Series/Sherlock

That had crossed my mind, but it seemed more cryptic than that.

I'd say it's relatively innocent- most likely a reference to Cabin Pressure.(Specifically, to the "travelling lemon" game).

To me, if someone asks for the show which is the closest to the original, I would point to the Granada series. But if they asks for the one which FEELS the closest to the original it's Sherlock. For the original readers it was at if Sherlock Holmes was real, and BBC tries the best to create the same feeling with their Sherlock. Plus, they have the best Watson, by far. I think they are the first who even bothered to explain why Watson should put up with all this, and came up with a believable reason on top of it. And the best Mycroft. And the best Moriarty (did anyone ever consider that Rattigan might have been the inspiration for this one?). Granada wins when it comes to the best Irene Adler, though, and there are a couple of really good Holmes actors.

Really? I could just be a sensationalist, but I think the best Irene Adler is a close call between this one (Who was a very interesting spin on the concept) and the Downy Film's one (Rachel Mc Adams gives a stellar performance that's both powerful and sexy, even if she is the victim of bad writing in the sequel).

edited 27th Jun '13 6:26:40 PM by Wackd

?

I haven't seen the Granada version of Scandal yet, but if they avoid the whole femme fatale, sexy criminal thing, by default they'll be miles better than the BBC and RDJ versions.

You do realize that is what she was in the original right? In fact the whole plot of her short story is about covering up her affair with the King of Bulgaria.

edited 27th Jun '13 8:07:47 PM by LMage

She isn't nearly as...um...well, naked in the original. She's also not a criminal mastermind/thief/manipulative seductress. She's simply an intelligent, independent and very observant woman who wants to be left alone to marry the man she's in love with.

So no, the original Adler is NOT at all similar to the naked BBC version.

edited 27th Jun '13 8:16:39 PM by resetlocksley

Well to Victorian thinking "independent and intelligent" might as well be the same thing as naked.

At her core Irene Alder is a very feminist icon- all the more fascinating because she hails from a very non-feminist time. Capturing the same sort of essence she holds is always difficult in a modern adaption- even one set in the original times. I think the BBC and the Downy films especially do a wonderful job of bringing a very "strong, powerful, competent, dangerous" sort of ring to the character- which is the intent.

As to being a thief/mastermind/seductress, the original described her as an "Adventuress" (Which is a very loaded term in England), and everyone has a sort of different take on what that means. (Personally, again I liked the Downy version the most- where she was less a thief and more of a general thrill/pleasure seeker).

Uh, no. She's an opera singer who has a fling with the King of Bohemia, who then presumes that she means to blackmail him with the evidence. She does nothing criminal throughout the entire story, really.

Ugh it's late and I am tired and drained. A little lee way?

And yes she does nothing criminal, that's true. But there are implications she's far from squeaky clean.

Even if that was the case, she's still not in cahoots with a criminal mastermind, nor she is defeated because of her feelings for the hero.

There has to be a better way to make a modern adaptation of Irene Adler, one that doesn't involve making her a femme fatale or Sherlock's love interest, seriosuly we have three modern adaptations and they all did the same with her, I'm not so crazy about the twist with her in Elementary, they could have done something cool with that, but yet again she was defeated because of wuv.

"in cahoots with a criminal mastermind" only happens because every Holmes adaptation needs to put Moriarty in the middle.

Or in the case of elementary's season final Turn out to be the same person

edited 27th Jun '13 9:37:24 PM by joeyjojo

I'm not sure that has anything to do with Irene though and more the central theme of most of these works. Which is emotion VS logic.

Sherlock's twist was particularly tragic, because the victim of emotion is not Irene but Sherlock, who has he puts it "receive the final confirmation that love is indeed the ultimate weakness". Irene's defeat being relevant to emotion is often because she's viewed as the exception in Sherlock's life, the figure of emotion and passion that he normally shuns. She's able to cut through his out shell and really get under his skin in a way no other opponent (even Moriarty) is really able- even in the original story, it's apparent she gets at him in a way he doesn't quite get.

