I enjoyed it more than the recent special. I have watched all the past episodes available on Netflix and I'm looking forward to seeing how the current series progresses.
The series with Maddy as his sidekick probably worked best but imagine if they were both behaving now as they behaved then - it would be a little sick-inducing
I must admit that I find it hard to understand the nature of the fit between JC and his wife. After watching the first series you would never have predicted that he would have ended up with someone like her. It would have helped if the writer had written an episode or two that walked us through how it came to pass rather than presenting it as a fait accompli.
I think with a bit of reworking, this episode could have been absolutely fine.
If...
We saw the volatile and unstable wife before, as we did, but DIDN'T see the stabbing. The bit with the annoying friend and Polly's father dying could easily stay in. Then if Ridley acted as the annoying sidekick, instead of being a Sherlock parody, the whole mystery is classic JC - girl shown to be 'fine' on stage during performance, but suddenly stabbed in a locked room. If JC actually deduced the murderer, then all the better. Lose all the ashe-hoover stuff, and Septimus Noone, but keep Polly working out the desk thing, and round it off with showing Jonathan in a kooky old house, unpacking the magic stuff he has room for now.
I think a toned down Ridley would work well as a sidekick. Jonathan is looking a bit old now to be continually tossed around with silly sexual tension and chemistry, so I think a settled Jonathan who goes off crime-solving with a young forensics guy would be pretty good if they got the stories right.
What have they done to this prog. Silly unsupportive wife - where did he meet her? Storyline boring and easy to work out. better next time I hope and Jonathan - ditch that wife.:o
Much anticipated JC return ended up being a monumental disappointment, I was so upset. Huge fan from the beginning, always watch the repeats when I come across them, but this new episode was just a non-event.
I don't mind them moving Jonathan on in his personal life, I got used to various side-kicks after the wonderful Maddie, but Jonathan just wasn't Jonathan any more, and the storyline was terrible. Didn't like the weird Ridley either, have never seen a single moment of Sherlock so don't get the references, but he was still unlikeable to me.
Will definitely watch the next two episodes, in the hope that there will be a spark of the old JC.
Yes, why on earth did he hide the fake skin behind a picture on the wall?
Why?
Really, why?
I thought that. He was wearing black, so it would have gone un-noticed down the front or back of his trousers. The black clothes would have hidden the blood
I find it highly unlikely the robo vacuum would have cleared up the ashes as spotlessly as it is supposed to and didn't the lady say she could find no sign of the URN as well as the ashes afterward? Are we supposed to believe the robo vacuum removed that a a well? Very poor show.
Didn't she put the urn back on the table before leaving?
That both the victim and the make up guy would have gone to such lengths to hide what happened for the benefit of the clearly-dangerous wife of a random production assistant was the most preposterous suggestion. I'm all for suspension of disbelief but come on. Even with the girl in a coma, the make up guy was still keeping quiet about it!
This was just not JC in fact I barely remember him being in it, the show revolved around his wife and her parents. Were we supposed to be bothered if her mum was having an affair or not anyway? JC himself was not the same person, I know people move on in real life and change but this isn't real. People tune in to see an impossible mystery solved in a funny and clever way. I spent the whole ep thinking 'it'll get better soon, there will be a twist'. Don't like Mrs Creek either, what a dullard. Bring back Maddy asap!!
This was just not JC in fact I barely remember him being in it, the show revolved around his wife and her parents. Were we supposed to be bothered if her mum was having an affair or not anyway? JC himself was not the same person, I know people move on in real life and change but this isn't real. People tune in to see an impossible mystery solved in a funny and clever way. I spent the whole ep thinking 'it'll get better soon, there will be a twist'. Don't like Mrs Creek either, what a dullard. Bring back Maddy asap!!
Maddy (obviously !) was my favourite, but I also emjoyed Julia Sawalha in the side kick role as well - there was a good relationship there. Plus with both Maddy & her, there was a reason that they were doing it ( Maddy for her book and Julia's character for her TV show) so there was a hook to hang it on.
I hated Sheridan Smith in the role - I love nearly everything she does, but her character was completely wrong in this - the dynamic with Jonathan Creek was off.
That's why I think the Ridley character would make a good sidekick - plus his desire to be an investigator would be a hook into them investigating and his constantly getting theories wrong would be like Maddy's constant attempts to puzzle things out.
That was a bad choice of casting, and writing. JC needs a quirky partner, not a dumb blonde. Sarah Alexander is very limited as an actress, and added nothing at all apart from her looks. Now if they had cast Nicola Walker or Olivia Colman...
