Things That are Better Than BBC Sherlock

There are over two thousand Sherlock Holmes adaptations and every single one of them is better than BBC Sherlock [Requests are open]

[betterthanbbcsherlock]

What if I... posted something

[betterthanbbcsherlock]

Loony Toon’s “Deduce, You Say!” is a better Sherlock holmes adaptation than BBC Sherlock.

Porky Pig would not cheat on his wife while she deals with her horrible tragic past as an ex-assassin. Porky Pig is a faithful lover.

[betterthanbbcsherlock]

you know I accidentally posted this while trying to edit it but honestly??? this is all you need to know

[betterthanbbcsherlock]

Loony Toon’s “Deduce, You Say!” is a better Sherlock holmes adaptation than BBC Sherlock.

Porky Pig would not cheat on his wife while she deals with her horrible tragic past as an ex-assassin. Porky Pig is a faithful lover.

[betterthanbbcsherlock]

i love this blog already!! how about the great mouse detective?

We actually already did that one, though our writing style was a lot different back then.

[betterthanbbcsherlock]

The Private Life of Sherlock Holmes is a better Sherlock Holmes adaptation than BBC Sherlock.

BBC Sherlock's references seem to have mistaken plagiarism for homage. Homage requires the work remain tonally similar-- it expects its audience to understand the reference. Plagiarism involves taking from the original work, stripping it of its context, and claiming the idea as new.

The Private Life of Sherlock Holmes serves as Schrodinger’s Homage. If you understand the reference, you get to be one of the Special Few; if you don’t, the writers will tell you it was their Super Cool Original Idea despite lifting scenes from the movie almost verbatim. Moffat and Gatiss, geniuses that they are, have successfully created an adaptation that is both plagiarism and homage at the same time.

Billy Wilder, the writer and director of TPLoSH, had every intention of making the two male leads gay within the first 30 minutes of the movie. Due to 1970s censorship laws, however, he had no way of making a gay relationship canon. Most of the material left in the movie implying their relationship are jokes-- their insincere attempt to be perceived as heterosexual is the punchline.

Moffat and Gatiss were deeply inspired by these “gay jokes”, failing to realize that not all of them were jokes. They’ve had over six years to turn these “gay jokes” into something more meaningful to gay people. There is no law stopping them. This will never come to fruition because being gay has been nothing but a toy for them to dangle over their viewers’ heads.

A modernized Sherlock Holmes adaptation cannot have John H. Watson say “I’m not gay” and still claim to be an homage that fully intended to make John Watson hella gay. Doing so is the equivalent of taking the phrase “I like big butts and I cannot lie”, sampling it into the phrase ”I cannot like big butts”, and still claiming that doing so is paying respect to Sir Mix-a-Lot’s masterpiece Baby Got Back. They use the same words, but do not mean the same thing.

None one should be surprised by this. Taking things out of context is their modus operandi. It’s why they use jokes like “The Giant Rat of Sumatra” as major motifs. It’s how fanon like Sherringford Holmes suddenly becomes indisputable canon. If one were to dive deep enough into the realms of Sherlockana, one would likely emerge to see BBC Sherlock as an Eldritch monstrosity, cobbled together with the mangled corpses of ten thousand obscure pastiches screaming for context. As it stands, it’s better to leave those monsters in 2016 where they belong.

[betterthanbbcsherlock]

I think it's hilarious reading all the tags on your posts from people who aren't sure if you're serious or not bc I have to sit here editing posts with you very seriously saying "you cannot fuck progress, put that in parentheses" like some Victorian professor

Was it not Cassandra, all those many centuries ago, who spoke the truth but was cursed to never be believed? People have been people since the dawn of time.

[betterthanbbcsherlock]

Madame Vastra from Doctor Who is a better Sherlock Holmes than BBC Sherlock.

As a patented Warrior Lizard Lesbian, it would be very difficult for her not to be better than that stale piece of toast known as Benedict Cumberbatch. Steven Moffat, in spite of his flaws, has always had a way with writing strong, independent women who don’t need no man, which is The Problem in this case.

