An Epiphany and a Challenge

[neadods]

I need to stop making ebook covers and make myself a Sherlock icon. That said, I've figured out why I've fallen so hard for the show, and it's not just because I'm avoiding finishing the bathroom or I've mainlined episodes.* It's not even because I've been a moderate fan of Holmes for years.

It's because I fell pretty damned hard for this show 22 years ago.

In 1988, there was a short-run show nominally sponsored by an SF writer that could be more or less summed up as "autistic genius and normal sidekick. They fight crime!" (In a burst of sadism, I'm not going to name it just to see who recognizes what I'm talking about.)

Although Sherlock may be obviously based on the Holmsian canon... it also basically boils down to "autistic genius and normal sidekick. They fight crime!" -- and it's even written by science fiction scriptwriters.

The asocial hero who needs the point of view character to anchor him into reality is an attractive trope... so attractive that I'm wondering in advance how many people aren't going to like it when Moffat & Gatiss follow through on their proposed arc of turning Sherlock from petulant 5-year-old in an adult suit into an actual heroic adult. It's been my experience in fandom that people are far fonder of woobie heroes than they are of action heroes. (That BBC Sherlock doubles down by combining a Stoic Woobie** hero and an Iron Woobie sidekick and then has one of them point-blank discuss them as a couple, even if to turn it down, was pretty much a guarantee that the entire fandom's collective knickers were going to ignite. Taking that away, or being perceived as trying to take that away, ain't gonna be pretty.)


And now, I must leave you to go be a responsible adult. It's clinic shift in the morning & bathroom work all afternoon tomorrow. I need to get the bookshelf and the reading light up. (Admit it. Everyone wants a reading light in there.)


*Something that will always make you either the world's biggest fan or Never Care About That Show Ever. I call it the viral theory of fandom; either intensive exposure infects you or inoculates you.

**Yeah, TV Tropes links. I apologize now for the next four hours you're gonna spend on that site.

Comments

[gem225.livejournal.com]

The show from 1998 with the autistic genius and the normal sidekick has to be Probe, but if not, I don't care, because just thinking of that show makes me happy. :-)

[ladyfox7oaks.livejournal.com]

Squeeee!!! Somebody ELSE who remembers that show!

[box-in-the-box.livejournal.com]

As I said below, watching it as a kid, it felt less like "autistic genius and normal sidekick" than it did "Moonlighting as sci-fi."

In other words, The X-Files. :)

[ladyfox7oaks.livejournal.com]

Heee! I always got the "Nerdy-er MacGyver" vibe off of it, but then- I had a huge crush on MacGyver at the time. :D

[box-in-the-box.livejournal.com]

I picked up very strongly on the "smart-alecky guy teases uptight girl" vibe.

[neadods.livejournal.com]

Who didn't?

Alas, neither Probe nor MacGuyver holds up well for me; both of them are based on such antiquated modern technology! But I can rewatch Probe with less squirming because much of it was character-based rather than "Austin builds a machine."

[box-in-the-box.livejournal.com]

Having rewatched the pilot last night, some parts actually seem MORE realistic to me than they would have been back then - computers were nowhere near as integrated into everyday operations back then as they are now - while some parts stand out for how much more laughable they are now - check out Austin's buddy, trying to hack Crossover with a FLOPPY DISK, yo! That bad boy must be able to hold almost a whole megabyte of data!

[lagilman]

Dude I'm at D*C with limited bandwidth or I'd have squee'd before you finished posting...

[neadods.livejournal.com]

:D If you haven't seen the modern Sherlock yet, do. It's very much the cosmic love child of Probe and Sherlock Holmes.

[gem225.livejournal.com]

It was a most memorable show, so I can't take much credit for it sticking in my memory. :-) Thank you!

[neadods.livejournal.com]

Me too!

Alas, when burning VHS to DVD, I discovered that it doesn't hold up too well over time. *sadface*

[gem225.livejournal.com]

Oh, that is sad to hear, but I'm still going to see if I can find my VHS of it and test for myself. I can forgive a lot for Parker Stevenson. I shall work at suspending disbelief like whoa, too. :-)

[neadods.livejournal.com]

The characterization holds up... it's just that it is very, very much a product of its time, and its time is further in the past than you'd think.

[ladyfox7oaks.livejournal.com]

I want to say you're thinking of "Probe". VERY short lived, like- less than half a season.

[neadods.livejournal.com]

Yes. I LOVED it. Aside from Parker Stevenson (which was a huge draw at the time), it had that catnip dynamic.

autistic genius and normal sidekick.

[mustangsally78.livejournal.com]

There are so many.

I was about ready to say 'Knight Rider' but the dates ware wrong.


BTW - I've had cow eyeballs in the 'fridge in the teacher's lounge for three days. Now they are in mine.

Re: autistic genius and normal sidekick.

