Great video! I think the problem with modern day adaptations of Sherlock is that they're all trying to be Batman. And not comic Batman but the Hollywood Batman who is basically emo James Bond. That's why Moriarty has to be like the Joker, Irene Adler has to be his Catwoman and poor Watson ends up being Robin/Alfred.
I'm not a huge fan of either of them but when I was watching the snyder cut justice League i found myself thinking that if Batman was as smart as Sherlock from the BBC series then he would have been much more useful for the jl. Like to fight along side gods and superhumans he'd at least have to be super smart and cunning, it wouldve add alot more to the character's contribution to the team than him just being rich. The dceu's Batman isn't very clever or smart despite that being a defining trait of the character.
YES! And Mycroft is like Commissioner Gordon, even though in the books, he's just a really smart guy who hates social interaction so much he founded a club where people go to not talk to each other XD
Moriarty made absolutely no sense in this show to me. It's impossible to believe that someone like him would have so many people and resources at his disposal. At least in Gotham it made a little more sense since it's such a messed up city. Doesn't help that the show simply refused to let Moriarty go after killing him off.
There actually even a short story (I believe it's called The Adventure of the Yellow Face) where Homes is wrong about his deduction and he asks Watson not to hesitate to call him out and remind him of this event if he ever becomes arrogant about his skills.
It also happens in the first chapter of The Hound of the Baskervilles, where Sherlock and Watson debate with one another over the identity of the owner of a cane that was left with a letter on their doorstep. They both end up being almost entirely wrong.
@@SuicidalSummerSnowWoman Yes, and that the child is having to hide her face because she is a biracial child in 19th century London, and Holmes asks Watson to remind him of this failure here. . .
@@TheFinalJedi478 True, it's been a while since I read it. I just remember having a chuckle at Holmes making some incorrect assumptions despite his reputation.
what struck me in reading the original short stories is how kind sherlock is (in his own funny way). like, he cares. he cares so much!! and it is one of his best features, I think. He cares for John because John is his friend. By extension, he cares for Mary too (seen in his final letter to watson before he dies). I also revisit The Speckled Band a lot, in particular the moment where Sherlock notices the bruises on the clients wrist. He’s professionally detached, yes, but he also approaches her with a lot of care. He says something like, ‘you’ve been cruelly used.’ That whole story is a brilliant showcasing of the genuine kindness that sherlock has. AND WATSON? jesus they do him so dirty.
@@dash4800because they think intelligence only exists if there's no empathy. You can only have one or the other. Mostly because of autistic stereotyping and toxic masculinity. And because of the generally accepted elitist idea that dark/serious/tragic is higher brow. Instead of realizing different people express empathy differently it's easier to just write an asshole who gets excused for being an asshole + an excuse to make mean jokes (usually toward minorities) and say "but the character's a genius so it's normal" as a cope out. Aka they're just bad at writing characters
Exactly! I don't know why writers nowadays can't seem to write a "smart" character without making them all oooh I hate everyone and I'm mean to people isn't that so quirky? As if someone can't be intelligent without being a massive asshole for some reason.
@@dash4800 my theory is that that interpretation of him has become a pop-culture fixture in its own right that other media then draws from as well. It’s a shame honestly, because I think it’s doing the adaptations a disservice more often than not. Like I suppose you could make a case for it in that the stories are from Watson’s POV, and Watson obviously loves his friend and sees the best in him, but… i don’t really think thats strong enough to justify this whole ‘sociopath’ thing. It ends up feeling like a huge misunderstanding of the characters.
THIS!!! bbc sherlock so badly wanted him to be a coldhearted asshole, and the original material just doesn't supply that. he cares deeply, including for his clients, and he is morally invested in justice beyond criminal justice.
One of my favorite scenes in the original book series was when a client accidentally left a cane at Sherlock and Watson's apartment Sherlock challenges Watson to identify info about the Cane's owner from the cane itself. Watson gets 90% of the info correct with little help from Sherlock, including that the owner was a young man that earned the cane after graduating from a prodigious school, and liked to use the cane to play fetch while walking his small dog. Sherlock: absolutely correct Watson! In fact the specific breed is a [very specific mixed breed of pomerianian] Watson: how did you know? Sherlock: The dog and his owner are standing right outside the door! :D Anyway one of the greatest signs of intelligence is a great sense of humor.
Yep, once you read the book you realize this "psycho who is a super genuis" is juts bad fanfiction created by moffat. People cared about sherlock not because he was a smart man that knew how to deduct, but he was a good character.
True, and it was a curly haired spaniel 🙂↕️ I love "the Hound of the Baskervilles", probably most out the other books. It has that added mystery since Sherlock isn't as present throughout the story.
If I recall correctly then Holmes makes a series of further conclusions and corrections before the client returns, including assuming the owner was rather impulsive, or something to that effect, because Holmes believed that it was given as a gift when the owner had left that school for a country lifestyle. When the man arrives it is revealed that while he was a rural medical practitioner, he had a wife, and the cane was given on the occasion of his marriage. To this Holmes comments that it's a shame that is the case because it threw off both his and Watson's estimates of the man, making it very clear that Holmes is as vulnerable to an incomplete dataset as any man
@@theendersmirk5851 This is one aspect of Sherlock I love. He can be wrong, He can admit when he's wrong, Like in The Adventure of the Yellow Face. Where his deductions were completely wrong and asked Watson to remind him not to be overconfident or not giving a case his full attention.
@@theendersmirk5851 Based on this and the original comment, I have to conclude that somehow Ace Attorney's version of Sherlock manages to be a more faithful adaptation than BBC Sherlock despite being hilariously named Herlock Sholmes in the western release because of rights issues
I remember slowly falling out of love with this series, and then when Watson's wife turned out to be some ninja assassin I just switched it off mid-episode and never returned. It was the moment all my burgeoning irritations with the show instantly coalesced.
No, you’re on the money. I was so obsessed with this show for the first 2 seasons and then season 3 got a little crazy and then when Mary went off the deep end I literally turned the TV off and sat in disappointed frustration. It got way too convoluted and lost the plot.
That was the moment I tuned out as well. It was so unrealistic. And then they tried to blame Watson for unconsciously being attracted to dangerous people... like nuh bruh. If the show was about Watson being the centre of some kind of plot and being manipulated into being just where they wanted him that would have been interesting, but as far as I recall that wasnt the case. It was just such a massive hand wave I couldn't stay invested after that even though I tried.
I am a fan of the original works and the 80s BBC series but I put up with the "modern adaptation" here because it was pretty fun with great production values. But I also bailed with Mary as a super assassin. A true "jumped the shark" moment. But to be honest I should have left after the Moriarty is craaaaazy shtick.
Maybe you were taking it a bit too seriously? I, while watching it, always understood that it was first and foremost a show with a very strong comedic element to it and only then an adaptation of something something a detective something, so by the end I mostly watched it for those comedic bits and it delivered, and I think that that's the same thinking that S. Moffat had as he leaned more and more into the wacky territory by the end of it
Yes! It became so over the top I couldn't watch it anymore. I particularly hated Moriarty and how they tried to force homoeroticism into his relation to Holmes.
Sherlock: Genius master of deduction. Also Sherlock: "I need to get the police here, so I'm going to shoot into the air in a crowded city, ignoring the basic fact of gravity"
A redditor who used to be stationed in Irak told of how a soldier once accidentally discharged an M4, bullet flew through the whole military camp, bounced off a metal object and injured another soldier in the leg.
I haven't yet watched the video and have no knowledge about projectiles whatsoever, nor do I know which scene you are talking about, so this might be a stupid question. If you'd indulge me, how did gravity play a part? I would've thought a bullet would just drop back down harmlessly if shot into the air?
@emdove bullets can travel fast through the air because they're shaped to be as aerodynamic as possible. Which means that their terminal velocity (max speed in air) can be very fast, enough to potentially kill. And that's just if you shoot straight up so that they come straight back down. If you shoot upwards at an angle, the likelihood is that it's going to start coming back down before it's lost it's horizontal velocity due to air resistance, because gravity is so strong compared with the mass of a bullet. It'll be slightly slower on the way down as air resistance has been pulling on it the whole way, but bullets are shot very fast from a gun in the first place, which means it's still likely to be at least wounding. In the clip he shoots almost straight up, so chances are the bullet loses most of its horizontal energy. The likelihood is that you won't hit anyone, but if you do it could be fatal, or at least wounding. A 9mm bullet has a terminal velocity somewhere between 150 and 250 feet per second, and bullets can penetrate skin at around 200 feet per second to 300 feet per second (lower end for the elderly because their skin tends to be thinner). So sure, sometimes a handgun bullet might be harmless after falling, but other times it will be fatal. It's inconclusive. It's a risk that cannot be accounted for. Even without that you might crack someone's car window suddenly and cause them to swerve to their doom or something. It's the kind of risk that makes no sense, because what's going to get the police to come is the sound of the shot right? So shoot it into soft dirt or something. Only shoot what you can see and are willing to destroy.
tbh what makes it sillier is that, unless I've seriously misremembered this, there's not *really* any need to get the police there quicker. I feel like the writers just thought it'd be a clever funny thing to have a character do, and decided to make it Sherlock.
@emdove I remember a specific instance from over 10 years ago where there were 4th of July fireworks in Lansing, MI and a woman watching the fireworks was killed by a falling bullet that came down from the sky that someone had shot into the air however far away. The downward momentum was forceful enough to still enter her skull. :(
I remember hearing this quote from someone, and it fits perfectly for this show: "This is how stupid person imagines and writes smart character." It might be harsh, but that's just how it is. I watched this show purely for actor performance, it was interesting in that regard. As a Sherlock this is borderline parody.
I heard that line too, I think it might have been from hbomberguy's Sherlock video, in fact. Might be misremembering but it feels right enough. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
I very much appreciate the editor section where you talk about how intelligence doesn't excuse or explain or shouldn't even correlate with being anti-social. Thank you for verbalising things I've always wanted to but haven't been able to.
I like how the criteria for Autism fit the picture just as well, if not better. There are a lot of issues with The DSM and even more issues with clinicians who are required to diagnose every patient they meet, based on the DSM. It's easy to label someone quickly, when the clinician doesn't have to bare the conquences of labeling of mislabeling a patient. Only psychiatry offers their professionals such lack of personal accountability and so much space to disregard patients. I think that system is seriously flawed. Then there's the problem of all those labels being used casually by everyone for various reasons, in many cases not really for the purpose of understanding someone better and helping them navigate relationships and social interactions, but actually to put someone down, make accusations or win an argument. And all of this for what? just as it was mentioned in that added clip, those labels are completely irrelevant to the story, just as they are often completely irrelevant in real life situations. Sometimes people just use them to sound more intelligent or impressive, but those labels create often more harm than good to officially diagnosed people. Tossing them around without consideration is not just a harmless partytrick for making new friends.
It's kinda annoying how often media plays into this. The lone wolf, the solo genius who is too busy to be polite, etc. Reminds me of why I had a soft spot for Burn Notice even with all it's hijinks. The show made a point, repeatedly, that even the best operatives will fail if they're alone. Lots of talk about how the lone spy like James Bond is a fantasy land and that you need a solid team to support and enabled your best operatives. The man who was too much of a dick to play nice with others got clubbed to death in his sleep since no one cared to keep watch for him.
I noticed this trend became really popular after Sheldon Cooper from Big Bang Theory. This trope has existed before Sheldon, but after Sheldon it just exploded into every Hollywood script. Suddenly every intelligent man is emotionally stunted.
The literary Holmes IS specifically mentioned as being quite anti-social. "Holmes ... loathed every form of society with his whole Bohemian soul" and when not working tends to stay on the couch, high on cocaine and reading or playing weird improvizations on his violin.
The Silence plot being dealt with off-screen by the Doctor's old friend who had never been mentioned before is such a horrendous, sloppy piece of writing. He really had no plan for that arc.
Sounds like the Chris Carter of the UK, if you've ever watched the X-Files (fantastic for the first handful of seasons or so): Mulder's sister, the various alien plots and powerful secret organisations etc. that were never paid off or went way off the rails because it wasn't ever intended to be used properly. It played well on the conspiracy interests of the 1990s but it ended up turning the later seasons and newer stuff into a clown show because they had 800 different plot threads they didn't have any plans for - and now needed to resolve. And the entire thing was totally unnecessary because the concept of a Believer and a Skeptic working Monster of the Week cases was extremely solid on its own.
@@wendyheatherwoodthat was actually infuriating. To this day I do not know why he needed to tie up every loose end of Matt Smith's run in one episode. You can leave some stuff for the next Doctor to pick up. And surely you could come up with a better resolution than the Silents were 'good guys actually, it was just a group of bad eggs that aren’t a problem anymore, I promise.' It’s just a narrative dead end for the sake of it.
Somehow that's worse considering that would imply they read the books like a middle-schooler that hasn't been taught media analysis yet. Moffat writes for a living how does he seem to have such an inability to tell an overarching story 💀🙏
Yeah BBC Sherlock was more similar to Sheldon Cooper from Big Bang Theory, a social pariah and emotionally stunted. In Jeremy Brett's portrayal, Sherlock was eccentric, can be arrogant at times but he was also sympathetic to the victims, in fact we see him bend the law to help people who could not be helped by the justice system. He may rub some people the wrong way, but he could be completely functional in society. I think many smart characters today have been hampered by the Sheldon Cooper trend.
Speaking on the atrocity of Sherlock drugging John. In the books, Holmes had performed an experiment that could have killed them both. Having only survived by Watson grabbing him and getting him out of the room, Holmes was kicking himself and called the experiment "unjustified even for myself, doubly so for a friend."
To be fair, sherlock was always with John, in case something went wrong. And it isn't like fiction is unfamiliar with changing a character's personality to fit the Story.
After actually reading most Sherlock Holmes stories, I began to feel offended over this show. The most insulting portrayal, however, was Irene Adler. I hated that she was a weird BDSM dominatrix when I first watched this tv show, but to read the original story made that portrayal even worse. :/ Irene would never!
For me it's not even the fact that she's an oversexed (most of her lines are about sex, ffs) dominatrix. It's the fact she's so dumbed down. She's there to look sexy and be suddenly and unexplainably in love with Sherlock. Her plan? What plan, it's all Moriarty. She can't even set up a good password for her phone. What the fuck is this? Moffat has a thing for this exact type of a female character. She'll tease and snark about how cool, dangerous and so much better at everything she is. But it's mostly told and not shown. In actuality she's just there to prop up the hero.
@ruthsagers1714 Is that about the books or the show? If it's the books, how pronounced is it? I was thinking of reading them, though I find that type of writing grating.
@@ultimatetreeman2652 Irene's an opera singer and actress in the books and only has 1 story written about her! Watson says something a long the lines of: "She's the only woman, and probably one of the only people, Holmes respected intellectually. But he does not love her." She also earns that admiration. As the video said though, as most of the stories are quite short, the characters aren't really fleshed out the way they would be in a full length novel unless it somehow helps Holmes crack the case.
@@ultimatetreeman2652 Ruth is talking about the Amazon series, probably. The male characters are wimps, the female characters are whiny cows. The books had strong male characters, and strong female characters (albeit there was a lot of spanking involved).
To this day my biggest beef with BBC Sherlock is still not being able to plug the charger into my phone without thinking of The Scene. Aside from becoming an ever-present fixture in my mind, it really is just an encapsulation of everything wrong about the way Sherlock makes deductions in the show
I enjoyed the show but havent rlly gone back to rewatch it in full ever. But that fkn scene plays in my head every time I struggle plugging in my charger or house key.
@@artisticgamer5827 Sherlock looks at the scratches by the charging port of a man's phone (presumably caused by trying to plug the phone in and missing the port) and deduces that the phone's owner must be an alcoholic
@@Flameclaw123cause you know, no one ever tries to plug their phone in when they're half asleep, puts in the wrong plugs. uses plug in speakers, works in fields that have lots of debris around or literally any of the million different ways phone ports get scratched XD
As with most Sherlock Holmes adaptations, Sherlock makes the mistake of trying to shoehorn peripheral characters (including Moriarty and Mycroft) into every single narrative because it creates an ensemble cast (and yes, throw in Irene Adler as the token love interest). Even the Granada series is slightly ( slightly though) guilty of this. A good rule of thumb is that Moriarty's significance is inversely proportional to any adaptation's quality.
@@LordVader1094 I'm not too fond of that movie, to be honest. Mostly because I think Holmes doesn't feel so much like Holmes as an action hero. But even there, Moriarty doesn't need to be Moriarty - you could make him anyone and not have to fall back on that easy solution.
Genuinely I think one of the reasons I ended up dropping Elementary was because of the way season 2 FIXATED on Mycroft and whether or not him and Joan were banging in any given episode. It just wasn't at all interesting and created unnecessary conflict between the main cast that imo didn't improve the show in any meaningful way. I guess he only stuck around for one season but for me the damage was done and I didn't tune back in for season 3
Sherlock went off the rails so many times. I still remember when he deduced the exact type of fountain pen and that it had an iridium nib by looking at some writing. There is absolutely no way to deduce the type of fountain pen or whether it has an iridium nib just by a sample. I laughed out loud when I heard that.
@samfann1768 "by the scratchiness in the downstroke of each letter, I can deduce that at some point this pen was dropped on its nib carelessly by a left-handed child. Either that or it's a Lamy."
I think my favorite Sherlock Holmes adaptation is Psych because of how they characterized Shawn (Sherlock character), Gus (Dr. Watson character), and the police investigators. it brings out the heart of what the Sherlock Holmes stories were while adding in more humor. Shawn is eccentric and very smart, but uses his smarts as a means to help people rather than just to boost his own ego. His and Gus' relationship shows both of their perspectives on things while also remaining friends and without any intense drama between them. There isn't any competition going on. And then the SBPD is shown as arrogant (specifically Lacitor whose name I dont know how to spell) when it comes to assuming motives and suspects. As an added plus, the crimes are enjoyable to watch.
Hello.. i have aspd . i think the segment you discuss (in a vague sense) how being anti-social does not make you smart. Thank you for this. People often assume because i have this disorder , it makes me a super genius. Ive seen people qish they had my disorder. They think of jt as something that makes you inherently smarter, less bias, less emotional. Pure analytical thinking skills. I pridemyself on my intelligence, but thinking having aspd is anything other than a detractor to my life, something that functions as a burden and a driver for further misery than ive already Experienced, is an insult. So ..thank you for this . I appreciate it.
The comparison to House MD is a good one and I always felt that BBC Sherlock with its fat-fetch portrayal of Holmes' anti-social behaviour was largely inspired by House. Which is ironic as House himself was a variation of Sherlock Holmes character. As for House however the story of a doctor who inspired him went a little different than it's said in the video. The story, as told in the "Son of Coma Guy" episode with John Larroquette, was that in his youth (14 or sth) House was impressed by a Japanese doctor who was hired in a hospital as a janitor. The guy was a brilliant doctor but descended from the traditionally lowest social class in Japan (which is a real thing and supposedly their discrimination sometimes still happens). No one liked him and no one respected him, unless they had a medical problem they couldn't deal with. Only then they would listen to him because they had no other option. House very clearly idolized this man to the point of becoming the same thing by his own choice.
