Sherlock - Series 4

ON HIATUS----- Sherlockbuddy is Junejuly15's sideblog for Setlock and all the spoilery goodies for BBC Sherlock's Series 4

[plaidadder]

Hi. So I'm on my annual ACD spree and I stumbled upon your very thoughtful blog. And you are almost only person on tumblr who thinks that s3 is crap. What do you think, why there's such a sudden shift in quality of, well, everything between TRF and TEH? I get the irony, our incredibly high expectations and how Steven Thompson with TRF rose stakes. But why all of the rest? I always felt reverence and love for the canon, and starting with s3... it's not there anymore. Whats your opinion? thanks xx

Your ask comes at an interesting time, becumsh! Having just returned to writing ACD fanfic after a long time spent writing Sherlock fic, I have some thoughts on what happened with that show’s relationship to canon.

My sister in law (of “you’re gonna need a spoon with that” fame) recently read a trilogy some publisher has come out with which is Pride and Prejudice retold from Darcy’s point of view. (Professional fanfic, iow.) She loved the first book. The second, she said, went completely off the rails. It deals with the period in P&P when Darcy’s not around, so there was very little canon to go on. She summarized the plot for me and it was BATS. It sounded like the author already had a paranormal romance written and decided to stuff Darcy into it. But the third one is better, she said. Of course, I said, because for that one Jane Austen was writing the plot instead of this person.

My point is: it may seem to modern writers like it’s easy to ‘improve’ these musty old ‘classics,’ but in fact, sometimes a book becomes a classic because the author knew their shit. It’s easy to look at, say, ACD canon and see all the stuff that’s outdated now or was never that great to begin with. But if you are going to adapt or reboot one if these texts, you need to respect what it does well and not just assume that you–just because of the century you were born in–always and automatically know better.

So you can probably guess what I’m going to say here: what ACD did best was characterization and the creation of that central relationship. The first two seasons did not fuck with that. The characterizations are different; the plots are different; but the Holmes/Watson partnership is preserved and even, I would argue, enhanced by the modernization of the dialogue and situations.

In S3 and S4 they decided they could do a better job with that relationship than Doyle did. And they were wrong.

In ACD canon the way it works is: the partnership is stable, the stress and conflict is outside and comes in through the cases. In S3 S4, the way it works is: the conflict and stress comes from the increasingly dysfunctional and volatile partnership, and to the extent that cases come into it, they are driven by the conflict in the relationship. This fucks up what ACD did best. It’s the major indication that at this point, they’re no longer respecting or even understanding the source material.

So what changed? I don’t know, but my guess is it was similar to what happened with the Darcy trilogy. The first chunk, which successfully incorporates and enhances the best aspects of the source material, is a blockbuster smash. The adapters get the idea that THEY are the geniuses here, and feel like they can afford to do what they want regardless of canon. They then discover that people no longer love what they’re doing. They fail to get that this is because the things about the source text that everyone loves are no longer present in their adaptation.

[the-other-dominion-deactivated2]

Truth ^^^^^^

[love-in-mind-palace]

This is the truest one

[heimishtheidealhusband]

So I’m beginning my funemployment period by watching everything in the BBC’s gay britannia program and I swear to god I am going to lose my fucking mind because they have MULTIPLE programs discussing - AT LENGTH - how for centuries queer coding and queer subtext has been used to communicate with queer audiences across art, literature, movies, and TV, in a way that is designed for straight people not to pick up on it; even going so far as to talk about the I Want To Break Free video at length 

The actual BBC is doing this 

 After telling us that we’re crazy for seeing queer subtext in Sherlock 

 And I’m just

[gloriascott93]

I mean…

[i-love-the-bee-keeper]

@heimishtheidealhusband Mark writing his Queers monologue, performed by Ben Whishaw, did another ‘desperately unspoken’ and had the two men in the story come close to acting on their attraction, only to pull back at last moment. Then a sad and tragic goodbye with out a love declaration. It really is his kink.

[gloriascott93]

[i-love-the-bee-keeper]

What ever happened to Stephen Thompson?

I am sure that many people have the same question. He added so much to the dynamics of the Sherlock writing team, which become obvious after watching s4 unfold. He was a good balance and brought several things to the table, things sorely missed in s4. So why did he disappear after s3?

