Sherlock analysis

In class, we took a look at the infamous BBC series Sherlock. I had heard a lot about this show from friends, and on forums, so I was excited when I heard that we were going to actually be taking a look at this series. Sherlock is a modern day spin-off of the famous book Sherlock Holmes. The series follows Sherlock and his new found partner Watson on their journey to solve mysteries around London.

The start of the episode, we get our first glance of Doctor Watson and his past. The dark, gloomy, sepia tone of the room let's us know a little bit about Watson's mood at the time. As we start seeing flashbacks of Watson's past, the gloomy scenery starts to make a little more sense. We learn that Watson was a war doctor, and he had just recently returned from war. I felt a sense of loneliness about Watson while watching the following scenes. As if something in his life is somehow missing. When Watson takes a seat at his desk, I noticed a coffee mug with the letter “S” inscribed on it. For me, I felt that that was somewhat of a code for “Sherlock”. Kind of hinting future events in the characters life.

We then get to follow Watson as he goes off to his therapy session by one of his old friends. It seems that during the session, Watson is still very uneasy after his dream earlier, and is still hesitant to answer certain questions that the therapist asks him. The scene starts off as very mellow and quiet, until we finally are introduced to the main character known as Sherlock. The scene quickly turns from bland and emotional, to rather quirky and upbeat. We get a look at Sherlock and his personality right off the bat. I learned that Sherlock is definitely the type to analyze someone before he introduces himself to them. In that introduction scene, I also noticed that Mr. Holmes is definitely not the ladies man! When the nurse was flirting with him, he took everything she said literally. Like the “going out for coffee” bit. You can start to notice Watson brighten up a little—mostly because of his curiosity.

It seems that the only times in this episode that Watson is having any kind of fun or “break” from his emotional state is when he is working along side Sherlock. When they were going after that taxi driver because they thought he was a suspect, we saw Watson drop his cane, almost as if he was using it as an emotional crutch the whole time. It seemed that, (and we soon learned that this was the case) Watson missed the action he got when out on the battlefield. So agreeing to join Sherlock on his adventures was a way of him feeling the rush of war again that he enjoyed so much. He quickly forgot about his 'damaged' leg during the chase and in that moment, we definitely saw a different side of him than what he had been seeing since the beginning of the episode.

It's interesting how different the two main characters are from each other. With Watson, its all about the rush. He just wants to be out there doing SOMETHING and not feeling useless, because it seems that after the war, he felt empty. Like he was missing adventure. Whereas with Sherlock, it seems that all he wants to do is test out his mind. These types of quests are a thrill for him. It could literally be any situation, a baby dying, a family murder—it's all an exciting mind game for Sherlock. During the case of the woman in pink, Sherlock ended up finding the murderer, however, we learned that it wasn't just about finding him, he also wanted to know (HAD to know) why he did it. He could have just had the cabby arrested and went on with his night, but unfortunately, he got sucked into the cabby's mind game because of Sherlocks cat-like curiosity. He just cannot let go of a mystery without understanding it 100%. It also seemed like Sherlock had a very chaotic mind. Like he is constantly inside his head all the time. This is something I thought of after examining his room in one of the earlier scenes. His room was very messy. Like things were thrown around. Normally, people say a messy room is the result of a chaotic mind.

In the end, it made for a very interesting watch. I definitely plan on keeping up with the show more after this.