Hell yeah! I was trying to find what episode of House that story was told in for so long before just giving up and continuing writing the script, thank you for letting me know what episode it was because I totally didn't remember all those details you just described
The 'deduction' that drove me nuts in the show was how he called out an in-show TV show about how obvious the answer was (or whatever) because of the character's pant leg. Assuming the show-within-a-show's costume design put that much thought into it, it doesn't mean the hypothetical writers or director had enough of the episodes planned out to deliberately include detail on the pant leg to give away the plot. If anything, he might find shows more interesting because small details may contradict the intended costume design and throw him off enough to make it kind of fun for him to watch ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
It was a reality show- a la Maury Povich or Jerry Springer (a paternity test show) but either way the way one styles one’s jeans are not more accurate than a paternity test. 😂
I had seen "Sherlock is Garbage, and Here's Why" which is how I think I got here, and you're both so right. I love the source material, and I enjoyed some of the colorful presentation of "Sherlock" (Benedict Cumberbatch in a sheet!) but when I found myself disappointed with the stories, I found myself thinking that the people MAKING the show were just not as smart as Sherlock (or Sir Arthur, by extension). I can't remember a single plot where the conclusion had the appropriate literary closure-- ends were not tied up neatly, and the vaunted deductions were rarely the source of the solution (at least not as they were explained). But when I was disappointed, I would keep watching, in the same way one will keep eating potato chips although they are not nourishing because they taste like the thing one really should be eating. I continue to love Freeman's Watson and wish he could have been in a different show. Finally, I feel compelled to wave the flag for Ace Holmes; even The Woman fascinated him because of her *brain* -- and "Sherlock" really messed it up. Thanks for the watch. I'm going to check out some of your other stuff.
Yeah I have "Sherlock is Garbage, and Here's why" on my favorite videos list so this one popped into my feed and watched it. Both are great breakdowns on how *bad* the BBC show was, the final episode was a disgrace to the Sherlock Holmes adaptations.
The 'Sherlock is garbage and here's why' video essay really changed my opinion of the show too, and made me realize all it's truly good at is stringing the viewer along. And you're so right about the people making the show not being as smart as they seem to think they are.
@@t.rae.storyteller Thats a bit unfair, it is a very high quality production with good cinematography and a lot of good actors and characters. Cumberbatch and Freeman were brilliantly cast. The guy playing Moriarty had a lot of fun, clearly. And Mrs. Hudson. They just werent the same characters as in the books. The only thing I would say was lacking was the stories.
Empathy is good, but it should never be considered one's sole motivation/justification. Also, you're absolutely correct. Book Holmes is a smart guy, who really cares deeply for his friends, and the people he solves cases for. He's not a sociopath, however you define it.
@@RedBanana_so you don't understand empathy or morals? Morals are the result of empathy, empathy to a certain point is also Linked to iq, higher iq most often leads to more empathy and higher morals(weird example would be that vegans seem to have a higher iq then most meat eaters).
It's always interesting that all modern Sherlock tries to be batman but ignores that a large part of batman is Bruce Wayne. He knows so much because he has access to so much. He owns his own satellites and he's a wealthy man with many connections. His information isn't pulled out of his ass, it's carefully collected from thousands of information databases made by others that he has access to. Tony stark is much the same and he regularly mentions how Jarvis and his ability to scan databases instantly is a huge part of his ability to do his work. Sherlock just "knows" and we're expected to go along with that. They want him to be a superhero.
I was pretty frustrated when the opening to episode 1 implied a mastery/interest of tech (texting all the reporters) that didn't carry into any of the mystery solving. It was included because it was cool.
Interestingly even the original stories had a better explanation than "he just knows". There Sherlock has a shelf full of books with notes on everyone who can be at least in someway considered a "person of public interest", be it noblemen, politicians, academics, criminals, businessmen, even some artists. He is often shown reading newspapers and is in close contact with a lot of policemen who know their fair share of people. And on the other hand he only has knowledge about people and especially topics relevant to criminal investigation. I think it's the first book where Watson makes a list of topics and how much Sherlock knows about them, and determines that he doesn't even know all the planets of the solar system or couldn't tell a rose from a violet, except when it comes to plants that could be used to poison someone.
@@TheHeavyshadow Correct. Holmes actually isn't entirely sure whether or not the earth orbits the sun, which Watson takes exception to as the kind of basic facts all school-age children should know. Holmes insists his mind needs to be orderly and as uncluttered as possible, irrelevant facts such as the positions of celestial bodies have no uses for his work.
@@olefredrikskjegstad5972This reminds me of the old (and, I suspect, probably apocryphal) story about Albert Einstein. It was said that if one asked Einstein for his phone number, he would stand up, walk over to the phone book, and consult it. Of course, the other person would but confused and ask him why he didn’t know his own number, to which Einstein would retort that it was pointless to clutter his brain with information he could simply look up.
the oc holmes has his irregulars who are his eyes and ears in the city, he goes out of his way be informed about various taxi routes, going ons in the city, connections hes made from various others hes helped. He knows things but hes also told things, hears things from others
15:13 I appreciate you pointing this out. Intelligence and emotion/empathy aren't mutually exclusive, no matter how many times this stereotype is churned out and glorified. We need more smart, well-rounded characters in the realm of media that happen to be emotional, and fewer Straw Vulcans that come across as parodies of intellect. Advanced emotions and more intellectual executive functions are both governed by the prefrontal cortex, after all.
Stupid people don't know how to write smart people. There's a great screen grab of a post on 4chan's /tv/ board about this show and how stupid the writers are.
All the really smart people I know are smart enough to have an appreciation for the value of kindness and decency. All the really mean people I've known have also been kind of dumb.
A part of this stereotype might be because autistic people (what was formerly known as asbergers) is overrepresented in highly intelligent people. The idea that autistic people don't have empathy is outdated, but we do struggle with cognitive empathy i.e. being able to recognize other people's feelings, as well as often display emotions differently than others. I'd argue that Sherlock fits both autism and adhd criteria pretty well, and definitely better than aspd. He struggles to behave appropiately/read others emotions on several occasions (and usually looks for John for help, like at his wedding), hyperfocuses on crimes while being unable to focus on things that bore him, doesn't notice bodily cues well, etc. I work in special education and it's not uncommon for children to try and label themselves "the bad kid" when they feel they're being pitied or patronized. Being labeled as a troublemaker or sociopath might not make you friends, but it gets you respect or at least hatred which isn't a judgement on your abilities, it's a judgement on character. Especially autism but also adhd might make people more forgiving of your struggles, but also means you'll be patronized and underestimated often, which is a judgement on abilities. Sherlock doesn't (openly) care what other people think of his character, he does care what they think of his abilities. Being open about his aspd (even if it's likely wrong) gets him respect he might not get with other diagnoses.
@@lilia3944 It's not even autism, because Insufferable Geniuses don't even make honest mistakes out of social awkwardness or not knowing better. They consciously act like jerks. Sure, there are quite a few socially awkward nerds portrayed in the media, but there are even more super-geniuses shown as justified in their behavior and meant to be rooted for at the expense of the unwashed masses. I don't want an anti-intellectual approach where people trying to be smart and rational are strawmanned as wrong in favor of emotional people armed only with gut feelings, but the current worship of "genius" also makes a mockery of true intelligence.
I'll add as a note for the autism/sociopathy thing: I have autism, and it's a common mistake to think that people with autism have low empathy. We don't. We have a behavioral skill issue that makes it SEEM like we don't care. We do, in fact we typically care deeply; I work with others who have autism as my job, and they experience the same thing. The problem is that we have poor theory of mind, and have to learn that just because WE would feel a certain way in a given situation or in reaction to something we say or do, doesn't mean someone else would feel that way. So it's not that we don't care about how others feel, or understand how emotions work. We're just incorrect about how others feel more often than neurotypical people.
Exactly. People with autism often have less developed cognitive empathy (recognizing emotions, reacting appropriately, expressing oneself) but do mostly have normal emotional empathy (they are able to feel the emotions of others deeply).
@@noahrodenburg7931 Yes, exactly. Of course, the right therapist can teach us cognitive empathy pretty easily, once we learn the logical framework, because we're pretty logically oriented. It's just that emotional cause and effect isn't always intuitive if you don't already have the talent. My therapist is actually a speech pathologist by specialty, and our goal is effective communication. :>
Depends on the case, autism is a disorder with a wide range of symptoms, so it isn't a sure thing that everyone will be equal in their mental hardships.
I believe that it's the neurotypicals who are more likely to lack "theory of mind." They are often the ones who insist that the autistic person is acting out of malice. There's a good article about this on the Spectrum Confessions Substack.
Your point about empathy is so important. It's not cool to not care about people, it doesn't make you smarter or more logical. In fact, whenever I fail to read a situation or I manage to accidentally hurt someone because I wasn't able to take their feelings into account, I feel stupid. If you don't feel empathy, you lose a potentially valuable data point that could help you understand a situation.
My biggest gripe with Sherlock was putting Moriarty in season 1. Gave the show nowhere to build to since Moriarty is the only real 'big bad' that exists in the canon, and even then it was really only for one story. I also found myself liking the show each season that aired. I don't think I even watched season 4.
Whats funny is Moriarty was a 2 book villain. Hardly a "big bad" at all. And Irene Adler, ONE story. And in her story, she was the hero. Sherlock and the Duke were the villains. @@Gittykitty
@@AzguardMike well, considering the times, having a bad guy pop in 2 books was basically having a 'big bad'. Most novels just have one off bad guys, that is until recently where now we have over arcing stories that tell us how bad the bad guy is. Frankly I miss one-shot stories, that way if I don't like one story I can skip it and go to another.
Sherlock has had other big villains, but moriarty is popular because he ‘killed’ Holmes and left most of the readers with nothing else to chew on for years. He’s also one of the only villains to be relevant to more than one storyline, but even in the valley of fear, he’s just a background character.
I really like you tying BBC Sherlock to the great man myth. It really reminds me of another UK crime drama called Luther. In it the main characters are deplorable people who get away with it because they're just so above mere mortals by the virtue of their intelligence. Overall these characters just seem like smart people as envisioned by people who are not that smart to begin with.
This sort of thing is what put me off Terry Pratchett's books. He really does love characters like the Patrician and Granny Weatherwax who consider themselves to be above the common herd and needing to control, trick and guide them for their own good, and--since their intelligence is treated like a super power and the common people are comedically stupid and ignorant--they're basically justified in that outlook. He's not the only left-wing author to kind of back himself into the Great Man theory like this.
@@paulgibbon5991 The difference with Pratchett is that it is meant to be ironic. Discworld isnt a serious social commentary. It is social commentary but it isnt serious.
@@TheSuperappelflap Thing is, you can only promote a bad thing "ironically" for so long before you're just promoting a bad thing. Ironic or subversive presentations of bad people doing bad things only work if we eventually have the story make it clear that they ARE doing bad things. Comparisons might be the absurd machismo in "Fight Club", or "The Wolf Of Wall Street" critiquing capitalism. Even then, there's no shortage of people who miss the point and take the protagonists of those stories as straight-up heroes. There's never any punchline to Vetinari being an autocrat. He never has a downfall, he never has a realisation that he's wrong. No likeable character ever decides "this guy's a tyrant, he needs to go", he's always on the right side of any crisis or dispute, he gets multiple paragraphs to act as the voice of the author in any book he's in, and the only people he ever hurts on-screen happen to be evil people who had it coming (or else played for laughs).
Very happy to hear you reference Elementary as a good example of adapting Sherlock. I've recently discovered it and love that it doesn't make the same mistakes BBC Sherlock did.
i feel like this the problem with most modern mainstream superheroes stories as well... i know the world of comic book superheroes started out as a campy, nonsensical "dumb"-fun action stories that was basically a product of male fantasies made manifest into papers, but during the late 90's till like, early 2010's, there are times where the Superhero scenes were a balance between pure dumb fantasy and extreme reality, Superman is explained to gain his power from the sun, and he is able to fly because earth's gravity is weaker than Krypton, which also explained why he is weak against Kryptonite and set up an obvious limitation to his powers... Batman is only one step away from being the villain he is fighting every night, which is why he has a LOT of strict codes that most of the time being a double-edged swords, Iron-Man, was a genius AND an asshole (he is not an asshole because he is a genius) and he was humbled little by little by all the villains he fought where he constantly has to developed new armors and weapons to even the odds, and just like Batman's moral code, it oftenly bites him in the ass in the end... Hell, in the Guardians of the Galaxy series, it was explained that all human characters like Star-Lord and Kitty Pryde had a translator implanted on their neck that allows them to speak and hear aliens in English (an obvious assisting-device, sure but at least it's something)... but nowadays everything seems to be evolving backwards at a full speed, Superman's power is whatever the fuck the writers wants it to be, Batman is a cynic, and often time he did a LOTS of things that made his no kill-rule seems a bit redundant (and he somehow always ended up with some sorts of mulitversal, godly powers for some reason), Iron-Man, much like Sherlock in the show, is an asshole BECAUSE he is a genius, and his armours is going to be whatever the fuck the writers needs them to be, created by materials that might as well appeared out of thin air, and now everyone in the marvel universe seems to be able to spoke to any alien species in the multiverse and vice versa, no implants, no, "all-tongue" explanation needed, every alien species seems to be able to speak and understand American English perfectly
I never thought Sherlock was a sociopath. I always thought he just wanted people to think that as a defense mechanism. The nature of his childhood trauma supports the idea even if it's all revealed in the stupidest finale I've ever seen.
I think, this is more on the direction team. They knew what they were doing, and that thing was a precious special snowflake that could capture a very specific audience group. They nailed it. The point was never to make a good Sherlock, the point was to make a viral one
We dont talk about season 4. And yes, it is a defense mechanism. I did the same thing until I was 15, 16 years old. A grown man acting this way is ridiculous. But then, it does seem this show was written for edgy 16 year olds like me, so there is that.
On the point about Sherlock being a "High Functioning Sociopath", my read was always that Sherlock was misdiagnosing himself and that it was just an edgy label he gave himself, and it becomes apparent as the series progresses that it isn't true.
My favourite moment from the Holmes' stories I have read comes from A Case of Mistaken Identity. At the end, Holmes is so disgusted by the behaviour of the culprit (though technically he has committed no crime) that he threatens to thrash him with his riding crop. I can't imagine the Sherlock in Sherlock ever doing this.
Medical clinician here. I've always found this show presumptuous and the deductions made to be contrived. For example in one scene Sherlock founds a dead woman and deduces by the moisture of only a part of her garment her origin because it rained some time before and the wind blew in some or other direction, but in real life that's BS. Clothes dry or are impossible to tell just by glancing at them which side is moist while rain scatters all around and so on. I've come across many psychotic patients and mood disorder patients but outside of criminals I've never come across an anti-social personality type. Real life clinical knowledge and experience tends to be different to textbook knowledge for example one would expect a large percentage of the population to be in cardio-respiratory failure because they have a respiratory rate of 25 with even an accelerated heart rate but usually these are just people who are intermittently hyperventilating or aroused or mildly anxious or physically decompensated (unfit) or overweight. Oh and don't get me started on pharma companies which work backwards, you have well patients who have very high lipases or d-dimers or CRPs which imply - pancreatitis, lung or deep venous clots/emboli or sepsis meanwhile they are spurious results or mild cases of gastroenteritis or a dental cavity.
In fairness, you're not recalling the scene correctly. He doesn't tell the moisture at a glance, you see him run his gloved fingers across her to see where is moist. Second, he just confirms that her clothes are also wet behind the collar, suggesting it was turned up against the wind, and confirms that the umbrella is dry (something that would be obvious), deduces that the winds were too strong for an umbrella, and compares against weather in different areas. It's not all that far fetched (although arguably lucky that the weather was relevant in that situation) I really dislike Sherlock (especially the later seasons), but the entire deduction sequence with the lady in pink is at least decent imo
@@frazfrazfrazfraz Even so, that would not be noticeable or one would not be able to perceive it through sensation. Most people don't turn up their collars, and had the coller been soaked it would have been soaked through and through. It's extremely contrived the way medical shows are contrived. It would have to rain that much to wet just one side of the clothing, and not through and through. Terrible show. Because reality is boring. Medical shows are terrible too.
@@peterc.1419 You are wrong and cannot admit it; my clothes have rarely gotten soaked through in the rain and one side is noticeably more wet especially if it is windy in that direction. Also, wtf does you being a medical clinician have to do with anything? Appeals to authority are a fallacy; I am not going to just blindly believe what you say just because you said that. You said that in an attempt to make your comment carry more weight.
@@pyropulseIXXI In the show, the woman doesn't even look soaked and Sherlock determines the wetness by touching her collar. This is hidden from the audience we can't determine touch through the monitor. The claim is then there is a difference in moisture between one side of the cloth and the other. So on the one hand the show hides the so called clues from the audience so they can't really determine them on their own, on the other the show contrives the physical condition of the clothing, the weather conditions and the atmosphere in the room the body was found to be just so that there is a discernible difference which must allign with travel along a certain direction. It's contrived. I'm glad you have your own opinion and you can disagree but I'm not convinced. And I live in a very windy and wet city. People don't walk uniformly in straight lines and I've undressed enough violence victims in my old trauma unit to know what wet clothes look like on me, and on others. No appeal to authority but if you read the rest of my post you'd see it had to do with other aspects shows get wrong which are based on medical science, and how textbook knowldege can be defficient for those who see the real world. Shalom to you.
@@peterc.1419 It is a TV show; I don't get how this is an issue. You can deduce this in real life, albeit only under very specific circumstances (and it likely wouldn't work except in rare conditions where this event precisely occurred). I also live in an area that gets windy and rainy from time to time, and when I rode my bike home really quick, I was noticeably more wet on the front than the back. If a rainy wind was buffeting you from one direction the entire time, and you were heading home and maintained generally the same direction, this isn't totally unbelievable. Your reasoning is correct, in general windy rain conditions, if someone were outside for anything other than a short duration, but this leeway for the show is not that big a deal; in fact, it enhances this terrible show.
I love the casual mention of Elementary, the forgotten or hated adaptation. I really wanna see a nice length video essay on that. Lucy Liu as Watson was an inspired choice. Wasn't a fan of Irene or Moriarty but I remember being instantly enomored with the show after not really taking to 'Sherlock'. I watched them both many years after they had come out and wondered why Sherlock was so popular while Elementary was derisive.
I heard people speak negatively of Elementary and went into the show wanting to dislike it because, come on, an American adaptation with a bunch of changes? It sounded awful. But I couldn't hate it. In fact, I ended up loving it and especially Lucy Liu's Watson and the effect she had on Sherlock.