My first knowledge of Stephen was post TRF. Up until then I had only heard and seen Mark and Steven interviewed about the show, it was their names in the press taking the kudos for BBC Sherlock. But following TRF on the Chris Evans Breakfast Show on BBC Radio 2, it was Steven Thompson that was interviewed. And the praise for his work on TRF was coming in from all parts of the UK that morning. Chris Evans was stating that it was the best episode so far, the heart of the Holmes stories reimagined and done so well, that the question of how Sherlock survived would be the dilemma of the year and how understated the goodbye scene had been via a mobile phone and two men reaching out to each other over a distance. Listeners chimed in, the sports guy on the show had to add his appreciation, as did the traffic alert lady. It was a love fest for Steven Thompson, and the man himself was articulate, unassuming, classy and calm. All this time later I recall the interview, it made me proud to be a Holmesian. Thompson wanted to recreate the terrible choice Holmes had to make, done so well by Granada, and he had to modernise the most iconic fake death scene since Romeo and Juliet. I loved this man!!!! I doubt Mark and Steven loved the attention going to Thompson though. 

Chris Evans was correct; the main focus during the s2-s3 hiatus was the fall, how did Sherlock fall and survive? But note that Mofftiss took over quickly and handled all the press, it became THEIR plan to have us all constructing fall theories. Of course we were all idiots and getting it wrong. But you see I doubt that THEY knew how it was accomplished!! I think maybe only Thompson did. How great would that be!! So what did the producers/showrunner do? They hyped up ASiB, they sent it in as their Emmy entry, they flaunted Lara Pulver around at events during the hiatus, they made sure the question became ‘was Sherlock in love’ versus ‘how did he survive the fall’. Keep in mind that at the end of s2 the viewing audience was captivated by TRF not ASiB. 

Now to be fair, in s1 Thompson’s episode TBB was panned for many reasons, namely on racist issues, but also for what appeared to be a lacklustre plot. As we know with time, TBB was revealed to be a pivotal episode in setting up many things in the series, and in hindsight the female character of Sarah is far more of a modern, strong woman and well rounded character than Irene who followed her, and the mess that was Mary and Eurus. There is a great post on this from plaidadder:

http://plaidadder.tumblr.com/post/163958471399/correct-me-if-im-wrong-because-its-been-quite-a

Fandom loves Thompson for his drunk Sherlock and John, again, this scene in TSoT, stood out in the episode from the Mark and Steven scenes by giving us a new and very real glimpse into John and Sherlock, never pulling back from what they are feeling, and pushing the boundaries of their relationship in a positive direction. That had not been done since ASiP. Thompson saw the Sherlock and John we know. [I’d love to know if Thompson’s scenes produced more fandom posts than Mark’s, maybe Steven’s?]

So why was Stephen Thompson absentia from TAB and S4? Why only one scene from him in s3? Well he got busy. He was offered his own series; Jericho.

https://www.livingnorth.com/yorkshire/people-places/jericho-qa-steve-thompson

Sadly it wasn’t renewed. And I can’t find any news on new projects from Stephen Thompson. Then ‘puff’ just like Keyser Soze he was gone.

His departure was unfortunate for the series, the writing team needed balance, and I doubt that TFP would have occurred if Thompson had still been on board. The ‘wish fulfilment’ may have been calmed down a wee bit; the horror genre, the Bond elements, the use of every film trope Mofftiss had a hard on for, all  diminished. Maybe Thompson would have written a better ending [as would we all] or at least added a different take on the whole thing. 

I am left wondering what Stephen Thompson thinks of s4. Could he be hired to write a fix it? Would he consent to a fan interview? What would Stephen Thompson do? I may never know. 

[i-love-the-bee-keeper]

The ‘missing’ scenes of S4

There were a few scenes that have now become ‘the missing scenes’ of s4. Some people think they are evidence of a LS. Just want to address some of the speculation from a setlock viewpoint:

All of us on Ruther2′s setlock team can attest, the research and investigation on every scene we knew was being filmed was intense. Often we had set lockers on location at the time a scene was being filmed. We also had connections with the crew to see if any info could be obtained via that source. Some of us took time off work to cover the setlock period to just work on incoming information. Certain set lockers worked tirelessly for hours deciphering scripts, notes, partial written documents, you guys were awesome. It was indeed a well run organised operation. Kudos always to Ruther, he was excellent at running the entire thing, and the rest of the team that gave input, time, finances, hours, countless boring vigil at locations that were less than enjoyable, artworks, photographs, videos and of course dedication and energy. 

