And who determines what's 'over-analyzing theories'...? This is so subjective. What's over-analyzing for one person isn't over-analyzing at all to another person.
Apart from that, I personally couldn't care less if people expect something from the creators of the show because they've convinced themselves that something specific will happen in the show. That's their problem, not mine.

For me personally, screenshots are a great tool to point out details in the set, the costume and the lighting, as well as sometimes the only way to get some background jokes. Also, especially in somewhat static scenes, screenshots can be helpful to point out the actors’ positions and what that might mean for the storytelling. I find them a bit problematic when they are used to evaluate a particular emotion from a given character or scene. Sherlock is blessed with a wonderful cast of very expressive actors who will often show a whole range of emotions in a single scene. Screenshots are, in my opinion, an inadequate tool in capturing all of those emotions and the subtle change from one to the other (I might make an exception for Mark Gatiss here; he plays Mycroft so wonderfully stoic that it can sometimes be a case of blink-and-you-miss-it). And then I am not even talking about the intonation of the lines or the background music. I feel any emotional analyses of a scene or a character based purely on screenshots is bound to be incomplete.
 

I agree very much with what you said there, Lola (as usual, it seems. ).

SusiGo wrote:

I agree. One cannot analyse a character purely on the basis of screenshots. But this is not usually done. They can only ever be an additional means for interpreting what is in the script and on screen. However, details like the Vitruvian man may be used as an additional means of interpreting e.g. Sherlock's character. 

I think you are (very narrowly) missing my point. I did not talk about character analyses, but about the emotional analyses (of a character or a scene). There is a slight difference. For example I could do a character analyses about Sherlock based on his costume. Within the parameter “character analyses based on costume” screenshots might be quite helpful. They could illustrate the costume choices for different scenes in greater detail than might be possible without endless careful re-watching of a scene. To go on with my example, Sherlock has once stated that he never wears a tie or shirts that require cufflinks. Yet I can easily see that he does wear a tie at John’s wedding, but does he wear cufflinks? To answer that question and see what that might mean for his character a screenshot could show me details that are easily overlooked while the scene is in progress. But if I would want to analyse the emotions Sherlock is going through during the wedding, screenshots will likely give me a less complete picture than watching the relevant scenes. In conclusion, while emotional analyses will often allow me to get insight into a character, not all character analyses need to be based on emotion (of course one can combine different sources for character analyses to arrive at a more complete picture).

 

Last edited by Lola Red (February 11, 2015 11:49 pm)