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| Character Analysis » Sherlock and drug use? » December 11, 2013 7:25 am |
- TammanyT
- Replies: 82
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Swanpride wrote:Which is still too long is Sherlock is suppose to have a two year hiatus and be back for the bonfire night at 05.11.13
(Shrug) So it doesn't fit quite right.. Imperfect continuity OR imperfect internal dating of the sort that seems in keeping with old-Canon Watsonian bloopers.
For me the critical element is keeping the internal logic of the stories from falling apart. Having to play a bit of stretch-o-matic and "the PTB could tell the future" with the overall timeline bothers me very little. You can work around that sort of thing. You can't work around a story in which characters wildly lose track of what things like "six months" and "two months" mean, or bones heal in days.
I myself would be happy with a strong chronological progression, a very strong internal arc for each story, and a techincal timeline everyone admits is a timey-wimey around the edges.
Hmmm. Maybe that's it. Maybe the Doctor's been through Sherlock's timeline....
That would explain a lot....
| Character Analysis » Sherlock and drug use? » December 10, 2013 3:26 pm |
- TammanyT
- Replies: 82
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Swanpride wrote:
Yes, but "one year" would be mean that it can't end in fall like you say, because we have a definitive date in spring at the very beginning when John writes into his blog. One year would mean that it starts and ends in spring.
The interesting part of the interview is that Hound might be set during the timeframe of Scandal...it can't be set before the confrontation in the plane, because Moriaty is still free at this point, but ignoring the blog it might be set before Mycroft informs John about Irene's dead. Though it seems like the writers thought that the episodes went for a chronologically order.That's assuming that they're counting the resolution of "The Great Game" as part of the story proper. And, once again, there's simply no logical escape from Irene's six-month clause. You have to fudge too hard to get out of that. She gives the phone to Sherlock in the box on Christmas Eve, and returns for it approximately six months later, at the time of Bond Air.
I honestly do not see ANY way out of that which does not involve messing the h*ll out of any sane interpretation of the script. Even if we push it back on your terms, to their first meeting when he retrieves the phone only to lose it again, that carries us through to midsummer for the report of Irene's death.
And yes. As we both say, the only time in SiB that Hound could possibly occur is between Bond Air and Speedy's Cafe/Mycroft's revlations. But I tend to lean toward their own base assumption that Hounds occurs fully after SiB. Which gets us back to eighteen months to two years to play out all the events of season 2.
| Character Analysis » Sherlock and drug use? » December 10, 2013 12:42 am |
- TammanyT
- Replies: 82
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Swanpride wrote:
Can't be...there is one definitive date in TBB, which put the first season firmly in 2010. And apparently, if we believe the new footage, we now got a definitve date in 2013. So the two year timeframe for season 2 will most likely be debuked as soon as season 4 airs.
(Shrug) Could be. In which case they've built an interesting problem in terms of timing, as I honestly see no way out of a one-year arc for SiB, what with both internals and Moffat's own comments.
Again, and as usual, what I would really like is a timeline from the Creators, as the current material just does not add up very well.
Edit:
Aaaaaand, I knew I'd eventually find some mention of the one-year timeline for SiB, if not (yet) the one I originally alluded to. This bit even applies to our dialog.
Gatiss mentions it about half-way down the page, in response to a comment asking for the timeline on Hound. He comments that Hound could happen during the SiB arc, but it logically can't: Moriarty's free and there's no reason to think Mycroft's nabbed him yet. The very earliest it can be in the SiB arc is toward the very end, after Bond Air but before the Speedy's Cafe scene. Then Moffat says they'd been assuming the eps happened sequentially...
Edit: Regarding dates for BB, we can possibly work with the fact that a) Watson (original) didn't always report stories in sequence, and b) even if John does, there's still room to push stories backward on the whole.
| Character Analysis » Sherlock and drug use? » December 9, 2013 11:31 am |
- TammanyT
- Replies: 82
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Swanpride wrote:
There is also the problem that if we go for a two year timeframe for season 2, most of it played in the future when it aired...I guess as soon as season 3 airs, this will not work out anymore....
