Zatoichi wrote:

nakahara wrote:

Liberty wrote:

I'm going off topic a bit here, but what do you think John believes?  He's the doctor.  The explanation doesn't make sense.  Does he believe it?  (In fact, is the explanation partly for John's benefit? Because he might not accept Mary back otherwise?).   Does he see through it and still accept Mary back?  Does he just not want to know?

I think John is just resigned that this is the way Sherlock wants it. Of course he knows that the "surgery" speech is bullshit but as he himself has stated in HLV: "Okay. Your way. Always your way."
 

To have something Sherlock´s way is acceptable if it´s about a moment or temporary behaviour, but not if it´s about life choices.. if what you suggest is true and John is just resigned and as such shuts down his own thinking and feeling it´d be a serious blow for my respect for him (which already suffered a bit during S3..)

Oh, I was only speaking about the scene at Baker Street. As to his further behaviour, I am slightly inclined towards your theory that he and Sherlock act with some plan in mind. But I am not sure, because one does never really know with Moftiss.
 

Liberty wrote:

I'm going off topic a bit here, but what do you think John believes?  He's the doctor.  The explanation doesn't make sense.  Does he believe it?

I'm convinced that Doctor Watson is well aware that he, his best friend and his wife are all fictional characters in a TV show that works according to rules that are ever so slightly different from the Laws of Nature that we ordinary real mortals are bound by.

Seriously, I think we're reading too much into this. It doesn't make sense medically, it is a pure plot device, it wasn't a perfect plot device, but 95 % of all audiences all over the world were probably happy with it and I think we're on the safe side if we just take it at face value. Don't be disappointed if this point won't be raised again at all in S4.

La Jolie wrote:

Seriously, I think we're reading too much into this. It doesn't make sense medically, it is a pure plot device, it wasn't a perfect plot device, but 95 % of all audiences all over the world were probably happy with it and I think we're on the safe side if we just take it at face value. Don't be disappointed if this point won't be raised again at all in S4.

This!!
 

La Jolie wrote:

Liberty wrote:

I'm going off topic a bit here, but what do you think John believes?  He's the doctor.  The explanation doesn't make sense.  Does he believe it?

I'm convinced that Doctor Watson is well aware that he, his best friend and his wife are all fictional characters in a TV show that works according to rules that are ever so slightly different from the Laws of Nature that we ordinary real mortals are bound by.

Seriously, I think we're reading too much into this. It doesn't make sense medically, it is a pure plot device, it wasn't a perfect plot device, but 95 % of all audiences all over the world were probably happy with it and I think we're on the safe side if we just take it at face value. Don't be disappointed if this point won't be raised again at all in S4.

I wish I could ...just take everything at face value here, but Mofftiss, if indeed they only wanted us to look at this stuff as "just thrown in for effect", and "just for entertainment, no real science, here"-- well, they've kinda screwed themselves and us. 

Maybe I'm misunderstanding, but I'm "hearing" that we shouldn't look at things too closely when it comes to the show.  Unfortunately, Mofftiss has a reputation for attention to detail, planting clues and/or red herrings-- and they are lauded for their storytelling and plotting.

So then the question becomes, when should we take something in this show at face value-- "it's artistic license, so don't over-analyze"?

Versus, when should we take something happening on the show seriously? Is this Post-Moderism, where something really. really big happens, and....it means nothing? 

Is Mofftiss trying to tell us there is no spoon? 

Mary shoots Sherlock. 

He flatlines on the table. 

The doctors, unable to revive him, give up and begin walking away, turn off the lights. 

Sherlock hears Moriarty in his head saying, "That wife! John Watson is in danger", and Sherlock miraculously revives. 

And after that, we get--"oh, it was surgery!" 

"She saved my life!"

And then John just ...totally buys it. 

Post-Modernism? Comic-Book sensibilty in terms of writing? We have to apply X-Men logic to BBC Sherlock? 

My opinion , it's Crack. Somebody has been slipping the fictional characters and the creators of the characters Crack with their morning coffee along with their accustomed sugar and  splenda. :-D

I gotta say: I watched a lot of shows last fall, and there were a lot of them that ..well, made more sense than this.  :-)  I want season 4 to resolve these questions badly-- but..well, who knows? 

