Yeah. I think that was just a bit silly. I'm glad it reverted to Speedy's. The trade generated from the series must be great for them.

Carol the Dabbler wrote:

While watching the pilot for the nth time (where n=many), during the early scene where John is having lunch with Mike Stamford at the Criterion, I noticed that a couple of the "extras" behind Mike appear to be Beryl Vertue (Executive Producer) and Arwel Wyn Jones (Production Designer).  They were probably willing to work cheap!

Really? oh I must look, thanks for that & welcome!
You're well studied on this series I see; love that!

kazza474 wrote:

You're well studied on this series I see; love that!

Hmm, actually I think the word is obsessive -- Sherlock is just such a fantastically good series!

There are of course quite a few lines, scenes, etc. that were added to the original 60-minute story in order to flesh it out to 90 minutes.  However, after watching both versions again, I just realized that there's a short sequence of lines that are in the 90 but not in the 60, even though they were in the original script.

I'm basing that italicized assertion on one section of the documentary from the Season 1 DVD, where they show Benedict Cumberbatch doing an early table read, before Martin Freeman was cast.  He's reading some of Sherlock's lines from the crime scene (something like):  "They're not suicides, they're killings, all of them. ... It's a serial killer -- oh, I love those!"  These lines do not appear in the finished pilot, but they were resurrected for the 90-minute episode.

No big deal, just kind of interesting.

Someone who's on the internet as Ariane DeVere (just Google on that name) has painstakingly transcribed all three of the second-season episodes.  So these are effectively, as you say, the aired scripts -- rather than the shooting scripts (I believe that even the "final" shooting scripts typically get modified during filming).

She has also written up semi-transcripts of, I believe, all of the DVD commentaries (by "semi" I mean that she quotes and/or summarizes the parts that she finds most interesting).

Last edited by Carol the Dabbler (July 24, 2012 4:02 am)

Actually, they showed two readings, one after the other.  The first was just Benedict Cumberbatch reading the lines above (and not sounding quite like the Sherlock that we know).  The second, which I take to have been Martin Freeman's tryout, was with both of them reading lines from the scene where they've just texted the murderer, sounding very much like "our" Sherlock and John.

The point that they appeared to be making by showing the two readings was the importance of the chemistry, that Cumberbatch hadn't quite "found" Sherlock until Freeman came into the picture -- so the implication was that both readings occurred very early in the process, certainly before the pilot was made.

Last edited by Carol the Dabbler (July 24, 2012 4:42 pm)

I just bought the season 1 & 2 DVDs and was pleased to find that the 2nd DVD of the 2nd season includes the pilot--  yayy! I'd only seen it on you tube before. I look forward to seeing this again-- Sherlock in jeans, OMG, yum, and a shirt that wasn't black or navy blue. And he's so smiley and pleasant in the pilot, compared to how he/they decided to play him later, a bit darker and edgier. As I said earlier, watching the pilot is kind of Twilight-Zone-ish-- most of the same actors, most of the lines of ASiP, but every single one of the sets was different-- a bit like being caught in a strange dream. Wheeee!

I agree with everything you write, Ancientsgate. If you watch the pilot and the final version you see the difference between a good and a truly great film. Everything is there in embryo but it has to grow and develop into something even better. How lucky that they got the chance to do it again. And it proves that a Sherlock film is always about Sherlock AND John. If there's no chemistry between the actors the best script becomes useless.

Yes, I, for one,  probably would've kept watching based on the pilot, but I wouldn't have become obsessed enough to say...join a forum!

I happened to watch it yesterday only and am so glad now that the pilot version was not approved!! Otherwise, I might have just liked it, but probably wouldn't have gone ahead and watched the whole series. For me, more than the serial-suicide mystery, the thing that attracted me to this episode was the strong characterization..Sherlock is a very different Sherlock in the pilot..Just an intelligent detective we often see in other serials...but the real SIP presents him as just 'one-of-his kind' creature in the world.. There can't be anyone like him.. He's more sharp, more eccentric and funnier in the real version...And, one big let down of the pilot is that bad use of BACKGROUND MUSIC!!! Even when he says.. "The Game, Mrs. Hudson, is on!" ..doesn't create the kind of impact that it does in the real SIP bcoz of the improper use of background music... Moreover, I personally like to see longer duration suspense serials..