A version of this article was originally published in The Courier on 4th January 2013.
Sherlock:
New Year's Day, BBC1
Birds
of a Feather: Thursday, STV
Paul
Whitelaw
Take a cursory glance at this year's
festive schedules and you'd be forgiven for thinking that British
television is ruled by just two writer/producers: Steven Moffat and
Mark Gatiss. Following the inescapable dominance of Doctor Who's
50th anniversary celebrations and Gatiss' supernatural
visitations on BBC2 on Christmas Day, the duo continued their
monopoly with the eagerly awaited return of Sherlock.
Tasked with providing a satisfying
explanation for the sociopathic sleuth's faked suicide at the end of
series two, they cheekily confounded expectations by conjuring more
than one outcome. Galloping out of the trap, the giddy pre-credits
sequence declared that Sherlock survived his fall using a bungee
rope, a latex mask, Moriarty's corpse and none other than obfuscating
mind man Derren Brown.
Colour me complacent, but this struck
me as a perfectly acceptable and amusing explanation. It was a silly,
fun, audacious illusion. Job done.
Except it wasn't. Sherlock,
after all, isn't so much a drama as a theatrical confidence trick,
where things are rarely as they seem. A playful piece of
misdirection, this absurd version of events was quickly revealed as a
harmless gag at the audience's expense, later superseded by a more
“plausible” flashback involving air bags, a doppelganger corpse
from the hospital morgue, a colluding network of homeless assistants,
and the fiendish trick of placing a squash ball under Sherlock's
armpit to briefly stop his pulse.
But even that was undermined by one
more hint of ambiguity. Gatiss, who wrote the episode, clearly had no
intention of supplying a definitive explanation, which wouldn't
matter so much had the entire episode not been devoted to teasing out
the riddle.
Bloated with self-referential gags
about the colourful fan theories surrounding the suicide stunt, this
wasn't another exciting 21st century adventure for
Sherlock Holmes, but a heavily meta-textual commentary on the hit TV
show Sherlock itself. It was as if Moffat and Gatiss were more
interested in causing a stir on Twitter than writing a coherent piece
of entertainment.
Resembling a self-indulgent,
overextended Comic Relief sketch, it allowed scant room for any other
business. The barely sketched sub-plot involving a terrorist cell
operating from the London Underground was little more than flimsy
groundwork for the remainder of the series.
But at least the odd couple
double-act of Benedict Cumberbatch and Martin Freeman continue to
shine as Holmes and Watson. Cumberbatch's comic flair tumbled forth
during a farcical scene in which he reintroduced himself to Watson in
the guise of a French waiter. Watson's understandable reaction – a
stunned conflagration of confusion, relief, sadness and fury – was
impressively realised in Freeman's typically grounded, believable
style.
Almost entirely by virtue of his
thoughtful performance, he's the sole point of emotional depth in
Sherlock's otherwise glib and heightened universe.
The engaging chemistry of its stars
aside, I've never been convinced by the often disproportionate praise
this series receives. Clever and entertaining though it often is,
it's far too throwaway to ever be considered a classic. Blighted by one-dimensional characters – does anybody really care
about the bland Molly's unrequited love for Sherlock? – and an
alienating swagger of undeserved self-satisfaction, its audacity,
while fitfully admirable, often comes across as mere superficial
flash: a talented show-off with a desperate need to impress.
I admire Sherlock in many
ways, but I could never love it.
Possibly the least anticipated
comeback in sitcom history, the inexplicable return of Birds of a
Feather was even bleaker than I'd anticipated.
Groaning under the weight of
laboured, tired, embarrassing dialogue – yes, the computer game
console Wii does sound a bit like a colloquialism for urine, doesn't
it? - it's like watching a pathetic gaggle of ghosts going through
the motions of haunting a long-abandoned manor. Pauline Quirke
deserves better. So do we.
The reason for its sorry revival is a
mystery that would leave even Sherlock dumbfounded.
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