This weekend I found one that many have been the pinnacle and I can't believe it's taken me this long to get on board.
It is the ever-brilliant
I know, what the hell, first and foremost. I'm only just getting into this excellent programme now? After a second series has already been made and shown? Yes, yes, I have no one to blame but myself but I have this strange curse of personality where I don't watch the things I know I'll really enjoy. Perhaps part of me is worried that it won't reach my high expectations. I don't know. I'll save the psychology for another time.
And I have been an admirer of Stephen Moffat for a long time now, for his work on Doctor Who (and his best episodes such as Blink -- amazing stuff). Yet still no watchy-watchy. I know. Nothing but weird.
First two episodes down in one day, though, because I needed MORE IMMEDIATELY. The first episode was just absolute brilliance. An excellent introduction to the characters. Of the two -- and of all the characters -- Dr John Watson is my favourite.
Sherlock is, of course, brilliant. And there aren't just shades, but full, slap on an inch thick of the Doctor from that other famous Moffat-led tv show. The two could have been separated at birth. Never let them get into the same room together because they would surely cancel each other out in some kind of implosion, a blackhole of crackling monologue and frantic pacing, with the last thing anyone ever hears being "Oh, I'm brilliant!"
And that's why Sherlock isn't my favourite character. Because the word doesn't quite apply to him (not yet; I hear we delve into him more in later episodes). He's like a whirling myth. He's infallibly, awe-somely, bloody brilliant. You can only sit back and marvel.
But John. John has a background. When we met him he has all kinds of personal problems. Granted, they get solved pretty quickly in the first episode, but we only ready know he's a flawed person. He has the capacity to be brave, to be witty, to be confused, be to scared, to be moral. It's this last that particularly interests me, and the ending to the first episode. That his actions were dictated by his strong morals. That he has no qualms killing someone if he thinks they are a 'bad man'.
Now, to the point of my post. Verbosity, thy name is Brooker.
Once the enthralling nature of the episode wears off, it's only deep, deep despair. There I sit, thinking, I could probably learn that Sherlock method. I could totally walk into a room and immediately know the last person to be in it, their exact actions and what they had for breakfast last Tuesday. It's all observation, deduction, yeah?
No, you cretin. Oh, sure, you can learn, but haven't you heard that it takes 10,000 hours to actually master an activity? It won't be something you can show off at a party next week. And the point of Sherlock is that he is so brilliant. There's no one else like him. He probably deduced the events behind his own birth the moment he popped out of the womb.
No, Brooker, no amazing display of brain power for you. Go and watch another Sherlock, that'll chase your troubles away.
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