Or that the timeline goes back farther than we've tended to assume. Which, at the very least, works out a bit better, allowing us to pretend that all the things we see happen not in real-time, but are being reported forward from the past into the present. Of course that really does turn the blog into a meta-fiction.
| Character Analysis » Sherlock and drug use? » December 8, 2013 1:53 am |
- TammanyT
- Replies: 82
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Understood! No hard feelings @kittykat! The only real problem is that that's more or less where this started. The dates for John's blog don't work if taken as literal, current, and in sync with the timing of the episode. It blows too many internal cues away. Swanpride and I have been bickering politely over how to fit Irene's comment on Sherlock having the phone for six months and Mycroft and Sherlock's respective presentation of it being at least two more months since her death, and get it to fit the timing presented between time lines and blog points. It doesn't work well. I favor just accepting episode timing. Swanpride has been trying to figure out some way to explain the various sources as being reconcilable. So far we haven't found one I'm comfortable with.
| Character Analysis » Sherlock and drug use? » December 7, 2013 5:39 pm |
- TammanyT
- Replies: 82
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Official tie-in from people who know perfectly well that one of the outstanding elements of Watsonian reporting in the original is that it's variable. My own take is that the blog's fun, but not canon...episodes trump blog, hands down.
@Swanpride, again, for SiP to make internal sense at all, the eighteen months count on therapy with Ella has to be considered to involve later sessions. Personally I can see John at least picking up some therapy post Great Game: that was traumatic enough that even Watson might have gone in for some time covering the emotional aftermath. The thing is, I can either assume John got more therapy, or I can assume SiP makes no time sense at all. I keep going with SiP making sense.
| Character Analysis » Sherlock and drug use? » December 7, 2013 12:03 pm |
- TammanyT
- Replies: 82
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Swanpride wrote:
The dates from the eps are written in bolt in my timeline, with explanations where they came from. It's actually quite interesting how TBB is so precise, but with TGG, it was already impossible for me to determine if the case happens in three or four days, because they show keeps jumping to different daytimes which contradict themselves. For example, when they get the third pip, they are just having breakfast and John mentions that they didn't have time to eat because of the second pip. The third pip comes in at 8:05. But if that is correct, then Janus Car must be open unusually early, and the car must have been found in the middle of the night. I noticed the same problem in HoB, too.
TRF on the other hand is pretty clear about the timeframe it is working with, even though there is no exact date given.
I have the feeling that it really depends on the writer.
But you didn't answer my question. Hounds happens in a time frame of two or three days. You can put it at nearly every date which is not in the middle of the winter. Where would you put TRF, though? We are talking about three months, here, and they are definitly set in summerly weather.Actually, I did. I'm not convinced the two additional stories can be accurately time plotted without further help from the Beeb. However, I'm willing to try.
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Let's see. Hound can't easily happen prior to the resolution of Scandal, as Moriarty is still free at that time. Mycroft and his people collect Moriarty after that point. I place Scandal as "ending" in the fall after a year of plot playing out. I'd tend to place Hound in spring of the following year, though that fall is possible. But spring gives Lestrade a full year after the Christmas sequence to finally concede his marriage won't survive, and go through the preliminaries leading to a divorce, and winter is so very much the time Brits love going on vacation to tropical, sunny climes. So if one postulates that a bit over a year after the Christ
| Character Analysis » Sherlock and drug use? » December 7, 2013 3:03 am |
- TammanyT
- Replies: 82
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You are not going to like my answer, but...
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Ok, we have reason to believe that The Hounds of Baskerville occurs after Scandal in Belgravia, due to two major details: Lestrade loses his wedding band, which he had during the Christmas sequence in SiB, and Moriarty's been taken captive, which is foreshadowed in Mycroft's comments during SiB. It can, however, come before the resolution of SiB, when Mycroft shows up to tell John about Irene's "death." We also know that Riechenbach has to happen after both of them. Beyond that I honestly do not think we know much.
Now, I do want at some point to try doing a scouring of the eps for dates to see if there's a clear pattern. But I'd do eps long before I'd attempt to factor in other material, especially John's blog.
Here's the thing--this is the reason I keep wishing the BBC would put out a timeline. You see, my own gut instinct is to treat everything but the episodes as non-canon, and to expect errors within the stories, too, so long as those errors do not ruin the overall internal logic of the eps. In the original canon John Watson was notoriously slapdash about his points of fact. We're talking about a man who can't track how many wives he has, or where his war wounds are, among other things. Much of the fun of the past century and more for fans has been the attempt to rationalize John Watson's weird records.... and there is simply no question but that Moffat and Gatiss know this. They've saturated themselves not only in the Holmes canon, but in the Holmesian fan culture that's followed Holmes for decades and decades. The odds of them letting *their* John Watson be anything other than the rather unreliable witness the original always was seem very slight. Indeed, I would expect far more for them to turn John's blog into a screaming obstacle course of things that never seem to mesh up quite right.