It must be noted that filming of several unused scenes is normal for BBC Sherlock. S4 was not an anomaly. So lets’s look at some of those now fabled lost scenes from s4:

Martin on a camel

Niagara Falls

MI6/Vauxhall Cross

Mint and Mustard

Taking these scenes one by one:

Martin on a camel; Ruther himself debunked this one as being Martin.  He discovered the project that was using the camel footage and it had nothing to do with BBC Sherlock. Yes, the profile of the person on the camel looked a little like Martin, but it wasn’t him. 

Niagara Falls: Nick Hurran was working in Canada before he came home to direct TLD. The timing was tight, Nick could not do recees with Arwel and the team. Tom Guy, from the locations dept went over to Canada to get Nick’s approval on locations for TLD. This would usually be done by Nick in person but due to the work project in Canada he couldn’t be there. Nick as director has to sign off on the locations. During the time Tom was in Canada he sent this tweet.

Now we all ran with this. It was a romantic location. Niagara is also a waterfall, and thus has a link to Sherlock via the idea of falling over a waterfall. It was great fun playing with this idea that John and Sherlock would end up in Niagara Falls for an adventure and finally kiss. It didn’t help that lurker Arwel joined in the fun, as a couple of weeks later in soggy London, now working on TLD, Arwel tweeted this:

It is a ‘stock’ photo of the falls, not one personally taken by the Sherlock crew. Arwel was very in tune to the fandom and despite his protestations later on, he very obviously and deliberately did ‘play’ with fandom theories.

Following the first tweet from Tom Guy the setlock crew kept a close eye on anything coming out of the Niagara area; scanning tweets, looking at local Niagara filming agencies, looking at any hint that cast and crew left the UK for Canada and were seen at airports, checking acting agencies recruiting for support actors in NF, or any support actor tweeting that they had been in a secret project there. None of the above came to light. There were a couple of fans who live in the area monitoring it too, and they didn’t see anything indicating a filming crew was at work at the Falls during the period. It’s not impossible that a scene was secretly filmed at a major tourist attraction with hundreds of people present on a daily basis but it is unlikely. Tom Guy appears to have taken a day trip to the Falls during a work assignment to get the locations OK’d by Nick Hurran. It was the boring conclusion most likely to have occurred. 

MI6/Vauxhall Cross John and Sherlock scene: Two of the setlockers on location the day Benedict filmed the scenes on Vauxhall Bridge for the end of T6T was told by the security guys on site that a scene had been filmed inside the MI6/Vauxhall Cross building. They said that there was a scene with Martin that was filmed in an unused part of the building. This was never verified. 

Mint and Mustard: Filmed, we had evidence.  

Recently Mark and Steven mentioned they had filmed a ‘date night’ with John and Mary, but didn’t use it in the final cut for TST.

So in conclusion maybe some scenes were filmed to use in future projects, such as games/apps or in the Sherlock attraction if the BBC get their theme park. There are also copious unaired scenes from s1-TAB that they have stored away. It’s all additional footage chosen to be unaired by the show runner. It’s an industry practice. Maybe at Sherlocked in October Arwel will show some new stuff, as he does that, maybe Claire will discuss Amanda in various wigs that never made it to screen, and Loo dressed up in the Sherlock wig. There may be a new book or photos on sale of unaired images. They could put out a DVD one day of the unaired scenes. We just need to be careful that we don’t think certain scenes are fact when in truth they were only ever speculation. I advise that everyone checks out Ruther2′s Storify if ever in doubt.

https://storify.com/Ruther2

[fellshish]

Thanks for this, and thanks to all the setlockers for putting in countless hours! As someone who has held onto the missing scenes as proof of maybe extra footage or a Lost Special, this was (i gotta admit) a little discouraging to read. Since Tom Guy tweeted at a fan that the Niagara picture was definitely “taken during Setlock”, I took it to mean that they filmed there. Now, I’m not so sure. It’s disappointing. Poetry or truth? Truth, then, i guess.