I agree, we should have been in the dark, as who and how the attack to place, that would have been JC, as we tried to solve it with him, but to see the mystery first was just not what I wanted. Why the hell after all the episodes DR decided to do this has ruined a great series.
What I think is interesting is I do find DS to generally be a negative place, but everyone in this thread seemed to be willing the new episodes to be fantastic and rather than bitching about the new series for the sake of it, it's genuine disappointment that a great show has been turned into something totally different
I think the main problem is that the character of Sarah is so under developed, that there is no way for the audience to invest in their relationship. We saw Maddie and Jonathan grow across 3 series', and a 3 episode story-arc won't be enough to fully explore their dynamic and work on any kind of chemistry.
The curse of the stand-alone episodes is that now Sheridan Smith has left the show, it's hard for them to match someone up with Jonathan because there isn't time to flesh out any kind of relationship!
What I think is interesting is I do find DS to generally be a negative place, but everyone in this thread seemed to be willing the new episodes to be fantastic and rather than bitching about the new series for the sake of it, it's genuine disappointment that a great show has been turned into something totally different
I agree. I'm just willing and willing with every fibre for new episodes to be as scintillating as they used to be, but it didn't happen with this one
I am still really optimistic about the next two episodes - I do think the format of the first episode was a one off, and it'll return to the usual format for the next two.
That was a bad choice of casting, and writing. JC needs a quirky partner, not a dumb blonde. Sarah Alexander is very limited as an actress, and added nothing at all apart from her looks. Now if they had cast Nicola Walker or Olivia Colman...
She already played the killer cop back in series 2.
I've been reading posts about the new ep with lots of interest. Suffice to say that 'Creek is pretty much the only TV show about which I've been consistently thrilled over the past 20 years. BTW, my only badge of honour is that, ages ago, I got one of fan-site Liane's charity 'Creek VHS tapes signed by AD. :-)
Anyway, thought I'd give my thoughts as a bullet-point digest, as they're a bit wordy. ***CONTAINS SPOILERS*** :
- AD as 'Creek is the BBC's best piece of casting for many years. That, combined with DR reviving the impossible-crime genre, is what made and still makes the show work as well as it does.
- AD's tweeted concerns about the show's budget are all very well, but what they don't really address is that truly excellent plots and plot mechanisms usually cost pennies. Think of the wardrobe scene in 'The Reconstituted Corpse', or the whole premise behind 'The Eyes of Tiresias'. So when the show has big set pieces, such as the musical in the new ep, it sets off my alarm bells: they have an oddly BBC hamminess, and seem intended partly as a distraction. Besides, the stabbing business could have been worked with bare-bones studio rehearsal as a backdrop, for example. The show is almost always at its best when the setting is domestic and low-key, because the accompanying ideas tend to be so good. (Note: yeah, I know my budget point is a bit simplistic, as costs can be deceptive, but I still think there's something to it).
- I thought the new ep was pretty OK overall, although if you're going to put the reveal first you need to follow it with tension of some other kind. Even if DR's intent was to subvert the formula at every turn, it needed *something* extra. As someone else pointed out, there haven't been so many episodes as to make thorough self-parody essential.
- It's interesting that the press critics were uniformly kinder to this episode than were the fans. It's both worrying and reassuring.
- Much as though I don't think DR needed to take away quite as many of the old JC lifestyle hallmarks as he has done, I don't think that's fatal for the series. People's lives *do* change, sometimes radically. And I didn't think AD's performance this time was too casual or lazy: he can just afford to be low-key, and to concentrate on touches rather than on caricature.
- I wouldn't put it past DR to be lining things up for a return by CQ, which would be terrific, but -- if not, and if the next two eps aren't ingenious -- he might do well to get one or two excellent co-writers (or even a really tough editor). Extra writers can strengthen, rather than necessarily dilute, a show.
- On the whole, nevertheless, good to see it back.
Comments
No charisma with the companion/ wife whatsoever, Juslia sawalha and sherridan smith were soooo much better.
Next week they should do Silent witness and then do NCIS
The series with Maddy as his sidekick probably worked best but imagine if they were both behaving now as they behaved then - it would be a little sick-inducing
I must admit that I find it hard to understand the nature of the fit between JC and his wife. After watching the first series you would never have predicted that he would have ended up with someone like her. It would have helped if the writer had written an episode or two that walked us through how it came to pass rather than presenting it as a fait accompli.
If...
