The Raven

Let’s just get this out of the way, this movie looks like shit, which is unfortunate given some of the names involved. “The Raven” was directed by James McTeigue, who was an assistant director for the “Matrix” trilogy before making his directorial debut with “V for Vendetta” in 2006. The cast includes Brendan Gleeson (“Braveheart,” “Gangs of New York,” “Harry Potter”), and stars John Cusack as Edgar Allan Poe.

Poe’s death is shrouded in mystery, so the filmmakers took more than a few creative liberties in this fictionalized account of the writer’s last days. When a serial killer begins using his work as the inspiration for a series of gruesome murders, police enlist Poe to help bring the assailant to justice.

Reviews have been bad, hovering around 20 percent on Rotten Tomatoes, and not without reason. Edgar Allan Poe was a fascinating human being. In 1836, at age 27, he married his 13 year-old first cousin. The man was a great many things: author, poet, alcoholic, opium addict, and the inventor of detective fiction. He uneqivocally was not an action hero or some macabre version of Sherlock Holmes. With such an intriguing life story, there was no reason to make him into such.

“The Raven” is the 241st film or television adaptation of Poe’s work. That leaves you 240 options that might not be garbage, so pick one of those. Or, better yet, pick up some of his written work, which is in the public domain (that means it’s free).

Safe

In “Safe,” Jason Statham plays Luke Wright, “the Big Apple’s hardest cop, once up on a time.” Now, he’s a a second-rate cage fighter who drives fast, kicks ass, and always has a wry one-liner up his sleeve. That is, Jason Statham plays Jason Statham doing Jason Statham things, only he’s got an American accent (sort of). In this case, his excuse for coating the streets in blood is protecting a 12-year-old Chinese girl who’s memorized a valuable code from some Russian mobsters. Purely by coincidence, they’re the same Russian mobsters who murdered his wife.

“Safe” couldn’t have a more appropriate title. It’s another formulaic Statham action movie that’s split critics right down the middle because even though you know what’s going to happen, you can’t help but be entertained. Perhaps Aaron Hillis of The Village Voice put it best: “Safe” is a “preposterously enjoyable—or enjoyably preposterous—action-thriller.”

If “Safe” is your style, go and enjoy it, you’ll get no argument from me. But since you already know the endings anyway, you might as well rent “Snatch” or “Lock, Stock & Two Smoking Barrels” instead.

The Pirates! Band of Misfits

This 3D stop-motion film from the creators of “Wallace and Gromit” and “Chicken Run,” has received widespread critical acclaim. The Hollywood Reporter calls it “a delightful romp whose varied pleasures should please kids all along the age spectrum.”

“The Pirates!” stars Hugh Grant as the Pirate Captain, “a dreamer with grand notions, a blustering optimism and a deficient skills set,” who could be Wallace’s ancestor. The Captain yearns to win the coveted Pirate of the Year award, but always loses out to rivals like Black Bellamy (Jeremy Piven) and Cutlass Liz (Salma Hayek).

The Captain’s rag-tag crew includes a number of faces (or voices) familiar to those partial to British television. There’s Martin Freeman, who’s been cast as Bilbo Baggins in the upcoming adaptation of “The Hobbit” and played Tim in the UK version of “The Office,” and Ashley Jensen, Ricky Gervais‘ co-star in “Extras.” Along the way, the group enlists the help of Charles Darwin, played by David Tennant, best known for his role as the tenth doctor in the BBC’s “Doctor Who.”

The film was released a month ago in the UK, albeit with a different title: “The Pirates! In an Adventure with Scientists,” which is also the title of the book the film is based upon. Strangely and sadly enough, Sony Pictures felt the need to alter the title for the American release, because God forbid science or gasp evolution, be considered fun. Think of the children!

The Five-Year Engagement

It’s hard to go wrong when Judd Apatow’s name follows “produced by.” Take that home, throw in a screenplay by Jason Segel and Nicholas Stoller, add some Chris Pratt and Alison Brie, baby you got a stew going!