[i-love-the-bee-keeper]

@ fellshish I know! It is disappointing and also annoying to think that several men who work on the crew for Sherlock deliberately played with fans in this way. Arwel even procured crew members to join in, and flaunted that he did it. Some of these men were downright rude in their tweets to fans, and certainly were enjoying then manipulation. It bothered me at the time but I thought they were trying to give us hints, now I am just disgusted at them for doing this. It wasn’t only Mofftiss that baited people. The wording used by Tom Guy ‘taken at Setlock’ was a good example of keeping the mystery going. I would LOVE them to prove me wrong on this, a New Year’s surprise episode with all the answers. But as time goes by and distance makes me more logical I can see the manipulation very clearly. Truth is not always nice. 

[chinike]

🙃 #bbcsherlock #sherlockholmes #johnwatson #johnlock (at Yonkers, New York)

[zimzsbo]

(•͈◇•͈〃✿)

[twocandles]

idk about you but I see no difference

[inevitably-johnlocked]

ASDFSDF BWAHAHHAHAHAHHA

[hellooteapots-deactivated201905]

i hate you radio times

[mycapeisplaid]

It’s a Mary spinoff.

[willietheplaidjacket]

“We will recreate our glory days back when everyone loved us.” So, a Dallas style ‘it was all a dream’ retcon to erase S4 confirmed or…?

[themanandthemachine]

If it’s a Mary Spinoff Ill have a seizure just reading promotional content. 

[holmesianscholar]

Idk, when they aired tfp in cinemas here they teased about some secret footage and it was a mary spinoff so

[love-in-mind-palace]

I will throw a fit if it’s the case lmao

[may-shepard]

Just contemplating a Mary spinoff is like gazing into the mouth of hell. If they bring her back to kill her good and proper though, I am all for it.

[yorkiepug]

I’ve been joking about a Mary spin off since TFP aired

[yorkiepug]

I think one of Mofftiss big problems is that they think the success of Sherlock is due to them. When actually the success of Sherlock is mostly due to Ben and Martin as Sherlock and John and their fantastic chemistry and great acting.

You separate John and Sherlock or have a chaperone there the whole time, as was done in S4,  and their pretty lackluster writing really starts to shine through.

[badsnowfo]

[love-y-o-u-3000]

The fact that no single scene in s4 was about John and Sherlock’s relationship (just the two of them I mean) is beyond ridiculous. Because each time they talked it was either related to a case or one of the women, not even the scene in TLD was about them. It was all about how Mary’s death affected John and then it was all about Sherlock and /rene and then it was about how John wanted to bang the bus lady. There was the line, that even John is a human but? It was sort of related to Sherlock assuring him that it’s OkAY to text a random woman every now and then cause they’re both human.

[yorkiepug]

Especially after we were told that the show is, in the end, about the two of them and all the “all roads lead back to Baker St” BS that mofftiss fed us.

Taking johnlock out of the picture altogether, the show is still supposed to be about the two of them and Mofftiss failed us greatly in that regard. It was ridiculous how hard they worked to keep them apart or to keep a chaperone with them at all times. 

[scuzer-deactivated20230916]

this video is the length of a feature film 

[azzandra]

I watched this video three times in the past two days. I haven’t managed to sit through an actual movie all the way through in three years.

[whimsy-by-joja]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LkoGBOs5ecM

That’s the link to it on You Tube. Sherlock s4 started last sunday in Germany and so a lot of German newspapers publicised reviews - most of them trashing the series and Mofftiss (some even trash Cumberbatch - what a fall from the pedestral). Most are pretty angry - especially about the Mary-arc and how it ended, how Moriarty showed up again, about Eunus - and all that in print before the first episode even aired in Germany. Talk about spoiling the fun of the audience? Or rather prepare them for the big disappointment??? I don’t know but it is quite uncommon to write such reviews…

Here’s the one from our paper, Munich’s Sueddeutsche Zeitung:

http://www.sueddeutsche.de/medien/vierte-staffel-sherlock-sherlock-ist-jetzt-so-arrogant-wie-sherlock-1.3533502

[sherlockbuddy]

Interesting (the article, haven't watched the video yet)

[iriarty]

Trauer und Verstörung 😏 

@waitedforgarridebs

[waitedforgarridebs]

It’s today isn’t it

[words-in-starless-skies-deactiv]

“Das kalte Genie”…

Ich glaub ich geh mich mal eben übergeben…

[annaobscur]

Benedict

‘Precious’

This artwork is available on My Society6 and Redbubble art-shops.

