Remington Steele 3x05 - Blue Blooded Steele, Elementary 1x10

[quarter_to_five]

Well...serious episode for a given value of serious. 

- Hey, remember when you could smoke on planes?  No, me neither. 

- Would they really let you on a plane without a passport in 1984, expecting that you will just hang around by passport control at the other end forever or something? I'm sure i've actually seen this in old movies before, but it still seems improbable. 

- Giant floopy leather trenchcoat pretty much just adding insult to injury there with outstanding hideousness+poor fit. And OMG, I want it. I think it's the closest one can come to being Batman without actually wearing a costume. 

- Laura's hair as Myrtle? I realize it's supposed to be on the tasteless side, but it is actually unwatchable. 

- I love these kinds of nutty settings, where the humor is intrinsic to the slight orthogonality of the situation to reality rather than from specific jokes or anyone actually being funny. I think it's really, really hard to pull of just right though - creating something that's ridiculous and a shade beyond realism, but keeping a straight face and not admitting that it's a joke - but without falling over into plain parody or obvious humor either. The show managed to just hit that note for me a lot, and this is one of the good ones. Icily incestuous heiresses! Loaded trebuchets in the parlour! Falling chandeliers and exploding teddy bears and evil nannies and portraits with eye holes! I only regret that the butler didn't get to actually do it. 

- Chalmers and Laura in a showdown for Steele's very soul! Oh, the drama. (Who am I kidding, I loved it.) 

- They've both made up cover identities for him to inhabit here, to benefit their own schemes. Chalmers needs a duke, Laura needs a detective.

- Laura is never tempted at all by the option of an all-European spree of mayhem and debauchery? On the other hand, Steele appears to never be tempted by becoming the Duke. 

I really liked this episode for what it is, actually, but retroactively it also contributes interesting to the - extremely loose - arc with the next two, which are all about father figures. 
 
"A sitting duck!"
"Duke. Sorry"

Oh, show. You had me at feminism and egalitarian characterization and sexy, thorny romance and shirtless Pierce Brosnan and awesome wackiness...but you also give me bad puns and now I am yours forever.



I'm still unimpressed with Elementary, thought I'm really trying. The mystery was halfway, at least, but the character stuff was painful. 

I just can't stand thing thing where Sherlock needs to come along and validate Watson to her mother, and he proclaims how special she is, because we just need his special, special word to elevate her above the teeming mass of plebs and blah blah. Sometimes they try to undercut his hubris - like they've noticed that maybe, just maybe it's an unattractive quality - but they can't let go of just making him the specialest special boy ever. Ugh, the twins. And this is him in his nice, human, friendly moment, doing something charitable nice - denied, of course denied. He has to be shown to pretend to be an asshole, so as to properly enact masculinity. He's all broken from manpain, yo, and he can't trust or show affection because of the broken. So Watson is only 'special' - ie, worthy of our attention - because Sherlock declares her so. Fuck off. 

Comments

[oracne]

I recall smoking on planes - the first time I flew internationally, in 1990, there was smoking. IT WAS HORRIBLE. I'm glad it went away soon after.

[quarter_to_five]

I remember my mother *not* being allowed to smoke on a plane sometime in the mid 90's, having expected that she would be allowed, but I don't recall anyone ever actually doing it. Reminds me of Lavie Tidhar's Osama, where smoking on a plane in the alternate-world started ringing my alarm bells that this book was going to be maybe more odious than expected. Which is kind of interesting wrt Remington Steele, actually, as playing on something of the same wavelength in terms of idealized, manly, romantic imagined pasts constructed from old movies.