You see, Steven Moffat has committed one of mankind’s greater mistakes: he fails to realize that being a bottom and being an activist are not necessarily the same thing. The poor man only knows how to make progress when he wants to fuck it, a capital mistake (you cannot fuck progress). I would kindly implore him to attempt to move down to the rest of the acronym LGBT, but at this point I’m fairly certain he thinks that stands for Lesbians, Girls, Butts, and Titties (it does not). That is to not say that he is barred from ever writing The Lesbians; merely that he should understand that lesbians do not want to have sex with men. The lizard women will not have a threeway with him, now matter how much he begs.

This was also why his work under Russel T Davies was Actually Kind Of Okay. Davies, the brave soul that he was, had the sense to kinkshame Moffat into being a good screenwriter. But now Davies has gone. His valiant efforts are left on our shoulders. If we are to survive Steven Moffat’s Deep Dark Sex Dungeon, we must collectively do what Russel T Davies can no longer: we must kinkshame Moffat into decency again.

[betterthanbbcsherlock]

Sherlock Holmes: Hakushaku Reijo Yukai Jiken for the NES (1986) is a better Sherlock Holmes adaptation than BBC Sherlock.

I say this, of course, because it is the original source material.

Now as I am typing this I am sure there is some poor soul going to my askbox saying “What on earth are you talking about” or “Now that can’t be right”. Before bombarding me with questions, please hear me out.

Consider this: We already know that Steven Moffat worked on BBC Jekyll-- a direct adaptation of the NES classic, Jekyll and Hyde. Furthermore, the game’s loose setup mirrors the show to a tee. Who could forget the scene where the titular Sherlock murders a random criminal and stabs in innocent bystander in order to get health pickups? Talk about iconic. And their casting was spot on. Just look at this comparison:

Uncanny, is it not?

Allow this blog to issue a formal apology to Steven Moffat, Mark Gatiss, and the entirety of the BBC. All criticisms up to this point were built on false pretenses. This blog is fully willing to offer reparations for it’s misdeeds if at all possible. Thank you.

[betterthanbbcsherlock]

Sherlock’s series 4 tagline is “It’s not a game anymore” and that is absolutely hilarious considering that they are either referring to:

“The game is afoot”, which isn’t about a game, but the game (you know like deer and rabbits-- animals you hunt). This is also why he wears a deerstalker: it’s a hunter’s cap. He’s “hunting” for clues. It’s a pun. There was never a game to be played.

The Great Game, a satirical movement founded by Ronald Knox that explains inconsistencies within the canon. What many people fail to realize, however, is that it was initially done facetiously. It’s built more to explain how Sherlock Holmes sucking your dick at a Wendy’s parking lot is totally canon instead of legitimate literary analysis. There may be some who mistakenly believe that Sherlock Holmes sucking people off at a Wendy’s parking lot is canon because of it, but that doesn’t change the original intent.

Either way, it stands as a stellar example of Moftiss doing what they always do: stripping a joke of its context and acting as if it is somehow inherently deep. I absolutely cannot wait until series 5, wherein we will finally get the elaborate, grimdark dick-sucking metaphor they’ve been building up to all these years.

[betterthanbbcsherlock]

Also, because I have a bad habit of posting these things at fuckall-o-clock, and because it seems like I have both british and american followers, I’m gonna go ahead and queue my posts so that I reblog them 12-ish hours after I post them. These reblogs will be deleted after a day tho

[betterthanbbcsherlock]

you may have thought I was joking when I said that british lit and anime were basically the same thing, but it was, in fact, the truest thing I have ever said

[betterthanbbcsherlock]

THE BEGINNING OF FULLMETAL ALCHEMIST IS THE PLOT OF FRANKENSTEIN

[betterthanbbcsherlock]

