This is a Sherlock Holmes literary post. I'll talk about Doctor Who in a few hours

It's patently ridiculous for me to talk about anything but Peter Capaldi today, but it's still a couple hours to the American premiere and I've been busy researching The Final Problem.

That's the story for the next Tin Box meeting and I was asked to lead the Q&A because our current Gasogene has quick wit for filking, which is the next presentation and she has a horror of making the meetings the All About Her Show. So I was asked to lead the story discussion and said yes in a blatant attempt to further my plans for world domination being asked to be a gasogene someday same thing.

There's a certain irony here, in that Watson's Tin Box was founded by people who like to play the Great Game and I... don't. At all. I would far rather discuss the actual history behind the writing of the stories -- although with The Final Problem, that's not going to BE a problem because Doyle's intent is inescapable.

While mousing around on the internet, I ran into a discussion on Diane Duane's blog, quoting a now-deleted post from the (now deleted?) Kovaniy tumblr musing:
you know I wonder if back in the day when The Final Problem came out Victorians were sending out letters with “Dear sir, have you read the latest Holmes story yet? I simply cannot handle it. I have cried an unseemly amount of tears. I cannot. Oh God.” and then there’s just a big ink scribble because keysmashing wasn’t an option
little drawings of crying people in the margins

The answer is "Yes, actually," considering that Doyle later said that he got mail starting "You Brute!"

Final Problem was the moment when literary fandom and media fandom merge into the mack daddy of fan culture as we know it today. The first popular series cancellation. The first letter writing campaign. The first lashing out at the producer for not producing it. (Here, the Beauty and the Beast fans thought they were unique in taking out a full-page ad in Variety telling Koslow to basically fuck himself.) The first boycotts - Strand Magazine lost 20,000 subscribers.

For that matter, the first time Christmas was ruined by a series finale, a century before Blake's 7.

And look what that spawned: The first series renewal after popular outcry (and Doyle's need for cash). The first retcon, as the highly overrated Moriarty got wedged into multiple "prequel" stories.

Truly, everything old is new again.

Just like the Doctor, come to think of it...

Deep Breath

OMG those credits! Doctor Who should have had those credits FOREVER.

Capaldi is living up to my every hope for him as the Doctor. His delivery, his timing, his enthusiasm, his ability to pull off insane lines with gravitas, his ability to flip from emotion to emotion believably, and it looks like he can gear up to some serious anger and grief. I'm looking forward to that. Matt Smith could do goofy, but his Oncoming Storm never achieved more than the Oncoming Strop. (To this day, I blame his lack of classical training. Eccleston and Tennant had Shakespearean training; Smith did not - and the Doctor is a very Shakespearean character.

The ads kept throwing me off; I need to see the episode again, unbroken. But I liked it, and I'm intrigued by the ending, and Capaldi's great.