Exactly and I feel the same about Mary, can't imagine another actress in the role

I care.

I don't lie awake at night howling at the moon over it but I do care.

I trust I'm allowed a licence and an opinion? I'm not a usual BBC basher, I'm generally a fan, but that doesn't mean I have to slavishly agree with them on all matters.

Surely if you're so bothered about Sherlock being 'publicly funded' then you ought to be pleased that a lengthy and potentially expensive casting process had been neatly avoided by the direct casting of Amanda.

Anyway, it happens all the time. Producers have a good idea who they want for a role and they ask that actor directly. I utterly fail to see why people think this is a big deal in any way. It's commonplace casting procedure.

Had no idea he had link, I'm only an occasional viewer.

So basically you would be happy if they deliberately went out and cast a random actress who had no connection with the show whatsoever and wasn't right for the role. But at least you would be happy because it wasn't nepotism.

You realise of course that the audition process would have involved spending significantly more of that public money than they did? Particularly an extensive search. And it would have been utterly daft and an enormous waste of time and money if they'd already decided the actresses they wanted for the role and were just doing it so they could say they'd done it. The only reason I can see to complain about the way she was cast would be if she weren't very good and I don't think that's the case at all. She's slotted into the show beautifully and is doing a great job so I have no reason to complain about what is pretty common casting practice (actors that writers and producers are aware of being offered a role).

So do you feel that, due to the Gatiss/Moffat connections (your view of "nepotism"), Mycroft should have been played by someone else?

Yes, but when it became official, shouldn't one or the other of them left their job?

I imagine the acting world is a pretty small one - and people will know people ... according to Wikipedia Una Stubbs has known Benedict Cummerbatch since he was 4 years old because she worked with his mother.

I don't look at any such sites so I don't know. However, Gatiss and Moffat are, I understand, both fans of Sherlock Holmes, and that seems to come over in the first 2 series, admittedly less so in this one. I don't see why anyone would be affected by third parties in this way. They got where they are by doing what they like, and in doing so gained fans for their style and content. Why any need to change?

As an aside on this. I'm sure they must have planned (and possibly even written) series 3 before series 2 was filmed. So, the false fall stories were already planned (otherwise they would have had to go back to film them again). If that were the case, it's not that they responded to the fans, they just anticipated (and possibly added fuel to) fan reaction and hype. The concept of a fan base is, in my opinion, an important part of any Sherlock update. He had a fan base in the original stories, based around Watson's write-ups. This is just the present day equivalent. Knowledge of what would happen will have steered the writers in their approach. It doesn't mean they are at the whim of what some fans think.

It's the sentimental, egotistical tosh we've had since Moffat took over Doctor Who that I've found disappointing.

Moffat's arcs are not difficult to understand - they're just poorly written.

However, there's a forum for Doctor Who. We shouldn't really argue about it on here.

Who said anything about casting someone who wasn't right for the role? That would be silly.

It's not exactly the kind of part that can only be realised by one actor.

And what's to say Martin would have been prepared to work with someone else? He may have insisted on her, and who can blame him.

But what would you prefer, they cast Martins partner and it works?


Or

They cast a completely unconnected actress and it doesn't?

I believe that the various alternative falls were newly filmed with series 3 and so they are, in fact, responses to the media reaction.

Y'know, I kept getting flashes of Catherine Parkinson passing before my eyes in last night's. Something about that false eagerness and wide smile, I guess.

Why did you skip option 3?

3.They cast an unconnected actress and it does work.

Let it go, Clara. They cast Amanda A and it does work. Beautifully.
Unless you have some hitherto undisclosed grudge against Amanda, then all this really doesn't matter. At all.

Because that wasn't the question I was asking.

Some people were pretending it wasn't. We won't know if there was anyone better because none of them were going out with one of the stars so they couldn't get the role. Hollywood seems incestuous enough without it happening over here.

True.

However, why go through the potentially rather drawn out and not cheap process of auditioning actresses if you feel you already know who the right actress is and she's available and willing to do the role? The important point here isn't whether or not she's connected to the show or the cast or producers in anyway but whether she's right for the role. Do you dislike the what she's doing on the show? Do you think she's bad in the role? (I apologise if you've already addressed this but I really cannot be bothered to scroll back through pages of this thread to find out) If yes then it seems like a perfectly justified complaint that they've just cast Martin Freeman's other half but if not it does seem a little bit like complaining for the sake of complaining.

But then surely you're just making up options to suit your argument?

Yes, she's a decent actor but a hundred other actors could do as good a job. That's my point. She was handed the role on a plate.

But she's there now so that's that.

And I didn't say that there may not have been someone better, there may have. However we got Amanda and she works, so why worry?

She seems fine in the role, my complaint is a wider BBC one in that nepotism seems rife there. My other example was Dan Snow, nice guy etc. but seems to have done very well on family connections.

Anyway, I don't wish to derail the thread any further. I'm still puzzled as to how no one felt themselves being stabbed!

I was trying to illustrate a point, that surely it's better that we've got Amanda, who is good in the role, has natural chemistry with Martin and is a good actress, rather then having to go through a process and make a token piece of casting, just to appease people like yourself, which may not have worked.

They wouldn't do this, would they? So a totally silly point to make. And most actors *don't* have any connection to a show before they get the role. That's how it's supposed to work. The most talented get the role.

But of course the BBC isn't, and never has been, a meritocracy. It's always been rife with nepotism.

I can't believe there's some people actually surprised at this blatant nepotism that's being funded on the back our license fee. It has always been so.