Elementary is my favorite interpretation of Sherlock Holmes. A lot of that I think can be attributed to John Lee Miller's performance being actually incredible. The vigorous way he moves and the subtle changes in his expression as he's rapid firing deductions isn't in service of making him look cool, but to show how volatile he is, that he needs to get his thoughts out before they eat him alive. It's the first time I looked at Holmes and went "wow, being as attentive as he is isn't all it's chalked up to be, he's literally being tortured in his own mind". He's incredibly flawed as a human, and I think Elementary does a really good job of portraying that and making him grow. Like his battle with his addiction isn't something that's a one and done deal, it's treated as a constant temptation that comes back again and again, testing him against this support network he's built with those close to him. S1 and S4 Sherlock are extremely different people, but it's not an instant thing. We see how he makes a conscious effort to change in the episodes, and how that change is brought about by Watson. Being with Watson really changes how he interacts with others, from little things like actually knocking on doors instead of breaking in, to bigger things like showing empathy to the families of the victims. He becomes better with the influence of those people around him and I think that's great.
Elementary's handle of character emotions is peak writing. It's nuanced, rich, and seems to be what naturally flows from these established characters. Compared to Sherlock where characters act gaudy and prancing and the emotional beats can be boiled down to "Holmes and Watson should f**k each other already" which is spat out by characters themselves seven times in episode 1. And we're supposed to fill in the gaps and intuit a deep meaningful connection between them. Arrrrgh.
@@庫倫亞利克 Yeah, that's something I noticed as well. I really appreciate shows that take the time to let their characters act like adults. Conflicted, sometimes irrational, sometimes irresponsible adults, sure, but adults, rather than caricatures. Sherlock committed to the caricature style more and more as time went on (something shared by other shows such as Castle, one should note), which completely lost me. Elementary, while also upping the stakes in weird ways from time to time, never really took huge shortcuts on characterization.
"Elementary" is neither forgotten, nor hated. It has two Emmy nominations. It lasted for seven seasons and had a satisfactory ending. Currently it has an IMDb rating of 7.9/10. Plus, there is one thing that I will always respect this show for - that it featured two leading characters of the opposite sexes and yet never even hinted at a possibility for them to get romantically involved. Given the fact that in most mainstream western shows pure friendship between men and women is such a rarity, "Elementary" does stand out.
Yep, Watson is really strong individual on his own in this version, and Sherlock is clearly a kind person even when he isn't direct about it. And their friendship is just precious
And the set/production design is amazing. It's like they have a fully preserved Victorian town, they have furniture and appliances I've never seen outside of illustrations. Most modern 'historically accurate' versions only carry over things we still use and understand- like, say a production faithfully only uses items produced before 1915, but only things which are recognizable. This world in this version includes things that completely fell out of use, like actually transporting a full would including this you look at and think WHAT IS THAT because no one has used one since 1943. I'm sure I'm not making sense, but yeah the set and dressing is fascinating in that adaptation.
I was recently at a Sherlock Holmes conference where one of the speakers went through the DSM in regard to Sherlock Holmes using the original stories. It's interesting to see someone do this with this particular AU adaptation also, as he claims to be a sociopath. I really thought it was just a flippant comeback to being called a psychopath, but a lot of fans have taken it as a serious claim on Sherlock's part.
@1:03:34 this scene is framed to give the impression that it's the way he clasped his hands that clued Sherlock into his handedness, but in this frame you can also see that the watch is on his left wrist. That's also pretty circumstantial evidence, but it's more solid than the hand clasping, so that's what I would've focused on if I wrote the BBC show.
You have a good point on the watch; but I think it's even more significant than you have made clear - a person wearing a watch on their left hand is more standard, but specifically because this is opposite to the right hand, and therefore does not get in the way for right-handed people. People who are left handed might be more likely to choose to wear their watch on the right wrist, or else use other strategies to stop a watch from getting in the way - which they could have shown in the show, as a little extra clue, but apparently they didn't
The character of sherlock in the book, for me always was closer to the autistic spectrum diagnostic than ASPD, it is obvious and when I was at university I even did a presentation in clinical psychology class about it, we do not have enough information in the canon to make the diagnosis but he is marginally close
Honestly, Sherlock, in just about every version of the series I’ve come across, has always struck me as being very ADHD. From the inability to focus on things that bore him to the intense hyperfocus on the things that interest him. Plus, in the book, he apparently describes c0caine (which is actually sometimes used by, particularly undiagnosed, ADHDers as a way of coping) as being ‘wonderfully stimulating’ - an affect that, from what I’ve heard, is most common for people with ADHD (as c0caine increases dopamine levels).
@@RedBanana_ I tough about it and I exclude for me it is more savant syndrom than ADHD because in the book it is explicitly said that he reduce his field of knowledge to only what help him solve crimes, in ADHD usually it is more often the inverse we have multiple domain of interest and interest while here Sherlock is hyperfixated on his detective skill, also, his use of drug seems to me more for "doping" than recreational, for me he use cocaine for staying awake and thinking more rapidly, and opium to calm his nerve when he is to emotional to think
@@RedBanana_ ADHD and ASD are highly comorbid, so his character could easily be interpreted to have both. One of my good friends and also one of my family members have both diagnoses, so it's not unusual. Even if the original "canon" Sherlock doesn't have ADHD and ASD, those traits could still contribute to a solid Sherlock interpretation. My friend and uncle are very empathetic, which is so unlike the many anti-social interpretations of Sherlock lately, and that empathy is important to his original character. His character also have interesting insights and perspectives that make him great at his craft. These different ways of viewing and understanding the world are advantageous in his investigations, but detrimental in situations where he's expected to think and behave like "everyone else." His friendship with Watson could be leveraged to not only help his investigations, but support him through the challenging personal situations that arise during the investigations. I can see a version of this that is quite nuanced and able to portray tense and engaging plots without sacrificing compassion.
As both a psychology researcher looking at neurodiversity and an autsitc/adhd human myself, absolutely. In this show (if memory serves) he seemed more trifecta autism/adhd/ocd, but in every adaptation I've ever seen they give him the "autistic savant" treatment. Not ideal representation, but definitely there!
Definitely agree with the point about Holmes' very *explicit* sociopathy in the show. I've seen something similar play out with the Kenneth Branagh Poirot movies - they've taken what was an aspect of the character that you could *infer* as being OCD, and kind of Flanderised it. I suppose with Holmes, there's maybe room to say that someone with a lot of traits of sociopathy would realistically know that and research it and make peace with it... but it doesn't need to be his rationale for half of the things that Stephen Moffat and Mark Gatiss have him do.
It would be genuinely cool if they made a version of sherlock with an empathy disorder so he physically cannot relate to others, and explore how that would affect his character, but they didn’t do that. They misrepresented a disorder. Just slapped the "edgy" label on him.
@@offbranddorito9668 - Yeah, I think the problem with that is that, if they wrote him that way, they wouldn't be able to have him randomly act like a really decent and empathic person at some point near the third act of every episode to be like "aha, gotcha, you thought he was an asshole when we kept telling you that, but he's actually amazing, aha!" It's weird that Moffat got two shows at once and decided to do the same thing with both of them.
BBC Sherlock isn't clinically sociopathic, he just *thinks* labeling himself a sociopath is cool and somehow places him above consequences. And so, incidentally, does Moffat.
@@庫倫亞利克 - Yeah, kinda reminds me of the Vulcans in Star Trek. They're not actually logical, they just call whatever they can reason their way into thinking "logic" and act superior. =/
I hate that Poirot adaptation with a burning passion. David Suchet IS Poirot. No one will ever be able to come close to that performance. No one should attempt to. Even though that show started in 1989, it being a period piece, it still holds up to this day and we dont need a new version. The new adaptation is also far too focused on looks. Everything looks too colorful and the characters look too eccentric, which just detracts attention away from the story. Just because you have a fancy digital camera that can film in extremely high definition and extremely sharp focus, and you have digital editing to turn up the vibrance, doesnt mean that you should. I never read any Sherlock Holmes books, or see other adaptations, before this BBC show, so I didnt find it offensive, and it was well made. Looking back now it is a bit too edgy and the mysteries are kind of dumb. Also, season 4 is the worst thing I have ever seen. It managed to be a worse season 4 than season 4 of Fringe. And thats impressive.
Sherlock was the show that made me realize how modern media content works. Watch it, ideally binge, be overwhelmed, DON'T reflect on it, never watch it again.
True, Elementary!Holmes could be abrasive at times but you never feel the screenwriter yelling into your ear "He's a genius, you see? He's entitled to be a jerk!"
@@庫倫亞利克 There's even entire plot lines (particularly one with Detective Bell) about how his behavior impacts those around him, the investigations, his own life, etc.
I'm not well-versed on the original Arthur Conan Doyle stories, but seeing this video and hbomberguy's analysis has led to me to understand that Elementary by CBS did their Sherlock Holmes adaptation so faithfully, that works for the modern/present setting. Jonny Lee Miller and Rod Dougherty put out a better adaption by many, many MILES!
@@gilless429 Oh How much I had loved that! All of that, Captain Greg and Joan's influence brought out a more humane version of Sherlock without compromising his intelligence. Remember that episode where he stopped going to therapy because he thought He was smarter than all of the people there, no one would understand what he goes through. Jonny's Sherlock knows he is the smartest, but he learns not to piss those people who aren't like him. BTW I have a whole anther appreciation for Sherlock in just his therapy session, or that part of the CBS's Elementary.
@@keysburntgucci9016 to add on, there's an episode where Sherlock says Joan should seek to become exactly like him but stay as she is because who she is makes him a better person. He acknowledges he isn't the best person and want to be better
Sherlock: "Moriarty having a secret twin is fucking stupid and so are you for thinking that" Also Sherlock: "This is Eurus Holmes, she's Sherlocks secret sister"
About the sociopathic argument: the writer said the one calling SH a sociopath is Sherlock himself, and we don't have to believe him. So I can easily let it pass bcs he might be using this argument as a shield to his feelings.
16:38 I'm glad you bring that up bc I feel like a lot of people dismiss that canon Holmes, imo, displays a lot of symptoms of ASD. Not to mention that a lot of people with ASD also a) interpret him as being on the spectrum and b) relate to him. While thank God the BBC doesn't go down the ASD route (I think partly bc ASD doesn't seem as "cool" or "edgy" as "sociopathy"), it would be an interesting route for future adaptations to take bc not only it's more book accurate compared to psychopathy/sociopathy, it can really show the audience that people like these have always existed even back when these labels haven't been invented yet
I'm so angry at BBC Sherlock for dropping the ball on Milverton* (who has a different name now but whatever) because in the Sherlock Holmes canon this is the personal beef villain!!! Holmes gets so worked up about this blackmailer, calls him the worst man in London, actually loses intellectually and is forced to act outside the law, there's personal drama with Holmes and Watson when Holmes doesn't want to take Watson with him to Do A Crime and Watson is like "I will call the police on you right now if you don't let me protect you by being there" and when they break into Milverton's house there's another victim of Milverton on a revenge quest and she kills him while H&W burn the blackmail material and run away it's got fucking e v e r y t h i n g use more of it!!!!!
Based on what you’ve said, it seems like the anime ‘Moriarty the Patriot’ (another Sherlock Holmes story, sort of. Like, I don’t want to call it an adaptation because of how much of it is its own story. Especially because, as the name suggests, it is Moriarty-centric) actually got a lot of that right. I will admit that it *does* actively tie Moriarty (or at least, in this, the Moriarty brothers) into just about everything, but that’s kind of a given since he’s the main character in *Moriarty* the Patriot.
@@split776 One thing I will say is the manga is much better than the anime, so if you get around to watching the anime and enjoy it, I’d highly recommend checking out the manga.
I don't think Stephen Moffat should be allowed to serialise work - he's great at doing one offs (Blink) but when he's given too much space and creative time it just becomes a big wet soggy mess filled with his own ego as a sexist aging detached scottish man. He turned Sherlock Holmes, who was capable of incredible acts of compassion, wit, charm - all driven by his amazing powers of observation and inductive reasoning (yes I know he says it's deduction but technically it's not) into: Shouty Dr Who. A man whos powers and intelligence and access to time travel might as well make him a wizard - eventually a sexist aging detatched scottish wizard... I don't want a wizard, I want a detective, and I don't think it's unfair to expect the archetypal detective to be a detective.
My opinion of Moffat as a whole is that he's a good bordering on great writer who needs an editor to keep him in check, and he's a terrible show runner that not only lets his own stories get away from him, but also does a really bad job of guiding the other writers working under him.
But wizards and detectives are the same thing, just the fantasy is different. Magic = Logic (Machina). All the detectives on these shows are representations of psychic people in the closet (that's why most of the main characters are gingers, too).
A little correction about Doctor House. His inspiration was not someone who was an ass but who was always right. His inspiration was a Janitor in a hospital. He was an outcast, an untouchable (EDIT: I was told he was a Japanese Bukaru actually). He didn't care about the way he looked or acted because he knew he would never, ever be accepted. But at one point he and his friend had a bad fall, and the doctors couldn't figure out what was wrong with his friend. And so they called the Janitor. Because, despite everything, that guy was actually an excellent doctor. Because skill trumped everything else, and the Janitor saved his friend's life. House was always a bit of an ass, a bit arrogant, but it was his accident that truly jaded him. He became profoundly unhappy, and in return he began to believe the world was nothing but misery with lies of kindness in them. But never, ever lost his compassion. In fact, he keeps people away to avoid getting his judgement biased, which make him look aloof and misanthropic. I remember people talking about House on Tumblr, and some were very adamant that the guy should be fired. And others came and said the opposite. They said that, as people who went undiagnosed for years, people whom the doctors never believed, never cared enough, House was an angel. Yes, he was an ass, but he gave a crap and never cared about his reputation. I think House is an unhappy Holmes, but an Holmes nonetheless.
From a fellow HouseHead, thank you for understanding the character, especially why he drove others away. And why he stays a doctor (people say he just needs a puzzle and has no empathy for people at all), better than 99% of the other "devotees" out there.
@@tannerholechek5873 He is a doctor. However, because of his status as an Untouchable in India, he is forbidden from practicing medicine. So he works at the hospital as a janitor.
Yes, I am one of your viewer who discovered you when Sherlock BBC became famous. Yes, I was interested about the art of deduction and watch your videos for that reason. And yes, I am still interested in watching your content. You have a way of speaking and presenting that I can't find anywhere else. I look forward to see your new content and how you will adapt science and psychology with your own style.
Thank you, you have put into words the little things in many Sherlock Homes adaptations that have frustrated me. Sadly, the first Homes story I ever encountered as a child was "The Speckled Band" where I felt cheated by the fact that I did not feel that the murder method was actually possible. As a child who was quite interested in snakes I knew that constrictors do not waste energy wrapping around prey they cannot eat. And the constrictor described in the story was not large enough to eat a full grown woman.
Doyle should probably have been firm with ending the Sherlock Holmes series when he "killed off" Sherlock. A lot of the later stories were very uninspired and paint-by-numbers.
I mean let’s be real, he was writing in the late 1800s…. Almost nobody would have had that specific general knowledge about snakes and ACD almost certainly didn’t lol
@@null_doesnothing2487 Hmm, that may be true, it was quite a while ago that I read the story. But in that case you have the problem that venomous snakes do not use their venom on things that are neither a threat nor food. A sleeping woman would count as neither of these things even if the viper was used to receiving food in that location. Snakes are normally quite shy and timid creatures.
The Van Buren Supernova bit was the point where I started realizing that the writers held the audience in contempt. Having a mystery like that set up without allowing the audience any realistic chance to figure out the solution is just disrespectful to the viewers' intelligence. A good mystery, I've always found, is one where the audience can pick up on the deductive process from watching enough, and particularly one that will allow clever viewers to figure out the solution before the characters. This series consistently mocked any audience member that tried to figure out the mystery, as if to say "lol, thinking you could be a fraction as smart as Sherlock? Go back to mindless watching, you insignificant peasant." The scenes of the Empty Hearse club were the most blatant middle finger at the audience that just wanted to be engaged in the mystery, but it was pretty much constant throughout.
I'd love to see a show of a detective who can read minds or see into the future and mimic this outlandish behaviour from the show as a means of covering up their ability, I think that would be really fun to both watch and write
One thing on elementary. While it is true that it portrays sherlock as broadly more competent at detectiving than the other detectives, he also has different methods. He quite often will do various shades of illegal things to gain access to the information he needs, stuff which would get that evidence rejected from court and potentially even get prosecutions thrown out entirely. So while he might be a bit better than everyone else, not restricting himself to the same ruleset as the police is the main thing that gives him an edge through the cases he solves. Honestly its the same sort of problem that I have with the show house. Its difficult to show the differences in ability of people when they aren't playing by the same rules, though house has that problem MUCH worse.
Yes, but if I'm not mistaken, he also get punishment for doing so and show the consequences of it. The Mentalist also doing the same for Patrick Jane. And it feels neat
It was great to hear your thoughts on the BBC Sherlock series; I have a love/hate relationship with it as well. Have you seen the Japanese Miss Sherlock series before? It would be neat to know what you think of that series and how it compares against BBC Sherlock and Doyle's stories/characters.
54:19 She was bi. They stated that during her introduction. Sherlock didn't awaken her heterosexuality. When she states she's gay, it's intended to be a blanket term for "not straight." It was still poorly handled, but I figured I'd point that out.
House MD is not necessarily an example of "He is smart therefore he can be an ass". At least not in every season. As much as I agree with your opinion about most part of the show I think there is a part of the show worth mentioning. We see house lossing a lot because of his behaviour. In Sherlock the main character never gets punished for his terrible treatment of other people. In house we see a lot of punishment and regret in house character. especially in later seasons. It is the most visible in the whole "House going to jail" plot. It starts with him not being able to be there for cuddy and him losing Cuddy his last chance for "And they lived hapily ever after". The loss he can't deal with. Then we see him having a psychotic episode and driving his car into cuddy's house. He never tries to get smaller punishment. He knows he done wrong and he wants to be punished. In every second of the rest of the show every single character reminds viewer about how terrible of a person house is. In the psychiatric hospital he gets punished for trying to outsmart every single person there. The story of him in the hospital ends with him accepting the treatment and cooperating with the staff. In the cery ending of the show we see his best friend telling the viewer how terrible of a person house was. In the ending of the season 4 his actions lead to the death of his best friends girlfriend and show doesn't try to forget to show the viewers about how terrible it was. When I was watching it I almost cried looking at the pain Wilson was in.You can't help but seeing House as the villain. Not even forgeting how whenever wilson and house had a fight about how you should treat a patient the show clearly wanted you to side with wilson. The show sometimes just literally tells you how poisonous being around house is.