Along with writing the film, Segel and Stoller, who’ve previously teamed up for “Forgetting Sarah Marshall” and “The Muppets,” starred in and directed “The Five-Year Engagement,” respectively.

Segel plays chef Tom Solomon, who proposes to his girlfriend Violet (Emily Blunt) after a year of dating. A wrench gets thrown in their plans when Violet gets a job at the University of Michigan, delaying the wedding by two years. Of course, this is the five-year engagement, so ultimately that time gets extended further.

Segel and Blunt are well supported by Pratt, best known as Andy in “Parks and Recreation,” who plays Tom’s best friend, and Brie, of “Community” and “Mad Men” fame, as Violet’s younger sister.

All this sounds fantastic, but the critical consensus is that “The Five-Year Engagement” is good but not great. While the film has its moments, it’s far from the best work of its relatively star-studded cast and crew, and it runs a bit long. As Bullz-Eye’s Jason Zingale put it:

Beginning where most romantic comedies usually end, you can’t fault “The Five-Year Engagement” for trying to deliver a fresh take on the genre, but although it boasts some really funny moments, like most Judd Apatow productions, the movie doesn’t know when enough is enough. The ensemble cast saves it from being a total disappointment, but the film definitely isn’t as good as it should have been.

Much like a stew, “The Five-Year Engagement” seems like it’s made up of leftovers. It’s not greater than the sum of its parts. Zingale says “Stoller and Segel appear so dead set on including every single one of their ideas that it drains the movie of some of its charm… ‘The Five-Year Engagement’ does just enough to keep audiences entertained, but with the talent involved, you’d expect better.”

That said, while “The Five-Year Engagement” may be average relative to some of its cast and crew’s previous work, Apatow, Segel, and the rest remain among the comedic juggernauts of our time, so even their middling productions are well worth the price of admission.

Stay tuned for…

Bullz-Eye: Well, I’m a big “Doctor Who” fan, so I followed your exploits all last season, and I’m sure you’re as excited as I am for these new episodes to hit the air, since you worked on them awhile back now.

Arthur Darvill: Oh, yeah, absolutely. Yeah, we’re really excited about it coming out. The scale of it has gone up, and it’s bigger and better and more exciting. Yeah, I just can’t wait for people to see it, really.

Plus, of course, you’re in the States, which really ups the ante.

Absolutely.

Now, obviously, we’re excited about you guys having filmed here, but do you have a sense for how folks back home feel about you making your American debut?

I mean, it’s quite cool, I think, because “Doctor Who” is such a British institution, and it will always be quintessentially English, but to do an episode in America…? You know, we have so many… (Hesitates) All my old favorite films are American movies, and I think our cultures are very much linked, so to have an episode in America, yeah, I think everyone’s really excited about it.

I’d think that, at least to a certain extent, people would be, “Well, it’s about time you guys came around.”

Yeah, exactly! It’s, like, “Why hasn’t this been done on this scale before?” So, yeah, it’s great. It’s really good.

There are actually a lot of things about this season that I’m excited about. In addition to being in America, you had Neil Gaiman writing an episode of the show. Were you a Gaiman fan prior to him coming aboard?

Yeah, I mean, well, again, he�s just one of those people who�s…he�s brilliant, and his stuff�s everywhere, so, yeah, it was such an honor to have him on. I can�t really talk about the episode, because there�s so much secrecy involved in that, but, yeah, we�ve been so lucky with all the writers, and I think Steven (Moffatt) is such a brilliant puppet master of the show. I don�t know how he fits it all into his brain! But we get these world-class writers in, and they�re given as much free reign as they want under this umbrella Steven�s got crafted for the whole story arc. It must be an almost impossible job to kind of keep it all together, but he�s so brilliant at it and surprises us all with what he writes. Yeah, it�s great.

Was Neil actually on set during the filming of the episode?

