XistentialAngst's Blog, page 47

ebaeschnbliah:thesherlockexperiment:finalproblem:New...

ebaeschnbliah:

thesherlockexperiment:

finalproblem:

New Sherlock Series 4 clip from Martin Freeman’s appearance on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert

GUYS! That last shot of Sherlock has been flipped horizontally. Why would they do that? That makes absolutely no sense what so ever! Can we please have a discussion about this?

WOW !!!

OK, that is really weird!

watsonhollmes:I was so alone and I owe you so much.

watsonhollmes:

I was so alone and I owe you so much.

propergenius:thanks dad

propergenius:

thanks dad

'Sherlock' Season 4 finale to Screen in Theaters -- Exclusive

'Sherlock' Season 4 finale to Screen in Theaters -- Exclusive:

thesetison:

The Sherlock season 4 finale is going to be a big one – and fans can see it on the big screen.

The third episode of the upcoming season, titled “The Final Problem,” is going to play in U.S. cinemas for two nights on Jan. 16 and 18, EW has learned exclusively.

BBC Worldwide North America and Fathom Events are partnering for the screenings, which will be held in about 350 cinemas nationwide. The screening will also feature 15 minutes of extras.

This will mark the second time an episode of the show has received a theatrical run. The series’ stand-alone episode “The Abominable Bride” also ran in theaters this year.

“We can’t think of a better way to start the new year off then experiencing the adventures of Sherlock Holmes and Dr. John Watson on the big screen,” said Soumya Sriraman, EVP, Franchise and Digital Enterprises, BBC Worldwide North America. “The bonus content will be an excellent treat for the show’s loyal fans.”

“The Final Problem” is expected to feel somewhat conclusive for the fan-favorite detective series, star Benedict Cumberbatch has noted. “It might be the end of an era,” the Doctor Strange actor said in a recent interview. “It feels like the end of an era, to be honest. [Season 4] goes to a place where it will be pretty hard to follow on immediately.”

Sherlock returns to PBS Masterpiece with its first episode, “The Six Thatchers,” on Jan. 1. Tickets to the screening of Sherlock: The Final Problem will be sold online at FathomEvents.com.

15 extra minutes? That’s a lot.

Martin’s EW interview

You can read the whole thing here:

http://www.ew.com/article/2016/12/09/sherlock-martin-freeman-season-4-baby-watson

A few things that worry me. Of course EW asks about the baby, and of course Martin can’t just dismiss it. But these bits:

How will be being a father change John?
Well, I think in the ways that it does in real life, I guess — the ways that it changes you as parents in real life. That’s just a big responsibility. It can’t change the show that much because the dynamic of the show generally speaking is Sherlock and John, and their shenanigans fighting crime, but there has always been an emotional heart to the show as well, I think. It’s not just a procedural CSI type crime of the week thing. It’s also always been about that friendship between those two and the other people in it. John is a little bit changed, but you can’t change the shape of the show too much.

We’ve heard that season 4 is going to be very dark. What does that mean exactly?
I suppose it would follow on from John and Mary becoming parents, and that inevitable responsibility that comes with that. Stakes get bigger. What might have been a little bit of fun three weeks ago is now kind of serious, because you are responsible for someone else’s life. Also, the external stuff that is happening in the show. The cases in the show have always been fairly dark. Some of them are scary and you’re seeing some of the worst aspects of human nature. It’s not like you’re watching Saw, but in a kind of enjoyable way you’re watching very clever nasty people do stuff. And there’s just more of that, really, but even more so. And I think obviously what happens when one friend has a child and gets buddied up with somebody else then that immediately has a dynamic effect on the friendship. I don’t want to give anything away, but there are some changes afoot.

To me, this makes it sound like the baby is NOT just a quickie montage that’s in Sherlock’s MP. Combine that with the footage from Martin’s recent late night appearance where John and Lestrade are discussing the baby and Sherlock interrupts… I’m getting the feeling the baby is a larger part of at least E1 than I’d like. 

I know, I know. I do think that Mary will go away this season, and that the baby will not be a permanent cockblocker (either is won’t be real, won’t be John’s, or it will be parentlock in the end). BUT. I think the hopes of the baby being a 2-3 minute MP montage at the front and never real is wishful thinking. Unfortunately. 

Erg.  Hope I’m wrong. 

swoopyswish:merrygalpals:the-7-percent-solution:londoncall...

swoopyswish:

merrygalpals:

the-7-percent-solution:

londoncallingsigh:

From BBC Entertainment Sherlock S4 Promo (thanks @marcespot for post and vid)

What a time to be alive

BYE B*NCH

ARE YOU FUCKIN ????

