http://spacemutineer.livejournal.com/ (![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png)
spacemutineer.livejournal.com) wrote in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
sherlock602013-03-17 01:42 am
spacemutineer.livejournal.com) wrote in sherlock602013-03-17 01:42 am
Entry tags:
Granada Discussion Post: Wisteria Lodge
Let's talk telly in the discussion post for Granada's adaptation of Wisteria Lodge. If you haven't seen this episode yet, you can find it at YouTube, Netflix, Amazon Video, and DVD. Follow me behind the jump for my random thoughts and impressions. Please add your own in the comments!
Canon discussion for Wisteria Lodge is available in the canon discussion post.
- The portrayal of Inspector Baynes here by Freddie Jones is... well, let's say memorable. Honestly, I found it rather creepy and off-putting. Baynes is said by Watson in canon to be "a stout, puffy, red man, whose face was only redeemed from grossness by two extraordinarily bright eyes, almost hidden behind the heavy creases of cheek and brow". That's an unkind description to put it mildly, but Baynes here is even more repellent than that, with his mouth gaped open wide and his tongue waggling around inside and out of it. He gave me the creeps every time he was on screen. The character of Baynes is a clever investigator, able to impress even Sherlock Holmes, but I never got that intelligence from him even when he was demonstrating it. All I could think was, "For the love of God, close your mouth!" Granada's penchant for unflattering extreme closeups made this bad situation even worse.
- "Thanks to this good man, I am beyond their power forever." - Granada simplifies the canon story, removing Inspector Gregson from the investigation, and more importantly completely eliminating the presence of John Warner, the fired gardener of Wisteria Lodge. In the original plot, he provides much of the initial information about the makeup and goings on of the house, and in the end, he is the one who rescues Miss Burnet from her captors at the train. Without him, those duties fall to Watson, who does an admirable job instead. He takes it upon himself to investigate when Holmes keeps him out of the loop, and although he is nearly captured himself by Murillo's daughters (and is bailed out only by Holmes' fortunate presence), he manages to see Miss Burnet from her window, confirming she was still alive. And when they track her and her captors to the train station, he is the one who pulls her to safety and nurses her back from her opium stupor. Nice work, Watson!
- It's a small thing, but the way everyone kept mangling the pronunciation of the name Garcia just drove me nuts. Spanish has very regular and predictable pronunciation. Garcia is really García, and should be pronounced that way, with the stress on the second to last syllable, as most Spanish words are said. But everyone in the episode pronounces it Gárcia, with the stress on the first syllable. I understand the Englishmen not being aware of these language subtleties, but surely Signora Victor Durando would know the difference, being married to a Spanish speaker and working as governess to two Spanish speaking children.
- "...like crimes committed on some other planet..." - I must admit, I wished at that instant we were watching an investigation by the Great Detective and the Good Doctor on some other planet. Some science fiction with my Sherlock sounds like so much fun. Holmes and Watson... IN SPAAAAACE!
Canon discussion for Wisteria Lodge is available in the canon discussion post.
- The portrayal of Inspector Baynes here by Freddie Jones is... well, let's say memorable. Honestly, I found it rather creepy and off-putting. Baynes is said by Watson in canon to be "a stout, puffy, red man, whose face was only redeemed from grossness by two extraordinarily bright eyes, almost hidden behind the heavy creases of cheek and brow". That's an unkind description to put it mildly, but Baynes here is even more repellent than that, with his mouth gaped open wide and his tongue waggling around inside and out of it. He gave me the creeps every time he was on screen. The character of Baynes is a clever investigator, able to impress even Sherlock Holmes, but I never got that intelligence from him even when he was demonstrating it. All I could think was, "For the love of God, close your mouth!" Granada's penchant for unflattering extreme closeups made this bad situation even worse.
- "Thanks to this good man, I am beyond their power forever." - Granada simplifies the canon story, removing Inspector Gregson from the investigation, and more importantly completely eliminating the presence of John Warner, the fired gardener of Wisteria Lodge. In the original plot, he provides much of the initial information about the makeup and goings on of the house, and in the end, he is the one who rescues Miss Burnet from her captors at the train. Without him, those duties fall to Watson, who does an admirable job instead. He takes it upon himself to investigate when Holmes keeps him out of the loop, and although he is nearly captured himself by Murillo's daughters (and is bailed out only by Holmes' fortunate presence), he manages to see Miss Burnet from her window, confirming she was still alive. And when they track her and her captors to the train station, he is the one who pulls her to safety and nurses her back from her opium stupor. Nice work, Watson!
- It's a small thing, but the way everyone kept mangling the pronunciation of the name Garcia just drove me nuts. Spanish has very regular and predictable pronunciation. Garcia is really García, and should be pronounced that way, with the stress on the second to last syllable, as most Spanish words are said. But everyone in the episode pronounces it Gárcia, with the stress on the first syllable. I understand the Englishmen not being aware of these language subtleties, but surely Signora Victor Durando would know the difference, being married to a Spanish speaker and working as governess to two Spanish speaking children.
- "...like crimes committed on some other planet..." - I must admit, I wished at that instant we were watching an investigation by the Great Detective and the Good Doctor on some other planet. Some science fiction with my Sherlock sounds like so much fun. Holmes and Watson... IN SPAAAAACE!
Baynes
Re: Baynes
I'm so glad I'm not the only one who thought that! He just disturbed me every single time he was on screen. I bet that fic was creepy too. I share your *shudder*.
Re: Baynes
no subject
F'rinstance, why does the mulatto come back to Wisteria Lodge? In the story, he comes for his fetish, but that whole business got dropped from the episode, so why is he there? Just so he can be seen by Watson (who doesn't seem to be able to pursue him very enthusiastically - maybe his old wound was bothering him that day).
Mr. Scott Eccles goes to visit Gracia "as handsome a man as I had ever seen" for somewhat ambiguous reasons in the story. I agree with Spacemutineer, I've seen comments before that he had a liaison in mind. I suspect Granada thought his story might be interpreted that way also, because they give him another reason - an interest in maps? C'mon! Couldn't anybody think up a better McGuffin than that?
Jeremy Brett unfortunately, was in his "I hate Holmes" period when this story was filmed and it really shows. I think he plays Holmes in a kind of mechanical way, without evidencing much interest in the part. I'm sure that he was well aware that it was a second-rate story, but he'd been in lots of second-rate stuff before (did you know he was on an episode of The Love Boat?) and gave much better performances.
Another thing that bothers me about this story is Peter Hammond's mannered direction. He loves those tight closeups and the mirror shots. How many mirror shots were there? I can't even remember, but the only one that added in any way to the story was the distorted one of Don Murillo near the end. The others were just so much indulgence.
As for the pronunciation of Garcia with the accent on the first syllable, it sounds odd to us, but that was the convention of the day - foreign names were pronounced as they would be phonetically in English, so it's historically correct.
On this rewatch, I did spot one cool little geeky moment that filled me with glee, so I'll share it with you. Did you catch the conspirators swearing the "one for all and all for one" (Uno por todos y todos por uno) oath along with the Musketeers handshake right before they headed off to kill Murillo? One of Peter Hemming's earliest jobs was directing a Three Musketeers TV series in 1966, which starred - wait for it - Jeremy Brett as D'Artagnon. (It also featured lots of those weird angles and stupid mirror shots.) Anyway, that oath makes a nice little shout out to their shared history. Sad to say, it was probably the most enjoyable moment of this entire episode for me.
Next week, however - woohoo! Silver Blaze!