Yeah, Neil came down for a couple of days. It�s always funny when writers are on set. It kind of makes you slightly nervous! But he seemed to really enjoy it.

So you get to be the Doctor�s first male companion in almost 30 years. Are you prepared for that kind of responsibility?

The pressure�s on! (Laughs) I suppose I am. I mean, it�s such a… (Hesitates) Actually, I don�t know! I don�t really think about it. You�ll drive yourself mad if…if I really started delving into that. I�m just kind of trying to do my job. But it feels great, actually. I mean, I work with such great people. Me and Karen are such good chums that it just feels kind of natural and cool to be doing it.

Now, are you learned enough in the �Who� mythos that you know who the Doctor�s last male companion was?

(Hesitates) Now, I did look this up the other day. Who was it?

Vislor Turlough.

Vislor Turlough. Right.

Traveled with the Fifth Doctor.

Brilliant. I need to go and check out some of the old episodes. I think…I kind of feel like if I watch too much, I�ll kind of start copying stuff. I just need to kind of wait �til we�re finished filming, and then I can start watching other things.

So how quickly did you and Karen find a chemistry as a couple?

I don�t really know! It�s, like, it�s a funny thing we have to do as actors, isn�t it? You turn up and you�re playing… (Hesitates) I suppose you try and forge a relationship that you think is believable and real, but…I don�t know. I suppose…we got on immediately, and it�s a really good bunch of people, everyone working on it. I don�t know, I don�t think we consciously were, like, �Right, we need to sort some chemistry out.� I think that would�ve blown it. We just kind of did our job and hoped for the best, really.

You had a unique situation last series where you had to do a death scene which, at the time you were filming it, you already knew wasn�t truly a death scene. What was that challenge like?

Yeah, that was really interesting. Um…yeah, I think I actually died quite a lot last series. (Laughs) Yeah, I mean, you just…I don�t know. Again, if you overthink these things, you won�t be able to do it, you know? It was just…a scene that you just try and invest all of what you�re doing. But I think to try and unravel it would be foolish of me. But, yeah, I mean, it was a great challenge to do stuff like that. But every day�s an exciting challenge, I suppose.

I was talking to my wife about the fact that I was going to be chatting with you today, and she said, �It was very sad when Rory died, but somehow it was even more sad when Amy forgot him.�

Yeah, completely. Oh, wow, thank you. Yeah, that is it. It really tugs at the heartstrings, that bit with Rory, doesn�t it? That was…I mean, those episodes, �The Pandorica Opens� and �The Big Bang,� were such epic episodes for us to film. It was really good stuff.

Are we going to see the Centurion apparel making a reappearance at any point?

I�m not going to deny or confirm any rumors or bits of speculation. (Laughs) You�ll just have to wait and see. You�ll just have to wait and see what Rory�s going to be wearing!

I�ll just ask this, then: at the end of the last series, were you hopeful at that time that it would make a reappearance?

Was I hopeful? Hmmm…

I didn�t know how much fun it was to wear.

It was modified by the end of filming those episodes, �cause at first it was really heavy. (Laughs) D�you know? It�s like wearing a one-man band. You just kind of clank around. Yeah, every day was like a bit of a workout. But that was fun as well. I got a cape!

Do you tire of the jokes about your nose?

Oh, look, it�s funny, you know? I�m 28. I�ll get over it.

I didn�t know if this was a case where you walked onto the show and, when they started writing those jokes into the show, you were, like, �Wait, what�s this about my nose?�

(Laughs) Yeah. �Hold on a minute!� No, I think it�s all done with affection. Well, I hope it is!

So what was your �Who� knowledge prior to coming aboard the series? Had you been a fan?

Well, it�s one of those things that�s part of British culture. It�s so sort of deep in there that, yeah, it�s kind of unavoidable. You can�t really get away from it, and it�s always been since I was a kid. It wasn�t really on when I was younger, but, still, I seem to know about it, and have watched reruns and a few episodes and thought it was great.