Your chops. I'm just bustin' em.

Anyway, I guess it depends on your interpretation of the text, but to me it seemed like the RDJ films were pretty much just making her Victorian!Catwoman to Sherlock's Victorian!Batman, as befitted a more action-y Holmes adaptation. And then BBC did something similar, because Follow the Leader.

@L Mage: Except in the original story is totally not about that, is not sentiment what makes Sherlock admire her, it's her intelligence, that's what made her "The Woman". I don't think the way she was written for a Scandal in Belgravia is bad, but I do think it's cliché (not bad but cliché, I know, bear with me), of all the ways they could have chosen to represent her, they still went the route of the femme fatale/the love interest.

The point of Irene Adler in Canon is that she is the woman who teaches Sherlock (who is beforehand very dismissive of them) to respect woman. And she doesn't do it because she is a criminal or because she manages to seduce him (which is the failure in all recent adaptations). She does it, because he underestimates her. Sherlock approaches the case with certain expectations: That he can't loose (BBC did this part very well) and that she really is someone who is only interested in making the life of the king difficult. So he finds out where the photo he needs is hidden and comes the next day to retrieve it - and then he learns that Irene Adler wasn't fooled by his disguise for long, actually followed HIM in disguise and he didn't notice. And that she left the picture behind and is now travelling (married, btw) to America in order to escape the king's men. Sherlock rarely makes a wrong deduction, but when he does it, it's always based on him believing the worst of people (there is another story in which he believes a woman hides her not-so-death first man when it's in fact the child she had with him, and her motive were truly to spare her new man a scandal, because her first man was black). And Irene is such a case, too, by the end he realizes that she is a woman who deserves respect. The Granada version sticks not only close to the story, it also shows very well under how much pressure Irene Adler is from the king, and it does a very good job when Sherlock says to the king, that Irene Adler is really not in the same league as him (what he actually means but the king is too stupid to get is that the king is far beneath a woman of such wit and integrity). And to me, it comes down to integrity. A criminal Irene Adler can't be a woman of integrity. Plus, a criminal Irene Adler can't win in the end. But she has to win to be really Irene Adler.

edited 28th Jun '13 12:38:17 AM by swanpride

BTW: I think that the version of Irene Adler in the BBC version is based on "The private life of Sherlock Holmes". There are so many similarities to the storyline there, even though the female character there isn't called Irene Adler. Either way, I would at least call it a good take on the femme fatale, if not for the last 10 minutes or so. The revelation that her whole plan was from Moriarty and her begging effectively destroys everything the show built up beforehand. She should have simply left, with the head high. And I also would have preferred if they hadn't shown the weird scene in which Sherlock rescues her and instead left it open if she is really death or perhaps outwitted Mycroft again or perhaps did have the help of Sherlock Holmes. Less is sometimes more.

The Irene Adler in the Canon sort of had a Hero of Another Story vibe to her- She had all sorts of adventures prior to meeting Holmes, and probably had several more afterwards. While her lifestyle was, shall we say "unconventional" by Victorian standards, she is portrayed with a lot of dignity, as an intellectual equal to Holmes, and most importantly, she subverts Holmes's expectations by turning out not to be a villain- pretty groundbreaking stuff by the standards of the time. (I have to disagree with Moffat's view that having her slip away and get married means she's not a strong female character- marriage should not be seen as a sign of weakness for women, no matter what era you live in.)

Her meeting with Holmes served to shake up his expectations- both of women and of alleged criminals, as well as teaching him a bit of humility.

The upside of all these adaptations that portray her as a villain, a seductress, a love interest and/or an associate of Moriarty is that it's creating that sort of expectation in the audience's mind. That way, by the time we do get an Irene Adler that's close to the canon portrayal, we'll all be just as surprised as Holmes was back in the day.

I think Holmes falling in love with Adler is overdone. One can certainly make the case for a bit of subtext in the original story... but then, we could just as easily make a case for other kinds of subtext in the original stories, too.

