A Scandal in Belgravia

'I've never begged for mercy in my life.' 

A Scandal in Belgravia has proudly taken its place among that very special breed of television. The kind which provokes in me a reaction which can’t be articulated, which is made entirely of violent gestures and high pitched noises. In fact, after finishing it I spent about half an hour randomly collapsing against the lounge, hugging a pillow to by head and making pained, sobbing sounds. I also wept quietly into a cupboard and yelled at some soup.
I don’t think I have ever hated Steven Moffat as much as I hated him then.

I used to wonder what it was that made a masterpiece. An ok painting and a (supposedly) really fucking amazing painting look pretty much the same on paper. Then I realised. In the flesh its rather a different matter. You can see the masterpiece the second you walk into the room. It’s the painting that, despite all the others, draws your gaze. That emblazes itself into your memory and, for a second, takes your breathe away.
Put simply Belgravia is a masterpiece, in the truest sense of the word.

It is very, very hard to tell you how the episode make me feel. Probably because it made me feel All The Things.

Reading the original stories was worth it. It was worth it just for the way I squealed when Sherlock said “Speckled Blonde”. The first fifteen minutes or so were basically just Moffat having his own little Conan Doyle fan convention in the corner. And it was rather lovely to have enough fandom knowledge to afford a ticket.

There were so many moments. Staying Alive. Shut up Mrs Hudson. Mrs Hudson. Molly and her present and the awful, awful tension of Sherlock’s rant. Sherlock in a sheet. The ashtray. Moriarty. And Mycroft. AND THE VIOLIN. And the moment when I was totally convinced that the people in the plane were merely awaiting the shipment of small lemon soaked paper napkins and would wake up shortly to be served tea and biscuits. Just everything. The only times I wasn’t giggling manically or squealing hysterically I was holding my breathe or resiting the urge force quit the whole exercise before me brain actually exploded.

The sexual tension was so thick you could cut it with a knife. And a blunt one at that. Now I like sexual tension as much as the next person. I would actually be willing to hazard that I probably like it slightly more than the average next person. But when it reaches such a level that it is actually physically painful you should really take a moment to think about what it is you’re inflicting on your audience.

Come to that I CAN’T SHIP THAT MANY PEOPLE AT A TIME DAMMIT! I can’t. My brain is not physically, emotionally or mentally able to sustain it. The worst part is (with the possible exception of Sherlock/Molly) its all canon.  I’ve just finished reading the original stories and you can’t go through that without coming to ship John/Sherlock pretty fucking hard. Arthur Conan Doyle shipped John/Sherlock. This is undeniable fact. If anyone told me a week ago that Sherlock/Adler would come very, very close to beating that I would have said “HA!” and read them the passage from The Return of Sherlock Holmes where Holmes and Watson hold hands.
But Adler bought something of a trump card to the table- I actually wanted it to happen. I don’t really want John and Sherlock to leap into bed together. I’m honestly not sure what I would do if they did. But MY GOD YOU TWO. I don’t care if John’s sitting right there! He’s got his laptop and an internet connection right? He can amuse himself for a while. JUST FUCKING HAVE ALL THE SEX RIGHT NOW PLEASE.

Those who know me even marginally well are aware that this isn’t the sort of thing I make a habit of saying. Certainly not in capital letters. I’m usually a fan of the implied. But Moffat has broken my brain and now I can’t stop wondering what happened when Irene and Sherlock were stuck in the middle of the desert together for an undisclosed period of time.

Now if you’ll all excuse me I think I need to take a little bit more time to try and recover before whatever fresh hell they have planned for next week.

SPECULATION CORNER!
The second episode is written by Gatisis and based on Hound of the Baskervilles. Hound is almost certainly my favourite Holmes story. It had me utterly, totally baffled right up until the last moment. Because the only possible explanation was a really fucking big dog. And seeing as how there obviously couldn’t be a really fucking big dog there was no possible way to account for all the factors. The way the Conan Doyle did was brilliant. It blew me away. I am, needless to say, ridiculously excited to see how Gatisis is going to twist it. The beauty of Sherlock lies in its ability to surprise and delight those who haven’t read the stories AND those who know them back to front. There are almost no adaptations that can claim that. What makes the expectation rather more tense is the title-

The Hounds of Baskerville

Who would have thought that moving one little word and putting an S in the wrong place could be so totally intriguing. I am excite.

