different way from how we are used to.  And then marks it as his own.  Plus John's chair disappearing and then returning is one of the most poignant uses of furnishing that I've ever seen.  Plus the brilliant blocking in the Watson Domestic scene, when John kicks the chair (taking his anger out on 221b?).  And of course, the wallpaper moment in Sherlock's mindpalace.  Perhaps more than in any other episode, 221b really is a character in HLV...   the direction of this episode gives us a lot of fresh angles in 221b, which helped cement the fiction of it as a real, lived in space, rather than a stage set. 

But for all that, since my love of wallpaper trumps all, I'm going with this:

The first moment we get a really good, close up shot of the hallway paper -- one of my favorite papers in the whole show.

so ferreal I am like *hours away* from finishing this huge project (deadline is today, so it's getting done come hell or high water). 

this tumblr was started for the purpose of cataloging all the wallpaper on BBC tumblr, and I think, in doing that, I have filled a useful niche for fandom.  I've also used this space to reblog any wallpaper-related posts I come across in fandom, and that seemed like an appropriate extension of my original mission.

the thing is, there isn't going to be any new wallpaper to blog until the next episode.  and just reblogging fanart doesn't keep this space very lively.

so.

I've been planning for some time to do a complete rewatch when I finished this project.  and I already have some meta ideas that will wind up on my other tumblr, notagarroter. but I've been thinking of using this space to post some of my favorite props and set dressings.

I definitely would not try to do a complete catalog, since other fans are doing better at that than I could possibly hope.  I'd aim for underappreciated background items -- I'm thinking rugs and tableclothes and stuff.