Review: Sherlock, The Blind Banker

“The Blind Banker” opens with a sequence that proves why Sherlock makes a terrible roommate. It soon proceeds with a classic Holmsian mystery: how could someone get into a high-security bank and leave a cryptic message? How can murders take place in a room locked from the inside? This leads to an adventure surrounding ciphers, smuggling and murder. There’s an awkwardly hilarious fight at a circus (chalk that up as another reason why Sherlock’s a bad roommate- he tags along on first dates).
This episode allows for the relationship of John and Sherlock to develop further and gives Martin Freeman as Watson a lot of material to work with in this installment. His moments of dealing with the domestic side of life and meeting a girl he likes is really endearing to watch. Benedict Cumberbatch also had the opportunity to show the fighting side of Holmes at several moments in this episode (he was a boxer, a sword/cane/riding crop fighter and a bit of a martial artist in the stories). He has several close calls in the episode- mostly unnoticed by poor John standing outside.
A running gag this episode was Sherlock’s going off to investigate and leaving Watson locked out of wherever he’s broken into. Throughout the stories, Watson is often following Sherlock, waiting to be let in on something that inevitably, Sherlock discovered two pages ago. In this episode it also facilitates a case of mistaken identity. A dangerous gang of Chinese smugglers believes that John is Sherlock and puts his new girlfriend, Sarah, in peril.
Call me over-analytical, but the mistaken identity seems symbolic of the way John and Sherlock are fusing into a single unit. To the criminals of London, they may as well be one person because they function together so perfectly. True, Holmes can work on his own, but not as well, and probably not for as long.
Also, Sherlock consulting the vandal doing graffiti art on the gallery and sending him on a mission could be a bit of a throwback to the Baker Street Irregulars (I just finished The Sign of Four this week, so their on my mind- perhaps why I’m making the connection).
Overall, intelligent, entertaining and it left off with a menacing mention of Moriarty lurking nearby.
Gemma Chan (from Doctor Who “The Waters of Mars”) as Soo Lin is a very sympathetic character, one we regret the fate of although we know what it will be. Paul Chequer (Eugene from the “Random Shoes” episode of Torchwood) appears as the detective in charge of the case while Lestrade is engaged elsewhere.
I was a bit disappointed that they had to cut some scenes from within the story again this week to fit the time slot more exactly. Now, will the Region 1 DVDs also be cut up because that always ticks me off- no programming slot to fill, due to an invention called *the internet* we are aware of the cut scenes- just put them on the DVD, seriously.

National Novel Writing Month Preparations

I've realized that I have three major research papers due next month. Ha. I'm going to dedicate myself to doing research for those papers tonight and tomorrow, partly to keep myself from going stir crazy while I wait to start noveling, but also so I don't endanger my academic scholarship by forgetting about them completely.
I must admit, I find it difficult to focus on the satire of Troilus and Cressida and the defamiliarization of Emily Dickinson's poetry while all I want to do is get into ~Mystery Mode~. In fact, I have been quite distracted and found myself spending my yesterday evening reading The Sign of Four by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. I was also looking over "The Adventure of the Blanched Soldier" because it is one of only two stories written from Holmes' point of view.
Though this may be a cardinal sin of mystery writing because it has been done so many times, my protagonist is a bit Holmesian. Mainly in their method of logic and their tendency toward solitude (with the exception of one close associate), and maybe an odd quirk here or there. I like to believe my character will be interesting and though in some ways similar to Holmes, their own unique and attractive character. One of the major differences is that my character is a 22 year old female. According to Doyle's cannon, Holmes started solving mysteries as an undergraduate student before he decided to become a consulting detective.
I thought it would be interesting to write a story about a similar sort of anti-social genius solving their first case and finding the perfect use for their talent and intellect. I am very excited by this character, she is the kind of figure I would enjoy reading about or watching, which I think is a good place to start. There are also many opportunities to write great banter with such a character.
Here's a challenge I know I will face as I continue working on this story: writing a character smarter than I am. I believe myself to be an intelligent person, but this girl has to be utterly brilliant, it's difficult to stretch the mind and imagine the thoughts of someone smarter than you. That is why Doyle told most of his stories from Watson's perspective I believe.
My plan for the narrative is a third person, semi-omniscient structure. Telling it from the sidekick's point of view would omit several scenes I've plotted that I believe are very important to building my protagonist's journey.

“Sherlock Holmes took his bottle from the corner of the mantelpiece, and his hypodermic syringe from its neat morocco case. With his long, white, nervous fingers he adjusted the delicate needle and rolled back his left shirtcuff. For some little time his eyes rested thoughtfully upon the sinewy forearm and wrist, all dotted and scarred with innumerable puncture-marks. Finally, he thrust the sharp point home, pressed down the tiny piston, and sank back into the velvet-lined armchair with a long sigh of satisfaction.”