Haters gonna hate

Last week I met a guy.

“Meet” is probably the wrong word. I was walking to class and happened upon a friend talking to a group of people I didn’t know. Said friend greeted me by pointing at the guy in question and yelling “Alex! He does not like Moffat!”

This guy then proceeded to inform me (a girl he hadn’t even been introduced to) his opinions on Steven Moffat. He believes, and I quote, that Steven Moffat is “sexist, racist and homophobic.”
I’ll give that a moment to sink in.

I’m no stranger to anti-Moffat opinions. If you spend any length of time looking at a particular subject online, you’re going to come across people who don’t like it. This goes doubly for someone who people feel they need to have strong feelings about. I will openly admit that, on reading things that people tweet at Steven Moffat or post about him on Tumblr, I occasionally have the desire to track down the offenders IRL and set their letter boxes on fire.

I was, it should be said, very restrained when I encountered this guy. I tried to present my counter arguments in a sane manner for a little while, realised this was fruitless and proceeded to excuse myself and walk away very quickly before I succumbed to the urge to ask him where he lived and whether or not he was in possession of a letter box. Sexist, racist AND homophobic? This guy was clearly was not in a right state of mind.

Now I can understand how some people misconstrue certain things and thus come to the conclusion that Moffat is sexist. Taken out of context some stuff he’s said in interviews could create that impression. He very clearly ISN’T sexist (Lynda Day is one of the most empowered and inspiring female characters ever to grace our screens) but I can forgive that misconception. However, saying that the various pro-gay references in series 6 (which serve to NORMALISE homosexuality in a way which should be applauded) are condescending anti-gay slurs (that’s right, he actually thought that) is stretching the point a bit. I can’t even begin to comprehend how he arrived at racist.

But I digress. I could spend any number of posts outlining the main flaws in this fundamentally flawed argument. I would, however, be preaching to the converted. Because a blind person could see that he’s wrong. That is not the point. The point is that Steven Moffat is not just some kind of vague conceptual entity who produces scripts without emotion. He’s a PERSON. A human being. A real one. And no one should be allowed to make those kind of comments about anyone. (Except maybe Tony Abbot. ZING! Political satire.)

Haters ignore this fundamental fact. They forget that directing their unbridled (and usually ignorant) rage at someone is not a socially acceptable thing to do. There is no situation where ripping someone to shreds like that is ok. I don’t care what some parts of The Internet think- its just not.
Which brings me to another point- The Internet.

Now one guys expressing his opinion to me is very different to that same guy writing his thoughts down on a blog and tweeting it at Steven Moffat himself. That is really, really not cool. You know that Flight of the Concords song? No? Hang on, I’ll find a YouTube link…there. That’s what I’m getting at here.

While I happily subscribe to the fangirl end of the spectrum, I’m not a hater. I can’t think of anyone I have the desire to out-poor my deep seated loathing for. Except maybe Mary Shelley but she’s dead. And she wrote that really rubbish book about mountains. I suppose maybe I’m a hater of Steven Moffat haters. Does that count?

Here’s the thing- I’ve been in a television studio for seven hours while a team of people slave over an hour long show only to have some idiot rip it apart on Twitter. I’ve seen the love and devotion which is invested in something even though its subsequently panned (this could easily have been a post in defence of Good News World). I don’t think people should be allowed to hate on anything without knowing the sweat, tears and sleepless nights which went into creating it.

So in conclusion- Steven Moffat…well he’s just this guy, you know?

Doctor Who writers- a spotters guide

Steven Moffat 

Pictured here with a dalek

Which episodes has he written?
1- The Impossible Astronaut
2- Day of the Moon
7- A Good Man Goes to War
Plus episodes 8 and 13 (titles TBC)

What do I know him from?
Being God? Apart from being the current Head Writer, Moffat has written all the best episodes the series has served up since 2005. He’s the co-creator of Sherlock. You all know who Moffat is.

Is he any good?
Is this a trick question?

Stephen Thompson

Steve has the unfortunate affliction of a creepy albino Googleganger. 

Which episode has it written?
3- The Curse of the Black Spot

What do I know him from?
He wrote The Blind Banker. Otherwise known as “the other episode” in the first season of Sherlock.