I need coffeeeeeeeee...... and I'm waaaaay too passionate about this stuff, way too early in..err.. the late morning....

Last edited by RavenMorganLeigh (September 10, 2014 6:28 pm)

silverblaze wrote:

RavenMorganLeigh wrote:

So then the question becomes, when should we take something in this show at face value-- "it's artistic license, so don't over-analyze"?

You never really know. But I'm pretty sure they didn't go too deeply into the science of it. Quite a lot of tv shows contain medical impossibilities. On this show the're a bit better at it but I don't expect them to get everything right. IRL, GFP mice don't really glow in the dark either, memory palaces cannot be so big, assassins are unlikely to be giants, I mean, it's not totally realistic and never claimed to be. The flatline is a common trope and in films people come out of that relatively unscatched all the time. In film logic it's not that much of a stretch. 

 

The thing is, (and I fully understand that I could be getting the wrong idea) that stance means (to me) that there really is no point in actually analyzing the show; because we're all supposed just look at it and go, "It's not to be taken seriously." 

And keep in mind, that they obiviously wanted us to get *something* from the term "Lazarus." 

Or maybe it was just an accident. :-) In which case, I have to start entertaining the notion of shoddy writing, ill-thought-out plotlines, continuity errors, uneven characterization or just lack of attention to details. Am I totally reading this wrong?

There is quite some medical bulls*** in this scene anyway.. "don´t go into shock" while shock is really something lifesaving (as it contracts the vessels and reduces blood loss).. but that´s all details or small plot devices (as is a glowing bunny or an off-switch). I don´t mind artistic license with such minor matters, but flatlining of the main character is quite some different level for me.. yes, I would be disappointed if they just played around with such a serious matter. 

Last edited by Zatoichi (September 10, 2014 8:17 pm)

RavenMorganLeigh wrote:

Zatoichi wrote:

There is quite some medical bulls*** in this scene anyway.. "don´t go into shock" while shock is really something lifesaving (as it contracts the vessels and reduces blood loss).. but that´s all details or small plot devices (as is a glowing bunny or an off-switch). I don´t mind artistic license with such minor matters, but flatlining of the main character is quite some different level for me.. yes, I would be disappointed if they just bullsh** around with such a serious matter.

This exactly my stance, you said it better than I could, Zatoichi. :-)

Moftiss aren´t sloppy with their major storylines even when they are not careful with medical details in the show (most movies and TV series are not correct when depicting medical procedures anyway.) Sometimes they include such stuff to deconstruct the well-known trope (the "off-switch" was such a deconstruction, for example). So I don´t believe they were so lazy here.

If you notice, the surgery bullshit was never confirmed by the actual killer a.k.a. Mary and was deliberately left ambiguous. I therefore think the stuff will be adressed once again when Mary´s dark past resurfaces and blows up into her face.
 

Liberty wrote:

Yes, maybe that's their dilemma - that they had to show for certain that the surgery story wasn't true, while at the same time keeping Sherlock alive ... hence the farfetched flatlining thing.   Anything less than Sherlock virtually dying would have fitted with the surgery story. 

Precisely.
If they wanted to confirm the story about "surgery", they had at their disposal the means to do it.
They didn´t and left the thing deliberately ambiguous.
 

RavenMorganLeigh wrote:

nakahara wrote:

Liberty wrote:

Yes, maybe that's their dilemma - that they had to show for certain that the surgery story wasn't true, while at the same time keeping Sherlock alive ... hence the farfetched flatlining thing.   Anything less than Sherlock virtually dying would have fitted with the surgery story. 

Precisely.
If they wanted to confirm the story about "surgery", they had at their disposal the means to do it.
They didn´t and left the thing deliberately ambiguous.
 

Makes sense. 

Makes perfect sense, thank you for restoring my faith! ^^

It´s a difference between having an alternate reality and having inconsistent logic - for example in Harry Potter I have no problems believing in spells, flying broomsticks and regrowing bones, and still.. if a friend had hit Harry with a bad spell because he caught her in a compromising situation and it seemed kind of necessary to her (because else her boyfriend would split up with her if he found out she used to be a deatheater), he died and just came back for Ron and Hermione, she showed neither remorse nor any interest in his wellbeing afterwards and continues to threaten him instead, if we got some mixed messages and a shady explanation from Harry himself for her behaviour and everything seems fine in the end I´d still think we are in for some surprises in the next book. Because people´s motives, behaviour and agendas are always consistent and realistic, that´s what makes it so gripping. If we take that away it´s just noncommital yet visually beautiful, nice and clever entertainment, and I don´t want Sherlock to descend into that category..

