“This is how it came
about. I have said that the man was intelligent, and this very intelligence has
caused his ruin, for it seems to have led to an insatiable curiosity about
things which did not in the least concern him.”
--Arthur Conan Doyle, “The Musgrave Ritual”
Austin:
It's pretty much impossible to
talk about this miniseries without talking about Doctor Who. So I'm not
even going to try. Tom Baker was without question the most popular Doctor
during the sci-fi series. Even today, Baker's popularity rivals David Tennant
and Matt Smith depending on who you're talking to. He played the mysterious
Time Lord for over seven years, ending his tenure in 1981. Baker loved playing
The Doctor but it was his ego that ultimately had him part ways after a very
successful run.
So this was his first big project after Doctor Who. Since there are
only 15 British actors and filmmakers, more Who names pop up including
Caroline John who played the Third Doctor's (best) companion Liz Shaw and in
this she plays Laura Lyons, the LL woman. Also this was produced by Barry Letts
who was the major producer for most of the Third Doctor's run and was actually
the man who hired Tom Baker after Jon Pertwee left.
We reviewed Doctor Who's Sherlock tribute a few months back
with The Talons of Weng-Chaing where The Doctor donned a deerstalker to
investigate a disturbing Victorian attraction. Now Tom Baker is fully in the
role as Sherlock Holmes and the results are....frustrating. This was my first
time seeing Tom Baker in something besides Doctor Who or interviews
and I'm not sure he's a man with a lot of nuance. In this, he's basically
playing The Doctor but as more of an asshole. There's still the way he can
describe gibberish with gusto which is a major similarity between the
characters. Yet when The Doctor did it, he was often spacey (PUN INTENDED)
instead of condescending unless he foolishly belittling UNIT. There was a
prankster attitude in that show that is missing here. It was like he was trying
to be more "serious" and "dramatic" that he lost all the
humanity.
There have been plenty of hard to like Sherlocks. Benedict
Cumberbatch plays quite the jerk, but usually there can be charisma behind the
attitude. When Sherlock is stuck in a sitting room, it's almost unbearable. But
when the danger is afoot in the final segment, the joy returned to the
performance.
Is the
production to blame for how stilted and, to use a professional term, un-fun
Baker's performance was for majority of the miniseries or is it all on the
actor?
Leigh: Before I
started this one, my wonderful boyfriend asked me just how many Sherlock Holmes
adaptations there were at which point I laughed and said, "You have no
idea. Every successful British actor has played Holmes at some point." And
while that might be hyperbole, I would say a good portion of the 15 British
Actors have had some role in one Holmes adaptation or another.
 |
| "Yawn......this guy better turn out to be a zygon." |
Every actor has some direction from the director (hence the name)
about how the role should be played. Should they be serious? Should they be
playful? Should they be more fun? Can Baker's unfunness be blamed solely on him
or is it partially the directors fault? We blamed shoddy directing in the first
Plummer adaptation we watched but can we blame it here? I don't know much about
Baker. I've only seen one serial with him as The Doctor and that's it. And
there is such an overlap between Holmes and the Doctor that it is rumored that
Cumberbatch originally auditioned for the Doctor and Moffat said, "You're
not quite right but how about Holmes instead?" So logically this should be
one of the easiest roles for the Doctor and yet... He just comes off as a jerk.
Everyone he talks to is dumber than him, he knows it, they know it, so what's
the point of being polite about it? Everyone who speaks to him is just wasting
his time unless they are actively giving him information he needs. It's all of
the jerkiness of Holmes without any of the fun of The Doctor. A smirk or a
twinkle in the eye or a second sideways glance would immediately soften up his
character. Cumberbatch gets away with it because in the end, the audience knows
he is just playing a game and is having fun playing his game. Here Baker just
seems annoyed by every little thing.