Is he any good?
He must be. That’s what baffles me. He MUST have something going for him to be asked to write Sherlock. I think the poor guy is getting a bad rap. If The Blink Banker hadn’t been wedged between A Study in Pink and The Great Game it wouldn’t have paled so much. And Curse of the Black spot was GOOD. But it wasn’t great.

Neil Gaiman 

Pictured not blinking.

Which episode has he written?
4- The Doctor’s Wife

What do I know him from?
Neil Gaiman seems to be one of those people. You know. Everyone knows who is his but when asked what he’s actually written people tend to say “He’s Neil Gaiman!”
I know him from an amazing movie called Mirror Mask but he’s written truck loads of cool stuff. Plus he’s married to Amanda Palmer.

Is he any good?
Did you watch The Doctor’s Wife? I don’t feel like I can say Moffat’s written all the best episodes now because he hasn’t. That episode will go down in Who history, it already has.
I wouldn’t be at all surprised if we see more Gaiman episodes in the future.

Matthew Graham 

Pictured looking rather too much like Gene Hunt

Which episodes has he written?
5- The Rebel Flesh
6- The Almost People

What do I know him from?
He’s the co-creator of Ashes to Ashes and Life on Mars (and yes, I’m aware I’m the only person alive who lists them in that order). So he’s got some serious time travel credentials.

Is he any good?
Yes. That’s the simple answer. I enjoyed The Rebel Flesh enormously. I think its one of the strongest episodes the series has served up this year (can we just take The Doctor’s Wife out of the equation? Its very difficult to talk about the other episodes beside that one). It was scary and witty and clever. I’m impressed.

Mark Gatiss

Pictured here looking frightened. Possibly of his own creepy dolls.

Which episodes has he written?
Episode 9

What do I know him from?
Going way back he wrote The Unquiet Dead (the one in series one with Charles Dickens and Gwen Cooper in it) and The Idiots Lantern (Queen’s coronation, television that wants to kill people, street party). He also wrote Victory of the Daleks. You know, that one with Winston Churchill. Plus he’s the co creator of Sherlock and wrote The Great Game. Oh, and he plays Mycroft.

Is he any good?
Did you just read that? Yes. He’s pretty good.

Speculation?
Its been confirmed that this is the episode with the creepy dolls from the trailer. It was originally in the first block but was moved across. The last I heard it was called something like “What little boys are made of.”
I think it’ll be properly creepy. That might just be my fear of the dolls talking.

Tom MacRae 

Pictured with silly haircut and Transformer. 

Which episode has he written?
Episode 10

What do I know him from?
He wrote Rise of the Cybermen and Age of Steel back in Martha’s day. Those were the ones with all the blimps when Mickey was trying to be a BAMF.

Is he any good?
We don’t really have a lot to go off. Those two episodes were kind of forgettable really. I thought they were silly but I always attributed that to Russel and his parallel universe story arc.

Speculation?
None at all. Maybe Nazis. They’ve got to crush Nazis in there somewhere but I am (for absolutely no reason at all) tipping Gatiss to have those.

Toby Whithouse 

Pictured with a bottle of water.

Which episode has he written?
The God Complex (episode 11)

What do I know him from?
He wrote School Reunion (Sarah Jane and K9) way back and last series he penned Vampires in Venice (remember the one with the vampires? In Venice?). He’s also the creator of the excellent Being Human.

Is he any good?
I’ve got a weird relationship with Toby Whithouse. I really love his work (I retain that Being Human deserved way more attention) but at the same time… he’s a bit rubbish at endings. The finale of every season of Being Human manages to be kind of disappointing. Despite some amazing moments, Vampires in Venice did end up with The Doctor climbing a tower in a storm. I think he’s strongest when he’s writing character based dialogue scenes.

Speculation?
Have you not noticed the running thread in all his writing? There will be vampires. If there is not at least a little bit of vampires then I will eat my fez.

Gareth Roberts 

Pictured looking slightly like an evil mastermind.

Which episode has he written?
Episode 12

What do I know him from?
He wrote The Shakespeare Code and The Unicorn and the Wasp. He then did a massive back-flip from those pretty ok historical episodes to write The Lodger.