They can't afford to do that as extremely with the episodes: there's a point at which that turns into a breach of faith with
| Character Analysis » Sherlock and drug use? » December 7, 2013 1:22 am |
- TammanyT
- Replies: 82
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Swanpride wrote:
But just because Sherlock didn't have the cameraphone it doesn't mean that he didn't have time to think about the password. The very first time he tried to crack it was after he stole it from her safe.
No. He doesn't try to crack it then, merely notes that it's locked and determines what that means...and at that time she was not yet SHER-locked, and would not have had that passcode, nor does he get the time to test in any case. To get that "gave him six months to solve it" does not logically start until a) she's changed the lock in reaction to him, and b) actually placed the phone in his hands to work with. The prior exposure merely tells him there will be a test.
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You have to get a clear, reasonable approximation of six months of Sherlock testing the phone for Irene's comment to be true for a value of true that either Sherlock or Mycroft would consider uncontestable. It's got to be a compelling statement convincing enough that both men accept that if Sherlock didn't solve it, Mycroft's people won't. Her statement of six months, implying post-Christmas makes sense. Trying to count in the first contact with the phone really doesn't, and does demand that the reader/analyst presuppose a peculiar variant on the most likely meaning of her comment.
And even if you can diddle a way around that, it still leaves you with the problem of two months before Mycroft comes to John with Irene's death, plus whatever limited time she managed to spend free. January 1 to March 12 (when John posts the blog on The Woman) gives two months and twelve days from the time you postulate Sherlock attempting the x-ray, leaving no time at all for Bond Air, and turning Irene's comment about six months into a complete farce. At that point he'd have only had the phone for roughly one week.
Look, I'm sorry, but it just does not work given the internal time references. It really doesn't. It's clear that's a problem for you, and I am honestly sorry for that. But there's sim
| Character Analysis » Sherlock and drug use? » December 6, 2013 4:46 pm |
- TammanyT
- Replies: 82
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Swanpride wrote:
The point of the timeline was NOT to do one conclusive one, but to collect the dates we are given, allowing people to decide for themselves which information they want to disregard. That's why I pointed out inconsensties on two different occosations and made a point of emphasising that the one date we are definitly given is the 22.03.2010. In fact, I did the whole thing mostly for you, so that you and everyone else who want to figure it out for themselves can get all the dates given in one list and can decide if they only consider the bold ones or the ones from the blog, too, instead of getting all of them and having to figure out which information are episode based and which aren't
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I think I was fairly specific that the 18 month are problematic because it is not clear when exactly the "last appointment" happened...for all we know, it could be the scene at the very beginning, but even with this one I am not sure if it happens before the murders or shortly before John encounters Mike and the murders are shown in back. But as I pointed out in my last post, even if we believe that John saw Ella (whose name is not given in the show itself, btw) after his limb was cured, there is still the three month we is definitly given. If you think that SiB ended in autumn, based on the assumption that when Irene talks about "six month" she means "six month since christmas" and not "six month since he held the cameraphone in his hand for the first time, then it clashes with TRF, which is definitly set in summer/early autumn if it is a particularly warm one. Plus, in the scene with Mycroft the trees are green, not coloured like they would be in autumn.
The thing is you are basing your assumption on an interview you remember in which one year was mentioned...one year from the first scene, which is definitly set in spring, something we know because we can see the date of this particular blog post on screen (check for yourself), would again NOT mean autumn. Therefor
| Character Analysis » Sherlock and drug use? » December 6, 2013 11:49 am |
- TammanyT
- Replies: 82
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s
Swanpride wrote:There is some room for wiggling, but not too much.
Why don't you take a look at the link I send you? The timeline is very precise, with all thoughts I had about possible contradictions. And one thing for sure, HoB and TRF should happen in the same year as the end of SiB, and TRF shows a timespan of exactly three month before John speaks with the therapist again. If the end of SiB happens in autumn like you think there would be no room for those two cases. Plus, if you talk about one year...SiB starts immediatly with the end of TGG. If it would cover a year, we would again end up in either spring or early summer of the next year, not autumn.I have looked at the page. The trouble is that I honestly think using the "18 month" comment and the blog dates is unreliable, and is skewing the results. That's part of why I have been trying to confirm just how you're marking the 18 months. If one simply takes it as a reasonable hypothesis that the last time John saw Ella-the-Therapist was NOT that first session we see in SiP, then the problem goes away for the most part, conceding that John does not always post narratives in real time sync.''