It’s not exactly a shocker that Mary will get the axe this season, one way or the other. It’s ACD canon at the very least. Still, nice to see the BBC show something a bit more ‘true’ than the incessant baby pics.

the-7-percent-solution:londoncallingsigh:From BBC...

the-7-percent-solution:

londoncallingsigh:

From BBC Entertainment Sherlock S4 Promo (thanks @marcespot for post and vid)

What a time to be alive

Awesome.

Martin Freeman at the Late Night show with Stephen Colbert

johnlockhell221b:

geek-royalty:

heurtebizzz:

Disclaimer: the show will air tomorrow night so I apologise for the spoilers (but you’d like me to tell you everything, wouldn’t you?)

First of, as Stephen introduced Martin, they showed a very short, no more than 30 seconds, clip from Sherlock (I think from TST): Lestrade, John and Sherlock at Baker Street, trotting down the stairs, Lestrade and John having a conversation about John’s baby and Sherlock thinking it’s about him (something about screaming babies and how John has to clean the mess after them and they never say thank you, Sherlock keeps interjecting, ‘Are you talking about me? I don’t understand’). John looked great, with new hair and a tight shirt on, slim and sexy

Now, how the whole thing went:

Martin looked gorgeous, Stephen complimented him on his suit

Compliments quickly turned into very homoerotic jokes about Stephen ‘piping’ Martin. Martin was super comfortable with all that.

Martin’s great performance in Love Actually. Pretty much them talking about Martin’s junk. Stephen: will there be a sequel?

Discussion of class differences in who says ‘merry Christmas’ and who ‘happy Christmas’ in the UK. Stephen: we don’t get to say ‘merry’ about anything else than Christmas. Martin: do you say ‘merry mead’?

A bit on The Hobbit and how Stephen loves it, but his favourite role of Martin’s is John Watson

Martin: this series is the best, the strongest ever, if we haven’t messed them up

‘We never know if we are going to do it again’ (when asked if it’s the last series)

Stephen: are you not jelous that Ben plays someone who is so much smarter? And gets cast to play roles like that? Wouldn’t you like to play a genius?

Martin: John Watson is not dumb, exactly. Sherlock has a magnificent intellect but John is someone who humanises him, guiding him by hand (?) and showing how humans work, telling him 'we’ve got to pay the rent’ or that he’s upset someone (does it mean they are living together again?)

Stephen moves onto a distasteful bit about fanart and Martin’s fans who have a wild erotic imagination. Martin, to his honour, handled it all gracefully and even said he’d participated in some of the fan works (yes he really said that). Stephen: is that the Love Actually sequel? Next, he showed a picture of a tame johnlock fanart, Sherlock and John barechested, I couldn’t recognize it, Martin was totally cool about it all and Stephen said he’d love someone to draw his body like that. Martin said he’d seen more serious staff and that Ian McKellen told him about the erotic fan works when they were in New Zealand, filming The Hobbit, and even sent him an email about it. Well, I’m sorry in advance for the fanartist whose work they showed and for all fans getting dragged like that, again.

Stephen talks about the show getting criticism for suggesting that the royal family was being blackmailed by the dominatrix and whether Martin, as subject, cared. Martin: the obvious answer is that I don’t care. And you guys will be in a much worse place, come January.

That’s about it. I hope CBS doesn’t come after me for posting this.

Thanks for the preview!

*Cringes at the fanart thing*

thanks for the preview!!! I’m sure he looked gorgeous!!!

marcespot:I’m losing it! I just saw the BBC Entertainment promo for Sherlock. Turns up they’re...

marcespot:

I’m losing it! 

I just saw the BBC Entertainment promo for Sherlock. Turns up they’re airing S1, 2 and 3 as countdown for the new series, so they made a little montage of bits from the episodes reversed, from newer to older, while saying “it’s good to go back and recap” and they show Sherlock in TAB going “from the beggining then”… All good until then, I get the gist. BUT THEN OUT OF NOWHERE THEY DECIDED TO FINISH THE CLIP WITH THE CLOSEUP SHOT OF MARY GRABBING JOHN’S HAND IN THE GRAVEYARD, REVERSED!!! IT JUST LOOKED SO DRAMATIC, JOHN RELEASING HER HAND AND MARY JUST MOVING AWAY FROM HIM AND OFF THE SCREEN I SCREAMED!

