Tag Archives: Sherlock: The Abominable Bride (2016)

Movies, TV

A little more on The Abominable Bride…

Yesterday I reviewed the New Year’s day premiere of the 4th season Sherlock episode The Abominable Bride.  If you’ve read the review (its here), you know I absolutely loved it.

Loved it.

But what’s most surprising is the fact that it appears this episode has really torn some fans of the show.  While I’m clearly in the camp that loved it, there are those who really detested the episode.

Over at IMDB and on the page representing the episode, the main user review featured (at least for now), is highly negative.  Scroll down a little more and a couple of the topics featured in the message board also note the series is “going downhill”.

Frankly, seeing these negative comments surprises me though by now it should not.

It proves yet again that critical opinions of artistic works can vary -sometimes wildly- from person to person.

As someone who did not think all that much of either Star Wars (back when it was originally released in 1977!) and absolutely hated Guardians of the Galaxy, yet finds himself strangely enthralled by the mess that is Supernova, it should come as no surprise that others won’t agree with my opinions.

Yet the negative reviews of The Abominable Bride nonetheless did surprise me.  Not that they’re many (despite the mentioned critical comments, the film nonetheless scores a high 8.6 out of 10 on IMDB), but it just seemed like those who didn’t like it either didn’t get “into” it (ie, lose themselves in the story as I did) or were frustrated by the fact that the show went on such a flight of fancy.

I admit, the episode did go off on a tangent (especially when the previous series ended on such a cliffhanger).  Still, it’s hard to believe those who didn’t like it didn’t at least see something good in that episode, whether it be the clever dialogue or acting or…

Ah well, that’s why they’re called opinions.

TV

Sherlock: The Abominable Bride (2016) a (very mildly) belated review

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If you haven’t watched any of the Benedict Cumberpatch/Martin Freeman Sherlock movies, you’ve missed out on something truly special and should check them out.

Go ahead, I’m waiting.

Seriously, with perhaps a single exception, Sherlock could well be one of the greatest things to make their way to television in these past couple of years.  The idea behind the series is to make adaptations of Sir Conan Arthur Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes stories but set them in modern times.

Benedict Cumberpatch rocketed to superstardom as Sherlock Holmes but equally effective is Martin Freeman as the sardonic Dr. Watson.  The two play off each other magnificently and the movies presented are alternatively hilarious, incredibly clever, and eminently watchable.

(I mentioned above that there was one exception.  That would be the adaptation of perhaps the most famous of the Sherlock Holmes stories, The Hound of the Baskervilles.  Sadly, of all the Sherlock episodes made, this proved to be the most confusing one, to me)

On New Year’s Day, the BBC released The Abonimable Bride, a special “one-off” Sherlock film that had our intrepid characters going back in time to the era Sherlock Holmes is most associated, the late 1800’s.

I’m so tempted to get into details regarding the episode but all that would do is spoil things so I won’t.  I will say this, however: This might well be one of the absolute best of the Sherlock episodes/movies ever made.  It is clever, engaging, hilarious (some of the dialogue!  I would kill to write such clever dialogue!), and incredibly surprising.

When it was over I was absolutely blown away by what I had just seen.

The story, in short: In late 19th Century London, a woman in a wedding dress appears to go crazy on the balcony of her apartment and fires at people down below.  Ultimately, she puts the barrel of one of her revolvers in her mouth and blows her brains out.

She’s dead, it would appear, yet her husband, who is about to head out to identify her corpse, is confronted by his wife in her wedding dress.  He sees her and positively identifies her before witnesses…before she kills him with a shotgun.  She then vanishes but her corpse is still in the morgue!

How could a dead woman kill her husband?

Holmes is tasked to solve the mystery but is unable to.  A year later, he is presented with a new mystery…and the ghostly bride appears to have returned from the grave to seek out another victim.

Great, great stuff.

I’m once again tempted to go into SPOILERS but I won’t.

Suffice to say, this “old fashioned setting” episode plays an intricate role in the Sherlock series though, on the surface, it would appear not to.

For those who haven’t seen the series, you simply must try to catch it.  For those who have, The Abominable Bride might well be one of the very best episodes of the series ever created.

I’m not kidding here: Sherlock, and The Abominable Bride in particular, is television at its very best.