I think it's just the fact that the other characters are all bark and no bite until the very end. "Oh House is so awful. House don't do that, it hurts my feelings. House that is morally wrong. House you seem to be unable to express empathy or pity towards anyone but yourself." It feels like the viewer accepts that House is awful and unlikable but for some reason the characters in the show continue to be friends with him, employ him, date him, admire him etc for years and even at points where viewers only pity or hate him. His most undeniable redeemable trait is his intelligence so there's no other character trait of his that we could attribute this to. This doesn't include the benevolence of the other characters, who love him no matter what because??? Meanwhile they use it as an unhealthy justification for enablement of his drug use/disregard for everyone (except the occasional time where he shows care to people who actively appreciate his intelligence and attribute it to virtue).
Is everyone missing the fact that House is a deeply traumatized man with brutal chronic pain, who is an addict? The people around him gave him multiple chances and were there for him because he’s still a human being and deserves compassion. And he was an excellent doctor who couldn’t have possibly done everything he did if he didn’t feel deep compassion for his patients
@@maddieb.4282 "I wish someone had just cut off this injured leg because the pain makes me hate everyone and everything around me." "Sorry House, despite all the ridiculous shit that you get up to and the insane medical techniques you pull off while turning medical science into improv science fiction, simply removing your leg would be unethical."
@@mchjsosde Sometimes even people who are complete arseholes just draw people into their orbit if they are truly great in some way. My grandfather was one - a politician and raging narcissist, but people loved and believed in him, even his sons whom he physically and emotionally abused as children. The characters in House _don't_ always stick around him. By the end he's almost lost everyone. They put up with him because they believe the good of his deeds outweighs how fucking awful he is, until they just can't take it anymore, and most of them do reach that point.
I had the same sort of reaction to Sherlock. At first I was hooked on the acting, the modern take, the fast pacing, the look of it, the way they visually used text overlays to highlight the clues Sherlock was processing, etc. But the further the shows and seasons went by I felt like something was off but I had describing what bothered me. After the show had concluded, I had seen the criticisms, and revisited the show, I started to see all it's faults that I overlooked when I was riding the initial emotional high of seeing it for the first time. There are still a few episodes I still like and I still adore the characters, I just wish the show was better. I neither have the time nor energy to delve any deeper into my criticism.
One minor error, if I may: On "House MD", the doctor who inspired House wasn't an asshole. This was in Japan, and the doctor was of a class of persons who are considered low. He actually worked as a janitor. However, when doctors couldn't figure out what was going on, they called this janitor -- because he was right.
so i'm on track to be diagnosed with ASPD (hooray...?) and also have autism, ocd, ptsd, and adhd (yay comorbid disorders lmao) tired of abusive and shitty behaviors getting conflated with sociopathy just the same way that juvenile and oversensitive behaviors are conflated with autism and hooboy sherlock is a good example of... kind of both of those, honestly? not only do we continue to ignore how these disorders are massive spectrums and can in fact include a ton of mature and loving people, but it also puts the blame for things like abuse and cruelty on disorders rather than abusers themselves. aspd definitely makes it difficult to not engage in some shitty stuff (i've dealt with being a chronic liar from that + ptsd reasons for ages, and have a big history of petty theft and aggression around other folk for instance) but as it turns out we're not Just our disorders and can in fact make the Decision not to do those things and to self reflect in our own ways, which is very much possible despite being more difficult without the empathy and remorse chips. It's obv harder to resist certain impulses and behaviors without empathy, but it definitely doesn't mean you're slated to be a bad person, and it's so so dumb that in the year of 2023 we are STILL conflating abusive douchebags with people with psychiatric disorders. You can be both of those things! But you can also be one or the other. Sherlock should have said he's a high-functioning egotistical asshole, because that would be the correct description. My psychiatrist would laugh if told to diagnose him with aspd or asd lol
I feel like a lot of people incorrectly assume that empathy is required for compassion. And I _know_ a lot of people mix them up, which makes the stigma even worse
@@PhoebeTheFairy56yes!! You do not need empathy to be a good person! Being empathetic just means you understand/ relate to others' emotions, that does not inherently make you good or people with low empathy bad
Cannot agree more, if you read about child development, the biggest 'booster' of child intelligence level is actually speaking and socialising (written before I watched further to hear exactly this thought😂)
Sir Arthur Conan Doyle does a masterfull portrayal of a person suffering from both bi-polar disorder and ADHD a century before any of those terms excisted. He is nowhere near actually BEING psychopathic/sociopathic, he just refers to himself as such, probably just because he wants to. As with anything else he does. Did you follow the digital meta-content while the show ran? Dr. Watson blogpost etc? That was quite a nice addition because it made the story-telling closer to how it is actually written, we only see Holmes through Watson`s eyes... Finesse. 😄
despite not being book actuate, the best character this show had was Mycroft. He wasn’t just surface level, he was complex, he was contradictory in the most human way and he was genuinely interesting. Then they altered his character hugely in the final episode and almost ruined him.
You did such a great job kindly explaining misunderstandings about deduction and directing interest back to real information. I'm excited to see you do more of this with other subjects! And psychology is SO misrepresented, and it's SO cool and fun to learn about, so i really look forward to your videos about it
I thought the whole point was that he used the title of sociopath to protect himself by pretending not to have emotions. This is similar to what I did when around my abusive mother, because she would use my emotions against me. I became cold and unfeeling when she was present in the same way Sherlock is around most people, especially his brother. Given his childhood, this makes FAR more sense to me than him not understanding what a sociopath is or the contents of the DSM.
I'm glad I actually watched this instead of dismissing it as unnecessary repetition/dog piling (it was the title, sorry). Thank you for taking the time to talk about this show without cheap shots and weird personal attacks. It's too easy to fall into rhetorical tricks rather than relying on the strength of your arguments and the experience to back them up. I'm no Sherlock superfan, but I think things deserve a fair shake. Great video! And great timing for me. I'd love to see more from you but don't really plan to learn deduction, so I look forward to seeing what else you work on.
One adaptation that does the "Sherlock vs Moriarty" well as an ongoing thing is surprisingly not any live action/adult media but the animated series-Sherlock Hound. In a lot of episodes Holmes and Moriarty square off in a mystery that Holmes has to solve. The series overall is just cute and wholesome and it's one of my comfort shows and while it does changes to Holmes's character(some more obvious like the drug addiction. bc, again, it's an adaptation for kids. Great Mouse Detective did the same thing in that aspect ) it's still recognizable as a Sherlock Holmes story. and NOT all of the cases tie to Moriarty. There are quite a few where the man's got nothing to do with the mystery at hand.
My favorite actor playing Sherlock is Nichol Williamson in the 7% solution movie. He played him as a man of great intellect as well gentleness and deep compassion.
As someone who didn't watch the show but loves breakdowns like this for the value in learning of good/bad examples of something, the more I listened to this the more I realized why my particlar favorite detective show stands out so much to me. That being Columbo. Granted that series is regarded pretty knowingly as a high standard for detective shows, but the titular Columbo does showcase much more effectively the powers of deduction. As he himself always puts it, "These little things, they don't add up." Or as one of antagonsits put it. "Always picking and scratching at every little thing till you've uncovered the whole mosaic." All this to say that being taken along for the ride of deductive reasoning over the little inconsitencies can be riveting to an audience, even if you already know what the eventual conclusion will be.
I love mysteries. I've always been a fan of detective stories like Sherlock Holmes and Agatha Christie's work. I watched one episode of Sherlock Holmes, absolutely hated it, and stopped there. I was surprised it was so popular and Elementary for all of their changes felt like a better show. I agree Watson was greatly cast and some of the shooting is amazing. I wasn't a fan of Benedict but to no fault of his own, i just feel he gets typecasted a lot and i always see him play the same character (with one or two exceptions where his character got to break past that)
The problem with Sherlock BBC is that you cannot create a character that is more intelligent than you are. Sherlock's writers are not genius enough humans to create a beliveable mastermind, so they tried to cover it with solving mysteries off screen, and using narration about genius behaviour instead of shiwing the genious.
It's really amazing how they basically jacked lines from the classic version and made 2 complete Robert Downey Jr films. Took me a while to realize they were basically abridged versions of the whole series.
@@mrcliff3709 it's why there was never a 3. I can't remember where I saw it but supposedly judd said the chemistry was great in one but Robert Downey Jr I guess acted in some way that was offensive or all diva like or some 💩. I don't remember. I saw it a few years after 2 on an interview. I thought it was from guys schedule but I remember someone quoting guy saying he'd make room but there were cast complications. But grain of salt man, it was from the internet, so don't go quoting Lincoln with that "everything on the internet is true" stuff nahmean.
it always annoyed me how much of a dick sherlock was in the bbc show, especially as a lover of the original stories (and the 1984 series, which is pretty faithful to the acd canon). when reading the source material, its clear that for at least some of the cases, holmes actually cares about client, their safety, and their troubles. bbc sherlock is basically only in it for the ~intellectual stimulation~ and couldn't give less of a shit about the actual people involved, while acd holmes also just likes helping people lmao.
As someone with a psychology postgraduate I appreciate that you addressed some of my psychology pet peeves, such as 'sociopathy' not being a clinical diagnosis (I've heard many other ways people confidently differentiate 'psychopath' from 'sociopath' even different from the one you provided here...) and I appreciated the dig at the MBTI. Its just nice to see accurate psychology information on social media considering how much misinformation there is. I remember learning about the 'mind palace' style recall in cognitive psychology and it was a lot of fun to try. Thanks for your video.
Cheers! Thanks for the feedback as well, I did my undergraduate in psychology so I’m definitely not an expert but I try and do my best to make sure I don’t misrepresent the science like is unfortunately so common.
I really hate this version of Moriarty. Even Fate/Grand Order's Moriarty (who is a bag of laughs constantly bullied and teased at by Holmes) does the character more justice than this one. I don't even know why they bother to call him Moriarty instead of an original villain named Andrew or something as there are practically no similarity between the two.
i watched this a while back, but in revisiting i've gained an even bigger appreciation for the Sherlock & Co. podcast i've been listening too. it definitely shares some similarities in set up, but it's SO much better executed...
Thank you sm for discussing Sherlock's 'sociopathy' with tact. I got called a psycho, as in psychopath, my whole childhood only to become that other type of 'psycho' in adulthood, psychotic (thru ASD symptoms). I get so nervous when a UA-camr busts out the word sociopath and I normally click off a video to stay on the safe side, but your asterisk made me decide to trust you. Anyway, both BBC Holmes brothers always read only as autistic to me, and especially the edgy intellectual superiority reminds me of myself as an undiagnosed autistic teenager lol.
The algorithm brought me here, never seen one of your videos before, but it was deeply fascinating. Thank you for a really well made hour (and more) of content.
Great video, you actually made me want to read Sherlock Holmes, something that when I watched BBC Sherlock back in the day didn't seem very interesting to me, seeing that Arthur Conan Doyle interview bit really stuck to me because it's something that also annoys me a lot in media portraying mystery cases. Also, I love video essays and I was very entertained the entire time, I'm looking forward to more of your videos in whatever subject you decide to dive into :)
I watched the first 2 seasons of Sherlock and enjoyed them a lot. Then I read ALL of the original stories and Loved them so much more, while also realizing the failings of the show. Then I found the 'Sherlock is garbage and here's why' video essay, and that really hammered the nails in the coffin. I never did finish watching the show... Martin Freeman is an excellent Watson but his character was SO mistreated, and Cumberbatch as Holmes is brilliant, but Moffat just seemingly misunderstood the character, pretty badly imo. Holmes isn't a sociopath, and he's NOT cruel. He's also not a superhuman.
Holmes in the books is truly a good person, he cares deeply but has trouble expressing it. His adaptations, however, show him as an asshole and worse, make so that this is because he is a genius. I am of course excluding the Granada adaptation, that Holmes was *chefs kiss*
I remember loving sherlock bbc, and my parents got me the full ACD collection. I fell in love with those stories and it made sherlock bbc hard to watch anymore. What you said about the mystery montage is spot on
It just doesn't seem like the writers of the show liked the mystery genre all that much and didn't understand why fans do. It sets it up to do such a disservice to the audience.
The problem with adapting Sherlock pragmatically, where he'll use kindness to smooth things over if it's expedient, is, unfortunately, Arthur Conan Doyle's estate. They're extremely litigious and see a more emotionally mature Holmes as being under the domain of Doyle's later works... which they still own. Enola Holmes on Netflix got sued over this.
See, I've heard this too, but that doesn't make much sense. In the first ever Sherlock Holms story, A Study in Scarlet, Sherlock is already behaving like a normal human being emotionally. He's excited about his work. He's worried Watson might be annoyed by his violin playing. There is even a scene where he waits around for hours for Watson to wake up (Watson is still injured and unwell), and subtly leaves a newspaper out with an article he wrote so that Watson will see it. It appears he's anxious about what his new roommate will think of his work. Then, Watson tears it apart for being preposterous (not knowing Holmes wrote it), and Holmes very softly and patiently makes the case for himself. And when the killer tells his side of the story, while Holmes still sees to it he's arrested, he appears sympathetic to the killer's story.
>>Enola Holmes on Netflix got sued over this. --- Yes, and the lawsuit got quickly dismissed. I suspect Netflix just paid Arthur Conan Doyle's estate off to avoid a prolonged trial.
This was such a great breakdown of the series. I remember to this day how disappointed I was while watching the last seasons, but the only thing I could think is 'it stopped being a detective and became a drama series' but I never thought further what exactly made me think that, and how weird it actually was. Again, thank you for such wonderfully done research and a LOT of new interesting information I now want to research as well. Wishing the best day for you as well!
This is the only video I know of your channel, and I really like the analysis. I just wanted to add, that the "low empathy" thing in autism is specifically about what is called "cognitive empathy" - that is, the ability to understand other people's motives. Autistic people are usually not affected with low "affective empathy", that is the ability to care about other people and have compassion. A lot of people hear "autistic people have low empathy" and then think it means they are uncaring monsters, when they are not. Low cognitive empathy actually makes autistic people "bad" sociopaths, because you need to understand people's motives really well to manipulate them like a sociopath is capable of. You didn't go into that further, so I thought I'd add it. Edit: Added a sentence
Much has been said about the adaptation's take on the character of Irene Adler, but my biggest gripe with that episode was always the fact that you can actually tell so much about a person from their naked body - all their little marks, scars, and other bodily quirks, just the skin condition in general, muscle development and definition, their movement and posture, etc. And that's just the body - there is still the hair and face, which the show had just shown were full of clues about the person, but suddenly - nothing? The show trying to convince their audience that seeing a naked woman is so unsettling that even Sherlock Holmes couldn't find a single strand of information bothered me even when I liked the show as a teen. This is the first video of yours I've seen and I'm very glad it was recommended to me, good stuff!
Thanks for this comment. Similarly, this was a huge plot hole in Eyes Wide Shut. The idea that a physician, of all people, wouldn't recognize the body of a woman that he had seen naked, simply because she had been wearing a face mask, was ridiculous. I thought Cruise's character was going to say, I know this woman! Then, when he didn't, I thought he must be concealing that he recognized her. Then it turned out just to be stupid storytelling.
Case in point: Kitty Winter from Elementary who has scars on her back left by her abuser, and a very distinctive kind which later gets compared against said abuser's new victims. And....pretty much anyone who has body scars, actually. Or body fat disposition. Or tattoos.
you really hit the nail on the head on why so many holmes adaptations get him wrong, hes supposed to care. he cares so much and so deeply. he takes on a lot of cases from mistreated people or those that are being ignored by the police. he just genuinely wants to help people. when you eliminate that and make him an uncaring genius, that isnt the same character anymore
Great video! I think the problem with modern day adaptations of Sherlock is that they're all trying to be Batman. And not comic Batman but the Hollywood Batman who is basically emo James Bond. That's why Moriarty has to be like the Joker, Irene Adler has to be his Catwoman and poor Watson ends up being Robin/Alfred.
I'm not a huge fan of either of them but when I was watching the snyder cut justice League i found myself thinking that if Batman was as smart as Sherlock from the BBC series then he would have been much more useful for the jl. Like to fight along side gods and superhumans he'd at least have to be super smart and cunning, it wouldve add alot more to the character's contribution to the team than him just being rich. The dceu's Batman isn't very clever or smart despite that being a defining trait of the character.
YES! And Mycroft is like Commissioner Gordon, even though in the books, he's just a really smart guy who hates social interaction so much he founded a club where people go to not talk to each other XD
Moriarty made absolutely no sense in this show to me. It's impossible to believe that someone like him would have so many people and resources at his disposal. At least in Gotham it made a little more sense since it's such a messed up city. Doesn't help that the show simply refused to let Moriarty go after killing him off.
Give CBS's tv series The Elementary a chance, it gives justice to the characters a great deal.
Based.
"some of the most intelligently written things i have read come from a deep place of care and empathy" was such an accurate and fantastic observation.
There actually even a short story (I believe it's called The Adventure of the Yellow Face) where Homes is wrong about his deduction and he asks Watson not to hesitate to call him out and remind him of this event if he ever becomes arrogant about his skills.
It also happens in the first chapter of The Hound of the Baskervilles, where Sherlock and Watson debate with one another over the identity of the owner of a cane that was left with a letter on their doorstep. They both end up being almost entirely wrong.
@@Duothimir thats what i remembered too...when he got too carried away and asked watson to rein him in if it happens again
@@SuicidalSummerSnowWoman Yes, and that the child is having to hide her face because she is a biracial child in 19th century London, and Holmes asks Watson to remind him of this failure here. . .
@@DuothimirTo be fair to Holmes, he was mostly correct about Dr Mortimer, but Holmes was wrong about why Mortimer was given his cane
@@TheFinalJedi478 True, it's been a while since I read it. I just remember having a chuckle at Holmes making some incorrect assumptions despite his reputation.
what struck me in reading the original short stories is how kind sherlock is (in his own funny way). like, he cares. he cares so much!! and it is one of his best features, I think. He cares for John because John is his friend. By extension, he cares for Mary too (seen in his final letter to watson before he dies). I also revisit The Speckled Band a lot, in particular the moment where Sherlock notices the bruises on the clients wrist. He’s professionally detached, yes, but he also approaches her with a lot of care. He says something like, ‘you’ve been cruelly used.’ That whole story is a brilliant showcasing of the genuine kindness that sherlock has.
AND WATSON? jesus they do him so dirty.
Yeah, I hate how modern media always makes him a sociopath. Why is that their take?
@@dash4800because they think intelligence only exists if there's no empathy. You can only have one or the other.
Mostly because of autistic stereotyping and toxic masculinity.
And because of the generally accepted elitist idea that dark/serious/tragic is higher brow.
Instead of realizing different people express empathy differently it's easier to just write an asshole who gets excused for being an asshole + an excuse to make mean jokes (usually toward minorities) and say "but the character's a genius so it's normal" as a cope out.
Aka they're just bad at writing characters
Exactly! I don't know why writers nowadays can't seem to write a "smart" character without making them all oooh I hate everyone and I'm mean to people isn't that so quirky? As if someone can't be intelligent without being a massive asshole for some reason.