I mentioned the chemistry aspect, but I would think that all three of you – including Matt – would�ve formed a bond simply by virtue of having a similar learning curve on the show.

Yeah, it really has been a massive learning curve for us.

What�s it like working with the green screen?

Yeah, it�s kind of interesting. To be honest, they�re so good at building sets and taking us to amazing locations that they try and minimize the number of green screen stuff that we do. Or we�ll be in kind of a set where most of it�s there, and they�ll add on bits after. But it�s very rare that we come up against just…nothing. They�re very good at having things there for us to react to. But when you do have to do that stuff, it�s always a worry that you�re pitching it wrong. But the directors are great, so they really take us through it.

Obviously, you�ve got a very strong writer working behind you at all times, but what have you yourself been able to bring to the character of Rory?

Well, I don�t know! It was so funny when I went for the job that I didn�t really…I had no idea what he was like. I was given such a small amount of script, and with no real clues as to what his personality was. I just got that first scene from Episode 1, from �The Eleventh Hour,� on the village green, when Rory first meets the Doctor. And then a little speech from �Vampires in Venice.� But it was, like, three pages. So I think in that situation, I just went, �Right, I just have to make a few decisions and go with them.� So, yeah, I don�t know. I mean, it�s obviously kind of very well crafted by Steven, but, yeah, we see it, at least, that we�re given a certain amount of freedom, and whether or not that�s just to make us feel good, I don�t know! (Laughs) But it feels like they trust us to go where we want to go with it. But he�s definitely at the helm of it all. But I think you have to, as an actor, just go for it and make decisions and hope that they�re the right ones.

I just wanted to touch on a couple of other roles that you�ve played over the years. First of all, did you get any opportunity to meet with Mickey Gallagher before you did �Sex & Drugs & Rock �n� Roll�?

Yes, I did! Oh, Mickey�s a dear, dear man, and a brilliant musician. Yeah, I mean, that film was really funny, �cause we were basically just in the band. We didn�t really…we just had to have a laugh and play some gigs. And I�d worked with Andy Serkis a couple of times before, and he�s so easy to get on with. Yeah, we just played a load of music. But, yeah, we went and met the Blockheads at their rehearsal rooms and went to see them play a gig and stuff. Yeah, I mean, they�re great.

Were you an Ian Dury fan prior to that?

Yeah, yeah, completely. He�s just a brilliant lyricist, and that music…I�m a big fan of soul music, and I think they�ve got real funk-based music, done in a really English way. I really like it.

Having done �Little Shop of Horrors� in the London theater, is there any chance that we�re going to see you singing on �Doctor Who�?

I don�t think they�d let me! (Laughs) They keep threatening to do a musical episode, but I don�t think they�re going to go with that.

So can you tell me anything at all, really, about the upcoming season? I mean, I know you�ve got to play it pretty close to the chest, but…

I�m going to play it close to the chest, but the scale�s bigger, it�s scarier but funnier, and it�s… (Hesitates) I think it�s become more magical and more psychological. I think it�s really going to surprise people with how good it is. And I�m not just saying that �cause I work on it. I�ve been so…it�s funny when you film stuff and you have an idea in your head what it�s going to look like, and then every time we�ve sat down to watch one of the episodes, it�s always surpassed what we think it�s going to be. We�re getting really excited about it, and I just can�t wait for people to see it. Because they�re going to like it, but also because I can finally talk about it! (Laughs)

My only real question is whether or not the estate of Richard Nixon will approve of the episodes.

You�ll just have to wait and see.

Oh, dear.

I love it when there�s real people in �Doctor Who� as well. The Nixon stuff…I can�t wait to watch it with an American audience. You guys are much more vocal and responsive than a lot of the UK audiences, and there�s so many America references in it that I think it�s going to be…well, I just can�t wait to see what people think about it.

Just this one phrase in within the episode synopses – �Aided by President Nixon and Neil Armstrong�s foot…� – is more than sufficient to pique my curiosity.

