I... haven't seen it (I've had no patience for this show since the epic PTSD fail in ASIP, though I slogged through as far as Great Game), but in discussion, I've gotten the impression that the dosing-John-with-fear-stuff was intended as a nod to "Devil's Foot Root" - you know the scene, where Holmes puts the powder on the lamp. And that in adapting it they FAILED ALL THE FAIL, 'scuse my capslock... because for me, the original worked because Holmes was using himself and Watson as test subjects, they both know what they're doing (consent! XD), and you get a near-"Three Garridebs"-level moment of OMG WATSON U OK? there. :-) But the way nu!Sherlock (I rather want to call him Shamlock or something) is being written, he's a completely immoral unethical full-of-s*** dunce. Frequently.
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Although, on a tangent, I wish to register disagreement with you on this:
'there's that ridiculous bit about not knowing the Earth goes around the sun'
Because I have never yet come up with any way that actually COULD be the solution to a mystery. (And I've been trying. I had to give Mark Gatiss props for trying in Great Game, too; it nearly made me forgive him for the RESEARCH!FAIL in the WWII Daleks episode with the blackout. But only nearly.)
But other than that, yes! 'Sherlock Holmes meant a great deal to me then, and still does: he was the first character who told me, explicitly, without talking down, "it's okay to be too smart, even if it's not in the ways you're supposed to be smart," "it's okay to be uninterested in sex and romance, and you don't have to grow out of it, ever," "it's okay to process and experience emotions and relationships differently from the way other people do, and it doesn't make you inhuman," and "you're allowed to forge your own path in the world, you don't have to fit into a box."' ALL OF THIS. SO MUCH LOVE FOR SHERLOCK HOLMES, for all of these reasons. *goes off to re-read Complete Sherlock Holmes*
no subject
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Although, on a tangent, I wish to register disagreement with you on this:
'there's that ridiculous bit about not knowing the Earth goes around the sun'
Because I have never yet come up with any way that actually COULD be the solution to a mystery. (And I've been trying. I had to give Mark Gatiss props for trying in Great Game, too; it nearly made me forgive him for the RESEARCH!FAIL in the WWII Daleks episode with the blackout. But only nearly.)
But other than that, yes! 'Sherlock Holmes meant a great deal to me then, and still does: he was the first character who told me, explicitly, without talking down, "it's okay to be too smart, even if it's not in the ways you're supposed to be smart," "it's okay to be uninterested in sex and romance, and you don't have to grow out of it, ever," "it's okay to process and experience emotions and relationships differently from the way other people do, and it doesn't make you inhuman," and "you're allowed to forge your own path in the world, you don't have to fit into a box."' ALL OF THIS. SO MUCH LOVE FOR SHERLOCK HOLMES, for all of these reasons. *goes off to re-read Complete Sherlock Holmes*