Dexter did it. So did Mulder. And House. Sherlock Holmes did it in both his shows, sometimes more than once. It almost makes you think there should be a support group: “Hi, my name is Sherlock, and…” (“Go on, Sherlock.”) “… I get out of tough situations by faking my…
Elementary is dead, long live Elementary. Yes, I only just now got around to watching the final season of Elementary, which aired early last summer. And it was the best of adaptations, it was the worst of adaptations. It didn’t have Sherlock‘s slick style; it often crossed the line from…
Since I love to read mysteries, it makes sense that I also love to write mysteries. When I write speculative fiction these days, my stories have an element of discovery and investigation. My characters uncover clues, wrestle with what they’ve learned to extract facts, and finally reach the conclusion around…
Among the many reasons I find myself fascinated by modern adaptations of Sherlock Holmes is the way they always implicitly address one of the themes that speaks to me: the relationship between expressing emotions and strength. Most Sherlock Holmes characters swear by the Great Detective’s lived maxim that (paraphrased) emotion…
Shana tova! Hope my fellow Jews out there have a sweet and healthy new year! Here are a few things I’ll be carrying over from the “old year” to make sure my new one is just that: 1. Dreyer’s English: An Utterly Correct Guide to Clarity and Style by Benjamin…
Because I loved their production of The Magician’s Nephew last year, I went to see the Shaw Festival’s 2019 production of that other seldom-adapted Narnia story, The Horse and His Boy. This adaptation took a few more liberties with the original, which isn’t necessarily a bad thing (particularly since the…
Four episodes I watched all at once after returning from our honeymoon, four thoughts.
I’ve been thinking lately about how many of the books I enjoyed as a kid are… pretty explicitly awful in the way they treat anyone who isn’t white, straight, able, upper/middle-class, Christian, cisgender, and male. Part of that is because a lot of my favourite children’s literature came from pre-1960s…
One of the things that limits me as a writer is how much I enjoy stasis as an audience member. Because many stories in the genres I read and write and watch thrive on epic-scale plots driven by set-piece actions, skilled writers in those genres have to be able to…
Sidekicks are an interesting fictional creature. They can inspire the same amount of love as the hero, but everyone understands that they’re somewhat more malleable. And nobody understands that better than John Watson. I mean, John Watson. I mean… All of these characters serve the same story purpose(s). But they…