I have already had one of those moments today where I’ve scowled at my own needs overriding my viewpoints on society. I am in full support of Wikipedia’s blackout against the US’s SOPA law which will affect internet freedom across the globe, but at the same time, I’ve tried to find a two things out today where I automatically went to said site, only to be greeted by the ‘blackout’ screen and a stream of expletives that flowed freely from my gob. It’s a horrible instinctive viewpoint Tourette’s that I sometimes have. All in all, I know what they are doing is right. While I’m partially against internet piracy, I am a downloader of sorts, and by that, I mean I download things illegally. And sometimes legally. But mostly only after downloading them illegally then deciding they are worthy of money. However, I nearly always buy the CDs or see the bands live that I download and eventually get the films I like in Blu-Ray just so I can pretend to be snobbish about ‘the picture’ quality, which is usually the same as if its from my computer anyway. But, I do believe that while it loses some creative types money, overall, it spreads the word about them around the world. Further to that, if the SOPA law comes in, it will affect the way website run and ultimately the way in which information is spread around the world. And if that’s all to stop me downloading episode of Adventure Time then its all bit petty.
Yet, if protesting against a law I really don’t like means that today I couldn’t find out who the manager of FC Barcelona was for a competition answer then fuck you wikipedia, I am no longer a friend of the cause. I’m not sure where this lack of patience or tolerance for things I don’t like has arisen from, but its definitely got more evident as I’ve got older. On Sunday Nat was watching Sherlock in the living room and while I said that was fine, I found it impossible to point out consistently why I thought it was shit, what annoys me about it and then read a HP Lovecraft graphic novel while constantly explaining why the storyline in that was better. I am, if nothing else, a really annoying flatmate. And yes, I can already guess that some of you are absolutely enraged as to me not liking Sherlock. Though blogs, Facebook and tweets, you had probably assumed that I was one of the cool kids and therefore down with everything everyone else is. This would prove you hadn’t read my blog of Sunday but on all other accounts, yes, you’d be right. Except for Sherlock which I have never liked. Reasons are as follows: 1) If you are going to make a new detective show based in the 21st century, then why does it have to be a future version of Sherlock Holmes? Why do you have to take an absolute classic and modernise it when you could just write a story about a new autistic detective? Its as though originality has been sucked from the world once again. I’ve been rewatching The Wire again just to remember how television can be made if it goes back to the days where it didn’t patronise its viewers. 2) It’s all too slick. The reason the original Holmes was amazing was because technology didn’t exist, they couldn’t just grab a criminal by his DNA and therefore his deducing skills were incredible. Cumberbatch’s Holmes feels very one dimensional in comparison with just his Rain Man like qualities and lack of drug addiction. ‘Jim’ Moriarty more so for using phone apps. The whole thing bounces along at such a pace it doesn’t feel like much of a mystery at all and uses this technique to gloss over plot holes and improbabilities. Look, to be honest, I may like it if he wasn’t called ‘Sherlock Holmes’ and the stories weren’t bastardised versions of Conan-Doyle’s originals.
It’s that that upsets me the most. Its the way that since the TV show has been on, I’ve found myself in a bookshop looking at a copy of ‘Hound Of The Baskervilles’ with Cumberbatch and Freeman’s face on with the blurb ‘you’ve seen the series, now see where the story comes from!’ which made my miserly Tourette’s throw out a retch and a ‘fuck off’ much to the disconcertion of those in Waterstones York. US TV station CBS have now just announced too that they are also doing their own version of Sherlock set in New York in the 21st Century. WHY? JUST WRITE A NEW DETECTIVE SHOW! Is it that hard? Clearly it is. Or clearly they’ve realised they can just patronise audiences with substandard TV and because its not as shit as Take Me Out, everyone thinks its gold. I honestly think that Sherlock Holmes himself would deduce that pretty damn quickly.
See? That’s what I mean. I didn’t want to write about Sherlock today because I know you, the public, will lambast me. You’ll tell me how great it is because text messages pop up on screen in writing so you don’t have to make any assumptions as to what they say. You’ll say that it means you don’t have to struggle with working it out as it spells it all out for you. You’ll say that Martin Freeman is great as Watson because he’s meant to be just like Tim from the Office and Arthur Dent in the Douglas Adams raping film version of Hitchiker’s Guide To The Galaxy. You’ll say that it doesn’t matter that we lose a large part of the mystery because we now have action sequences instead and its far easier to sit while drool escapes our mouths when explosions happen than try and work anything out with brain power we may need to work out where our mouths are to shovel chips in at a later time. If you disagree then maybe use the internet before SOPA kicks in to download some of the Sherlock Holmes episodes Jeremy Brett did. I would point you to links for the wiki page for all of those but I can’t. Because of its bloody great, shitty, brilliant protest.
I should point out that you are allowed to like Sherlock, in the same way I’m allowed not to like it. That’s the lovely way the world works. And the lovely way the internet works is that we can see everyone’s opinions and make our own based on all the facts and views. Let’s hope the law doesn’t ever change that.