[youmissedthememo]

ik you don't blog about the show anymore, but what's your opinion about what happened at Sherlocked??

What I want to say is: PLEASE, WAKE THE FUCK UP, PEOPLE.

I know there was a part of the fandom who still thought that Moftiss were brilliant writers and that we were gonna get the ending we all dreamed of. And I understand that, really I do. But we all need to wake up.

Moftiss admitted they used homoerotic subtext in their series. They knew that would bring people towards the show. All the speculations, the metas, the discussions… that was stuff only the passionate fans would do, not the casuals. And they knew that hinting, implying something regarding Johnlock would bring the “fangirls” and the show would gain popularity. So, they kept doing that for whole 3 seasons (+ TAB).

Then, something happened. I think that they wanted to end the series with S4, but there was a problem. They didn’t want to make John and Sherlock a couple because that was never their true intention, but the situation had gotten away from their hands by that point. (translation = “too gay”) and they panicked.

So what did they do? They wrote S4 sloppily, completely retconning everything, changing the personality of the characters, giving Mary a central role and minimizing the interactions between John and Sherlock. They made that season the most #NoHomo possible because that was their plan all along: Sherlock and John solving crimes together, Sherlock alone and John marrying and then mourning his beloved wife (who shoots nicely, let’s not forget that).

S4 is the true BBC Sherlock they wanted to do but never could because they were very aware that they wouldn’t have gotten so much success if they did #NoHomo from the beginnin’.

Honestly, that was such a smart move because now they are famous and rich and the show is successful and they can tell whatever they want because the series is probably over forever (despite what Moffat says), so they won’t have repercussions of any kind. In fact, they just blame the fans because ugh, they were too stupid, too naive, they should have known that John and Sherlock were straight when they didn’t want to share a bedroom after knowing each other for 10 minutes.

[isitandwonder]

^^^THIS!!!

[rominatrix]

Agree so hard with ur anon response about the binary mentality of fandom. Imo its a big issue in this fandom- if you're tjlc then you must be a doxxer & a bully, if you ship johnlock then you harassed AA on twitter, if you think freebatch is cute ur one of those toxic stalker fans, if you are upset about s4 you sent threats to tptb. I get so pissed with this black & white view, for a fandom that prides itself on critical thinking it honestly drops the ball so hard when it comes to self analysis.

All of this. Thank you for expressing it so eloquently!

[love-in-mind-palace]

Exactly this

[astudyinsnoggy]

THIS. This all day long!

[sussexbound]

I feel like there is a conflating of threats/bullying/harassment and people expressing anger, disappointment and profound frustration in fandom spaces. Though on some rare occasions those expressing their anger and frustration in fandom spaces may evolve into someone who is directly harassing and threatening those involved with the creation of the media they consume, the two things are not the same, and I think such evolutions are pretty rare.

Direct harassment and threats are never an acceptable way to deal with your anger over something, that is absolutely true. However, expressing anger, disappointment, disbelief or even profound dislike of media creators (Note I am not talking about fan creators here) in the privacy of fan spaces is not the same thing as threatening, bullying or harassing them.

Politely and articulately filing a complaint to a network about your disappointment with a piece of media they aired, and requesting that they do better is not bullying, threatening or harassment. Politely asking content creators to explain their writing choices, or actors on their feelings/thoughts on the characters they play at cons is not bullying, threatening or harassing. Speaking with your wallet and refusing to financially support media that did not meet your expectations is not bullying, threatening or harassment.

Now granted media creators don’t owe you answers, but if they give you answers and those answers suck, and you want to rant about that here, you have every right. And if stans run to twitter and drag those posts out of the privacy of fandom spaces, and bring them to the attention of their faves, the responsibility for any hurt feelings on their fave’s part is the stan’s fault, not the fault of someone venting their anger and frustration on their own blog, and who had no intention of it ever leaving fan space.