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Sticking to the precision of the eighteen months framing assumptions means you have to dismiss the internal evidence of the script for Scandal in Belgravia, and Scandal is very tightly laid out if you watch for the cues.
Basically I can believe your timeline, or I can believe what the script lays out visually, verbally, and logically. Likewise I can assume that the script's internal timeline is accurate, with its wealth of detail, or I can assume that a two-season arc based on some fairly broad conjectures is correct. Personally I am more inclined to trust the internal evidence of Scandal matched with Moffat's own comments, rather than the timeline, even though the timeline is very well researched and careful. That's because the timeline forces me to favor extrapolated canon (eighteen month timing based o
| General Sherlock Discussion » Speculation on "Many Happy Returns." » December 6, 2013 5:19 am |
- TammanyT
- Replies: 2
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That would work for me. I'm not averse to Anderson getting that slot...and it could be amusing. I would expect all regret and repentence over driving Sherlock to his death to go up in smoke in mere seconds.!
| General Sherlock Discussion » Speculation on "Many Happy Returns." » December 6, 2013 2:55 am |
- TammanyT
- Replies: 2
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Ok, we know there's going to be a mini episode aired in England on Christmas day. (Joy-joy: new Who AND mini Sherlock! Eeeeee!) We know that the thumbnail summary is that somone is not convinced Sherlock's dead. I've been pondering who.
Should not be Mycroft or Molly: Molly's too clearly set up to help arrange the faked death. She should know, not just suspect. Should not be Mycroft; first, the terrorism plot-line of "Empty Hearse" too strongly suggests that Sherlock's been working within Mycroft's circle of influence while he's been gone, and second, Moffat and Gatiss seldom screw up the core truths of original canon enough to leave Mycroft in the dark when he was the original Sherlock's one most trusted collaborator, even over John.
Mrs. Hudson? Well, they could do a cute "woman's intuition" thing.
Lestrade's my guess: he's known Sherlock longer than anyone but Mycroft, he's a detective in his own right, and the aftermath of the fall should have had him reviewing every single thing he ever knew about Sherlock, up to and including the presumed death.
Donovan/Anderson etc? Just does nto seem likely, but could make for a very amusing mini ep, so I won't rule them out entirely.
What do you guys think?
Edit: Should not be John, becuase it contradicts all known canon, and would badly skew the emotional outcome of the return.
| Character Analysis » Sherlock and drug use? » December 5, 2013 5:47 pm |
- TammanyT
- Replies: 82
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Swanpride wrote:
Ah, I forget the "Six months" remark....I have to add it....
but even then, it contradicts the 18 month timeline....unless HoB happens before Irene's presumed dead.....
it might work though, if Irene doesn't count the six month from the moment she gave him the phone but from the moment they had their first encounter (after all, Sherlock had six month to think about the right password).Ok. let me see if we're on the same page, here.
In TRF we have the therapist say to John that it's been eighteen months since his last appointment, right? But we a) have no indication that his last appointment is the one we see in Study in Pink...he may well have had appointments since that are not mentioned. Similarly we have no way of knowing if John went in after Sherlock jumped--and then refused to come in again until he knew he wasn't hanging on well on his own. (wry grin) Or Mary M might chivvy him into it.
Now, if that's not what you're talking about, you may need to jog my memory. Mainly I see the eighteen months as being less clearly secured than, say, the six months Irene mentions or the two months Mycroft mentions.
| Character Analysis » Sherlock and drug use? » December 5, 2013 3:11 pm |
- TammanyT
- Replies: 82
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Swanpride wrote:
Okay, I have researched that matter (you are right, the full leaved trees are a problem)...either way, this is the result:
As you can see, it becomes sometimes a little bit cramped, but even if you only take the dates given in the show into account, autumn is impossible, because then there wouldn't be enough time for the other two cases, since John is back in therapy "18 month after his last appoinment"....and the dates for the first season are overall very precise. Even the weekdays are correctly given.Not if you conclude that the eighteen months is eighteen months since Sherlock's death, and everything is a flashback. That puts the very-very end of TRF in the incoming time-frame...John shows up for his session with the therapist after trying to cope on his own for eighteen months.
