Sherlock Rewatch: Season 1

The game, dear readers is on!

My best friend and I decided this week that we want to rewatch the whole series. Our goal is to fit in one season per day. As you can tell, today we completed season 1 (bonus features and all).

I would like to do this short series of blogs on the day of rather than adding them to my to-blog list like everything else I read and watch. There are several reasons for this: one, I would prefer to do this while they are still fresh in my mind; two, this will allow you readers to have something other than the usual material to read. As an added bonus, this will force me to try to do more blogging on a regular basis. P.S. I will not give away the endings to the cases for anyone who hasn't seen this series yet. If you have, then you already know it.

So here it goes.

Sherlock is an adaptation of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's stories into our modern age, and the creators worked hard to make that evident in every part of the show. The writing of Mark Gatiss and Steven Moffat is brought to life by the amazing talents of Benedict Cumberbatch and Martin Freeman.

A Study in Pink

Dr. John Watson, having returned from his time in Afghanistan, is looking for a flat mate because he needs somewhere to live but can't afford his own place and believes himself difficult to live with. Enter old pal Mike Stanford who happens to have met another person saying exactly the same thing. And so we meet Sherlock Holmes, who deduces everything about Watson in a matter of moments. The men quickly become flat mates, partners, and unlikely (yet completely likely) friends.

The police are investigating three eerily similar deaths which appear to be nothing more than suicides. Sherlock Holmes, consulting detective, does not believe that three people would end up dead in locations that they had no reason to be in all by taking the same poison. It appears that even Detective Lestrade and Sergeant Donavon don't think that these deaths are suicides, but without proof that they are connected, the police would rather not make any assumptions. And then a fourth one shows up. A woman all in pink found in an abandoned house with "Rache" scratched into the floor next to her. But this time the killer has made one mistake: pink!

Watson is wowed by Sherlock's reasoning, and happy to have this kind of work in his life again (he is more like Sherlock than he thinks). The two must  work together to catch the killer and thus begin their detecting legacy.

The chemistry formed between the two is amazing, as they are complete foils of one another, John being the heart of the pair and Sherlock being the brains. This is the perfect opening to an amazing re-imagining.

The Blind Banker

Strange symbols are being spray painted as warnings to people who then show up dead inside locked rooms. Sherlock and John have been hired to discover how someone made it past the security at the bank in order to vandalize the office, but end up stumbling upon these serial murders.

Meanwhile, John is struggling with finding money, as well as maintaining a job alongside all of his new consulting detective work.

The pair discover that the symbols are a cipher linked to a Chinese gang of smugglers. One of the victims stole something from the gang, and now there is an assassin who can scale buildings and enter locked rooms roaming around London, hunting for the treasure. Of course, John and Sherlock end up right in the middle of the danger. Can they solve the crime before they or anyone else is killed? (Well, of course, because it's Sherlock, but considering how it all goes this is a valid question).

The Great Game

In both cases so far, even if the guys don't know it yet, one common denominator was present: Moriarty.

Sherlock won't know until the end, but Moriarty is "a fan", and in a way the complete opposite of Sherlock (though not a foil). He is the consulting criminal.

A phone resembling that from A Study in Pink is sent to Sherlock, and through it he receives calls and messages presenting him with puzzles to solve. Each is a crime which has gone unsolved. They are all timed puzzles, and if the time runs out then a hostage who has been strapped with bombs will be killed.

Meanwhile, Mycroft is looking for Sherlock's help in recovering some stolen missile files on a flash drive.

This episode presents not only a clear picture of how strong a friendship there really is between the doctor and the detective, but also the nuances of their contrasting personalities and how that affects their actions.

The ending will leave you in suspense.

Bonus - Unaired Pilot (A Study in Pink)

I won't say much about this as it is fairly similar to the final product. This was intended to be the first episode, but the final product was a much better quality. Many things changed in appearance and writing when BBC asked the writers to extend the episode. The plot and the delivery got better, and the references to the original story (A Study in Scarlet) were more plentiful. Nonetheless, this is really neat to see just to understand how their ideas formed and how much more artistic and complex it got.

Observations this season:

Sherlock has ADHD - the man needs stimulation from problem-solving or drugs to keep him from going mad (as witnessed by the nicotine patches, drug search, and smiley face full of bullet holes on the wall).

Sherlock is a cruel man - not only does e openly deduce Anderson and Sally's affair, but he makes that terrible (yet funny) joke about her scrubbing his floors. Even worse, he realizes that Molly likes him and that she takes well to compliments and he uses this to manipulate her into giving him access to whatever he wants.

Moriarty might just be gay - the scene at Bart's and him slipping Sherlock his number may have been an act, but some of his behaviour in the final confrontation supports the hypothesis that he may actually be gay (or just extremely dramatic).