Scattered Strawberry Summer

I was away from my office for 3 days and I came back to this, yep  a colleague has sherlocked my monitor. I found it rather funny and thought it was quite  fitting, after last night's episode I'm still living in Sherlock's world.

And yes that flag says sarcasm, I needed it to point out when I'm being sarcastic... yep not all British people get sarcasm, weird, I know.

SPOILERS AHEAD


Back to Sherlock now, yesterday the final episode of series 3 was aired, what an episode it was. Previous 2 episodes that were very much character driven, light and humourous, this episode was very much the opposite. It was fast, plot driven and dark episode where we saw again Sherlock's sociopath side. There were some brilliant scenes, the most impressive was the scene where Sherlock was shot and had 3 seconds to figure out how to improve his chance of survival running around in his mind palace. We got to see Moriarty locked away deep in Sherlock's mind. Pure pure joy to watch it.

OK, I as many others thought Mary was going to die, but I guess it would have been too obvious but I wouldn't rule out her death in the next series. We've been warned of significant character death which was a bit of cheating really. Technically Sherlock was dead, but he pulled through. But does that surprise us? Moffat is known to lie.

CAM was incredibly creepy, interesting villain, but I wished he was more in that episode than he was. The surprise at the end  really got me.  I certainly miss Jim, Andrew Scott is excellent at playing crazy villain but I still don't think it means he's actually back. We'll see, we'll see.

Happy New Year everyone!

I met 2014 in Lisbon at Praça do Comércio with my SO, but about that I'll tell you in my next post.
My year has already peaked with the long awaited (two years, it;s been two years!) Sherlock series 3. Quality of the site we were watching it on was rubbish and it stopped a few times but thankfully we didn't miss the most important bits.

SPOILERS AHEAD
















                                                                                                                                                                   So. Mark Gatiss is a funny man isn't he. Having a go at all the fans and their theories. I loved the first solution, I realised it was fake at this exact moment:




What a scene, what a scene.

It was probably the funniest episode so far and I enjoyed every minute of it. Sherlock is a lot more..humane.. he's making jokes and laughing from John's mustache, not something you'd hear from Sherlock in series 1, he has grown a lot but he still struggles to understand human nature.

A lot of people complaining about the fan service in this episode, but did people forget that A.C. Doyle resurrected Sherlock Holmes because of fan protests in the first place? You could  also say the whole series is a fan fiction, both Mark Gatiss and Stephen Moffat are huge fans of Sherlock Holmes just writing a very very good fanfiction. And I don't see anything wrong with that.


I'm not entirely sure the last solution is actually real and if we'll ever find out how he faked his death but the man thing is Sherlock is back!

The latest trailer of Sherlock: Series 3. I'm soo excited and I cannot wait. Too bad I'm not in the country on 1st January and might not see the new episode till Jan 3rd, but hey I waited for two years, I can wait a bit longer.

                                                       







Parade's End is a adaptation of novels of the same name, unfortunately I haven't read them so I  can't  comment how well it was adapted ( but I am adding it to my reading list...). It's been hit with the critics, I've read quite a few reviews and quite enjoyed this extract:

"<...> Christopher Tietjens, a brilliant Home Office statistician, a rich man, a clever man, a quiet man, a moral man, a kind man, and a cuckold – is being played by Benedict Cumberbatch. Much has been written of late about big Benny, thanks to a mad little non-row about class, but let's leave aside the man for a moment, what a bloody actor. He marries the fat brain of Sherlock to a lead character, Tietjens, who speaks mainly with his silences. And, ah, what silences they are. As he quietly outmanoeuvres venal Home Office pocket-stuffers, quietly if enthusiastically bangs a beautiful stranger, soon to be his wife, in a bucking old Pullman carriage, quietly bites the bullet of subsequent marriage to the dementedly flighty Sylvia for form's sake, then quietly and for ever loves the son who he knows isn't, actually, his. We've seen Cumberbatch enthral before with fast-gab brilliance, but this is him simply acting with his face. I don't know why this hasn't struck me before, but there's something of the Alan Rickman about him; one drowsy droop of an eyelid, one slip of the planes of his face, can convey either wry honest amusement or withering contempt. When he does speak, it's rusting anchors in smoking brown dust, the sound of the end of a world"  full article

It was a feast for your eyes with brilliant cinematography, very atmospheric filming, beautiful costumes and brilliant acting. I can smell Baftas already.


Let me address the second comparison. I actually haven't watched Downtown Abbey, not even one episode, yes I live in a cave...It's just one of those things, I've never watched Star Trek either (although I'm definitely going to see the upcoming film and my dear followers will surely know why). But from what I can gather, it's like a posh soap opera, easy watching  television. Which is the opposite of Parade's End. For a minute I hated that BBC doesn't have adverts so I couldn't make myself a cuppa without missing out on something. But it's also quite slow drama at the same time, which I enjoy as well when it's well made, but that's not for everyone, it's really one of those that you have to pay your full attention to it.

For those whose noticed that's something is quite different about Mr Cumberbatch, he's wearing cheek fillers, fat costume (and still doesn't look fat, how skinny are you Benedict? not that I complain) and his hair bleached, apparently they were aiming for Boris Johnson look.  Another significance is his voice & dialect, posher and in a lower register (his "usual" voice although is obviously quite low,but it tends to vary in pitch a lot more as in the famous "oh my god"), as referred in Miranda :"the posh mumble"
This was a very moving scene, Christopher putting his or maybe not his child to sleep.



heart breaking.
Rebecca's Hall character you kind of hate and despise  but also grow to like her at the same time.. she can be quite funny. Although I  would want to see more depth in her character- is she just a bored cheating bitch?
not sure about her yet.
so we've been given a teaser for next series of Sherlock. I don't really like "Bow", as in "His Last Bow", but I hope that Mark Gatiss and Steven Moffat are just trying to throw us off the track, it would be just too obvious. It's never that simple, is it?