Is he any good?
Go watch The Lodger again. It is seriously wonderful. It features Matt Smith feeding someone out of a tea pot. And also being naked. And I WAS NOT EXPECTING THIS! If I didn’t have such a fondness for The Eleventh Hour, I’d say it was the best episode in series 5.

Speculation?
This is almost certainly the episode with THAT coat and Craig and the cybermat. Oh and the baby. If you don’t know what I’m on about see this video.
We know this is some kind of follow up to The Lodger. We know Craig Owens will return and there is word that The Doctor will be working in a shop.


Why are there no female writers in this list?
If you type "why are there no female Doctor Who writers?" into Google images you get this picture of Rory looking sad.

A god amongst men

mini Moff

This is a Steven Moffat appreciation post.

In case you haven’t noticed I love the man. If I could write like anyone in the world, I’d choose to write like him. Because I genuinely think he’s one of the best writers alive today. Its also worth noting that I more or less worship him and refuse to hear, or read, a single word against him. Recently some people were being mean to him on Twitter. I had the strong desire to track these people down and set fire to their letter boxes.

Probably the worst thing you can say to me is “Steven Moffat’s good isn’t he?” That is assuming, of course, that you don’t want to have an extended and in-depth discussion on all the various reason why the man’s a genius and how this can be demonstrated conclusively in his scripts. But I’m yet to meet anyone who does. You’ve been warned.

This post then is a slightly more light hearted version of that rant. This is me, explaining it gently and with as little arm waving as possible. And trust me, you’re better off without the arm waving. I’ve accidentally slapped people before.

The advantage of fiction is having the leisure to come up with those great lines that always fail you in real life. But that’s just it- in real life its almost impossible to think of them. So its also quite difficult to give such lines to a character without it seeming fake. There is a very important difference between “I wish I was that cool” and “that would never happen.”

Moffat is a master at conjuring the former. He writes these incredible characters. Characters you either want to BE or who you’d immediately like to adopt. You have no idea how many times I’ve wished I was more like Lynda Day. Actually you possibly do. Especially those of you who’ve witnessed my haircut or seen me side part it. And what about Amy Pond? Wouldn’t we all give our left arm to be that effortlessly sexy? To charge feistily into the face of danger and never, ever chip your nail polish.

Take this exchange-
“Maybe its because I’m certifiably crazy about you.”
“Certifiable?”
“It’ll be your name I’m muttering when they take away my shoe laces.”
Now that. That would never happen in real life. No one could come up with a line like that. But somehow Moffat makes us hold out hope. It happened in Press Gang, maybe, just maybe, it could happen to us.

And here’s another thing. Death. Not once have I seen one of these wonderful characters go to the wall. The cast of Press Gang survived gun sieges, getting trapped in vaults, massive gas explosions. Lynda actually went to hell and back and yet, somehow, they survived (and yes, I stubbornly believe she survived). Think about the episodes of Doctor Who he’s written. In Blink the victims were allowed to “live to death,” Madam de Pompadour just got old and the people in the library were “saved.” His entire career can basically be summed up by that line in The Doctor Dances-
“Just this once, everybody lives!”

And yet somehow we hold out the belief that he WOULD kill them. It never once crosses your mind that maybe that’s something he wouldn’t do. I’m totally unable to figure out how he does it.

I think maybe I’m viewing it all through rose tinted glasses. I know that other people see fault but I’m still unable to find it. Plus I like it better this way. And I happen to think  that Mr Steven Moffat Sir has earned my adoration.

No wonder the power’s gone to his head.

Moffism

Look at him. He is so obviously evil. 

I’ve invented a word which I’d like to get into common usage- Moffism.


A while ago Steven Moffat did an interview where he admitted that he sometimes lies. Suddenly a lot of things made a lot more sense. See there were rather a lot of comments in the lead up to series Fnarg that become quite confusing once the episodes actually went to air. For example-
“We’re not going to bring back any old monsters.”
So…series five obviously contained no old monsters at all.
Except…for the part…where it totally did.


On reading the aforementioned interview I realised that Mr Steven Moffat Sir basically spent Comic Con in 2009 throwing random lies at interviewers with reckless abandon. I assume this was an attempt to throw us all off the scent. He’s pretty good at it. Plus I think the power’s gone to his head.