(Laughs) Yes. It�s official: �Doctor Who� has hit America!

To be fair, they got better as they went along, with only the bloated disaster yarn, “Voyage of the Damned,” bucking that trend, although last year’s episode was barely even a Christmas tale, being the first half of “The End of Time” and all. More than anything else, though, what was most disappointing about Davies’ Christmas outings is how none of them ever became holiday traditions for me as a “Doctor Who” fan, which is pretty amazing since there were four to choose from. Indeed, the best Christmas tale the series had unveiled prior to this past Saturday night was Season One’s “The Unquiet Dead,” penned by Mark Gatiss, which of course wasn’t even a holiday special. As you’ll no doubt remember, “The Unquiet Dead” detailed the Doctor (Christopher Eccleston) and Rose (Billie Piper) meeting Charles Dickens (Simon Callow) right before Christmas in 1869 Cardiff, and here we are, well over five years later, returning to Dickens once again, and once again we discover that Dickens and “Doctor Who” make for a potent combination.

At its start, “A Christmas Carol” alarmingly resembles a Davies-era holiday adventure, with a giant spaceship plummeting through the atmosphere towards the ground below. Honestly, I was scared at this point – not over the potential fate of Amy (Karen Gillan) and Rory (Arthur Darvill), but that I was being set up for “Voyage of the Damned II.” But the story quickly shifts gears into far more character driven territory, as we move onto the surface below and meet the cantankerous Kazran Sardick, played by the great Michael Gambon. Most people equate Gambon with Dumbledore these days, and with good reason, because it’s the role he’s been seen in more than any other. Myself? I first became acquainted with the man 20 years ago via Peter Greenaway’s “The Cook, the Thief, His Wife & Her Lover,” in which he played the thoroughly despicable Albert Spica alongside Helen Mirren. His performance in that film is so perfect, playing such an awful man, that to this day it’s the role I still associate him with the most, and it was cool to see him return to that shouting, obnoxious type of character. It’s interesting to note the decision to give neither Gambon nor the other high profile guest star, Katherine Jenkins, billing in the opening credits, while Gillan and Darvill – neither of whom have an enormous amount of screen time during the hour – are credited at the top.

By the time the Doctor (Matt Smith) made his entrance via a chimney, my interest was gaining, and the moment in which he realized exactly the route he needed to take to whip Sardick into shape and save the day (“A Christmas Carol!”), I was sold. And who better than the time travelling Doctor to take up the mantle of the Ghost of Christmas Past? So he plunders Sardick’s abusive childhood (in which Gambon plays Kazran’s father as well) and befriends the boy version (Laurence Belcher) of the man and together the two begin to explore the planet’s peculiar relationship to its fish. I’m not even going to get into the finer points of this, except to say that the whole fish thing (and then later, sharks) is a delightfully batty idea, which somehow brought an immense amount of magical holiday whimsy to the table.

Soon enough, the radiant opera singer Jenkins is released from her icy tomb, and Sardick’s life begins to be rewritten in a whole new way, as he and the Doctor spend one Christmas Eve after the next with the girl, never quite realizing what seems apparent to the viewer from early on – that the numeric countdown makes the case more of a casket than an icebox. By the time Sardick, and then later the Doctor, learn the truth, it’s too late – the Sardick in the future has been rewritten in an entirely different fashion. It seems that maybe the Doctor went too far with his plan. If only he’d just rewritten the childhood itself, perhaps the resolve wouldn’t have been so complicated, but therein lies much of the beauty of the story – just when you thought you’d figured it out, it took a left turn into even darker territory, and the situation became all the more complicated.

