DramaQueen wrote:

...
 They let her play the cello - of course, because you have to spread your legs for it. Dusgusting.

Are you seriously saying that women should not play the cello because of how it is held? THAT is a sexist position if ever I've seen one! (Should we ride horses sidesaddle, and scooters instead of motorbikes, and not play recorders or tin whistles at all?)

They might have chosen the cello because they wanted a change from the usual violin, or maybe because the actress actually knows how to play the cello, or maybe the producer just loves the sound of the cello (which is a wonderful instrument)...

Well, in order to truly understand this comparison you would have had to try watching The Source... (I didn't, I just listened while knitting, and I have a friend who's even more of a Highlander fan than I and who also finds it completely unwatcheable. She's not a knitter...)

Back on topic: A few people have said that TFP can only be a hallucination of Sherlock's. In one way I agree that that's the only way of making "reality-compatible" sense of it. But the problem is that if TFP didn't happen, then TLD didn't happen either, because there was no woman to alert Sherlock to Culverton Smith's crimes...
 

Liberty wrote:

"It's got me thinking, though, that if it was real life, beating a corpse is perhaps quite an awful thing to do, depending on your personal morality around those things.   We do have a certain amount of respect for the departed, usually, and it could be very distressing for relatives to know that their loved one's body was treated that way.  Of course, Sherlock was doing it for the cause of good, even though there's an uncomfortable parallel with Culverton!

Given that Moftiss splattered corpses all over the German countryside and planned on throwing them into the Irish Sea or Atlantic (hopefully not having them land on land) - which was another impossibility in another episode -, I don't think beating one is worth getting upset about. (I'm still upset about the "freshness" dialogue, though...)

I suppose somebody sometime must have done experiments on postmortem bruising, and I don't find them any more problematic than having medical students doing autopsies in anatomy classes. I see absolutely no parallel with Culverton who killed people for his amusement.

But of course the whole "respect for the dead" thing is why Sherlock having human body parts in his refrigerator is another constant impossibility...

(I'm beginning to feel like I'm in the Restaurant at the End of the Universe...)

kgreen20 wrote:

....
They could have done that, but they decided to go with canon in having Sherlock beat corpses, since that's what ACD Holmes did.

Yeah, but at the time medical databases didn't exist. That's where one should make a decision to either update - or not. As it is the series is some crossbreed that just doesn't make sense to me.

Not to mention that learning how much is not original Moftiss doesn't endear the writers to me. I have consciously avoided reading ACD or watching any other adaptations.

Liberty wrote:

.... (I also wonder if Steven, and maybe to some extent Mark too, were influenced by so much writing for Doctor Who, ....

That has been my suspicion from the moment I learnt that they wrote Dr. Who. Because BBC Sherlock was never reality-compatible, right from the moment Sherlock beat a corpse to learn about post-mortem bruising (a Google search would have done, besides I'd have expected a modern-day Sherlock to either have at least one subscription to a medical database - or the ability to hack into them). 

And my other suspicion is that maybe Moftiss just wanted to see how far they could go, till where the fans would follow them. Because the majority seems to have happily accepted all the whoppers they produced in series one to three - so why not really jump the shark in number 4? Or of course it might have been a desperate attempt to get rid of fans bothering them about future series (commercial suicide, as they say in France - does the expression exist in the english-speaking world?) Or maybe they honestly did the best they could...

Here's another "natural" crossover that corresponds exactly to what I like: Little Help from My Friends by Achray (https://archiveofourown.org/works/525757/chapters/930703)

It's a Sherlock/Prime Suspect crossover. Knowing Prime Suspect is not necessary for enjoying the story, having seen Helen Mirren is probably helpful. After a little detour it becomes Johnlock, but first there's a wonderfully snarky face-off between Jane Tennison and Sherlock.

Where is Sherlock Holmes when I need him? I can see that at least one dog chased my alpacas and horses around yesterday evening, which led to my favourite alpaca falling down (and dying while I tried to get him into the stable). Possibly there were two - there seem to be paw prints in two sizes. But unlike a certain consulting detective I don't see which dog it was and who is his owner!

And I suppose the confusion proves that Culverton Smith's asking John "but are you a real doctor" wasn't all that far out of line ;)

(Seriously OT, for information of the non-Germans, in case anybody is interested: In Germany, and possibly France, students in the medical professions - veterinarians included - generally (used to) write a doctoral thesis in order to be able to use the title "Doctor". But the quality of these theses is a very far cry from what post-graduate students in other fields have to produce to obtain a Ph. D. I've read a French veterinary doctoral thesis which I probably could have written myself without even properly studying the field! And there are medical "doctors" in Germany that have not written a doctoral thesis, but I can't find out how they are adressed by their patients... However, it might explain why my dentist is called Mr. by the assistants.... And there are discussions at least in Germany (haven't searched for the situation in France) to change the rules" to align them with anglosaxon countries.)

But I don't think that the John we see interacting with his patients in TEH is in his normal frame of mind - he just got the shock of Sherlock's revival. At least I hope that's the reason...

Liberty wrote:

... I suppose it could also be because it's seen as more flexible and maybe easier to drop at short notice?  And also, maybe, because it IS shown as mundane, it's easier for it to take a back seat.   If John was something more glamorous like a heart surgeon it might be felt that he would focus on that more, and not be so free to go on adventures? 
 

I think that's an important point - I don't think you can become a half-way decent surgeon without a lot of dedication and full concentration on the job while working. A GP is less likely to kill people if he has a bad day (though I belive it was Wellingtongoose who said that falling asleep while supposed to be working is a very serious offence even for GPs). Also, from what I've seen of surgeons (real ones, not only on ER - which seems to portray them quite accurately) very many of them do have an ego that would clash terribly with Sherlock's...
 

Why do you think that John hates being a GP so much? I have a feeling that's also a lot more fanon than canon: Without checking the transcripts I only remember seein John as a GP in TBB - where he falls asleep after working the night on the books. That's not what I'd expect from a university-hospital trained doctor (if ER can be believed), but it speaks more of exhaustion than hate.

And then there's the scene in TEH, where he shouts at the patient whom he suspects of being Sherlock in disguise and pulls on his beard. Not acceptable behaviour, for sure, but the guy does behave very strangely (trying to sell him porn, if I remember correctly), and John is upset by Sherlock's return (and IMHO still suffering from PTSD). Again, I don't see how that indicates a hatred for his job in general. Don't we all have bad moments in our jobs without actually hating them?