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Again, you really can't ignore the outright statement by Irene that she left the phone with Sherlock for six months, nor can you ignore the healing of the CIA agent. Those are firm and clear indicators that make mid-summer pretty close to necessary for Bond Air. That means you move from Bond Air in June/July, add two known months that Mycroft testifies to after her presumed death, plus whatever period of time she remained free after Bond Air--give her a month, to come in in "under six weeks" by her own estimate. So, again, we're left with June-July, which again brings it in end of September or even into October/November.
Those are all solid references built into the script, and they all make sense so long as you don't assume the eighteen months thing is right after Sherlock's death, and so long as you don't trust the blog--which is not reliable and is secondary canon, not primary.
That's the thing: the script makes perfect sense if you take it at its word, and if you don't try to make the therapy session in the later episode tie in too immediately.
| Meet The Members » What does your username/signature/avatar say about you? » December 4, 2013 3:24 am |
- TammanyT
- Replies: 172
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Mine is boring, and merely indicates that when I wanted a username at one point I picked one of my favorite characters from Walt Kelly's Pogo series. It's very much like naming oneself "Hobbes" for Calvin's good-buddy.
Tammany Tiger:
| General Sherlock Discussion » You know you're obsessed with Sherlock when... » December 4, 2013 1:49 am |
- TammanyT
- Replies: 4132
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Sherlock Holmes wrote:
**for those who haven't played this before...it's a fun game where everyone thinks of examples as to how they're obsessed. I'll give it a go first...**
You know you're obsessed with Sherlock when...
You turn up the collar of your coat every time you put it on
You tell people they're seeing but not observing
Your friends/family get upset because they think you're being rude to them, but really you're just trying to talk more like Sherlock
When someone asks you to do something you don't want you say it's not your division
Your turn!When you stall on paid work in favor of writing a new fic.
When you realized you've dreamed in Lestrade's head-space.
| Introductions Please... » Hello, TammanyT from Providence, RI » December 4, 2013 1:46 am |
- TammanyT
- Replies: 8
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holmes23 wrote:
A belated welcome from me, TammanyT. You have already become active here with some interesting posts
(Smile) Trying. Glad you think they're interesting!
And thanks for the greeting.
| Character Analysis » Sherlock and drug use? » December 3, 2013 10:54 pm |
- TammanyT
- Replies: 82
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The timeline has Sherlock attempting to X-ray the phone on Jan. 1, and John posting the entire blog on The Woman in March, as though it's done by then. But trees even in mild England are not in full leaf in January, and for the story to be posted in March Sherlock can't have had the phone for six months.
| Character Analysis » Sherlock and drug use? » December 3, 2013 10:09 pm |
- TammanyT
- Replies: 82
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Be wrote:TammanyT wrote:
It would be lovely if the Beeb and Moffat/Gatiss would give us a rough timeline of the seasons....
Never underestimate the fans.
Have a look:It's a nice timeline, but it isn't right. (sorry-sorry-sorry) I can perhaps accept the September start, but I think that's off, too, I can swear outright that it's wrong from here on:
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1st January - Sherlock x-rays Irene Adler's phone at St. Bart's.
January 1st - John posts Happy New Year (2012) and shows video of Jacob Sowersby on his blog
March 12th - John posts 'The Woman' concluding 'A Scandal in Belgravia'
The attempt to photo the phone has to come substantially later than that; they make a point of an establishing shot outside St. Bart's of trees in full leaf, which is in keeping with both Moffat's comment that the ep plays out over a year *and* the in-canon comment by Irene that she gives Sherlock six months to solve the password problem, which is itself consistent with the CIA agent being fully healed from being dropped out the window during the Bond Air sequence. So you have to count six months from Christmas Eve for that--which realistically puts Bond Air in early-early July.
I haven't been able to find the Moffat interview in which he's talking about the show playing out over a full year--too dratted many interviews, both in print and vid, dang it. I do recall it fairly clearly, though: he was talking about scenes like the Christmas Eve party and aftermath that they could include that would not have been possible in less than 90 minutes, and the importance to them of being able to play the entire story as a year in Sherlock and John's lives.
Wikipedia thinks that it's an additional six months between first meeting Irene and getting the phone, but I don't see the cite. I'm willing to go with September, though.
So: September: meet Irene
Christmas/New Years: Get phone, identify body, Danger Night,
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