@@dash4800 my theory is that that interpretation of him has become a pop-culture fixture in its own right that other media then draws from as well. It’s a shame honestly, because I think it’s doing the adaptations a disservice more often than not. Like I suppose you could make a case for it in that the stories are from Watson’s POV, and Watson obviously loves his friend and sees the best in him, but… i don’t really think thats strong enough to justify this whole ‘sociopath’ thing. It ends up feeling like a huge misunderstanding of the characters.
THIS!!! bbc sherlock so badly wanted him to be a coldhearted asshole, and the original material just doesn't supply that. he cares deeply, including for his clients, and he is morally invested in justice beyond criminal justice.
One of my favorite scenes in the original book series was when a client accidentally left a cane at Sherlock and Watson's apartment Sherlock challenges Watson to identify info about the Cane's owner from the cane itself. Watson gets 90% of the info correct with little help from Sherlock, including that the owner was a young man that earned the cane after graduating from a prodigious school, and liked to use the cane to play fetch while walking his small dog.
Sherlock: absolutely correct Watson! In fact the specific breed is a [very specific mixed breed of pomerianian]
Watson: how did you know?
Sherlock: The dog and his owner are standing right outside the door! :D
Anyway one of the greatest signs of intelligence is a great sense of humor.
Yep, once you read the book you realize this "psycho who is a super genuis" is juts bad fanfiction created by moffat. People cared about sherlock not because he was a smart man that knew how to deduct, but he was a good character.
True, and it was a curly haired spaniel 🙂↕️ I love "the Hound of the Baskervilles", probably most out the other books. It has that added mystery since Sherlock isn't as present throughout the story.
If I recall correctly then Holmes makes a series of further conclusions and corrections before the client returns, including assuming the owner was rather impulsive, or something to that effect, because Holmes believed that it was given as a gift when the owner had left that school for a country lifestyle. When the man arrives it is revealed that while he was a rural medical practitioner, he had a wife, and the cane was given on the occasion of his marriage. To this Holmes comments that it's a shame that is the case because it threw off both his and Watson's estimates of the man, making it very clear that Holmes is as vulnerable to an incomplete dataset as any man
@@theendersmirk5851 This is one aspect of Sherlock I love. He can be wrong, He can admit when he's wrong, Like in The Adventure of the Yellow Face. Where his deductions were completely wrong and asked Watson to remind him not to be overconfident or not giving a case his full attention.
@@theendersmirk5851 Based on this and the original comment, I have to conclude that somehow Ace Attorney's version of Sherlock manages to be a more faithful adaptation than BBC Sherlock despite being hilariously named Herlock Sholmes in the western release because of rights issues
I remember slowly falling out of love with this series, and then when Watson's wife turned out to be some ninja assassin I just switched it off mid-episode and never returned. It was the moment all my burgeoning irritations with the show instantly coalesced.
No, you’re on the money. I was so obsessed with this show for the first 2 seasons and then season 3 got a little crazy and then when Mary went off the deep end I literally turned the TV off and sat in disappointed frustration. It got way too convoluted and lost the plot.
That was the moment I tuned out as well. It was so unrealistic. And then they tried to blame Watson for unconsciously being attracted to dangerous people... like nuh bruh. If the show was about Watson being the centre of some kind of plot and being manipulated into being just where they wanted him that would have been interesting, but as far as I recall that wasnt the case. It was just such a massive hand wave I couldn't stay invested after that even though I tried.
I am a fan of the original works and the 80s BBC series but I put up with the "modern adaptation" here because it was pretty fun with great production values. But I also bailed with Mary as a super assassin. A true "jumped the shark" moment. But to be honest I should have left after the Moriarty is craaaaazy shtick.
Maybe you were taking it a bit too seriously? I, while watching it, always understood that it was first and foremost a show with a very strong comedic element to it and only then an adaptation of something something a detective something, so by the end I mostly watched it for those comedic bits and it delivered, and I think that that's the same thinking that S. Moffat had as he leaned more and more into the wacky territory by the end of it
Yes! It became so over the top I couldn't watch it anymore. I particularly hated Moriarty and how they tried to force homoeroticism into his relation to Holmes.
Sherlock: Genius master of deduction.
Also Sherlock: "I need to get the police here, so I'm going to shoot into the air in a crowded city, ignoring the basic fact of gravity"
A redditor who used to be stationed in Irak told of how a soldier once accidentally discharged an M4, bullet flew through the whole military camp, bounced off a metal object and injured another soldier in the leg.
I haven't yet watched the video and have no knowledge about projectiles whatsoever, nor do I know which scene you are talking about, so this might be a stupid question. If you'd indulge me, how did gravity play a part? I would've thought a bullet would just drop back down harmlessly if shot into the air?
@emdove bullets can travel fast through the air because they're shaped to be as aerodynamic as possible. Which means that their terminal velocity (max speed in air) can be very fast, enough to potentially kill. And that's just if you shoot straight up so that they come straight back down.
If you shoot upwards at an angle, the likelihood is that it's going to start coming back down before it's lost it's horizontal velocity due to air resistance, because gravity is so strong compared with the mass of a bullet.
It'll be slightly slower on the way down as air resistance has been pulling on it the whole way, but bullets are shot very fast from a gun in the first place, which means it's still likely to be at least wounding.
In the clip he shoots almost straight up, so chances are the bullet loses most of its horizontal energy.
The likelihood is that you won't hit anyone, but if you do it could be fatal, or at least wounding.
A 9mm bullet has a terminal velocity somewhere between 150 and 250 feet per second, and bullets can penetrate skin at around 200 feet per second to 300 feet per second (lower end for the elderly because their skin tends to be thinner).
So sure, sometimes a handgun bullet might be harmless after falling, but other times it will be fatal. It's inconclusive. It's a risk that cannot be accounted for. Even without that you might crack someone's car window suddenly and cause them to swerve to their doom or something.
It's the kind of risk that makes no sense, because what's going to get the police to come is the sound of the shot right? So shoot it into soft dirt or something. Only shoot what you can see and are willing to destroy.
tbh what makes it sillier is that, unless I've seriously misremembered this, there's not *really* any need to get the police there quicker. I feel like the writers just thought it'd be a clever funny thing to have a character do, and decided to make it Sherlock.
@emdove I remember a specific instance from over 10 years ago where there were 4th of July fireworks in Lansing, MI and a woman watching the fireworks was killed by a falling bullet that came down from the sky that someone had shot into the air however far away. The downward momentum was forceful enough to still enter her skull. :(
I remember hearing this quote from someone, and it fits perfectly for this show:
"This is how stupid person imagines and writes smart character." It might be harsh, but that's just how it is.
I watched this show purely for actor performance, it was interesting in that regard. As a Sherlock this is borderline parody.
I heard that line too, I think it might have been from hbomberguy's Sherlock video, in fact. Might be misremembering but it feels right enough. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
It's the "Smart people are basically wizards" trope.
I very much appreciate the editor section where you talk about how intelligence doesn't excuse or explain or shouldn't even correlate with being anti-social. Thank you for verbalising things I've always wanted to but haven't been able to.
I like how the criteria for Autism fit the picture just as well, if not better.
There are a lot of issues with The DSM and even more issues with clinicians who are required to diagnose every patient they meet, based on the DSM. It's easy to label someone quickly, when the clinician doesn't have to bare the conquences of labeling of mislabeling a patient. Only psychiatry offers their professionals such lack of personal accountability and so much space to disregard patients. I think that system is seriously flawed.
Then there's the problem of all those labels being used casually by everyone for various reasons, in many cases not really for the purpose of understanding someone better and helping them navigate relationships and social interactions, but actually to put someone down, make accusations or win an argument.
And all of this for what? just as it was mentioned in that added clip, those labels are completely irrelevant to the story, just as they are often completely irrelevant in real life situations. Sometimes people just use them to sound more intelligent or impressive, but those labels create often more harm than good to officially diagnosed people. Tossing them around without consideration is not just a harmless partytrick for making new friends.
It's kinda annoying how often media plays into this. The lone wolf, the solo genius who is too busy to be polite, etc. Reminds me of why I had a soft spot for Burn Notice even with all it's hijinks. The show made a point, repeatedly, that even the best operatives will fail if they're alone. Lots of talk about how the lone spy like James Bond is a fantasy land and that you need a solid team to support and enabled your best operatives.
The man who was too much of a dick to play nice with others got clubbed to death in his sleep since no one cared to keep watch for him.
I noticed this trend became really popular after Sheldon Cooper from Big Bang Theory. This trope has existed before Sheldon, but after Sheldon it just exploded into every Hollywood script. Suddenly every intelligent man is emotionally stunted.
The literary Holmes IS specifically mentioned as being quite anti-social. "Holmes ... loathed every form of society with his whole Bohemian soul" and when not working tends to stay on the couch, high on cocaine and reading or playing weird improvizations on his violin.
@@calebfuller4713 Being anti-social and being a sociopath is NOT the same thing. 😅
Steven Moffat is king of "teasing a cool premise and not paying it off later". Did it with Doctor Who as well, to my endless frustration
The Silence plot being dealt with off-screen by the Doctor's old friend who had never been mentioned before is such a horrendous, sloppy piece of writing. He really had no plan for that arc.
So many hours wasted on Dr Who with all those dead in the water plotlines. And I was a huge fan of the show for a few years.
Sounds like the Chris Carter of the UK, if you've ever watched the X-Files (fantastic for the first handful of seasons or so): Mulder's sister, the various alien plots and powerful secret organisations etc. that were never paid off or went way off the rails because it wasn't ever intended to be used properly. It played well on the conspiracy interests of the 1990s but it ended up turning the later seasons and newer stuff into a clown show because they had 800 different plot threads they didn't have any plans for - and now needed to resolve. And the entire thing was totally unnecessary because the concept of a Believer and a Skeptic working Monster of the Week cases was extremely solid on its own.
@@ZinrasI’ll never be happier that Vince Gilligan managed to avoid that curse and knows how to tie up his stories
@@wendyheatherwoodthat was actually infuriating. To this day I do not know why he needed to tie up every loose end of Matt Smith's run in one episode. You can leave some stuff for the next Doctor to pick up. And surely you could come up with a better resolution than the Silents were 'good guys actually, it was just a group of bad eggs that aren’t a problem anymore, I promise.' It’s just a narrative dead end for the sake of it.
They read the books, find Sherlock is quirky and detatched, and thought, "Okay, let's just make him a jerk."
Somehow that's worse considering that would imply they read the books like a middle-schooler that hasn't been taught media analysis yet. Moffat writes for a living how does he seem to have such an inability to tell an overarching story 💀🙏
Yeah BBC Sherlock was more similar to Sheldon Cooper from Big Bang Theory, a social pariah and emotionally stunted. In Jeremy Brett's portrayal, Sherlock was eccentric, can be arrogant at times but he was also sympathetic to the victims, in fact we see him bend the law to help people who could not be helped by the justice system. He may rub some people the wrong way, but he could be completely functional in society. I think many smart characters today have been hampered by the Sheldon Cooper trend.
@@smoot9069 just because someone writes a lot does not mean they can write well
@naiba8948 I know but it's just so mind-boggling to me that he's just allowed to waltz about and obliterate different projects 😭😭
Speaking on the atrocity of Sherlock drugging John. In the books, Holmes had performed an experiment that could have killed them both. Having only survived by Watson grabbing him and getting him out of the room, Holmes was kicking himself and called the experiment "unjustified even for myself, doubly so for a friend."
To be fair, sherlock was always with John, in case something went wrong. And it isn't like fiction is unfamiliar with changing a character's personality to fit the Story.
After actually reading most Sherlock Holmes stories, I began to feel offended over this show. The most insulting portrayal, however, was Irene Adler. I hated that she was a weird BDSM dominatrix when I first watched this tv show, but to read the original story made that portrayal even worse. :/ Irene would never!
For me it's not even the fact that she's an oversexed (most of her lines are about sex, ffs) dominatrix. It's the fact she's so dumbed down. She's there to look sexy and be suddenly and unexplainably in love with Sherlock. Her plan? What plan, it's all Moriarty. She can't even set up a good password for her phone.
What the fuck is this?
Moffat has a thing for this exact type of a female character. She'll tease and snark about how cool, dangerous and so much better at everything she is. But it's mostly told and not shown. In actuality she's just there to prop up the hero.
@@asverithThat also sounds like every female character from the Wheel of Time series.
Ok I’m being a little hyperbolic. But only a little.
@ruthsagers1714
Is that about the books or the show? If it's the books, how pronounced is it? I was thinking of reading them, though I find that type of writing grating.
@@ultimatetreeman2652 Irene's an opera singer and actress in the books and only has 1 story written about her! Watson says something a long the lines of: "She's the only woman, and probably one of the only people, Holmes respected intellectually. But he does not love her." She also earns that admiration.
As the video said though, as most of the stories are quite short, the characters aren't really fleshed out the way they would be in a full length novel unless it somehow helps Holmes crack the case.
@@ultimatetreeman2652
Ruth is talking about the Amazon series, probably.
The male characters are wimps, the female characters are whiny cows.
The books had strong male characters, and strong female characters (albeit there was a lot of spanking involved).
To this day my biggest beef with BBC Sherlock is still not being able to plug the charger into my phone without thinking of The Scene. Aside from becoming an ever-present fixture in my mind, it really is just an encapsulation of everything wrong about the way Sherlock makes deductions in the show
I enjoyed the show but havent rlly gone back to rewatch it in full ever. But that fkn scene plays in my head every time I struggle plugging in my charger or house key.
same omfg
What is The Scene?
@@artisticgamer5827 Sherlock looks at the scratches by the charging port of a man's phone (presumably caused by trying to plug the phone in and missing the port) and deduces that the phone's owner must be an alcoholic
@@Flameclaw123cause you know, no one ever tries to plug their phone in when they're half asleep, puts in the wrong plugs. uses plug in speakers, works in fields that have lots of debris around or literally any of the million different ways phone ports get scratched XD
As with most Sherlock Holmes adaptations, Sherlock makes the mistake of trying to shoehorn peripheral characters (including Moriarty and Mycroft) into every single narrative because it creates an ensemble cast (and yes, throw in Irene Adler as the token love interest). Even the Granada series is slightly ( slightly though) guilty of this. A good rule of thumb is that Moriarty's significance is inversely proportional to any adaptation's quality.
Hands down the most accurate rule of thumb
Idk A Game of Shadows was amazing because of the Moriarty/Sherlock rivalry.
@@LordVader1094 I'm not too fond of that movie, to be honest. Mostly because I think Holmes doesn't feel so much like Holmes as an action hero. But even there, Moriarty doesn't need to be Moriarty - you could make him anyone and not have to fall back on that easy solution.
Genuinely I think one of the reasons I ended up dropping Elementary was because of the way season 2 FIXATED on Mycroft and whether or not him and Joan were banging in any given episode. It just wasn't at all interesting and created unnecessary conflict between the main cast that imo didn't improve the show in any meaningful way. I guess he only stuck around for one season but for me the damage was done and I didn't tune back in for season 3
@@bomcabedalgay opinion
Sherlock went off the rails so many times. I still remember when he deduced the exact type of fountain pen and that it had an iridium nib by looking at some writing. There is absolutely no way to deduce the type of fountain pen or whether it has an iridium nib just by a sample. I laughed out loud when I heard that.
"Yes; but did the killer use Tomoe River paper?"
@@schoo9256 No, it was clearly from a Rhodia Dot Pad!
@samfann1768 "by the scratchiness in the downstroke of each letter, I can deduce that at some point this pen was dropped on its nib carelessly by a left-handed child. Either that or it's a Lamy."
OMG! My (fountain pen) people!!!
“Check his hands. Check for Baystate Blue!”
@@schoo9256not the Lamy slander I’m literally inking one as I watch this video 😭😭😭
I think my favorite Sherlock Holmes adaptation is Psych because of how they characterized Shawn (Sherlock character), Gus (Dr. Watson character), and the police investigators. it brings out the heart of what the Sherlock Holmes stories were while adding in more humor. Shawn is eccentric and very smart, but uses his smarts as a means to help people rather than just to boost his own ego. His and Gus' relationship shows both of their perspectives on things while also remaining friends and without any intense drama between them. There isn't any competition going on. And then the SBPD is shown as arrogant (specifically Lacitor whose name I dont know how to spell) when it comes to assuming motives and suspects. As an added plus, the crimes are enjoyable to watch.
Lassiter, for future reference
You should check out ABC'd Forever! Another great Sherlock analogue
@@ShuhPond lol tysm I was struggling
You gonna like the Soviet adaptation then
It never occurred to me that Psych was Sherlock. Holy shit. I love it.
Hello.. i have aspd . i think the segment you discuss (in a vague sense) how being anti-social does not make you smart. Thank you for this. People often assume because i have this disorder , it makes me a super genius. Ive seen people qish they had my disorder. They think of jt as something that makes you inherently smarter, less bias, less emotional. Pure analytical thinking skills. I pridemyself on my intelligence, but thinking having aspd is anything other than a detractor to my life, something that functions as a burden and a driver for further misery than ive already
Experienced, is an insult. So ..thank you for this . I appreciate it.
Being unable to relate to the people around you is a curse on par with Greek tragedies.
Not only does ASPD not make you smart, the average IQ among individuals with ASPD is actually somewhat below the average of society as a whole.
The comparison to House MD is a good one and I always felt that BBC Sherlock with its fat-fetch portrayal of Holmes' anti-social behaviour was largely inspired by House. Which is ironic as House himself was a variation of Sherlock Holmes character.
As for House however the story of a doctor who inspired him went a little different than it's said in the video. The story, as told in the "Son of Coma Guy" episode with John Larroquette, was that in his youth (14 or sth) House was impressed by a Japanese doctor who was hired in a hospital as a janitor. The guy was a brilliant doctor but descended from the traditionally lowest social class in Japan (which is a real thing and supposedly their discrimination sometimes still happens). No one liked him and no one respected him, unless they had a medical problem they couldn't deal with. Only then they would listen to him because they had no other option. House very clearly idolized this man to the point of becoming the same thing by his own choice.
Hell yeah! I was trying to find what episode of House that story was told in for so long before just giving up and continuing writing the script, thank you for letting me know what episode it was because I totally didn't remember all those details you just described
The story of the janitor/doctor would be an interesting show. BBC _Sherlock_ does seem to show a _House_ influence.