Last edited by Zatoichi (September 11, 2014 5:42 am)

La Jolie wrote:

Zatoichi, I love the images you conjure up - first it was Sherlock doing Parkour (which so stuck in my head that I'm currently writing a fanfic based  on that idea), now it's Sherlock zooming around on a broomstick and Mary being a death eater.

But seriously, back to the point in question, I see what you mean when you say

Zatoichi wrote:

Because people´s motives, behaviour and agendas are always consistent and realistic, that´s what makes it so gripping. If we take that away it´s just noncommital yet visually beautiful, nice and clever entertainment, and I don´t want Sherlock to descend into that category..

and I share your feelings on this. Harry Potter is brilliant and only really works - unlike loads of other stories involving magic/supernatural elements - because of that consistency. And yes, I too would love to see the Sherlock series in the same category and it makes me cringe every time I come across a point  where they don't quite seem to come up to that standard. So the whole shooting/surgery/flatlining sequence is certainly problematic in my eyes, too. But just because I want Mofftiss to be perfect doesn't mean they always are. I think it's just as valid to question whether I care too much as to question their unsurpassed genius, now and again.

Another example: I love crime/detective stories and shows, always have. But I'm in the legal profession, so I know something of police and court procedure, and it used to bother me to no end how these issues were always misrepresented in the stories for the sake of drama and plot. It really started spoiling my enjoyment of contemporary crime stories. But then I just decided to give up worrying about it and accept that although contemporary and realistic in other ways, these stories kind of take place in an alternate universe where private investigators can be admitted to crime scenes and be made privy to all kinds of classified information, where juries can be blackmailed and bullied by a man who is in police custody without anyone even realising it, where you can throw a nasty CIA agent out of a window with impunity, and where jury trials still exist in Germany. To name but my favourite legal pet peeves in Sherlock.

All these "mistakes" are made in order to advance the plot or inject some drama or both. Just because they don't make sense realistically doesn't mean there is a deeper meaning behind this. Is the (legally inaccurate and therefore unresolved) CIA agent incident from ASIB a big, big hidden plot point that will rise up again in S4 to haunt Sherlock? Is he in league with Mary? Will he be the show's next great antagonist? Or can we forget about him and be sure that man will never show his face again, having served his narrative and dramatic purpose?

There is no definite answer, is there? But we will have to entertain the possibility, at least, that we might be overinterpreting if we assume that there is a deeper meaning behind that incident.

And the shooting/surgery/flatlining scene is no different. It is medically inaccurate and therefore unresolved, but that doesn't automatically mean that there's a deeper meaning behind that one, either.

And don't say that there has to be because this is the ONLY scene in the show that doesn't make perfect sense. Because the unresolved Fall explanation issue in TEH is just the same, or even worse.
 

The details of the story must not neccessarily be consistent with real life - but they must be consistent with the story itself.

Flying pink cows and speaking white rabbits in the Alice of Wonderland kind of a story are fully all right and expected. Flying pink cows in a story like Sherlock - a big NO that would ruin the believability of the show.

Many things intruduced in Sherlock thus far were outrageous and unrealistic yet they were working well within the story and were not sticking out like a sore thumb. The third explanation of Sherlock´s survival in TEH included many clues pointing at things that we could see in the TRF (for example, the significance of the rubber ball Sherlock was playing with in TRF was explained), so in my eyes it was consistent and it resolved the issue quite neatly.

We have no such clues in HLV that would confirm the "surgery" story. And they could be included so easily - for example, if only Mary´s call to the ambulance was confirmed the thing would look much differently. But there is really nothing. Nil.

In a story that is otherwise carefully constructed such an oversight is really jarring - the equivalent of the flying pink cow I mentioned above. So it´s hard for me to believe that a writers like Moftiss would be unable to write a more believable stuff - if they wanted to.