We saw the volatile and unstable wife before, as we did, but DIDN'T see the stabbing. The bit with the annoying friend and Polly's father dying could easily stay in. Then if Ridley acted as the annoying sidekick, instead of being a Sherlock parody, the whole mystery is classic JC - girl shown to be 'fine' on stage during performance, but suddenly stabbed in a locked room. If JC actually deduced the murderer, then all the better. Lose all the ashe-hoover stuff, and Septimus Noone, but keep Polly working out the desk thing, and round it off with showing Jonathan in a kooky old house, unpacking the magic stuff he has room for now.
I think a toned down Ridley would work well as a sidekick. Jonathan is looking a bit old now to be continually tossed around with silly sexual tension and chemistry, so I think a settled Jonathan who goes off crime-solving with a young forensics guy would be pretty good if they got the stories right.
I don't mind them moving Jonathan on in his personal life, I got used to various side-kicks after the wonderful Maddie, but Jonathan just wasn't Jonathan any more, and the storyline was terrible. Didn't like the weird Ridley either, have never seen a single moment of Sherlock so don't get the references, but he was still unlikeable to me.
Will definitely watch the next two episodes, in the hope that there will be a spark of the old JC.
xx
I thought that. He was wearing black, so it would have gone un-noticed down the front or back of his trousers. The black clothes would have hidden the blood
Why wasn't there blood on the picture frame?
Divorce the wife and get him back in the windmill!
very, very poor effort I'm afraid.
Didn't she put the urn back on the table before leaving?
I hated Sheridan Smith in the role - I love nearly everything she does, but her character was completely wrong in this - the dynamic with Jonathan Creek was off.
That's why I think the Ridley character would make a good sidekick - plus his desire to be an investigator would be a hook into them investigating and his constantly getting theories wrong would be like Maddy's constant attempts to puzzle things out.
That was a bad choice of casting, and writing. JC needs a quirky partner, not a dumb blonde. Sarah Alexander is very limited as an actress, and added nothing at all apart from her looks. Now if they had cast Nicola Walker or Olivia Colman...
I think the main problem is that the character of Sarah is so under developed, that there is no way for the audience to invest in their relationship. We saw Maddie and Jonathan grow across 3 series', and a 3 episode story-arc won't be enough to fully explore their dynamic and work on any kind of chemistry.
The curse of the stand-alone episodes is that now Sheridan Smith has left the show, it's hard for them to match someone up with Jonathan because there isn't time to flesh out any kind of relationship!
I agree. I'm just willing and willing with every fibre for new episodes to be as scintillating as they used to be, but it didn't happen with this one
She already played the killer cop back in series 2.
Anyway, thought I'd give my thoughts as a bullet-point digest, as they're a bit wordy. ***CONTAINS SPOILERS*** :
- AD as 'Creek is the BBC's best piece of casting for many years. That, combined with DR reviving the impossible-crime genre, is what made and still makes the show work as well as it does.
- AD's tweeted concerns about the show's budget are all very well, but what they don't really address is that truly excellent plots and plot mechanisms usually cost pennies. Think of the wardrobe scene in 'The Reconstituted Corpse', or the whole premise behind 'The Eyes of Tiresias'. So when the show has big set pieces, such as the musical in the new ep, it sets off my alarm bells: they have an oddly BBC hamminess, and seem intended partly as a distraction. Besides, the stabbing business could have been worked with bare-bones studio rehearsal as a backdrop, for example. The show is almost always at its best when the setting is domestic and low-key, because the accompanying ideas tend to be so good. (Note: yeah, I know my budget point is a bit simplistic, as costs can be deceptive, but I still think there's something to it).
- I thought the new ep was pretty OK overall, although if you're going to put the reveal first you need to follow it with tension of some other kind. Even if DR's intent was to subvert the formula at every turn, it needed *something* extra. As someone else pointed out, there haven't been so many episodes as to make thorough self-parody essential.
- It's interesting that the press critics were uniformly kinder to this episode than were the fans. It's both worrying and reassuring.
- Much as though I don't think DR needed to take away quite as many of the old JC lifestyle hallmarks as he has done, I don't think that's fatal for the series. People's lives *do* change, sometimes radically. And I didn't think AD's performance this time was too casual or lazy: he can just afford to be low-key, and to concentrate on touches rather than on caricature.
- I wouldn't put it past DR to be lining things up for a return by CQ, which would be terrific, but -- if not, and if the next two eps aren't ingenious -- he might do well to get one or two excellent co-writers (or even a really tough editor). Extra writers can strengthen, rather than necessarily dilute, a show.
- On the whole, nevertheless, good to see it back.
Did she? If so I didn't spot that.
Just do something interesting JC, off your own bat.
The Sherlock guy is still in it?
I think what was being referred to is that the plot seems to be based on
Goodness knows why Renwick refuses to just tell a story with a beginning, middle and an end. It's like every script is a brainstorm.