Holmesian radio rant
Dec. 1st, 2010 02:36 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
amediaLegendary detective Sherlock Holmes owes much of his enduring popularity to writer and actress Edith Meiser, who worked tirelessly to bring adaptations of Holmes stories to radio in the 1930s,
I've seen this in several places on the Internet, with a longer description explaining how she persuaded broadcasters to run her series by going out and recruiting sponsors. I understand that I should be grateful, but there's just one problem ... the episodes she wrote are AWFUL!!!!
I thought that perhaps she just wasn't a very good writer when she was making up her own stories, but lately we've been listening to her adaptations of the Sacred Canon. While they are substantially faithful to the original stories, her habit of making Watson into an utter dolt persists, even to the point of altering events that made Watson look competent or Holmes look as if he gave a damn.
Her adaptation of The Empty House takes a swing at the crucial moment and whiffs completely (sorry, I can't think of a better metaphor - it refers to a batter in baseball who doesn't even come *close* to hitting the ball). In the radio version, Watson's reaction to Holmes' return is simply to sputter idiotically until Holmes makes him sit down and gets him a brandy. (In the original story and in most adaptations he actually faints.) I have to admit, the actor who plays Holmes manages to make Holmes sound rather pleased and touched at Watson's reaction, but that's more in the acting than in the screenplay.
One of Watson's finer moments in the canon comes when he saves Holmes and himself from death by coming to his senses just long enough to drag them both away from the poisonous smoke in the "Devil's-Foot Root." We just saw the Granada television version in which we see Holmes' hallucinations rather than Watson's (so we don't see that it's Watson's glimpse of Holmes that provides his moment of lucidity), but at least Watson is still the one who saves Holmes and himself, and Holmes addresses him as "John!" when he comes out of it, which is rather nice if not canonical. In the radio adaptation it's Holmes who saves Watson.
The story "The Three Garridebs" is famous for the passage in which Holmes freaks out when Watson is shot. The radio adaptation keeps the line, "You're not hurt, Watson?", albeit spoken in a fairly casual manner (along the lines of, "oh, good, I can see you're not hurt"). But there's no "Oh God," no dimmed eyes or shaking lips, no restrained Victorian hurt/comfort, and Holmes doesn't utter that wonderful line to the villain, "By God, if you had killed Watson you would not have got out of this room alive." The rest of the story is presented nearly verbatim, so I don't know why this scene was so truncated.
*fumes*
I've seen this in several places on the Internet, with a longer description explaining how she persuaded broadcasters to run her series by going out and recruiting sponsors. I understand that I should be grateful, but there's just one problem ... the episodes she wrote are AWFUL!!!!
I thought that perhaps she just wasn't a very good writer when she was making up her own stories, but lately we've been listening to her adaptations of the Sacred Canon. While they are substantially faithful to the original stories, her habit of making Watson into an utter dolt persists, even to the point of altering events that made Watson look competent or Holmes look as if he gave a damn.
Her adaptation of The Empty House takes a swing at the crucial moment and whiffs completely (sorry, I can't think of a better metaphor - it refers to a batter in baseball who doesn't even come *close* to hitting the ball). In the radio version, Watson's reaction to Holmes' return is simply to sputter idiotically until Holmes makes him sit down and gets him a brandy. (In the original story and in most adaptations he actually faints.) I have to admit, the actor who plays Holmes manages to make Holmes sound rather pleased and touched at Watson's reaction, but that's more in the acting than in the screenplay.
One of Watson's finer moments in the canon comes when he saves Holmes and himself from death by coming to his senses just long enough to drag them both away from the poisonous smoke in the "Devil's-Foot Root." We just saw the Granada television version in which we see Holmes' hallucinations rather than Watson's (so we don't see that it's Watson's glimpse of Holmes that provides his moment of lucidity), but at least Watson is still the one who saves Holmes and himself, and Holmes addresses him as "John!" when he comes out of it, which is rather nice if not canonical. In the radio adaptation it's Holmes who saves Watson.
The story "The Three Garridebs" is famous for the passage in which Holmes freaks out when Watson is shot. The radio adaptation keeps the line, "You're not hurt, Watson?", albeit spoken in a fairly casual manner (along the lines of, "oh, good, I can see you're not hurt"). But there's no "Oh God," no dimmed eyes or shaking lips, no restrained Victorian hurt/comfort, and Holmes doesn't utter that wonderful line to the villain, "By God, if you had killed Watson you would not have got out of this room alive." The rest of the story is presented nearly verbatim, so I don't know why this scene was so truncated.
*fumes*
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Date: 2010-12-01 10:23 pm (UTC)And to skip out any admission by Holmes that he cares for Watson as his friend is just wrong, IMO. I love that part when Holmes freaks out at the thought of Watson being shot as he's normally so controlled.
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Date: 2010-12-06 02:37 am (UTC)Thank you - it's good to hear this!
And to skip out any admission by Holmes that he cares for Watson as his friend is just wrong, IMO.
*nodnod* It kind of reminds me of what chorale said about (problems with) House - one of Watson's functions is to humanize Holmes.