Sherlock & Daughter
Of all the famous literary characters the world over I do not think any of them come close to Sherlock Holmes when it comes to adaptations. There are the canonically accurate adaptations but there are just as many parodies, pastiches, and perhapses. And one must never forget the mice. With the freedom to fully explore the world that Sir Arthur Conan Doyle created there is one trend that surpasses almost all others, and that's bringing greater visibility to women within the Sherlockian oeuvre. We have his housekeeper, his wife, his sister, his woman, any female presence stepping forward to compensate for the dearth of women in the original stories and solving crimes in their own right. There's a reason Irene Adler is "The Woman" in the original stories. She's really the only one. Sure Watson has a wife, but the death of his first wife and then his remarriage is barely mentioned in the stories so I don't think they technically count. Women just don't figure into the world of Sherlock Holmes and that is why so many people have been trying to right this wrong. Which brings us to our newest entry, Sherlock and Daughter. Yes, he has a daughter. But the twist is he didn't know about her and she didn't know about him and they are so similar and pig-headed that they spend most of their time arguing or trying to prove the other wrong instead of working together. This show is a perfect fit for the CW feeling very much in the vein of Reign minus the obligatory pop standards. I mean Riley's wife from Buffy the Vampire Slayer even plays a pivotal role! If that doesn't scream CW I don't know what else does? Well, the costumes. They're not really accurate and look a little cheap, but with a cast consisting of Fiona Glascott, Aidan McArdle, Ardal O'Hanlon, and Dougray Scott deliciously chewing the scenery as Professor Moriarty while living in the lap of luxury in prison, this is a who's who of actors beloved for years of work in British period dramas which means I'll forgive a lot. Though I should probably mention that most of them are Irish. And Father Dougal McGuire kind of deserves his own category. Which brings us to a man who is in a category all his own, David Thewlis. David Thewlis plays a Sherlock Holmes worthy of any category of Sherlockian adaptation. He could just as well have been the equal of Robert Downey Jr. but instead he's embracing his new role in life, playing father figures to Victorian scamps. I mean, between this and The Artful Dodger he could be employed in this paternalistic pattern for years to come. He brings a pathos to the role and Blu Hunt as his daughter, Amelia Rojas, has just the right combination of smarts and recklessness that are needed to solve the mystery of the red thread. Because of course there is a worldwide conspiracy afoot that brings the two together. And of course the perpetrator is Moriarty's own son who can also serve as a love interest to Sherlock's daughter. I mean, it's the CW of it all, but that doesn't mean it isn't fun. Here's hoping that this show that has just the right light touch returns to grace our screens for years to come. Because I really do need a regular David Thewlis hit and the release date of season two of The Artful Dodger hasn't been announced yet. Myabe I'll go back and watch An Inspector Calls again.... Or because it's the right time of year perhaps The Island of Dr. Moreau....
By the end of Game of Thrones I was suffering from whatever the equivalent of superhero fatigue is in Westeros. I watched eight seasons of a show that, looking back on, I only enjoyed the first season of. So I hope I can be forgiven if I forget that most of the cast of that show can act. Because by the end, I think they were just phoning it is as they dragged themselves to the lackluster finale. Have you seen the pictures from the final table read? They weren't any happier than their audience was at the end. So Joan was a revelation because while I was turning in for the eighties glamour I was pleasantly surprised to be reminded what a good actor Sophie Turner is. In fact I think I might have only seen her in The Thirteenth Tale prior to this and I have to say, after the first few minutes of thinking of Joan as Sansa Stark I believed she was Joan Hannington. The hair, the clothes, the look, but most importantly that accent and the way she carried herself, she became Joan for me. She was a scheming and conniving woman who not only wanted it all, wanted it all with sparkles. She loved gems, she loved the con, she knew what she wanted and went for it. Of course this series focused more on how all of this was to facilitate the return of her daughter whom she had placed into care when she was at her lowest. It's all about Kelly. But the problem I had with this supposed love of her daughter is that she didn't know her daughter at all. She treated her daughter like a possession, like a diamond that she must have. When Kelly's foster mom invites Joan to a birthday party for Kelly, Joan brings her this elaborate jewelry box. You can she that Kelly isn't interested in it at all. Because this is the present that Joan would have wanted as a kid, not what Kelly would want. And this angers Joan. The foster mother got Kelly a present she actually wanted and Joan repays this kind woman by plotting to kidnap Kelly. Of course this doesn't go to plan and her lover ends up dead and she ends up in prison. Which is all well and good except that this didn't happen. This is billed as the life of Joan Hannington and while in an interview the real life Joan is still alive and well and highly approving of this adaptation saying that it felt like her life, it wasn't really her life. She never got "Kelly" back and, maybe I'm projecting here, but I felt like that aspect, which is central to the show, was more important to Sophie Turner due to what was going on with the disillusion of her marriage. The actors' not the subjects' life informing the art. And that isn't even the craziest thing they changed. While yes, Joan did make her fortune swallowing diamonds, the love of her life, Boise, he didn't die dramtically in a job gone wrong. He died in a fire he set himself for the insurance money years later. So while I enjoyed this show and this look into the seedy underbelly of eighties London and the glamour these people strived for, I felt the series as a whole was disingenuous. And I can suspend disbelief but I'm not going to be a stooge.
The very first thing I thought when I heard about this series was; "Can Jason Isaacs do the voice?" Because if he couldn't nail that studied yet somehow relaxed transatlantic accent there was literally no point to this miniseries. And the trailers they released didn't really confirm or deny this. Therefore I went into Archie blind with my fingers crossed. And somehow, I don't know how, Jason Isaacs did it. He pulled it off. You believed him to be Cary Grant, especially the older greying Cary. You were able to suspend disbelief for a few hours and learn about this very secretive man. Because Cary Grant was a secretive man. He believed his life was his life. He might have been a celebrity, one might even say one of the greatest stars ever, but no one really knew him. There were the rumors, was he gay? What about his drug use? And I give props to this series for not dodging any of those questions. They weren't interested in making a puff piece, they were interested in showing some truth, be it flattering or, well, not at all complimentary. The controlling Cary if you will. You came out feeling as if you really did know Cary Grant. Or at least more than you knew before. But you also have to keep in mind that having this based on Dyan Cannon's memoir you're getting it through the filter of her experiences. Therefore making sense of the fact that the best cast character on this show was Dyan's. Laura Aikman as Dyan isn't about suspending disbelief, it's about seeing Dyan living and breathing in this show. It was eerie to say the least. But by having Dyan kind of being the lens through which we see Cary my Dad who I was watching this with assumed that Dyan was the love of Cary's life and that they rode off into the sunset together, which isn't the case. At all. Dyan was Grant's fourth wife and their marriage only last three years. Which wasn't his shortest marriage, but it was far from his longest. But the importance of Dyan is that she brought Cary's only child into the world. Jennifer Grant became Cary's whole world. She was born in 1966 and after her birth he stopped acting. He was at the height of his career and he ended it to be a father. Which is the most amazing thing. He found the love he'd spent his life looking for. Because this show does a supreme job of showing the horrors her grew up with, the deprivation, the lies, the love he sought. He thought his mother was dead until he was thirty-one and found out his father had had her institutionalized when Cary was nine so that he could start a new family. The poor Archie Leach used vaudeville as his ticket to America and remade himself. Everything about his life was constructed. If there's one thing this show shows you is that the greatest role Cary Grant ever played was that of Cary Grant. To think that this man, this man who was always acting, was then an actor, it's astonishing the depths to which he was about reinvention. You might find him not as perfect as you'd hoped he was, but you will come away with awe at what he did.