That was a deliberate, intentional, meaningful decision.

retcons and gamechangers

ebaeschnbliah:

gosherlocked:

may-shepard:

I’m writing this post because there’s been a lot of talk around emp theory about retconning, and how, if emp is correct, Sherlock will take a substantial turn for the worse. 

I wanted to say a some things about this, from the perspective of someone who has spent a ton of time studying the craft of writing and storytelling from both a creator’s and a critic’s perspective. I hope will be helpful.

First, retconning is not necessarily bad. There are in fact lots of different types of retcon, all of which can be genuinely useful and helpful storytelling devices. 

Second, in the context of current discussions of Sherlock, I wanted to introduce a slightly more specific concept, the idea of the gamechanger, into the discussion. The gamechanger is technically a type of retcon, although it is usually used to more success, and is a product of much more deliberate planning, so to me, it’s a different beast altogether (or at least a different subspecies, see below). This is what I think the show may be doing, and why I think, if emp is correct, it’s all going to be fine.

I’m hoping this post might allow a shift in the way people think about the impact of emp on the show. (In fact, I think, if emp is what’s happening, it’s going to not only enable johnlock faster and more efficiently, but it’s going to make for some very exciting television, but let’s put that aside for now.)

Retcon

Retconning (originally a theological term, WHO KNEW?) is the name for a number of different practices that come out of serialized storytelling. Inevitably, in storytelling contexts where people are laying down a lot of story relatively quickly (traditional comics, soap opera, American television in general), there will be times when the massive bulk of the story’s past pushes writers into inconvenient corners. Enter the retcon!

The basic idea behind the retcon is that, where writers have worked themselves into a corner, they can get out again by inserting fresh information into the past of the story (like a flashback that fills in missing gaps), compressing timelines, ignoring unfortunate avenues of the story’s past that they would rather not acknowledge, or inserting information that contradicts previous truths of the story. All of these devices are types of retcon. Again, none of these types of retcon are necessarily bad. Like everything else in storytelling, it all depends on the level of skill with which they’re applied, and the reason why they’re applied.

When done well, retcon makes magic happen. According to the wiki, the term “retcon” was first used in the context of the DC comics multiverse in the 1980s. The writers found a way to freshen their contemporary storyline by essentially (if I’m understanding this correctly) inserting an au into their story’s past, changing it, and changing details of the present through doing so. Apparently the results were absolutely stunning, and opened whole new avenues for the story. Yay!

When done badly, retcon is a cheat that robs the audience of the thing in which they’re invested. Think about a movie serial, where at the end of episode 10, the character is dangling off a cliff. You can’t wait to see how he gets out of it. Episode 11 starts…and he’s sitting at the bottom of the cliff having a picnic. You’re never given an idea of how he saved himself. The writers are saying that the thing in which you were invested (how is he gonna save himself?) didn’t matter. (Or they’re saying they couldn’t figure a way out of the hole they dug. Either way, really clumsy storytelling.)

Now let’s talk about that infamous Dallas example, because it’s pretty much the worst “it was all a dream” awkward storytelling moment we have available. In that instance, the writers of Dallas erased an entire season of their show by inserting a single fact into the narrative past: it was all a dream. Audiences were justifiably enraged by this choice. Here’s the thing: that decision had nothing to do with the needs of the story, and everything to do with the fact that Patrick Duffy, who played Bobby Ewing, wanted to come back on the show after the writers killed him off (oopsie). It’s a classic case of outside forces causing a decision to be made for the convenience of the showrunners, and at the expense of the story. They threw their own story under the bus, essentially, as a result of an external event. Not a great idea at all. 

So to sum up:

Retcon is a device that grows out of serialized storytelling, especially where that storytelling is done quickly or has a long history.

Retcon is used often when that long history or lack of planning requires a redirect on the part of the writer(s). It is a way to correct accidents of narrative or to alter infelicitous past choices on the part of the writer(s).

Retcon can be done well or poorly.

When done well, retcon opens up new storytelling possibilities going forward.

Retcon is bad when it robs the audience of a resolution in which they are invested.

Gamechanger

A gamechanger is technically a light sort of retcon. In a gamechanger, the writer introduces new information into the story, which doesn’t contradict previous information, but which causes the audience to review and reinterpret the story’s past, enriching the story and the audience’s experience.  

In a real life context, consider your friend who has been ignoring you, which makes you feel bad. Did you say something wrong? Are they mad at you? They finally get in touch and you find out their grandmother just died, and they’ve been busy planning the funeral. Suddenly you understand their behaviour. That’s a real life gamechanger, and will probably cause you to alter your behaviour and the way you think about the situation.