The 'deduction' that drove me nuts in the show was how he called out an in-show TV show about how obvious the answer was (or whatever) because of the character's pant leg. Assuming the show-within-a-show's costume design put that much thought into it, it doesn't mean the hypothetical writers or director had enough of the episodes planned out to deliberately include detail on the pant leg to give away the plot. If anything, he might find shows more interesting because small details may contradict the intended costume design and throw him off enough to make it kind of fun for him to watch ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
i took it as more of a jerry springer ‘you are not the father’ type reality tv show
It was a reality show- a la Maury Povich or Jerry Springer (a paternity test show) but either way the way one styles one’s jeans are not more accurate than a paternity test. 😂
@@brandelynnefreleng7597 Jeans vs genes
I had seen "Sherlock is Garbage, and Here's Why" which is how I think I got here, and you're both so right. I love the source material, and I enjoyed some of the colorful presentation of "Sherlock" (Benedict Cumberbatch in a sheet!) but when I found myself disappointed with the stories, I found myself thinking that the people MAKING the show were just not as smart as Sherlock (or Sir Arthur, by extension). I can't remember a single plot where the conclusion had the appropriate literary closure-- ends were not tied up neatly, and the vaunted deductions were rarely the source of the solution (at least not as they were explained). But when I was disappointed, I would keep watching, in the same way one will keep eating potato chips although they are not nourishing because they taste like the thing one really should be eating. I continue to love Freeman's Watson and wish he could have been in a different show. Finally, I feel compelled to wave the flag for Ace Holmes; even The Woman fascinated him because of her *brain* -- and "Sherlock" really messed it up. Thanks for the watch. I'm going to check out some of your other stuff.
Yeah I have "Sherlock is Garbage, and Here's why" on my favorite videos list so this one popped into my feed and watched it. Both are great breakdowns on how *bad* the BBC show was, the final episode was a disgrace to the Sherlock Holmes adaptations.
The 'Sherlock is garbage and here's why' video essay really changed my opinion of the show too, and made me realize all it's truly good at is stringing the viewer along. And you're so right about the people making the show not being as smart as they seem to think they are.
@@t.rae.storyteller Thats a bit unfair, it is a very high quality production with good cinematography and a lot of good actors and characters. Cumberbatch and Freeman were brilliantly cast. The guy playing Moriarty had a lot of fun, clearly. And Mrs. Hudson. They just werent the same characters as in the books.
The only thing I would say was lacking was the stories.
Empathy is good, but it should never be considered one's sole motivation/justification.
Also, you're absolutely correct. Book Holmes is a smart guy, who really cares deeply for his friends, and the people he solves cases for. He's not a sociopath, however you define it.
Empathy without morals leads to the mess you see in major cities with violent criminals being given free reign to wreak havoc.
@@joshuafischer684 ??? lol
@@joshuafischer684That is quite literally not a thing lol. Major cities don’t have that much more crime than anywhere else
@@RedBanana_so you don't understand empathy or morals? Morals are the result of empathy, empathy to a certain point is also Linked to iq, higher iq most often leads to more empathy and higher morals(weird example would be that vegans seem to have a higher iq then most meat eaters).
@@RedBanana_ mmm don't really follow this reasoning, over empathising with a killer how? So i am assuming you'r american,
It's always interesting that all modern Sherlock tries to be batman but ignores that a large part of batman is Bruce Wayne.
He knows so much because he has access to so much. He owns his own satellites and he's a wealthy man with many connections. His information isn't pulled out of his ass, it's carefully collected from thousands of information databases made by others that he has access to.
Tony stark is much the same and he regularly mentions how Jarvis and his ability to scan databases instantly is a huge part of his ability to do his work.
Sherlock just "knows" and we're expected to go along with that. They want him to be a superhero.
I was pretty frustrated when the opening to episode 1 implied a mastery/interest of tech (texting all the reporters) that didn't carry into any of the mystery solving.
It was included because it was cool.
Interestingly even the original stories had a better explanation than "he just knows". There Sherlock has a shelf full of books with notes on everyone who can be at least in someway considered a "person of public interest", be it noblemen, politicians, academics, criminals, businessmen, even some artists. He is often shown reading newspapers and is in close contact with a lot of policemen who know their fair share of people.
And on the other hand he only has knowledge about people and especially topics relevant to criminal investigation. I think it's the first book where Watson makes a list of topics and how much Sherlock knows about them, and determines that he doesn't even know all the planets of the solar system or couldn't tell a rose from a violet, except when it comes to plants that could be used to poison someone.
@@TheHeavyshadow Correct. Holmes actually isn't entirely sure whether or not the earth orbits the sun, which Watson takes exception to as the kind of basic facts all school-age children should know. Holmes insists his mind needs to be orderly and as uncluttered as possible, irrelevant facts such as the positions of celestial bodies have no uses for his work.
@@olefredrikskjegstad5972This reminds me of the old (and, I suspect, probably apocryphal) story about Albert Einstein. It was said that if one asked Einstein for his phone number, he would stand up, walk over to the phone book, and consult it. Of course, the other person would but confused and ask him why he didn’t know his own number, to which Einstein would retort that it was pointless to clutter his brain with information he could simply look up.
the oc holmes has his irregulars who are his eyes and ears in the city, he goes out of his way be informed about various taxi routes, going ons in the city, connections hes made from various others hes helped. He knows things but hes also told things, hears things from others
I forgot they retconned his childhood dog into a childhood human best friend.
Certainly a choice
15:13 I appreciate you pointing this out. Intelligence and emotion/empathy aren't mutually exclusive, no matter how many times this stereotype is churned out and glorified. We need more smart, well-rounded characters in the realm of media that happen to be emotional, and fewer Straw Vulcans that come across as parodies of intellect. Advanced emotions and more intellectual executive functions are both governed by the prefrontal cortex, after all.
Stupid people don't know how to write smart people. There's a great screen grab of a post on 4chan's /tv/ board about this show and how stupid the writers are.
All the really smart people I know are smart enough to have an appreciation for the value of kindness and decency. All the really mean people I've known have also been kind of dumb.
A part of this stereotype might be because autistic people (what was formerly known as asbergers) is overrepresented in highly intelligent people. The idea that autistic people don't have empathy is outdated, but we do struggle with cognitive empathy i.e. being able to recognize other people's feelings, as well as often display emotions differently than others.
I'd argue that Sherlock fits both autism and adhd criteria pretty well, and definitely better than aspd. He struggles to behave appropiately/read others emotions on several occasions (and usually looks for John for help, like at his wedding), hyperfocuses on crimes while being unable to focus on things that bore him, doesn't notice bodily cues well, etc.
I work in special education and it's not uncommon for children to try and label themselves "the bad kid" when they feel they're being pitied or patronized.
Being labeled as a troublemaker or sociopath might not make you friends, but it gets you respect or at least hatred which isn't a judgement on your abilities, it's a judgement on character. Especially autism but also adhd might make people more forgiving of your struggles, but also means you'll be patronized and underestimated often, which is a judgement on abilities.
Sherlock doesn't (openly) care what other people think of his character, he does care what they think of his abilities. Being open about his aspd (even if it's likely wrong) gets him respect he might not get with other diagnoses.
@@lilia3944 It's not even autism, because Insufferable Geniuses don't even make honest mistakes out of social awkwardness or not knowing better. They consciously act like jerks. Sure, there are quite a few socially awkward nerds portrayed in the media, but there are even more super-geniuses shown as justified in their behavior and meant to be rooted for at the expense of the unwashed masses.
I don't want an anti-intellectual approach where people trying to be smart and rational are strawmanned as wrong in favor of emotional people armed only with gut feelings, but the current worship of "genius" also makes a mockery of true intelligence.
"Straw Vulcan" just became a part of my internal dialogue. I love it :)
I'll add as a note for the autism/sociopathy thing:
I have autism, and it's a common mistake to think that people with autism have low empathy. We don't. We have a behavioral skill issue that makes it SEEM like we don't care. We do, in fact we typically care deeply; I work with others who have autism as my job, and they experience the same thing. The problem is that we have poor theory of mind, and have to learn that just because WE would feel a certain way in a given situation or in reaction to something we say or do, doesn't mean someone else would feel that way. So it's not that we don't care about how others feel, or understand how emotions work. We're just incorrect about how others feel more often than neurotypical people.
Exactly. People with autism often have less developed cognitive empathy (recognizing emotions, reacting appropriately, expressing oneself) but do mostly have normal emotional empathy (they are able to feel the emotions of others deeply).
@@noahrodenburg7931 Yes, exactly. Of course, the right therapist can teach us cognitive empathy pretty easily, once we learn the logical framework, because we're pretty logically oriented. It's just that emotional cause and effect isn't always intuitive if you don't already have the talent.
My therapist is actually a speech pathologist by specialty, and our goal is effective communication. :>
@@farkasmactavish good luck with the therapy :) !
Depends on the case, autism is a disorder with a wide range of symptoms, so it isn't a sure thing that everyone will be equal in their mental hardships.
I believe that it's the neurotypicals who are more likely to lack "theory of mind." They are often the ones who insist that the autistic person is acting out of malice. There's a good article about this on the Spectrum Confessions Substack.
Your point about empathy is so important. It's not cool to not care about people, it doesn't make you smarter or more logical. In fact, whenever I fail to read a situation or I manage to accidentally hurt someone because I wasn't able to take their feelings into account, I feel stupid. If you don't feel empathy, you lose a potentially valuable data point that could help you understand a situation.
Love this take ❤️❤️❤️🏆🏆🏆
My biggest gripe with Sherlock was putting Moriarty in season 1. Gave the show nowhere to build to since Moriarty is the only real 'big bad' that exists in the canon, and even then it was really only for one story. I also found myself liking the show each season that aired. I don't think I even watched season 4.
I suspect you're missing a "less" in your penultimate sentence.
You dodged a bullet, not seeing season 4. It was awful.
Whats funny is Moriarty was a 2 book villain. Hardly a "big bad" at all. And Irene Adler, ONE story. And in her story, she was the hero. Sherlock and the Duke were the villains. @@Gittykitty
@@AzguardMike well, considering the times, having a bad guy pop in 2 books was basically having a 'big bad'. Most novels just have one off bad guys, that is until recently where now we have over arcing stories that tell us how bad the bad guy is. Frankly I miss one-shot stories, that way if I don't like one story I can skip it and go to another.
Sherlock has had other big villains, but moriarty is popular because he ‘killed’ Holmes and left most of the readers with nothing else to chew on for years.
He’s also one of the only villains to be relevant to more than one storyline, but even in the valley of fear, he’s just a background character.
I really like you tying BBC Sherlock to the great man myth. It really reminds me of another UK crime drama called Luther. In it the main characters are deplorable people who get away with it because they're just so above mere mortals by the virtue of their intelligence. Overall these characters just seem like smart people as envisioned by people who are not that smart to begin with.
Luther is deplorable....hm
@@BeautifulEarthJa maybe not deplorable but he's an asshole
This sort of thing is what put me off Terry Pratchett's books. He really does love characters like the Patrician and Granny Weatherwax who consider themselves to be above the common herd and needing to control, trick and guide them for their own good, and--since their intelligence is treated like a super power and the common people are comedically stupid and ignorant--they're basically justified in that outlook. He's not the only left-wing author to kind of back himself into the Great Man theory like this.
@@paulgibbon5991 The difference with Pratchett is that it is meant to be ironic. Discworld isnt a serious social commentary. It is social commentary but it isnt serious.
@@TheSuperappelflap Thing is, you can only promote a bad thing "ironically" for so long before you're just promoting a bad thing. Ironic or subversive presentations of bad people doing bad things only work if we eventually have the story make it clear that they ARE doing bad things. Comparisons might be the absurd machismo in "Fight Club", or "The Wolf Of Wall Street" critiquing capitalism. Even then, there's no shortage of people who miss the point and take the protagonists of those stories as straight-up heroes.
There's never any punchline to Vetinari being an autocrat. He never has a downfall, he never has a realisation that he's wrong. No likeable character ever decides "this guy's a tyrant, he needs to go", he's always on the right side of any crisis or dispute, he gets multiple paragraphs to act as the voice of the author in any book he's in, and the only people he ever hurts on-screen happen to be evil people who had it coming (or else played for laughs).
Very happy to hear you reference Elementary as a good example of adapting Sherlock. I've recently discovered it and love that it doesn't make the same mistakes BBC Sherlock did.
Ask hbomberguy about the boomerang…
THE BOOMERANG!!! 🤬
Please no, he's been through enough 🤣
The FECKING BOOMARANG!!
The Fucking Boomerang!
/Demented Cackling/
😂😅 he was pissed off
The Original Stories: Amazing explanations on Sherlock's logic and reasoning for how he think
This Version: Somehow, Sherlock returns
i feel like this the problem with most modern mainstream superheroes stories as well... i know the world of comic book superheroes started out as a campy, nonsensical "dumb"-fun action stories that was basically a product of male fantasies made manifest into papers, but during the late 90's till like, early 2010's, there are times where the Superhero scenes were a balance between pure dumb fantasy and extreme reality, Superman is explained to gain his power from the sun, and he is able to fly because earth's gravity is weaker than Krypton, which also explained why he is weak against Kryptonite and set up an obvious limitation to his powers... Batman is only one step away from being the villain he is fighting every night, which is why he has a LOT of strict codes that most of the time being a double-edged swords, Iron-Man, was a genius AND an asshole (he is not an asshole because he is a genius) and he was humbled little by little by all the villains he fought where he constantly has to developed new armors and weapons to even the odds, and just like Batman's moral code, it oftenly bites him in the ass in the end... Hell, in the Guardians of the Galaxy series, it was explained that all human characters like Star-Lord and Kitty Pryde had a translator implanted on their neck that allows them to speak and hear aliens in English (an obvious assisting-device, sure but at least it's something)... but nowadays everything seems to be evolving backwards at a full speed, Superman's power is whatever the fuck the writers wants it to be, Batman is a cynic, and often time he did a LOTS of things that made his no kill-rule seems a bit redundant (and he somehow always ended up with some sorts of mulitversal, godly powers for some reason), Iron-Man, much like Sherlock in the show, is an asshole BECAUSE he is a genius, and his armours is going to be whatever the fuck the writers needs them to be, created by materials that might as well appeared out of thin air, and now everyone in the marvel universe seems to be able to spoke to any alien species in the multiverse and vice versa, no implants, no, "all-tongue" explanation needed, every alien species seems to be able to speak and understand American English perfectly
I never thought Sherlock was a sociopath. I always thought he just wanted people to think that as a defense mechanism. The nature of his childhood trauma supports the idea even if it's all revealed in the stupidest finale I've ever seen.
I think, this is more on the direction team. They knew what they were doing, and that thing was a precious special snowflake that could capture a very specific audience group. They nailed it. The point was never to make a good Sherlock, the point was to make a viral one
We dont talk about season 4.
And yes, it is a defense mechanism. I did the same thing until I was 15, 16 years old. A grown man acting this way is ridiculous.
But then, it does seem this show was written for edgy 16 year olds like me, so there is that.
@@vikusfikus4390the idea that they knew what they were doing is absurd and laughable.
On the point about Sherlock being a "High Functioning Sociopath", my read was always that Sherlock was misdiagnosing himself and that it was just an edgy label he gave himself, and it becomes apparent as the series progresses that it isn't true.
I feel like he used it as a scapegoat when people didnt like him.
@@Grace-ms7un And an excuse to be a dick and an edgelord.
That's what a lot of us was probably thinking.
If I had to describe the book Holmes with one word it would be: "curiosity". If I were to sum up the TV Holmes in one word, it would be "narcissism".
My favourite moment from the Holmes' stories I have read comes from A Case of Mistaken Identity.
At the end, Holmes is so disgusted by the behaviour of the culprit (though technically he has committed no crime) that he threatens to thrash him with his riding crop.
I can't imagine the Sherlock in Sherlock ever doing this.
Medical clinician here. I've always found this show presumptuous and the deductions made to be contrived. For example in one scene Sherlock founds a dead woman and deduces by the moisture of only a part of her garment her origin because it rained some time before and the wind blew in some or other direction, but in real life that's BS. Clothes dry or are impossible to tell just by glancing at them which side is moist while rain scatters all around and so on. I've come across many psychotic patients and mood disorder patients but outside of criminals I've never come across an anti-social personality type. Real life clinical knowledge and experience tends to be different to textbook knowledge for example one would expect a large percentage of the population to be in cardio-respiratory failure because they have a respiratory rate of 25 with even an accelerated heart rate but usually these are just people who are intermittently hyperventilating or aroused or mildly anxious or physically decompensated (unfit) or overweight. Oh and don't get me started on pharma companies which work backwards, you have well patients who have very high lipases or d-dimers or CRPs which imply - pancreatitis, lung or deep venous clots/emboli or sepsis meanwhile they are spurious results or mild cases of gastroenteritis or a dental cavity.
In fairness, you're not recalling the scene correctly. He doesn't tell the moisture at a glance, you see him run his gloved fingers across her to see where is moist. Second, he just confirms that her clothes are also wet behind the collar, suggesting it was turned up against the wind, and confirms that the umbrella is dry (something that would be obvious), deduces that the winds were too strong for an umbrella, and compares against weather in different areas. It's not all that far fetched (although arguably lucky that the weather was relevant in that situation)
I really dislike Sherlock (especially the later seasons), but the entire deduction sequence with the lady in pink is at least decent imo
@@frazfrazfrazfraz Even so, that would not be noticeable or one would not be able to perceive it through sensation. Most people don't turn up their collars, and had the coller been soaked it would have been soaked through and through. It's extremely contrived the way medical shows are contrived. It would have to rain that much to wet just one side of the clothing, and not through and through. Terrible show. Because reality is boring. Medical shows are terrible too.
@@peterc.1419 You are wrong and cannot admit it; my clothes have rarely gotten soaked through in the rain and one side is noticeably more wet especially if it is windy in that direction.
Also, wtf does you being a medical clinician have to do with anything? Appeals to authority are a fallacy; I am not going to just blindly believe what you say just because you said that. You said that in an attempt to make your comment carry more weight.
@@pyropulseIXXI In the show, the woman doesn't even look soaked and Sherlock determines the wetness by touching her collar. This is hidden from the audience we can't determine touch through the monitor. The claim is then there is a difference in moisture between one side of the cloth and the other. So on the one hand the show hides the so called clues from the audience so they can't really determine them on their own, on the other the show contrives the physical condition of the clothing, the weather conditions and the atmosphere in the room the body was found to be just so that there is a discernible difference which must allign with travel along a certain direction. It's contrived. I'm glad you have your own opinion and you can disagree but I'm not convinced. And I live in a very windy and wet city. People don't walk uniformly in straight lines and I've undressed enough violence victims in my old trauma unit to know what wet clothes look like on me, and on others. No appeal to authority but if you read the rest of my post you'd see it had to do with other aspects shows get wrong which are based on medical science, and how textbook knowldege can be defficient for those who see the real world. Shalom to you.
@@peterc.1419 It is a TV show; I don't get how this is an issue. You can deduce this in real life, albeit only under very specific circumstances (and it likely wouldn't work except in rare conditions where this event precisely occurred).
I also live in an area that gets windy and rainy from time to time, and when I rode my bike home really quick, I was noticeably more wet on the front than the back.
If a rainy wind was buffeting you from one direction the entire time, and you were heading home and maintained generally the same direction, this isn't totally unbelievable.
Your reasoning is correct, in general windy rain conditions, if someone were outside for anything other than a short duration, but this leeway for the show is not that big a deal; in fact, it enhances this terrible show.
