"I was astonished to see him in Baghdad, for I had an appointment with him tonight in Samarra."
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| Benedict looking all Sherlockesque. Photo by Fat Les (bellaphon); derivative work by RanZag / CC BY |
[This post contains spoilers for Sherlock Series 4 Episode 1 titled "Six Thatchers".]
The long-awaited and much-anticipated return of Sherlock posted stellar TV ratings but received mixed reviews among the critics and the viewers. Some praise Director Rachel Talalay's adaptation and showcase of impressive visual landscapes and actions scenes, the main characters' brilliant acting, and the usual clever use of disparaging plots to connect the main thread; while others criticize Mary's character development or lack thereof, the digression into emotional relationship drama and "Bourne-styled globe-trotting action thriller" instead of encouraging audience involvement in solving a suspenseful central mystery, and the overall disjoint, unfocused, and underwhelming nature of the episode.
I personally liked this premiere. I enjoyed the various visual settings from the vast expanse of a Morroccan desert to the blue intimacy of the London Aquarium. This episode consists elements of a typical Sherlock episode with its combination of witty dialogues, fast-paced crime-solving montages, and patented textual displays. It was gruesome at times and emotional at times. Though I must confess that I haven't been pining for the return of Sherlock nor did I know about its return until I saw it on the TV listings. And I haven't read any of the Doyle's original Sherlock Holmes stories but have seen all the previous Sherlock episodes. Since I am totally unaware of Mary's predestined fate in Doyle's books and the real life split of Martin Freeman and Amanda Abbington, the on-screen death of Mary came as a total shock.
I am indifferent to same old digs at Lestrade and the over-used baby-birthing/baby-rearing trope but I did get a chuckle or two out of them. The only thing that I didn't like that much was Watson's secret affair. I am not sure if this was a case of the show-runners wanting to re-emphasize and remind us of Watson's dormant thrill-seeker trait or what, but it is quite unfathomable to believe that Watson, a person so loyal and devoted, would abandon anyone much less his beloved and his new born baby to indulge in some late night texting with some lady whom he barely flirted with on a bus. I am sure this woman will turn out to play an integral part in a future plot but it's just so out of character for Watson to be involved and linger on such a thing.
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| Minaret at the Great Mosque of Samarra Photo by J.Merena / CC BY |
The Appointment in Samarra is an ancient Mesopotamian tale; Samarra is located 125 km north of Baghdad in the present day Iraq. The popular version retold by W. Somerset Maugham can be found here and is as follows:
"The Appointment in Samarra"
(as retold by W. Somerset Maugham [1933])
The speaker is Death
There was a merchant in Baghdad who sent his servant to market to buy provisions and in a little while the servant came back, white and trembling, and said, Master, just now when I was in the marketplace I was jostled by a woman in the crowd and when I turned I saw it was Death that jostled me. She looked at me and made a threatening gesture, now, lend me your horse, and I will ride away from this city and avoid my fate. I will go to Samarra and there Death will not find me. The merchant lent him his horse, and the servant mounted it, and he dug his spurs in its flanks and as fast as the horse could gallop he went. Then the merchant went down to the marketplace and he saw me standing in the crowd and he came to me and said, Why did you make a threatening gesture to my servant when you saw him this morning? That was not a threatening gesture, I said, it was only a start of surprise. I was astonished to see him in Baghdad, for I had an appointment with him tonight in Samarra.
The inevitability of Fate has long been a favorite theme for the writers from Oedipus Rex to Doctor Who. This story is no different but it is told by Death who knows the outcome instead of the ignorant fate avoiders who try to run away from Fate only to run into it. As the story was originally narrated by Death and then retold by Sherlock, I don't think we have heard the end of this fable. I just have this unsettling feeling that the death of Mary, while one might be led to believe that this is the inevitable the story is alluding to, doesn't seem to completely parallel the original fable. Sherlock, as the narrator, should be Death and foresaw that someone is going to be dead before he or she is dead. I don't think we are at the appointment in Samarra just yet.
And to add to the complication, there is an alternate version of this fable as re-imagined by a young Sherlock who changed the ending so that main character somehow avoids Samarra and Death altogether to become a pirate. One can't help but wonder if the seemingly rational and deterministic (all his deduction skills and his talk about fate and weaves) Sherlock might actually be a romantic and yearns for the possibility that something cannot and should not be determined. It gives one pause that maybe, just maybe, he secretly hopes that his deduction would be wrong. He needs to be wrong to refute Fate.
I know that everything has been filmed and determined and set in stone but maybe it's the optimist in me talking but I would like to see Sherlock happy for once similar to when the ninth Doctor happily proclaimed that "just this once, everybody lives!" I am probably completely wrong here but I want Sherlock to have the same feeling of miracle and wonder and escape and randomness. To reenact his childhood fantasy, Sherlock would have to somehow help the victim avoid death and escape from a deterministic world. Let's see what happens in the "Lying Detective" then.
Onward to Samarra!
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