The Sign of Four, chapter 1 paragraph 1

Unlike Sherlock's cocaine and morphine habit, my character lives on coffee and red wine. Probably about the modern equivalent in a social sense- perfectly legal (as the cocaine and morphine were) uppers and downers.
Incidentally, there is a society for female Sherlockians called ASH: Adventuresses of Sherlock Holmes (created because the Baker Street Irregulars wouldn't allow female members until 1991). Check out their website here. Now I kind of want to join. Okay, more than kind of.

Now, now, now!

I grow extremely impatient to start my NaNo project. I have outlines, character sketches and am already developing a nervous tick. They say ability to delay gratification is a sign of maturity. For my entire life people have been telling me I'm mature for my age, oh if only they could see me now.
When I sit and think about my story, my knee starts jiggling up and down because I'm so excited. That's a good sign, I wasn't nearly as excited last year. Perhaps it's macabre to be this excited at the prospect of writing about murder, but I just decided who my killer is tonight. That's very exciting. I had chocolate to celebrate and wrote a few more character outlines.
Now that I have the main plot skeleton figured out, I've been adding in fun things, sub-plots other relationships the characters have. There needs to be a hearty amount of *stuff* in my story- I learned that the hard way last year.
Mostly I'm extremely excited about my characters, especially my "hero team" if you will. I'm actually planning the next two books. I know, it's called "getting ahead of yourself," but it's nice to be this excited. I'm not usually this... confident about my stories or this infatuated with my characters. Not to sound snotty, but I've always steered away from anything that could be called 'genre fiction' due to some bad reading experiences. However, I feel a great sense of liberation in having some parameters to gauge my story by, and yet I feel there is a lot I can do to test those parameters and become a better writer through the process.
I'll be honest, I don't even know how to describe the story I wrote last year, except as depressing and convoluted. I have high hopes for my story this year being suspenseful, witty, sexy, and exciting. Much better adjectives.
In two weeks when I start having a novel identity crisis feel free to refer me back to this post. It will be hellish, but I intend to surface from it relatively un-scorched.
I have to go shopping for NaNo supplies this weekend. Yes it does require supplies. Specifically I'll be looking for fake mustaches and a bubble pipe to cheer myself up at low moments. I also need a new robe for those cold nights that turn into morning while I tap furiously on my laptop. Something I've been looking for for a while is a small digital voice recorder to put idea on- I always have a notebook, but when driving or running across campus I'd like to have a recorder for convenience and time efficiency.
I wish you all well in your similar preparations for the '30 days and nights of literary abandon.' If you haven't committed yet this year, what are you waiting for? The worst that could happen is that you don't make 50,000. I had to quit Script Frenzy in April, it was fine, they didn't even beat me much.

Murder and Mayhem

I've decided to write a mystery. That is going to be my NaNo this year. I've never written a mystery before, but after the large amount of Sherlock Holmes stories and multi media I've been consuming, I have diabolical scenarios on the brain. Also, the other night I was creeping around the campus and I realized that a college campus is a perfect setting for a murder mystery. Thus and idea was born.
Most of my stories aren't exactly plot driven- they're usually more like character meditations where stuff happens and there's the occasional metaphor. I think that style works pretty well in the short form, but last year during my NaNo I ran out of plot at about 30,000 words and that was a problem. I had interesting characters, theme and concept, but not enough stuff happening. The perfect way to break out of my habit of writing ~concepts~ instead of ~stories~ is to write in a genre that is especially plot driven. At least that's what I'm hoping.
This may be too optimistic, but I think that if I break through this issue in my writing I could be highly publishable eventually. A lot of modern fiction I read has a lot of stuff happening, but not enough character or theme, I seem to have the opposite problem.
Strangely, though I reveled in the joys of short fiction a lot over the past year, I've returned to poetry lately. At a very young age I fancied myself a poet, but stopped abruptly when I was in high school for several reasons. After that, the more I read poetry, the less I felt I could ever write it and aside from the occasional sonnet, I didn't touch the genre until a few months ago. Now I've been having phrases come to me while driving or taking walks, even sometimes when sitting in class.
In my typical fashion, many are bit gloomy, but some are kind of... nice. I think I'm funnier in person than on the page. I often go a bit dark in morbid in my writing, but in real life I'm the person bantering with anyone willing to spar. One of my professors has suggested I write a series of literary parodies. Perhaps.