The execution of the idea was fairly good, for what it was. The moment where Sherlock reveals that he now knows that "love is a weakness" because of Adler is truly heartbreaking, in part because it is likely to affect even his platonic relationships with the people who care about him. Compounded with the events of Reichenbach, it's pretty clear that he'll probably never be able to tell anyone that he loves them, for fear that either he or they will get hurt.

Adler being established as a lesbian and falling in love with Sherlock anyway was... unfortunate. I suppose Irene could be bi and teasing John, but it still sends kind of the wrong message. And as for the end... I don't mind the implication that she survived, but Sherlock being the one to rescue her was a tad unnecessary, just because it makes very little sense. How did he go to Pakistan without John noticing? How did he take down all those people? How was Mycroft not aware that all the people who were supposed to be executing Adler were murdered? A shot of Sherlock getting the text message would have sufficed to hint at Irene's survival without inducing plot holes.

And swanpride- yes, I totally agree on the Private Life thing! Moffat and Gatiss have very much a "magpie" approach to their art, do they not?

They have, but I don't mind....I hope that they take a good look at a certain pastiche when they do their version of The last Bow.

I don't mind the "Well, I am gay" conversation, for two reasons. One, it was already established that Irene destroyed a marriage by having an affair with both participants, and that she had a lot of male clients. So she might lean more to females, but she obviously enjoyed males, too. And two: I think the actual point is there that deep love is not necessarily sex-related. John and Sherlock might not be sexually interested in each other, but they are a couple nevertheless, their partnership in canon is so strong that after MM death, they again life together and grow old together. Sexual or not, this is deeply rooted love. And in return, this suggests that the relationship between Irene and Sherlock isn't sexual either. She is a dominant and Sherlock is someone who likes to be in control all the time, so even if he had a sex drive to speak of, that would never work out.

edited 6th Jul '13 9:22:25 AM by swanpride

Sex workers do not necessarily have to enjoy sex. They just have to be good at making other people enjoy sex. Using her clientele as evidence for her own sexual preferences is not wise.

I normally would agree, but for one, Irene is a highly paid one (meaning she could pick if she really wanted to), and two, she takes obviously pride in "knowing what he likes". She might not want Sherlock as a boyfriend, but since she is portrayed as someone who like to dominate, and someone who likes the challenge, I can totally see her enjoying the challenge trying to dominate Sherlock.

I find it kind of amusing how the creators have so successfully recreated the cultural impact of the original stories, even in ways they didn't necessarily intend.

One thing that makes Sherlock Holmes stand out is the insane number of derivative works across a wide range of genres, and honestly, scrolling down my tumblr dash, it's amazing to see how many fans have reinterpreted the Sherlock characters in some way through the various AU settings. Then there's Elementary, which is another re-interpretation of Sherlock's basic premise (although Moffat and Gatiss don't seem to be quite so happy about that one).

There's people treating the characters as though they were real, through the "I believe in Sherlock Holmes" movement (Modern day Watsonians, perhaps?). There's an extensive female following inspired by the male leads, which also happened with the original (Moffat cites an example of women sending letters offering to work as Holmes' housekeeper- "Either they were really passionate about domestic chores, or they didn't mean housekeeper".

Moffat and Gatiss have noticed these trends, and started to anticipate them. They said in an interview that they had to establish that Sherlock was alive at the end of season 2, because when Doyle first tried to kill him off, he got attacked in the streets. They have received the modern equivalent, though, in the form of death threats via Twitter (which they of course regard as the highest compliment).

Then there's all those extra weird things, like the fact that Moffat and Gatiss also write Doctor Who, while Arthur Conan Doyle also wrote science fiction as well. Or the fact that Mark Gatiss is close friends with Derren Brown (who incidentally might have a role in Series 3 ), whereas Doyle was at one point good friends with Harry Houdini.

Maybe John's fortune cookie was right. It really has all been done before.

edited 6th Jul '13 7:06:26 PM by PapercutChainsaw