Take the trailer for a Christmas Carol, in fact take everything that was released pre-Smithmas, including the scenes the BBC released and the promo shots that we were allowed. All that stuff served the duel purpose of making everyone very excited while revealing absolutely nothing about the episode itself. That takes skill.


Take for example Amy and Rory’s outfits. As far as the plot of the episode went these were only there for one (rather excellent) joke, intended to please the parents and older fans. But in the lead up those images feed weeks of discussions and argument. They set certain parts of the internet on fire. And I can’t help thinking they’ll fuel a few fan fics in the aftermath too.
That, right there, is a Moffism.


So in watching the series 6 trailer I can’t help wondering how many Moffisms it contains. I think its pretty safe to say that everything is most certainly NOT as it seems. There is stuff in the trailer that’s been stuck in there just to confuse us. To throw us off the scent. At the moment my best guesses are River being naked and The Doctor’s beard. Because both fuel huge amounts of speculation while revealing absolutely nothing of consequence.


And then he goes and says stuff like this (about series 6)- 
“You’ve seen more than you think. The Doctor has noticed what you have not. And when the biggest jaw-dropping twist finally comes – well, the second one – you’ll realise you’ve known about it from the very beginning…”
I mean- the bastard! That's just cruel and unusual punishment that is. 


Same goes for Sherlock. The only things we know about the new series is what Moffat and Gatiss have personally allowed us to hear. Moffat (and the team who I know must work tirelessly with him) has proven that even in the modern internet fuelled world its still possible to keep a tight lid on things.


And that, quite frankly, is exactly where the lid belongs.

Sherlock

"Are these human eyeballs?!"
"Put those back!"
"They were in the microwave."
"Its an experiment."






There is only one man alive who can put this amount of sex appeal into a psychopath.

From the first moment Sherlock Holmes appears, whipping a dead body with a riding crop, he sucked me totally in. (I actually wonder if that would have been a better point to start the episode before flashing back across to Doctor Watson and "nothing ever happens to me") Sherlock is a character that shouldn't be sexy. He's an amoral bastard. But I, for one, couldn't care less.


Its one of the things I love about Steven Moffat’s writing. You fall utterly head over heals for his character before realising that essentially they are, to quote Sherlock himself, “ a highly functioning sociopath”. There was a moments during Jekyll when Jekyll walked into a hospital, sunglasses firmly on eyes, grinning madly. Slung over his shoulder was a garbage bag containing a man he had just beaten to within an inch of his life. I had to do a serious double take. There was something darkly alluring about this character. Especially in that moment. To do these kinds of things to an audience’s brain takes an enormous amount of skill.


Sherlock was…there aren’t even words to describe how amazing it was. I’m currently staying in a sharehouse in Sydney for a fortnight. I had every intention of keeping my television obsession to a visible minimum while I’m here. I probably shouldn’t have timed my arrival to coincide with Sunday night. When the “coming up next” ad for Sherlock came on the screen I froze, leaning forward. I said, in a slightly hysterical voice-
“I’ve been looking forward to this for like a year.”


This is true. From the first moment the news of ‘A Study in Pink’ appeared on stevenmoffat.net I was giddily excited. And it didn’t let me down in the slightest.


The editing gave us a glimpse into the amazing mind of Sherlock. And that should have been really hard to pull off. The car chase, where Sherlock and Watson ran through the streets after a taxi could have been horribly contrived. The street signs and maps which flashed up could have been corny. Somehow it wasn’t. Same goes for the onscreen text which revealed to us both the thoughts of the characters and the text messages which were vital to character and plot development. Usually a text would have to be revealed through dialogue or cringe inducing voiceover. Instead they melded seamlessly into the breakneck dialogue and action.


I hate to say it but I’ve never read the original stories. I did very nearly but the classic penguins edition today. It is, however, my first day of being away and I’ve vowed not to return home with 17 kilos of books this time. As a result I can’t comment on the expert translation of the story and characters into a modern setting. This was going somewhere…I can’t remember where.


Sherlock is on again tonight and also next Sunday. So I’ll probably come back and rant some more about how good it is then. In the meantime go and set your video recorder or magic awesome box. Get a pad of sticky notes and write “SHERLOCK 8:30” on them. Now stick to everything within reach. Becasue this is unmissable television.