Review: Sherlock, A Study in Pink

Finally, finally, finally, Sherlock has made it to the US (though some American viewers found ways of watching it previous to this premiere...), it is being shown as a part of the current Masterpiece Mystery season. The first episode was shown last night and the literary club and I got together to watch it- yes, watching Masterpiece Theatre and drinking tea is our idea of a party, thank you.
In spite of my initial skepticism about a modern Sherlock Holmes, it worked really well. He was a very modern figure, which is probably why the character and stories are still so popular today. Moffat and Gatiss almost seamlessly update all aspects of the setting and methods of Sherlock's deduction. Very clever use of screen text to let the audience glimpse inside Sherlock's thought process, I enjoyed that.
The dialogue was clever, well paced and highly quotable. There were also many references to Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's original stories and characters, some of them even a little tongue-in-cheek, acknowledging some of the changes made in the update.
Now on to the shallow part, I know you were all waiting for it: Benedict Cumberbatch is extremely attractive. Sherlock has always been in the realms of literary crush despite his prickly lack of social skills and level of asexuality- something about that gigantic brain of his is extremely attractive. The funny thing is, I've never found Cumberbatch to be particularly attractive in any of his other roles (he tends to play creeps), but while watching Sherlock I realized how amazing his bone structure is, and his hair is lush as well. Now I can't decide who the sexiest Sherlock is: Cumberbatch or Jeremy Brett, it'll be a struggle.
Martin Freeman as Watson is fantastic in the role and also very cute. The two of them have a great working chemistry, making them a believable team. Although there seemed to be a few purposefully "slashy" moments, I will always feel that they are simply the perfect example of best friends. Sherlock doesn't have any friends, so it's an extremely significant relationship for him even without there being a romantic component.
Overall it was a very good start to the series with some good references to the first Holmes and Watson story, "A Study in Scarlet," though it was an original story. Though updated, in many ways I think it was closer to canon than the recent Robert Downey jr. film, though I didn't have the issues with that film that many did.
Next week episode two, "The Blind Banker" will be shown and I'll review that as well.
Oh, and incidentally, if you Google Sherlock's website in the series, "The Science of Deduction" you'll find this. You may also want to check out Dr. John Watson's Blog, if you're feeling very nerdy and fan-ish, which I was.
Once again, a bit of media I import eats my sidebar. Oh well.

Not Another Jane Eyre Movie

2011 is supposed to see the release of another Jane Eyre adaptation. Fortunately talk of one that was supposed to come out around 08/09 starring Ellen Page never amounted to much, but I'm still nervous. After the 2006 Masterpiece series, it seems a little soon. That adaptation was excellent and long enough to fully develop the novel.
The US release date is slotted for March 2011 according to IMDB (and we know they're always accurate about everything....)
Here's the cast and my pithy commentary about them:
Mia Wasikowska (Jane Eyre)- You probably know her as Alice from the recent Alice in Wonderland. She's just turned 21, which puts her close to the age of Jane in the novel. She's very pixie-ish and I just don't see her as Jane, hopefully they'll have her go brunette for the film, a blonde Jane would bother me.


Michael Fassbender (Rochester)- I had no idea who this guy was, until it hit me: 300, he's Irish/German and beautiful. Maybe too beautiful for Rochester. He was also in the recent Inglorius Basterds (yes, that's how it's really spelled).

Jamie Bell(St. John)- 10 years ago he gained fame in Billy Elliot and has done little of note in recent years, excepting perhaps Flags of our Fathers. Apparently Wasikowska studied ballet, so perhaps the two of them can act out their scenes as an interpretive dance. How cracktastic would that be? He's a little pouty for my taste.


Imogen Poots (Blanche)- I enjoyed her in Miss Austen Regrets, but she's also appeared in movies such as 28 Weeks Later. I'm sure she's capable of playing the part, but someday I would like an adaptation that has Blanche look the way she's described in the book- dark hair and eyes. I guess no director believes we can handle a non-blonde being the prettiest girl in town.


Sally Hawkins (Mrs. Reed)- Known to me from the recent (slightly dissapointing) adaptation of Persuasion, she was also in the US released film Happy Go Lucky. I can't imagine her playing such a witchy character, she always seems so nice and happy and meek in all her roles


Judi Dench (Mrs. Fairfax)- I love Judi Dench. I harbor secret dreams that she will one day adopt me. Her sit-com from the 90s As Time Goes By is probably my favorite PBS import. I hope they don't waste her.


Of course I'll go see it, but I will try not to be too excited or too cynical. All that engergy could go into more amazing puzzles.

Raccoon of Triumph

Ta-da! This is my Raccoon of Triumph. It was a challenging 25 peice puzzle for ages 3 and up.
I decided to get rid of my summer blog background, we're getting frost, so I thought it was time for a more sober toned autumnal/winter scheme.