A Minor Variation

I've still been watching, but between one thing and another I have not... really... been on LJ all that much or been able to put my thoughts into any coherent order. I have no tldr to offer about the last four episodes, but allow me to summarize my reactions thus:

Episode 21 - :D

Episode 22 - :|

Episode 23 - ... :|

Episode 24 - D: D: D:

I've also gotten around to watching the first episode of Sherlock (the BBC modern update starring Benedict Cumberbatch and Martin Freeman). It's entertaining, and the episode adapts "A Study In Scarlet" to the present remarkably well, including injokes for those familiar with the original story. I am not so sure about the depiction of Holmes as a "high-functioning sociopath" who solves mysteries neither to pay the bills nor out of any sense of justice but only to stave off boredom (rather than a combination of all three). On the other hand, Martin Freeman's Watson is fantastic.

Saw Sherlock Holmes the other day. I didn't think Robert Downey, Jr. was really a great fit for Holmes (Jeremy Brett is always the definitive Holmes in my mind) but he did all right, and Jude Law, as I'd hoped, made for a superlative Watson. Yay for hot young Watson! May the silly Nigel Bruce version and his imitators be left in a dark, dusty cabinet somewhere and never brought out again.

I enjoyed the movie, and I think it was a reasonably faithful derivation from the original source material. There are things I didn't care for (many of them, unfortunately, related to the inclusion of Irene Adler), but overall, I liked it.

...I can't help but be a little annoyed by the sheer number of people who are complaining about Holmes actually fighting, as though it's so ridiculous that no one should have ever thought of it. Because it's not like he was an amateur boxer who could have made a living at the sport if he'd wanted to, not to mention being skilled with sword, singlestick, and Japanese wrestling, and who beat the crap out of the villains of several of his stories and sometimes gloated about it afterwards, and - oh wait.

And then there's the other silly stuff that people have said that I won't go into because Someone Is Wrong On The Internet and I promised not to argue with them any more.

"Surely the [original] Holmes wasn't this much of a douche," on the other hand, was just plain amusing, especially since I've only just rewatched the Granada adaptation of "Silver Blaze" and then re-read the story... the one in which, having solved the mystery and located the stolen horse, Holmes turns to Watson and says, in essence, "Right, that's all figured out, but I really don't like our client's attitude so I'm going to jerk him around for a while. Don't say anything to him about the horse."

Anyway, as a fairly deeply-invested fan of the original books and stories, I say it's an enjoyable movie and worth seeing.