Saturday 11 January 2014

An unfortunate Sherlock theory (for Mary Marston)

I don't want this to be true but I can't help but think it. You see, weddings are big, dramatic occasions in a TV series so you don't usually seen them mid-season, they're première and finale fodder. Yet Watson and Mary Marston got hitched in the middle of the three Sherlock episodes this season.

I'm thinking this can only end badly for Mary Marston-Watson. They're happy, they're married, she's (SPOILER WARNING, SERIOUSLY FOLKS) pregnant and the character died in the original stories. What makes this theory doubly galling is that the Sherlock version is the only Mary Marston I've ever liked.

I mean, in the original stories she was little more than a plot device: a client in one story that Conan Doyle then married off to Watson to provide an ending. After that she didn't really serve any purpose except to force Doyle to write endless scenes in which Holmes drags Watson from domestic bliss to run off on some case or other. Eventually he just killed her off and had Watson move back into Baker Street.

I can only hope I'm wrong, I mean the series has done great things to expand and deepen the characters. Mrs Hudson in the stories is barely a character, just a source of food and lodging who rarely even has any lines yet now she's a central part of the cast.

And damn it, that's why I like this Mary! She calls Sherlock on his bullshit, she hangs around at Baker Street, she jumps on a motorcycle with Sherlock to go and rescue her (their) man. She's an active participant in the narrative and a million miles away from her original. She's also a damn sight better than a lot of the other women written by Steven Moffat (though, of course, he's only had a co-writing credit on one episode of this season so far so that could all end badly if he's sole writer tonight).


Long live the new Mary Marston!

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