We're all about having opinions these days, thanks to that great concert hall of a billion stages that we call the internet. Blogs, podcasts, videos long and short . . . putting our opinions into a public space for validation or hoped-for entertainment value is what we do now. Occasionally, however, it might be good to just leave things alone.
So here's my review of CW's "Sherlock and Daughter."
I'm not interested in that. Watched enough to learn I wasn't interested, probably not going back. And as Stan Lee used to say "Nuff said!"
[Weeks pass.]
But then my companion, the good Carter, watched the entirety of the first episode and went "It wasn't too bad." And then HBO Max decided it was worth putting on their service, and it started popping up on promos there. And CBS Watson is now well in the rearview mirror, no more distractions.
"London 1896" -- that date is going to haunt me. Sherlock Holmes comes in bossy, making basic deductions, looking like David Thewlis, he then sees a red piece of thread on a boy's wrist, gets freaked out and runs frightened from a crime scene. There's not a part of that sentence that is anything that makes me want to watch this particular Sherlock. Cut to New York City and a girl named Amelia Rojas gets suckered by the worst cast crime boy, then tries to buy a ticket to England without money in an exchange that's just hard to watch.
A still-bossy Sherlock Holmes abuses Mrs. Hudson's sister, who was just in the hall talking to someone who looked like a poorly cast Watson, but then we hear what might be a Moriarty voiceover of a kidnapping paste-together note threatening the kidnapped Watson and Mrs. Hudson, and there's a finger in a box that apparently used to belong to Holmes's maid? Ugh. I don't know if I can take much more.
Amelia Rojas meets a rich American girl destined to wed a random aristocrat on the ship to England, shows what a good artist she is. But the rich girl's mother is very unpleasant and hates poors, even though Amelia sure doesn't dress or look all that poverty-stricken. At this point I'm wondering where the happy part of this show is, or if the creators are of the "fiction is all character abuse" school.
There's a metal disc with a hole in it that moves across a map of London as Amelia makes her way to 221 Baker Street and its basement servant's entrance where she is instantly mistaken for the replacement maid in the giant kitchen of 221 Baker Street. Did I mention that 221 is huge inside? London of 1896 apparently had more available space pre-blitz.
Amelia meets unpleasant Sherlock. (Ohhh, the metal disc is her belt buckle. I see it now.) Things go about as well as one would expect. Sherlock deduces she's American from her accent, and calls out her belt buckle as Californian craftsmanship. Weak sauce, man. Weak sauce.
OMG, Holmes's burst-in clients are the parents of Amelia's ship-friend, and that makes Amelia an unwanted assistant to crabby Sherlock.
Okay, I seriously don't understand what I'm supposed to enjoy about this. I tried. I really tried. But it's so unpleasant across the board to my particular tastes. Twenty-seven minutes in and I'm out.
It will probably have its fans, as everything does. And good for them! I mean, a lot of people gave up on CBS's Watson after one episode while I found enough fun in even its goofy bits to continue finding some joy there. But this one . . . definitely not my cuppa tea.
So let me know how it goes. Hearing about it second-hand might be my best way to enjoy Sherlock & Daughter.