[neadods.livejournal.com]

Saturday is caturday eyeball day! I await with nervous glee what results.

... y'know, they're probably going to boil before they explode...

they're probably going to boil before they explode.

[mustangsally78.livejournal.com]

The boiling makes them explode. The water inside the eyeball, egg, or grape, superheats, boils, and then because it can't escape as steam, makes the eyeball, grape, or egg explode.

That's why popcorn pops.


Fuck me, I'm such a fucking *teacher*.

Re: they're probably going to boil before they explode.

[neadods.livejournal.com]

You say teacher like it's a bad thing!

Now I half wonder what would happen if you put a pinprick in one before you microwave it.

if you put a pinprick in one before you microwave it.

[mustangsally78.livejournal.com]

I have no guarantee that these eyes are sealed. They've been in the bio fridge for weeks.

My only problem is that I will *ruin* my microwave because of the formaldehyde they've been preserved in. I should never use if for food again. I may end up freezing the eyes until such time that a replacement microwave is available.

This makes me sad. I was really looking forward to blowing them up this weekend with Chase. Now I'm not sure.

Re: if you put a pinprick in one before you microwave it.

[neadods.livejournal.com]

If you're going to kill your only microwave, then don't do it!

Re: if you put a pinprick in one before you microwave it.

[starcat-jewel.livejournal.com]

Goodwill is your friend. Get a cheap microwave that you can discard without qualms after using only once. (And don't take it back and re-donate it!)

[box-in-the-box.livejournal.com]

In 1988, there was a short-run show nominally sponsored by an SF writer that could be more or less summed up as "autistic genius and normal sidekick. They fight crime!" (In a burst of sadism, I'm not going to name it just to see who recognizes what I'm talking about.)

PROBE MOTHERFUCKER

[box-in-the-box.livejournal.com]

GODDAMMIT BEATEN TO THE PUNCH

What's funny is that I never saw it the way that you described, but instead, it came across to me as, "Moonlighting as sci-fi."

[neadods.livejournal.com]

Whatshisface in Moonlighting didn't sleep in a box with electrodes stuck to his skull. He also presumably had more than two friends in the whole world, both of them work-based.

[box-in-the-box.livejournal.com]

Actually, what's funny is that I don't remember Bruce Willis' character having ANY friends on that show.

Also, having rewatched the pilot episode of Probe on YouTube last night, it's interesting to see a show from back when the paradigm was still "the guy is the rational skeptic and the girl is the intuitive believer," since by the time The X-Files rolled around, the opposite had already become a cliche in its own right.

[neadods.livejournal.com]

I honestly wouldn't know - I watched one of the halloween themed episodes and the Taming of the Shrew one and otherwise ignored Moonlighting completely.

I'm going to roll two comments into one - There was still some gender stuff going on in Probe that's so far over now that it really shocked me to hear "Bring your secretary; I want to right something sexist on her cast." In '88 that was funny; by 2000 it verged on unthinkable.

But yeah - floppy disks, no cell phones, and my personal favorite - the modem that he used by picking up the telephone receiver and dropping it into a cradle!

[box-in-the-box.livejournal.com]

And yet, CCTV everywhere, in 1988, including outside of a laundromat in the bad part of town!

[neadods.livejournal.com]

Y'know, I never thought much about that. I figured there was CCTV because it *was* the bad part of town.

[box-in-the-box.livejournal.com]

In '88, though? Christ, CCTV isn't even that omnipresent NOW, especially since store owners in the REALLY bad parts of town are actually more likely to have cameras that aren't hooked up to ANYTHING, simply to serve as an inexpensive theft deterrent.

[neadods.livejournal.com]

Yes, but the plot did require *some* way to find them, and since CCTV existed, while traceable cell phone signals/built in car GPS didn't...

[box-in-the-box.livejournal.com]

As I said upthread, it's odd in that it's a plot that's actually MORE plausible NOW than when it first aired. :)

[neadods.livejournal.com]

DAMN RIGHT!

[fyrdrakken]

I don't quite agree with the intensive exposure theory, since I can think of at least one fandom right off the top of my head where I mainlined the first two seasons, barely managed to pay enough attention to watch the third as it was airing, and then some time later fell hard into the fandom. (Although that's a weird case, where I still don't actually care for the canon, but love much of the fic and fanvids. SGA is just a really craptastic show taken by itself, though.)

Oh, and after further thought, I'm remembering A) reading the first three HP books in a few days when a friend pressed them on me, going, "Eh, okay," and then starting caring a few years later, and B) walking away from my first viewing of FotR feeling vagueish and falling hard into the fandom on my second viewing some months later. Though I'm not sure if three books back-to-back or one three-hour movie are enough to count as intensive exposure. But I *have* learned that just because something left me cold on the first run-through doesn't mean something won't click if I give it another chance later on.