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Originally Posted by Baby Lee
Good stuff. The kind of stuff I was looking for posting that.
A much more salient criticism I saw was Moffat's weird embracing of feminist issues. They whole suffragist thing was neat to reference. But nothing came of it as it was a mental exercise, and the story was told entirely through Sherlock's speechifying, with mute columns of women watching reverently, no less.
Kind of a paternalistic co-opting.
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There's more no doubt, and I'm sure I'm biased in my defense of Moffitt.
He and Milch are what they are, and any man responsible for Deadwood (Milch) gets my undying benefit of the doubt, and the bar set for them is so much higher than your average show, even a decent offering by them often is still a rather compelling watch. Moffitt gets that same treatment because he's got a track record that's proven!
If people think Sherlock or Who have been too heady, try watching John from Cincinnati. A show so packed with obscure historical and literary reference and symbolism it's mind boggling. Not to mention the dialogue is dense and ratchets up the weight found in Deadwood. It's a bit of a blend of Shakespeare meets Melville.
At first blush, a fair number of people would be put off by it, and at the very least wondering what the **** is going on. You have to dig into it, but there's discussions you can find to help fill in the places you need to appreciate all that's going on as well as the references and topics discussed.
No doubt, that's not everyone's cup of tea, but if you do your homework and accept the need that it's a show that almost requires footnotes, it's extremely rewarding, and amazing just how rich the material is. The Analysis and payoff for that show is the most rewarding of any show or film I've seen with the exception of a number of Kubrick's films.
No different than a cold read of Shakespeare, there's a lot to process and contextualize before fully appreciated.
It's a shame it only lasted one season, but I understand that the show ended up being a tough sell to gain a broad audience because it required the viewer to do some heavy lifting to get "it". Some people will absolutely hate that- especially if you consider a show to be simply escapism for amusement.
I loved the challenge Moffitt offered up by rewarding those who took the time to unlock the full meaning of the material he was presenting!
It was the show equivalent of those computer generated pictures.
At first glance, all you see is a blob of various colors, and you're say what the **** am I looking at?
However, with spending some time and adjusting how you look at the piece, all of a sudden a picture of something all of a sudden comes into focus and there's a sailboat, for example, in the same picture of colored blobs. The picture didn't change - you just needed to look deeper and adjust your vantage point to appreciate what you were looking at at first glance.