Sunday night television

[pedanther]

If you're thinking I've left it a bit late to write about Sunday, you're not wrong. I actually started working on the first version of this two Sundays ago. I'm trying to avoid making it three.

Sunday night television at the moment is Last Chance to See, Poroit, and Sherlock. (Poirot and Sherlock are scheduled against each other, as if that means anything in the age of home video recorders and streaming video.)

Last Sunday's episode of Poirot had a minor character played by the actress who went on to appear as Agatha Christie in Doctor Who.

I'm enjoying Sherlock so far. Well, I liked the first episode, but the second was disappointing. (It's supposed to be bringing Sherlock Holmes into the 21st century, so what was with all the outdated oriental stereotypes? They don't even have the excuse of it being in the original story - all the chinoiserie is new material.) I hear the third episode is a return to form, though?

Last Chance to See so far seems to be giving the original series of twenty years ago an opportunity to live up to its name - two episodes in, both the featured species have been no-shows when Mark and Stephen went to look for them in the wild. And then there's the Yangtze river dolphin, which they didn't even go to look for because it's been declared extinct since the original series was made. Disturbing.

(There's never been a moment when I've been tempted to forget that Stephen Fry isn't Douglas Adams, but there are times when he's in narration mode where he sounds remarkably like the original series' narrator, Peter Jones. Although this is perhaps not so odd; after all, it's not the first thing he's taken over from Peter Jones as narrator of.)

Comments

[serge-lj.livejournal.com]

I was wondering about "Sherlock". So I should give it a chance?

[pedanther]

I believe so.

You know, don't you, that the first and third episodes are written by Steven Moffat, most recently of Doctor Who fame?

[splanky.livejournal.com]

I believe the third was written by Mark Gatiss, who has also written for Doctor Who. But the standard of the third episode is up there with the first.

[serge-lj.livejournal.com]

All that is a definite incentive to watch this.
Thanks, both of you.

[scarfman]

The second was written by Gatiss and the first and third by Moffat. Each is listed as co-creator of the series in the credits of the other's scripted episodes.

Gatiss also appears in the first and third episodes as [character name withheld as it's a spoiler for the first episode].

[pedanther]

No, I'm pretty sure the second episode was written by somebody who was neither Moffat nor Gatiss. I remember that being mentioned in an interview with Moffat about the series.

[splanky.livejournal.com]

I've just checked the credits, and the second was written by Steve Thompson, with the third by Mark Gatiss.

[scarfman]

I stand corrected.