And now to Watson. Good lord, talk about a ridiculous accent. I
honestly couldn't understand half of what he was saying because he was doing
that posh mumble that incredibly posh British people tend to do. Nigel Bruce is almost to
that point as this Watson but he enunciates just enough that I don't feel like
I need subtitles. I almost feel like this Watson forgot most of the lines and
was just mumbling in hopes to get away with it or was attempting to be Nigel
Bruce and failed.
What do you
think about all of this? Can you forget about The Doctor for a few? (Just
pretend you're Donna Nobel.)
Austin: Don't
even get me started on Donna Noble's ending! (I'll just pretend to be Jamie
McCrimmon and go from there.)
 |
| "Ah, I'm sure ye moor is safe, Doctor..." |
Watson was a complete wash. When Sherlock finally comes back into
the story after being absent for about a half hour, Watson is over-joyed and
then becomes whiney like a child who lost his toy train. It's so spineless I
was confused on why any of this structure happened.
The problem is that it's because that's what happened in the book.
We haven't reviewed "Hound" yet so I haven't revisited in a few years
but Watson is sent to investigate some matters. According to our helpful
YouTube uploader, they said this is one of the most faithful "Hound"
adaptations but that doesn't mean it's a success. It's impossible to adapt a
book line for line because the structure of the two mediums doesn't translate
perfectly. One of the biggest fouls committed is forgetting that book readers
are often willing to go down paths they're not quite sure where they're going
or have long sections without our favorite characters, because the writing is
so strong. Prose can do wonders, as we've noticed during certain Doyle short
stories or when you're reading Bran portions in A Clash of Kings.
So this miniseries tries to do beat for beat the elements of the
book but they didn't adapt the elements around the plot. There's a reason why
this is, arguably, Doyle's most popular book because it has this addicting
gothic horror tone. None of that is here, in fact it's insanely flat. During
the first episode, I thought it could be due to budget but then once they finally get
out of that sitting room we get to go to some cool locales...where everything
else is flat.
 |
| "What a surprise. I know more than The Doctor again. No wonder I keep getting brushed off screen." |
Most of the actors can't save it except for maybe Tom Baker in the
final episode because they don't seem to know what kind of stakes are present.
It's presented without any flavor to the point where the audience can forget
that a giant dog is killing people! The one exception, I think, is Caroline
John as Laura Lyons. She only has a few scenes but she can play upon the
melodrama with skill. But then again, that could still be my Doctor Who love
so who knows.
We adored the
Peter Cushing version of Hound of the Baskerville. Aside from my
adaptation annoyances, what else did that movie have that this miniseries just
seems to be lacking?
Leigh: The
complaint I hated most when the Harry Potter movies came out was about how much
stuff they had to cut. I love Harry Potter. A lot. Possibly more than Star Wars
(depends on the day of the week...). But having an 800 page book adapted to a
movie, word for word, line by line, it's going to be long and boring and
everyone will hate it, even that kid who wanted it in the first place who says
he loves it even though it is 19 hours long, he secretly hates it. No one wants
a line by line adaptation. That might be why this one fails so hard.
I like to write. Let me correct myself: I like to read my own words.
Even though I think I'm one of the greatest authors in the world (and modest
too) I know that sometimes you need to cut things and that brevity is your
friend. What makes Cushing's Hound so
much better than this one? Brevity. It wasn't a miniseries, it was a movie. It
took the important parts of the story and used them and cut any of the
extraneous stuff. Brevity is our friend when it comes to adaptations. You don't
want to cut so much stuff so that the story doesn't make sense (insert popular
culture reference here...) but you don't need to include every line and every
movement and every description. Even the most diehard fans are going to revolt if
you do that. Unless we're talking Lord of
the Rings because, let's face it, those fans are crazy. (Disclaimer: Leigh
would like to recognize that all fans are crazy, not just LotR fans even though
they are a special kind of crazy. Seriously, who needs an extended cut on an
already 3 hour-long movie?)
Next time, we
discuss a story that I know I've read before but I couldn't tell ya a damn
thing about it! Should be fun!
And here is
Austin with the final words…
Austin: The crime has been prepared for...
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