He was annoyingly edgy and I hated him. This whole "I'm so smart it's OK if I'm an asshole" trope is not something I'm interested in seeing.
Same
The legacy of Mr. Jeremy Brett remains uneclipsed.
Agreed!
I love the casual mention of Elementary, the forgotten or hated adaptation. I really wanna see a nice length video essay on that. Lucy Liu as Watson was an inspired choice. Wasn't a fan of Irene or Moriarty but I remember being instantly enomored with the show after not really taking to 'Sherlock'. I watched them both many years after they had come out and wondered why Sherlock was so popular while Elementary was derisive.
I heard people speak negatively of Elementary and went into the show wanting to dislike it because, come on, an American adaptation with a bunch of changes? It sounded awful. But I couldn't hate it. In fact, I ended up loving it and especially Lucy Liu's Watson and the effect she had on Sherlock.
Elementary is my favorite interpretation of Sherlock Holmes. A lot of that I think can be attributed to John Lee Miller's performance being actually incredible. The vigorous way he moves and the subtle changes in his expression as he's rapid firing deductions isn't in service of making him look cool, but to show how volatile he is, that he needs to get his thoughts out before they eat him alive. It's the first time I looked at Holmes and went "wow, being as attentive as he is isn't all it's chalked up to be, he's literally being tortured in his own mind". He's incredibly flawed as a human, and I think Elementary does a really good job of portraying that and making him grow. Like his battle with his addiction isn't something that's a one and done deal, it's treated as a constant temptation that comes back again and again, testing him against this support network he's built with those close to him.
S1 and S4 Sherlock are extremely different people, but it's not an instant thing. We see how he makes a conscious effort to change in the episodes, and how that change is brought about by Watson. Being with Watson really changes how he interacts with others, from little things like actually knocking on doors instead of breaking in, to bigger things like showing empathy to the families of the victims. He becomes better with the influence of those people around him and I think that's great.
Elementary's handle of character emotions is peak writing. It's nuanced, rich, and seems to be what naturally flows from these established characters. Compared to Sherlock where characters act gaudy and prancing and the emotional beats can be boiled down to "Holmes and Watson should f**k each other already" which is spat out by characters themselves seven times in episode 1. And we're supposed to fill in the gaps and intuit a deep meaningful connection between them. Arrrrgh.
@@庫倫亞利克 Yeah, that's something I noticed as well. I really appreciate shows that take the time to let their characters act like adults. Conflicted, sometimes irrational, sometimes irresponsible adults, sure, but adults, rather than caricatures. Sherlock committed to the caricature style more and more as time went on (something shared by other shows such as Castle, one should note), which completely lost me. Elementary, while also upping the stakes in weird ways from time to time, never really took huge shortcuts on characterization.
"Elementary" is neither forgotten, nor hated.
It has two Emmy nominations. It lasted for seven seasons and had a satisfactory ending. Currently it has an IMDb rating of 7.9/10.
Plus, there is one thing that I will always respect this show for - that it featured two leading characters of the opposite sexes and yet never even hinted at a possibility for them to get romantically involved. Given the fact that in most mainstream western shows pure friendship between men and women is such a rarity, "Elementary" does stand out.
I really like the Soviet Sherlock version. It's such an atmospheric adaptation, quite spooky too.
Yes!! Also it's hilarious to watch Sherlock speak with Karlsson's voice.
@Sasha-zw9ss XD His voice is awesome, I love Sherlocks mannerisms presented by Livanov
Yep, Watson is really strong individual on his own in this version, and Sherlock is clearly a kind person even when he isn't direct about it. And their friendship is just precious
Damn, I need to get hold of this now. I love it when Sherlock Holmes stories lean into the spookiness.
And the set/production design is amazing. It's like they have a fully preserved Victorian town, they have furniture and appliances I've never seen outside of illustrations.
Most modern 'historically accurate' versions only carry over things we still use and understand- like, say a production faithfully only uses items produced before 1915, but only things which are recognizable. This world in this version includes things that completely fell out of use, like actually transporting a full would including this you look at and think WHAT IS THAT because no one has used one since 1943.
I'm sure I'm not making sense, but yeah the set and dressing is fascinating in that adaptation.
The idea of the selfish genius is such a product of modern capitalism it's absurd.
I was recently at a Sherlock Holmes conference where one of the speakers went through the DSM in regard to Sherlock Holmes using the original stories. It's interesting to see someone do this with this particular AU adaptation also, as he claims to be a sociopath. I really thought it was just a flippant comeback to being called a psychopath, but a lot of fans have taken it as a serious claim on Sherlock's part.
I did like that they actually cast someone who looked like Sherlock was described in the books
@1:03:34 this scene is framed to give the impression that it's the way he clasped his hands that clued Sherlock into his handedness, but in this frame you can also see that the watch is on his left wrist. That's also pretty circumstantial evidence, but it's more solid than the hand clasping, so that's what I would've focused on if I wrote the BBC show.
You have a good point on the watch; but I think it's even more significant than you have made clear - a person wearing a watch on their left hand is more standard, but specifically because this is opposite to the right hand, and therefore does not get in the way for right-handed people. People who are left handed might be more likely to choose to wear their watch on the right wrist, or else use other strategies to stop a watch from getting in the way - which they could have shown in the show, as a little extra clue, but apparently they didn't
The character of sherlock in the book, for me always was closer to the autistic spectrum diagnostic than ASPD, it is obvious and when I was at university I even did a presentation in clinical psychology class about it, we do not have enough information in the canon to make the diagnosis but he is marginally close
Honestly, Sherlock, in just about every version of the series I’ve come across, has always struck me as being very ADHD. From the inability to focus on things that bore him to the intense hyperfocus on the things that interest him. Plus, in the book, he apparently describes c0caine (which is actually sometimes used by, particularly undiagnosed, ADHDers as a way of coping) as being ‘wonderfully stimulating’ - an affect that, from what I’ve heard, is most common for people with ADHD (as c0caine increases dopamine levels).
@@RedBanana_ I tough about it and I exclude for me it is more savant syndrom than ADHD because in the book it is explicitly said that he reduce his field of knowledge to only what help him solve crimes, in ADHD usually it is more often the inverse we have multiple domain of interest and interest while here Sherlock is hyperfixated on his detective skill, also, his use of drug seems to me more for "doping" than recreational, for me he use cocaine for staying awake and thinking more rapidly, and opium to calm his nerve when he is to emotional to think
@@RedBanana_ ADHD and ASD are highly comorbid, so his character could easily be interpreted to have both. One of my good friends and also one of my family members have both diagnoses, so it's not unusual.
Even if the original "canon" Sherlock doesn't have ADHD and ASD, those traits could still contribute to a solid Sherlock interpretation. My friend and uncle are very empathetic, which is so unlike the many anti-social interpretations of Sherlock lately, and that empathy is important to his original character. His character also have interesting insights and perspectives that make him great at his craft. These different ways of viewing and understanding the world are advantageous in his investigations, but detrimental in situations where he's expected to think and behave like "everyone else."
His friendship with Watson could be leveraged to not only help his investigations, but support him through the challenging personal situations that arise during the investigations. I can see a version of this that is quite nuanced and able to portray tense and engaging plots without sacrificing compassion.
As both a psychology researcher looking at neurodiversity and an autsitc/adhd human myself, absolutely. In this show (if memory serves) he seemed more trifecta autism/adhd/ocd, but in every adaptation I've ever seen they give him the "autistic savant" treatment. Not ideal representation, but definitely there!
@@RedBanana_ADHD and ASD are so commonly comorbid that it's more common to have both than it is to just have one. It's very possible he has both
Definitely agree with the point about Holmes' very *explicit* sociopathy in the show. I've seen something similar play out with the Kenneth Branagh Poirot movies - they've taken what was an aspect of the character that you could *infer* as being OCD, and kind of Flanderised it.
I suppose with Holmes, there's maybe room to say that someone with a lot of traits of sociopathy would realistically know that and research it and make peace with it... but it doesn't need to be his rationale for half of the things that Stephen Moffat and Mark Gatiss have him do.
It would be genuinely cool if they made a version of sherlock with an empathy disorder so he physically cannot relate to others, and explore how that would affect his character, but they didn’t do that. They misrepresented a disorder. Just slapped the "edgy" label on him.
@@offbranddorito9668 - Yeah, I think the problem with that is that, if they wrote him that way, they wouldn't be able to have him randomly act like a really decent and empathic person at some point near the third act of every episode to be like "aha, gotcha, you thought he was an asshole when we kept telling you that, but he's actually amazing, aha!"
It's weird that Moffat got two shows at once and decided to do the same thing with both of them.
BBC Sherlock isn't clinically sociopathic, he just *thinks* labeling himself a sociopath is cool and somehow places him above consequences. And so, incidentally, does Moffat.
@@庫倫亞利克 - Yeah, kinda reminds me of the Vulcans in Star Trek. They're not actually logical, they just call whatever they can reason their way into thinking "logic" and act superior. =/
I hate that Poirot adaptation with a burning passion. David Suchet IS Poirot. No one will ever be able to come close to that performance. No one should attempt to. Even though that show started in 1989, it being a period piece, it still holds up to this day and we dont need a new version.
The new adaptation is also far too focused on looks. Everything looks too colorful and the characters look too eccentric, which just detracts attention away from the story. Just because you have a fancy digital camera that can film in extremely high definition and extremely sharp focus, and you have digital editing to turn up the vibrance, doesnt mean that you should.
I never read any Sherlock Holmes books, or see other adaptations, before this BBC show, so I didnt find it offensive, and it was well made. Looking back now it is a bit too edgy and the mysteries are kind of dumb. Also, season 4 is the worst thing I have ever seen. It managed to be a worse season 4 than season 4 of Fringe. And thats impressive.
Sherlock was the show that made me realize how modern media content works. Watch it, ideally binge, be overwhelmed, DON'T reflect on it, never watch it again.
50:25 Thank you for mentioning CBS's Elementary, like that show although not perfect is clearly a better adaptation of Sherlock Holmes by a MILE!
True, Elementary!Holmes could be abrasive at times but you never feel the screenwriter yelling into your ear "He's a genius, you see? He's entitled to be a jerk!"
@@庫倫亞利克 There's even entire plot lines (particularly one with Detective Bell) about how his behavior impacts those around him, the investigations, his own life, etc.
I'm not well-versed on the original Arthur Conan Doyle stories, but seeing this video and hbomberguy's analysis has led to me to understand that Elementary by CBS did their Sherlock Holmes adaptation so faithfully, that works for the modern/present setting. Jonny Lee Miller and Rod Dougherty put out a better adaption by many, many MILES!
@@gilless429 Oh How much I had loved that! All of that, Captain Greg and Joan's influence brought out a more humane version of Sherlock without compromising his intelligence.
Remember that episode where he stopped going to therapy because he thought He was smarter than all of the people there, no one would understand what he goes through.
Jonny's Sherlock knows he is the smartest, but he learns not to piss those people who aren't like him.
BTW I have a whole anther appreciation for Sherlock in just his therapy session, or that part of the CBS's Elementary.
@@keysburntgucci9016 to add on, there's an episode where Sherlock says Joan should seek to become exactly like him but stay as she is because who she is makes him a better person. He acknowledges he isn't the best person and want to be better
Sherlock: "Moriarty having a secret twin is fucking stupid and so are you for thinking that"
Also Sherlock: "This is Eurus Holmes, she's Sherlocks secret sister"
About the sociopathic argument: the writer said the one calling SH a sociopath is Sherlock himself, and we don't have to believe him. So I can easily let it pass bcs he might be using this argument as a shield to his feelings.
16:38 I'm glad you bring that up bc I feel like a lot of people dismiss that canon Holmes, imo, displays a lot of symptoms of ASD. Not to mention that a lot of people with ASD also a) interpret him as being on the spectrum and b) relate to him. While thank God the BBC doesn't go down the ASD route (I think partly bc ASD doesn't seem as "cool" or "edgy" as "sociopathy"), it would be an interesting route for future adaptations to take bc not only it's more book accurate compared to psychopathy/sociopathy, it can really show the audience that people like these have always existed even back when these labels haven't been invented yet
Even before vaccines were invented? People would throw a fit on social media :D
I'm so angry at BBC Sherlock for dropping the ball on Milverton* (who has a different name now but whatever) because in the Sherlock Holmes canon this is the personal beef villain!!! Holmes gets so worked up about this blackmailer, calls him the worst man in London, actually loses intellectually and is forced to act outside the law, there's personal drama with Holmes and Watson when Holmes doesn't want to take Watson with him to Do A Crime and Watson is like "I will call the police on you right now if you don't let me protect you by being there" and when they break into Milverton's house there's another victim of Milverton on a revenge quest and she kills him while H&W burn the blackmail material and run away it's got fucking e v e r y t h i n g use more of it!!!!!
Based on what you’ve said, it seems like the anime ‘Moriarty the Patriot’ (another Sherlock Holmes story, sort of. Like, I don’t want to call it an adaptation because of how much of it is its own story. Especially because, as the name suggests, it is Moriarty-centric) actually got a lot of that right. I will admit that it *does* actively tie Moriarty (or at least, in this, the Moriarty brothers) into just about everything, but that’s kind of a given since he’s the main character in *Moriarty* the Patriot.
@@RedBanana_ I've heard MtP handled Milverton well! It's on my to-watch list
@@split776 One thing I will say is the manga is much better than the anime, so if you get around to watching the anime and enjoy it, I’d highly recommend checking out the manga.
I don't think Stephen Moffat should be allowed to serialise work - he's great at doing one offs (Blink) but when he's given too much space and creative time it just becomes a big wet soggy mess filled with his own ego as a sexist aging detached scottish man.
He turned Sherlock Holmes, who was capable of incredible acts of compassion, wit, charm - all driven by his amazing powers of observation and inductive reasoning (yes I know he says it's deduction but technically it's not) into: Shouty Dr Who. A man whos powers and intelligence and access to time travel might as well make him a wizard - eventually a sexist aging detatched scottish wizard...
I don't want a wizard, I want a detective, and I don't think it's unfair to expect the archetypal detective to be a detective.
His treatment of the First Doctor shows how little he understands even his own childhood favourite on a fundamental level.
My opinion of Moffat as a whole is that he's a good bordering on great writer who needs an editor to keep him in check, and he's a terrible show runner that not only lets his own stories get away from him, but also does a really bad job of guiding the other writers working under him.
But wizards and detectives are the same thing, just the fantasy is different. Magic = Logic (Machina). All the detectives on these shows are representations of psychic people in the closet (that's why most of the main characters are gingers, too).
There are so many people much better than Moffat who don’t have the platform he does :/
A little correction about Doctor House.
His inspiration was not someone who was an ass but who was always right. His inspiration was a Janitor in a hospital. He was an outcast, an untouchable (EDIT: I was told he was a Japanese Bukaru actually). He didn't care about the way he looked or acted because he knew he would never, ever be accepted.
But at one point he and his friend had a bad fall, and the doctors couldn't figure out what was wrong with his friend.
And so they called the Janitor.
Because, despite everything, that guy was actually an excellent doctor. Because skill trumped everything else, and the Janitor saved his friend's life.
House was always a bit of an ass, a bit arrogant, but it was his accident that truly jaded him. He became profoundly unhappy, and in return he began to believe the world was nothing but misery with lies of kindness in them. But never, ever lost his compassion.
In fact, he keeps people away to avoid getting his judgement biased, which make him look aloof and misanthropic.
I remember people talking about House on Tumblr, and some were very adamant that the guy should be fired. And others came and said the opposite. They said that, as people who went undiagnosed for years, people whom the doctors never believed, never cared enough, House was an angel. Yes, he was an ass, but he gave a crap and never cared about his reputation.
I think House is an unhappy Holmes, but an Holmes nonetheless.
From a fellow HouseHead, thank you for understanding the character, especially why he drove others away. And why he stays a doctor (people say he just needs a puzzle and has no empathy for people at all), better than 99% of the other "devotees" out there.
On a limb, I think his character was also inspired by Doogie Howser, even if only by surname and intelligence. 😊
So is he a janitor or a doctor, I am lost af here
@@tannerholechek5873 He is a doctor. However, because of his status as an Untouchable in India, he is forbidden from practicing medicine. So he works at the hospital as a janitor.
@@Conteventand that man's name? Albert Einstein
Yes, I am one of your viewer who discovered you when Sherlock BBC became famous. Yes, I was interested about the art of deduction and watch your videos for that reason. And yes, I am still interested in watching your content. You have a way of speaking and presenting that I can't find anywhere else. I look forward to see your new content and how you will adapt science and psychology with your own style.
Thank you, you have put into words the little things in many Sherlock Homes adaptations that have frustrated me.
Sadly, the first Homes story I ever encountered as a child was "The Speckled Band" where I felt cheated by the fact that I did not feel that the murder method was actually possible. As a child who was quite interested in snakes I knew that constrictors do not waste energy wrapping around prey they cannot eat. And the constrictor described in the story was not large enough to eat a full grown woman.
Doyle should probably have been firm with ending the Sherlock Holmes series when he "killed off" Sherlock. A lot of the later stories were very uninspired and paint-by-numbers.
I mean let’s be real, he was writing in the late 1800s…. Almost nobody would have had that specific general knowledge about snakes and ACD almost certainly didn’t lol
wasn't that snake venomous, not a constrictor? like wasn't that the whole point?
@@null_doesnothing2487 Hmm, that may be true, it was quite a while ago that I read the story. But in that case you have the problem that venomous snakes do not use their venom on things that are neither a threat nor food. A sleeping woman would count as neither of these things even if the viper was used to receiving food in that location. Snakes are normally quite shy and timid creatures.
@@brushdogart oh yeah definitely
The Van Buren Supernova bit was the point where I started realizing that the writers held the audience in contempt. Having a mystery like that set up without allowing the audience any realistic chance to figure out the solution is just disrespectful to the viewers' intelligence. A good mystery, I've always found, is one where the audience can pick up on the deductive process from watching enough, and particularly one that will allow clever viewers to figure out the solution before the characters. This series consistently mocked any audience member that tried to figure out the mystery, as if to say "lol, thinking you could be a fraction as smart as Sherlock? Go back to mindless watching, you insignificant peasant." The scenes of the Empty Hearse club were the most blatant middle finger at the audience that just wanted to be engaged in the mystery, but it was pretty much constant throughout.
I'd love to see a show of a detective who can read minds or see into the future and mimic this outlandish behaviour from the show as a means of covering up their ability, I think that would be really fun to both watch and write
A detective who kills people but ever episode he has to convince everyone this other guy did it.
This is a really cool idea. It's basically an inverted version of Psych.
As a queer person, honestly I would have rather they had been straight, instead of…whatever it was they did.
One thing on elementary. While it is true that it portrays sherlock as broadly more competent at detectiving than the other detectives, he also has different methods. He quite often will do various shades of illegal things to gain access to the information he needs, stuff which would get that evidence rejected from court and potentially even get prosecutions thrown out entirely.