In narrative, a gamechanger usually causes the story to redirect in some major way from where it seemed to be going, up until the point where the gamechanger was introduced.

Here’s why a gamechanger is not quite the same as a retcon:

Generally speaking, a gamechanger is not a product of rapid serialized storytelling, but a thing that is planned from the beginning, or from earlier on. 

The classic example of a gamechanger is the twist at the end of The Sixth Sense. What appears to be a story of a child psychologist helping a little boy who is traumatized by the fact that he sees ghosts, alters completely when it’s revealed that the child psychologist is himself a ghost. (I know that’s a terrible summary but shrug emoji.) So, what you get, once you know the gamechanger, is the opportunity to rewatch the movie, or rethink it in a whole new way. What appears, on first viewing, to be a sort of beautiful story of therapeutic resolution and understanding, turns into an even more beautiful story about mutual redemption, about this little boy, who seems terribly messed up, becoming a hero of sorts, even as the therapist comes to a better understanding of himself, and opens up the potential for his own healing. 

If done well, the gamechanger results in a much richer text than the one the audience thought they were dealing with. It should cause the audience to sit up and take notice, rethink the story, and recast past events in the story in light of this new information. Because of the delicacy of pulling off a gamechanger, it is something that must be carefully calculated, with lots of clues seeded so that when the audience sees it, the response is, “oh…yeah!” as opposed to “wtf?”

Those clues are often things that are usually presented as “normal” or “narrative fact” in the story, and/or rely on audience assumptions to fly under the radar. A gamechanger story introduces gaps into the narrative that are filled in later. In The Sixth Sense, we’re sort of pushed into an understanding that the therapist’s wife is angry with him because he’s been working too hard. She’s ignoring him at dinner. She’s flirting with another man, preparing to cheat on our hero. We are led to supply wrong ideas (their marriage is in trouble) in the gaps left by the narrative (the main gap being that their marriage is technically over because he dead). In light of the gamechanger reveal, we are forced to rethink those ideas. (She’s not ignoring him; she can’t see him. She’s not cheating; she’s mourning, and moving on.)

To sum up: 

A gamechanger bears a strong resemblance to certain types of retcon, specifically, the kind that seeds backstory in order to enhance the narrative in the present.

Unlike a typical retcon, a gamechanger is a product of deliberate storytelling choices.

A gamechanger aims to enrich the story through the narrative reveal. 

In order for a gamechanger to work, there must be incongruities or gaps in knowledge placed deliberately into the story, as pointers toward the real truth of the narrative. The audience is called upon to supplement those gaps with their own assumptions.

A gamechanger, when it’s revealed, will clarify and recast those narrative gaps, correcting wrong assumptions. The delight of a good gamechanger lies in the audience’s ability to review the narrative after the gamechanger is revealed, and to see how the new information enhances their understanding, or explains incongruities and gaps. 

Sherlock

It’s not news to anybody here that hlv left us with some serious questions. It is a narrative with great giant gaps in its timeline, many moments of wtf-ery and, in my opinion, wild incongruities, especially in characterisation, when compared with earlier episodes of the show. It is a narrative practically screaming for a gamechanger.

We know (don’t we?) that the narrative of Sherlock has been meticulously planned since forever ago. The evidence that the showrunners have an astounding degree of control over all elements of this story is absolutely massive. (Speaking as a writer, I’m wildly jealous of their obvious skill.) I trust them not to have fucked up so badly that they need to retcon. If they pull the rug out from under their own story, I’m sure it’s going to be a glorious gamechanger.

BUT even if you are skeptical about all of that, and that’s fine if you are, and thanks for reading this far, I just want to point out that mini gamechangers are already all over the narrative of Sherlock. Every time Sherlock does a deduction, pretty much, we’re given the opportunity to recast the mystery of the case he’s dealing with in light of new information. Gamechanging is practically a narrative staple of the show. If the writers do that on a constant basis in miniature, why wouldn’t they pull a similar trick on a grand scale? 

Tags under the cut.

Weiterlesen

@may-shepard: Thank you so much for this beautiful and detailed explanation. This is exactly how I feel about EMP - brilliant gamechanger if done well, not terrible retcon.

Thank you @may-shepard  for writing this comprehensive explanation. This was a very interesting read. So far Sherlock BBC is - at least in my opinion - a really extraordinary TV-Show. Lovingly detailed and very beautifully crafted. I have all the faith it will continue that way in S4 and (hopefully) beyond.