LOOK ME DEAD IN THE EYES AND TELL ME THAT OURAN HIGH SCHOOL HOST CLUB HAS NOTHING IN COMMON WITH PRIDE AND PREJUDICE

[betterthanbbcsherlock]

you may have thought I was joking when I said that british lit and anime were basically the same thing, but it was, in fact, the truest thing I have ever said

[betterthanbbcsherlock]

THE BEGINNING OF FULLMETAL ALCHEMIST IS THE PLOT OF FRANKENSTEIN

[betterthanbbcsherlock]

Also, because I have a bad habit of posting these things at fuckall-o-clock, and because it seems like I have both british and american followers, I’m gonna go ahead and queue my posts so that I reblog them 12-ish hours after I post them. These reblogs will be deleted after a day tho

[betterthanbbcsherlock]

Dai Gyakuten Saiban (2015) is a better Sherlock Holmes adaptation than BBC Sherlock.

In order for me to explain why properly, though, we must take a step back and discuss a number of things the minds behind BBC Sherlock very likely knew next to nothing about. Back in the good old 1800s, colonialism was becoming A Thing, and with that came the rise of European Nationalism. For the first time ever, most of Europe was attempting to give itself a uniform cultural identity, which very quickly lead to the erasure (and oppression) of many, many minorities.

Then came Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, a naive Irishman who himself did not fit into these strict social norms. Being the poor med student he was, he wrote a number of detective stories revolving around the middle class-- an unintentional exposé of the people England attempted to erase.

BBC Sherlock acknowledges none of this. To the contrary, it goes out of its way to ignore this fact. Gone is the knowledge that Watson “had neither kith nor kin in England”; gone is the fact that the country squires Holmes is descended from more likely dabbled in francs than in pounds; gone are the infinitesimal number of characters simply described as “swarthy”. Now only the anglo-est of saxons need apply. What was once a rebel fighting on behalf of those who who had no one else became our Rain Man-- or rather, our “high functioning sociopath”.

Dai Gyakuten Saiban exists at the opposite end of this spectrum. It strips London of its romanticism, leaving a powerful city with a crumbling infrastructure in its wake. Instead of Holmes acting as the symbol of what makes Victorian England great, he stands as the epitome of everything Imperialist England fails to be. He is kind where others would be vengeful. He is compassionate where others would be ignorant. He would stand on a chair where others would sit in it.

What I’m getting at here is that BBC Sherlock’s defining characteristic is being The Smartest Man In The Room. DGS Sherlock Holmes, on the other hand, enters the aforementioned room with a brief song and dance number, makes a dozen inquiries about facts that go nowhere, then apologizes when he realizes catching the murderer ruined your dinner.

Dai Gyakuten Saiban is better than BBC Sherlock because Moftiss knows nothing about 19th century tax laws. Or the Anglo-Japanese Alliance of 1902.   Or pawn shops. How on earth do they plan on deconstructing a piece of work if they don’t understand why it exists in the first place?

[betterthanbbcsherlock]

Honestly I would happily read an analysis of DGS at any length, it's such a brilliant character and I'd say DGS Sherlock is probably one of my favourite adaptations of Sherlock if not possibly my favourite.

I know right? like tbh my biggest issue writing this post is just narrowing down what exactly I should talk about-- There's so many directions it could go!

[betterthanbbcsherlock]

Ok this is pretty iffy considering that she was created by Moffat of all people, but Madame Vastra from Doctor Who is said to be the DW universe's canon inspiration for Sherlock Holmes. She is also a reptilian lesbian solving crimes with her Victorian ninja wife. That's... pretty darn badass despite the circumstances.

Moffat actually has a history of writing lesbians into his stories, though a disproportionate number of them always seem to end up dead. >:/ I’ll see what I can do.

[betterthanbbcsherlock]

Ok I swear there was a video game involving Detective Pikachu or something like that... It was basically Pikachu with a deerstalker, so if that counts then you could use it. :)

I’m up for it, but I’m gonna wait until it actually comes out first so that I have more material to work with.