So while he might be a bit better than everyone else, not restricting himself to the same ruleset as the police is the main thing that gives him an edge through the cases he solves. Honestly its the same sort of problem that I have with the show house. Its difficult to show the differences in ability of people when they aren't playing by the same rules, though house has that problem MUCH worse.
Yes, but if I'm not mistaken, he also get punishment for doing so and show the consequences of it. The Mentalist also doing the same for Patrick Jane. And it feels neat
It was great to hear your thoughts on the BBC Sherlock series; I have a love/hate relationship with it as well. Have you seen the Japanese Miss Sherlock series before? It would be neat to know what you think of that series and how it compares against BBC Sherlock and Doyle's stories/characters.
I thought Miss Sherlock was trying to be BBC Sherlock but somehow a little bit better XD
54:19 She was bi. They stated that during her introduction. Sherlock didn't awaken her heterosexuality. When she states she's gay, it's intended to be a blanket term for "not straight."
It was still poorly handled, but I figured I'd point that out.
I’m not sure Moffat entirely understands the distinction between a lesbian and a bi woman tbh
@@voidify3 That is a very fair assessment.
House MD is not necessarily an example of "He is smart therefore he can be an ass". At least not in every season. As much as I agree with your opinion about most part of the show I think there is a part of the show worth mentioning. We see house lossing a lot because of his behaviour. In Sherlock the main character never gets punished for his terrible treatment of other people. In house we see a lot of punishment and regret in house character. especially in later seasons. It is the most visible in the whole "House going to jail" plot. It starts with him not being able to be there for cuddy and him losing Cuddy his last chance for "And they lived hapily ever after". The loss he can't deal with. Then we see him having a psychotic episode and driving his car into cuddy's house. He never tries to get smaller punishment. He knows he done wrong and he wants to be punished. In every second of the rest of the show every single character reminds viewer about how terrible of a person house is. In the psychiatric hospital he gets punished for trying to outsmart every single person there. The story of him in the hospital ends with him accepting the treatment and cooperating with the staff. In the cery ending of the show we see his best friend telling the viewer how terrible of a person house was. In the ending of the season 4 his actions lead to the death of his best friends girlfriend and show doesn't try to forget to show the viewers about how terrible it was. When I was watching it I almost cried looking at the pain Wilson was in.You can't help but seeing House as the villain. Not even forgeting how whenever wilson and house had a fight about how you should treat a patient the show clearly wanted you to side with wilson. The show sometimes just literally tells you how poisonous being around house is.
I think it's just the fact that the other characters are all bark and no bite until the very end. "Oh House is so awful. House don't do that, it hurts my feelings. House that is morally wrong. House you seem to be unable to express empathy or pity towards anyone but yourself." It feels like the viewer accepts that House is awful and unlikable but for some reason the characters in the show continue to be friends with him, employ him, date him, admire him etc for years and even at points where viewers only pity or hate him. His most undeniable redeemable trait is his intelligence so there's no other character trait of his that we could attribute this to. This doesn't include the benevolence of the other characters, who love him no matter what because??? Meanwhile they use it as an unhealthy justification for enablement of his drug use/disregard for everyone (except the occasional time where he shows care to people who actively appreciate his intelligence and attribute it to virtue).
Is everyone missing the fact that House is a deeply traumatized man with brutal chronic pain, who is an addict? The people around him gave him multiple chances and were there for him because he’s still a human being and deserves compassion. And he was an excellent doctor who couldn’t have possibly done everything he did if he didn’t feel deep compassion for his patients
@@maddieb.4282
"I wish someone had just cut off this injured leg because the pain makes me hate everyone and everything around me."
"Sorry House, despite all the ridiculous shit that you get up to and the insane medical techniques you pull off while turning medical science into improv science fiction, simply removing your leg would be unethical."
@@mchjsosde Sometimes even people who are complete arseholes just draw people into their orbit if they are truly great in some way. My grandfather was one - a politician and raging narcissist, but people loved and believed in him, even his sons whom he physically and emotionally abused as children.
The characters in House _don't_ always stick around him. By the end he's almost lost everyone. They put up with him because they believe the good of his deeds outweighs how fucking awful he is, until they just can't take it anymore, and most of them do reach that point.
I had the same sort of reaction to Sherlock. At first I was hooked on the acting, the modern take, the fast pacing, the look of it, the way they visually used text overlays to highlight the clues Sherlock was processing, etc. But the further the shows and seasons went by I felt like something was off but I had describing what bothered me. After the show had concluded, I had seen the criticisms, and revisited the show, I started to see all it's faults that I overlooked when I was riding the initial emotional high of seeing it for the first time. There are still a few episodes I still like and I still adore the characters, I just wish the show was better. I neither have the time nor energy to delve any deeper into my criticism.
One minor error, if I may: On "House MD", the doctor who inspired House wasn't an asshole. This was in Japan, and the doctor was of a class of persons who are considered low. He actually worked as a janitor. However, when doctors couldn't figure out what was going on, they called this janitor -- because he was right.
so i'm on track to be diagnosed with ASPD (hooray...?) and also have autism, ocd, ptsd, and adhd (yay comorbid disorders lmao)
tired of abusive and shitty behaviors getting conflated with sociopathy just the same way that juvenile and oversensitive behaviors are conflated with autism and hooboy sherlock is a good example of... kind of both of those, honestly? not only do we continue to ignore how these disorders are massive spectrums and can in fact include a ton of mature and loving people, but it also puts the blame for things like abuse and cruelty on disorders rather than abusers themselves. aspd definitely makes it difficult to not engage in some shitty stuff (i've dealt with being a chronic liar from that + ptsd reasons for ages, and have a big history of petty theft and aggression around other folk for instance) but as it turns out we're not Just our disorders and can in fact make the Decision not to do those things and to self reflect in our own ways, which is very much possible despite being more difficult without the empathy and remorse chips.
It's obv harder to resist certain impulses and behaviors without empathy, but it definitely doesn't mean you're slated to be a bad person, and it's so so dumb that in the year of 2023 we are STILL conflating abusive douchebags with people with psychiatric disorders. You can be both of those things! But you can also be one or the other.
Sherlock should have said he's a high-functioning egotistical asshole, because that would be the correct description. My psychiatrist would laugh if told to diagnose him with aspd or asd lol
I feel like a lot of people incorrectly assume that empathy is required for compassion. And I _know_ a lot of people mix them up, which makes the stigma even worse
@@PhoebeTheFairy56yes!! You do not need empathy to be a good person! Being empathetic just means you understand/ relate to others' emotions, that does not inherently make you good or people with low empathy bad
Cannot agree more, if you read about child development, the biggest 'booster' of child intelligence level is actually speaking and socialising (written before I watched further to hear exactly this thought😂)
Sir Arthur Conan Doyle does a masterfull portrayal of a person suffering from both bi-polar disorder and ADHD a century before any of those terms excisted. He is nowhere near actually BEING psychopathic/sociopathic, he just refers to himself as such, probably just because he wants to. As with anything else he does. Did you follow the digital meta-content while the show ran? Dr. Watson blogpost etc? That was quite a nice addition because it made the story-telling closer to how it is actually written, we only see Holmes through Watson`s eyes... Finesse. 😄
despite not being book actuate, the best character this show had was Mycroft. He wasn’t just surface level, he was complex, he was contradictory in the most human way and he was genuinely interesting. Then they altered his character hugely in the final episode and almost ruined him.
You did such a great job kindly explaining misunderstandings about deduction and directing interest back to real information. I'm excited to see you do more of this with other subjects! And psychology is SO misrepresented, and it's SO cool and fun to learn about, so i really look forward to your videos about it
I thought the whole point was that he used the title of sociopath to protect himself by pretending not to have emotions. This is similar to what I did when around my abusive mother, because she would use my emotions against me. I became cold and unfeeling when she was present in the same way Sherlock is around most people, especially his brother. Given his childhood, this makes FAR more sense to me than him not understanding what a sociopath is or the contents of the DSM.
I'm glad I actually watched this instead of dismissing it as unnecessary repetition/dog piling (it was the title, sorry). Thank you for taking the time to talk about this show without cheap shots and weird personal attacks. It's too easy to fall into rhetorical tricks rather than relying on the strength of your arguments and the experience to back them up. I'm no Sherlock superfan, but I think things deserve a fair shake. Great video! And great timing for me. I'd love to see more from you but don't really plan to learn deduction, so I look forward to seeing what else you work on.
One adaptation that does the "Sherlock vs Moriarty" well as an ongoing thing is surprisingly not any live action/adult media but the animated series-Sherlock Hound. In a lot of episodes Holmes and Moriarty square off in a mystery that Holmes has to solve. The series overall is just cute and wholesome and it's one of my comfort shows and while it does changes to Holmes's character(some more obvious like the drug addiction. bc, again, it's an adaptation for kids. Great Mouse Detective did the same thing in that aspect ) it's still recognizable as a Sherlock Holmes story. and NOT all of the cases tie to Moriarty. There are quite a few where the man's got nothing to do with the mystery at hand.
Name ?
My favorite actor playing Sherlock is Nichol Williamson in the 7% solution movie. He played him as a man of great intellect as well gentleness and deep compassion.
As someone who didn't watch the show but loves breakdowns like this for the value in learning of good/bad examples of something, the more I listened to this the more I realized why my particlar favorite detective show stands out so much to me. That being Columbo. Granted that series is regarded pretty knowingly as a high standard for detective shows, but the titular Columbo does showcase much more effectively the powers of deduction. As he himself always puts it, "These little things, they don't add up." Or as one of antagonsits put it. "Always picking and scratching at every little thing till you've uncovered the whole mosaic." All this to say that being taken along for the ride of deductive reasoning over the little inconsitencies can be riveting to an audience, even if you already know what the eventual conclusion will be.
I love mysteries. I've always been a fan of detective stories like Sherlock Holmes and Agatha Christie's work. I watched one episode of Sherlock Holmes, absolutely hated it, and stopped there. I was surprised it was so popular and Elementary for all of their changes felt like a better show.
I agree Watson was greatly cast and some of the shooting is amazing. I wasn't a fan of Benedict but to no fault of his own, i just feel he gets typecasted a lot and i always see him play the same character (with one or two exceptions where his character got to break past that)
The problem with Sherlock BBC is that you cannot create a character that is more intelligent than you are. Sherlock's writers are not genius enough humans to create a beliveable mastermind, so they tried to cover it with solving mysteries off screen, and using narration about genius behaviour instead of shiwing the genious.
It's really amazing how they basically jacked lines from the classic version and made 2 complete Robert Downey Jr films. Took me a while to realize they were basically abridged versions of the whole series.
They weren't even terrible films 😭
@@egg_2705 they were great. I wish law and Downy Jr Would squash beef and do a third.
@@SkylerKPHDtrustmebroUNIthey had beef this is my first time hearing that
@@mrcliff3709 it's why there was never a 3. I can't remember where I saw it but supposedly judd said the chemistry was great in one but Robert Downey Jr I guess acted in some way that was offensive or all diva like or some 💩. I don't remember. I saw it a few years after 2 on an interview. I thought it was from guys schedule but I remember someone quoting guy saying he'd make room but there were cast complications. But grain of salt man, it was from the internet, so don't go quoting Lincoln with that "everything on the internet is true" stuff nahmean.
it always annoyed me how much of a dick sherlock was in the bbc show, especially as a lover of the original stories (and the 1984 series, which is pretty faithful to the acd canon). when reading the source material, its clear that for at least some of the cases, holmes actually cares about client, their safety, and their troubles. bbc sherlock is basically only in it for the ~intellectual stimulation~ and couldn't give less of a shit about the actual people involved, while acd holmes also just likes helping people lmao.
As someone with a psychology postgraduate I appreciate that you addressed some of my psychology pet peeves, such as 'sociopathy' not being a clinical diagnosis (I've heard many other ways people confidently differentiate 'psychopath' from 'sociopath' even different from the one you provided here...) and I appreciated the dig at the MBTI. Its just nice to see accurate psychology information on social media considering how much misinformation there is. I remember learning about the 'mind palace' style recall in cognitive psychology and it was a lot of fun to try. Thanks for your video.
Cheers! Thanks for the feedback as well, I did my undergraduate in psychology so I’m definitely not an expert but I try and do my best to make sure I don’t misrepresent the science like is unfortunately so common.
I really hate this version of Moriarty. Even Fate/Grand Order's Moriarty (who is a bag of laughs constantly bullied and teased at by Holmes) does the character more justice than this one. I don't even know why they bother to call him Moriarty instead of an original villain named Andrew or something as there are practically no similarity between the two.
I’ve always said that Doyle would love this iteration of Sherlock because it made people hate the character as much as he hated writing it 😂
Ma non lo odiava, però era stanco di scrivere sempre storie di lui
i watched this a while back, but in revisiting i've gained an even bigger appreciation for the Sherlock & Co. podcast i've been listening too. it definitely shares some similarities in set up, but it's SO much better executed...
Thank you sm for discussing Sherlock's 'sociopathy' with tact. I got called a psycho, as in psychopath, my whole childhood only to become that other type of 'psycho' in adulthood, psychotic (thru ASD symptoms). I get so nervous when a UA-camr busts out the word sociopath and I normally click off a video to stay on the safe side, but your asterisk made me decide to trust you. Anyway, both BBC Holmes brothers always read only as autistic to me, and especially the edgy intellectual superiority reminds me of myself as an undiagnosed autistic teenager lol.
The algorithm brought me here, never seen one of your videos before, but it was deeply fascinating. Thank you for a really well made hour (and more) of content.
I really appreciated your usage of the DSM.
Same
Great video, you actually made me want to read Sherlock Holmes, something that when I watched BBC Sherlock back in the day didn't seem very interesting to me, seeing that Arthur Conan Doyle interview bit really stuck to me because it's something that also annoys me a lot in media portraying mystery cases. Also, I love video essays and I was very entertained the entire time, I'm looking forward to more of your videos in whatever subject you decide to dive into :)
You totally should read them! They're so much fun in every way :)
I watched the first 2 seasons of Sherlock and enjoyed them a lot. Then I read ALL of the original stories and Loved them so much more, while also realizing the failings of the show. Then I found the 'Sherlock is garbage and here's why' video essay, and that really hammered the nails in the coffin. I never did finish watching the show... Martin Freeman is an excellent Watson but his character was SO mistreated, and Cumberbatch as Holmes is brilliant, but Moffat just seemingly misunderstood the character, pretty badly imo. Holmes isn't a sociopath, and he's NOT cruel. He's also not a superhuman.
Holmes in the books is truly a good person, he cares deeply but has trouble expressing it. His adaptations, however, show him as an asshole and worse, make so that this is because he is a genius. I am of course excluding the Granada adaptation, that Holmes was *chefs kiss*
Now I have HBomberguy's ranting about a f*cking boomerang in his teardown of the show.
I remember loving sherlock bbc, and my parents got me the full ACD collection. I fell in love with those stories and it made sherlock bbc hard to watch anymore. What you said about the mystery montage is spot on
The likes are at 221. Do I leave a like, or keep it at that perfect number? XD
It just doesn't seem like the writers of the show liked the mystery genre all that much and didn't understand why fans do. It sets it up to do such a disservice to the audience.
I just realized lot of things that I love about the show is from fanfics and never happened on screen
The problem with adapting Sherlock pragmatically, where he'll use kindness to smooth things over if it's expedient, is, unfortunately, Arthur Conan Doyle's estate. They're extremely litigious and see a more emotionally mature Holmes as being under the domain of Doyle's later works... which they still own. Enola Holmes on Netflix got sued over this.
See, I've heard this too, but that doesn't make much sense.
In the first ever Sherlock Holms story, A Study in Scarlet, Sherlock is already behaving like a normal human being emotionally. He's excited about his work. He's worried Watson might be annoyed by his violin playing. There is even a scene where he waits around for hours for Watson to wake up (Watson is still injured and unwell), and subtly leaves a newspaper out with an article he wrote so that Watson will see it. It appears he's anxious about what his new roommate will think of his work. Then, Watson tears it apart for being preposterous (not knowing Holmes wrote it), and Holmes very softly and patiently makes the case for himself.
And when the killer tells his side of the story, while Holmes still sees to it he's arrested, he appears sympathetic to the killer's story.
>>Enola Holmes on Netflix got sued over this.
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Yes, and the lawsuit got quickly dismissed. I suspect Netflix just paid Arthur Conan Doyle's estate off to avoid a prolonged trial.
This was such a great breakdown of the series. I remember to this day how disappointed I was while watching the last seasons, but the only thing I could think is 'it stopped being a detective and became a drama series' but I never thought further what exactly made me think that, and how weird it actually was. Again, thank you for such wonderfully done research and a LOT of new interesting information I now want to research as well. Wishing the best day for you as well!
This is the only video I know of your channel, and I really like the analysis. I just wanted to add, that the "low empathy" thing in autism is specifically about what is called "cognitive empathy" - that is, the ability to understand other people's motives. Autistic people are usually not affected with low "affective empathy", that is the ability to care about other people and have compassion. A lot of people hear "autistic people have low empathy" and then think it means they are uncaring monsters, when they are not. Low cognitive empathy actually makes autistic people "bad" sociopaths, because you need to understand people's motives really well to manipulate them like a sociopath is capable of. You didn't go into that further, so I thought I'd add it. Edit: Added a sentence
Much has been said about the adaptation's take on the character of Irene Adler, but my biggest gripe with that episode was always the fact that you can actually tell so much about a person from their naked body - all their little marks, scars, and other bodily quirks, just the skin condition in general, muscle development and definition, their movement and posture, etc. And that's just the body - there is still the hair and face, which the show had just shown were full of clues about the person, but suddenly - nothing? The show trying to convince their audience that seeing a naked woman is so unsettling that even Sherlock Holmes couldn't find a single strand of information bothered me even when I liked the show as a teen.
This is the first video of yours I've seen and I'm very glad it was recommended to me, good stuff!
Thanks for this comment. Similarly, this was a huge plot hole in Eyes Wide Shut. The idea that a physician, of all people, wouldn't recognize the body of a woman that he had seen naked, simply because she had been wearing a face mask, was ridiculous. I thought Cruise's character was going to say, I know this woman! Then, when he didn't, I thought he must be concealing that he recognized her. Then it turned out just to be stupid storytelling.
Case in point: Kitty Winter from Elementary who has scars on her back left by her abuser, and a very distinctive kind which later gets compared against said abuser's new victims. And....pretty much anyone who has body scars, actually. Or body fat disposition. Or tattoos.
Brilliant video. First time I’ve seen your work and I’m truly impressed. A wonderful dissection of both art and science. Keep up the good work!
you really hit the nail on the head on why so many holmes adaptations get him wrong, hes supposed to care. he cares so much and so deeply. he takes on a lot of cases from mistreated people or those that are being ignored by the police. he just genuinely wants to help people. when you eliminate that and make him an uncaring genius, that isnt the same character anymore