HA! I knew it!

[rabid1st]

A friend has seen Sherlock and was telling me a bit about it. I'd talked it up for them, but they said..."It seemed very shallow. Like the writer was just showing off how 'cool' the character was supposed to be. Mostly, I thought Sherlock was boring and childish."

And I said, "Hmmm! I usually love it. I wonder if Moff wrote that one, because he certainly has that problem when writing The Doctor."

So, I toddled off to Wikipedia...and sure enough...Stephen Moffatt tackles Irene Adler (probably poorly, I bet, making her super sexy and yet not very clever in the end). I doubt the fanbase will notice, of course, because we are all very excited by this return. But there it is from the lips of someone not at all invested in any of this...the Moff-Muppet syndrome strikes again. Trying to be too cute, too clever and putting people off his characters. I will let you all know what I think of it soon as I watch it.

I see Gatiss is tackling Hound of the Baskervilles, a personal fave. I'm glad to see that. Gives me something to look forward to if Scandal truly is a bust.

Comments

[rabid1st.livejournal.com]

I think Moff has no right to be butt-hurt for being called a misogynist. If the leather gauntlet fits, you know? It is not a coincidence that his women are so completely lacking in anything approaching feminine power that it is alarming. I actually thought that was because he was gay and so he had a very limited experience of women. But...that's not the case...so...I have no idea why he can't write women. He simply can't. Every women he's ever written...expect, perhaps, Sally Sparrow, has been either a mother figure or a variation on the whore (I do count River as one of those, though she is more focused on the Doctor, she's still a "bad girl" and so she can be fascinating without being a true threat to her fixations emotional life).

The simple truth is Moff seems unable to conceive of a female character that has her own internal motivation. River lives for those stolen moments with the Doctor...ditto Reinette...Amy is a little child at heart...and lives to impress the Doctor. Nancy lived for her son/brother. This is why his Sherlock worked so well in the first season, because the only women in it were ciphers like the morgue worker and John's dates. Read: Unimportant characters.

[wickedgillie.livejournal.com]

You very much have him perfectly pegged. That said, I still think you might be pleasantly surprised by this episode. If you think about it for too long, the feminist rage comes out, but I thought the performances were outstanding and it was overall very satisfying to experience.

[rabid1st.livejournal.com]

I did enjoy the episode, but I think that I find the modern tendency of these annoying nerd (read as virgin until they were married...if they married women at all) writers is to make the "powerful" women subservient to the men and to make sure that any "power" is only in the sexual arena. Here, I blame not only Moff, but RTD for Rose as well, because in the end, her wishes/plans were swept aside by the Doctor's paternal insistent on giving her a life that he chose for her...and suddenly it was all about sex...in Rose's case having a sexual partner/aging with her Doctor.

Basically, I liked John in the episode, but not much else. I didn't admire Irene, who seemed very shallow and unfocused to me. I felt it diminished Sherlock as much as Irene was diminished, myself, leaving him prey to feminine wiles which he then rejected until she begged. Beaten he was a better man, in my eyes, but, of course, Moff couldn't see that.