(Potential spoilers)
We watch the second season of the BBC TV program Sherlock between November 8-15, 2012. We had watched the first season back in late May and early June (see earlier review) and put the second season on hold at Pierce County library soon after. When we started we were number 164 in the hold queue. It took a while to move up. By the end of October we were in the single digits and I knew we would get it in the next couple of weeks.
Finally on Thursday, November 8 I received an email saying that it was on hold for me at the University Place Library. I drove out there that day. When I checked it out I saw that it was due back in just one week and not in the three weeks I was given for Season one. The librarian said that they normally only check out DVDs for one week and must have made a mistake the last time. We figured we could watch everything by the following Thursday.
We started watching Sherlock Season two that evening of November 8. The DVD began with trailers for the TV program Being Human, the film Sherlock Holmes A Game of Shadows starring Robert Downey Jr. and Jude Law as Holmes and Watson, and the TV program Zen, a production of Michael Dibdin's Aurelio Zen detective novels starring Rufus Sewell as the title character. The first of the 90-minute episodes was A Scandal in Belgravia, a reworking of the first Sherlock Holmes story, A Scandal in Bohemia. We had actually seen the Granada TV production of that story a couple of months earlier. The modern reworking stars Lara Pulver as Irene Adler, "The Woman." The first half hour is quite faithful to the original story, though there are references to other stories, plenty of modern technology uses and Sherlock's deduction-vision. In an early scene the deerstalker hat makes an appearance. The lines include the words "illustrious client" and "whip hand." Sherlock plays 2 songs on the violin and there's a scene of Christmas at Baker Street. Sherlock's famous dressing gowns are not seen but they're mentioned at least once as is the city of Baltimore. The episode includes a lot of humor such as brief cameos of Professor Moriarty with an on-screen text message and the appearance of Mycroft Holmes in the episode.
We watched A Scandal in Belgravia with commentary on November 10, 2012. The commentary was provided by Sue Vertue, creators Mark Gatiss and Steven Moffat, Benedict Cumberbatch and actress Lara Pulver who played Irene Adler. They described Una Stubbs, who plays Mrs. Hudson as "more than a national treasure" and mentioned that nearly every series she acted in was a hit. I hadn't heard of her before seeing Sherlock Season One. I looked her up and learned that she was in the hit series Till Death Do Us Part in the 1960s that inspired the American TV series All in the Family. Stubbs played the part played by Sally Struthers in the American version. During one of Sherlock's deductions either Gatiss or Moffat noted the words "half Welsh." One scene was filmed at a very nice house called Goldsmith's where the décor was not only beautiful but perfectly symmetric. They noted Sherlock's "hero music" and "hero" moments. They mentioned 1895 as the year when Sherlock Holmes was in peak form. They mentioned that Todd Boyce plays Americans and Cumberbatch commented on his tendency to twiddle objects.
We also watched the second episode of the season on the day we received it, Thursday, November 8. "The Hounds of Baskerville" was also faithful to the original and effectively modernized. Most action takes place in Dartmoor that provides the perfect setting. The inclusion of the Ministry of Defence (MOD) in the story adds some interesting twists and there are plenty of suspense and thrills. I think this one was my favorite of the three in Season 2. It includes original lines "Once you've ruled out the impossible…" and "they were the footprints of a gigantic hound."
We watch episode 2 with commentary on Tuesday, November 13. Commentary was provided by Russell Tovey, the actor who played Henry Knight in the episode, Steven Moffat, Mark Gatiss, and Sue Vertue. They noted that the first scene where Sherlock has a harpoon is from the lesser-known original Holmes story "The Black Peter." They mentioned that they were not watching the final version of the episode and the effects had to be added, but we as the audience were watching the final version. Russell Tovey was a regular on the TV program Being Human and stars in the program Him and Her. He asked many questions of the others who said there were 60 Sherlock Holmes stories. They said something about including two actors in the episode who played Little John such as Clive Mantle. They used a gasworks for some of the scenes and included a tribute to Selden the convict in the original story. Gatiss felt their version had the "dishiest" Dr. Mortimer. They had a conversation about Christmas jumpers, how people only wear them to humor those who gave them. It actually took some work to find a jumper that was "dodgy" enough. Episode one also featured Christmas jumpers. They also talked about Sherlock's "hero coat" with its red-trimmed buttonhole. Sue Vertue mentioned that they tried making him a lighter summer coat, but it just didn't work. He had to have his hero coat.
They weren't as sure about the coat worn by Dr. Watson in the episode. With string for a belt they felt it looked like a scarecrow. They noted the "spring and autumn relationship" between two of the characters and the use of a security light in one scene. A significant point in the story is that a young man today would not use the word "hound" but would more likely say "dog." They said something about a production where Sherlock Holmes was played by a Jack Russell terrier. The episode mentions the concept of the mind palace that is not original to Sherlock Holmes but from Darren Bradford. We liked how Sherlock's mind palace included a reference to Elvis Presley. Some scenes showed Sherlock Holmes driving. Gatiss and Moffat explained this was because Martin Freeman, who plays Watson, does not drive. Tovey asked how long it took to make an episode. The others answered, 4 weeks and "a bit." The idea of making three 90-minute episodes started with the program Wallander. Gatiss and Moffat feel that 90 minutes gives them more "room" to include things they want such as the Christmas scene in episode one.
We watched the third and final episode of Season 2 on Friday, November 9, 2012. It was on the second DVD that included previews for Wallander and the supernatural TV series Bedlam. "The Reichenbach Fall" is the updating of "The Final Problem" where Sherlock and Moriarty go head-to-head. Andrew Scott gives a very impressive and humorous performance of Sherlock's archrival and kept me guessing throughout. The deerstalker hat makes some more appearances. I wasn't sure how much was new and how much was adapted from the original stories but this episode was riveting with drama from both Holmes and Watson, and Scott's tour-de-force performance. We had a little trouble at the end with the DVD skipping a bad disc area. We had some similar trouble with episode one.
On their commentary for "The Hounds of Baskerville" Moffat and Gatiss mentioned that they couldn't do a commentary for "The Reichenbach Fall." They did mention that they chose the most popular Holmes stories for the three episodes and each represents Sherlock dealing with Love, Fear, and Death. On November 10 we watch the 20-minute documentary special feature "Sherlock Uncovered." It mentioned how the program has made Freeman and Cumberbatch into household names. They even released editions of some of the original stories with Cumberbatch and Freeman on the cover. We enjoyed season two just as much if not more than season one. They plan to make a third season, but filming won't start until next year.
Comments