In the end, it took a sacrifice on Sardick’s behalf to fix the problem of the plummeting ship, and in turn a Christmas carol was needed to save the day, which gave the story its title. What I loved about “A Christmas Carol” was just how damn Christmassy it really was. Moffat had promised that it would be, and so did Matt Smith, but the proof needed to be on the screen, and it very much was. This is a “Doctor Who” Christmas special I can actually foresee myself pulling out every year and imbibing in. It was so good, and so full of holiday spirit, that the mind boggles as to what Moffat will whip up next Christmas. How can he possibly top this? But praise should not be heaped upon Moffat alone. Director Toby Haynes has quickly established himself as the ideal helmer for this series. With only three episodes under his belt (the others being the Season Five two-part finale), this guy has proven that he knows exactly the right tone to set for the material, his camera movement is positively cinematic, and the lighting of his episodes, which he must surely have some say in, is the bomb diggity. Over the past five years, few – if any – directors have made their mark on the series. Euros Lyn probably came the closest with several of his outings, but Haynes is the one to beat. It’s a shame he can’t direct every episode at this point.

BBC America also deserves some major kudos for not only seeing to it that here in the States we got the special mere hours after the Brits, but also for promoting the hell out of it, running a massive marathon that kicked off the midnight before the special, as well as making time for the “Doctor Who at the Proms” special on Christmas afternoon. BBC America is even currently running a competition exclusive to American viewers, in which you must build your own TARDIS. The winner will have a “Who” screening in their hometown that they can invite 50 people to, as well as a copy of every single “Doctor Who” story currently available on DVD. Find out more at WherestheTARDIS.com. These folks are treating “Doctor Who” with some major respect, and it appears to be paying off for them. One wonders how much bigger “Doctor Who” might currently be here in the States if Syfy had done the same throughout the Eccleston and Tennant years.

On a personal note, I’d also like to use this space to bitch about the fact that DIRECTV doesn’t offer BBC America in HD, as we recently bumped up the service to HD in our house, only to discover this sad fact. When I called to complain, the woman I talked to at DIRECTV asked me – and I’m not making this up – “What’s BBC?” Get with the times, folks at DIRECTV, and get me some BBC America in HD by this spring, or else…Oh yes, the sixth season of “Doctor Who” will be kicking off sometime this spring on BBC America, and there are rumblings at the moment which suggest that, like “A Christmas Carol,” we may just get the episodes on the same night they air in the U.K.

Bullz-Eye: Steven, you and I met in passing a few years ago at the “Jekyll” panel…a show which I loved, by the way…

Steven Moffat: Oh, thank you. Oh, good!

BE: …and, Mark, I didn’t realize it at the time, but I now know that you made an appearance in that series.

Mark Gatiss: That’s right!

BE: So, Steven, what do you enjoy about the challenge of contemporizing British icons? I mean, you can argue that Dr. Jekyll is an icon of sorts, but then you’ve got Doctor Who, and now Sherlock Holmes.

SM: Well, being honest, for me, there isn’t really…it looks like there’s a narrative through that, that I’m trolling for things, but I’m really, really not. “Jekyll” was a totally different experience to this, the one big difference being that it was a sequel set in the modern day. And, really, it looks as if I’ve just been doing that, but, really, seriously, it wasn’t that. This is a completely different experience, and the challenge of this…well, they’re just joys, aren’t they?

MG: It’s true, yeah.

SM: There are so many things that…well, once having started talking about this, we realized it was going to work, because he can still be coming home from Afghanistan, a flat share is what we now call sharing rooms, we’ve gone back to sending telegrams by sending texts…it’s just perfect.

MG: Going back to first principles, on that train journey where we came up with the idea for “Sherlock,” one of the most fantastic things about that whole experience was that, as soon as that idea occurs and it’s the best thing you can ever have, you go, “Oh! Ooooh! OHHHHHH!” That’s how you want ideas to come, because you’re suddenly thinking, “Oh, well, then we could…” It’s one simple, clear thing that leads to a whole universe of wonderful possibilities. “We could this, we could that, and what if we did this?” Like Afghanistan. That’s an amazingly straight way in.

SM: I loved the way you suddenly said, “Blog!” Because, you know, people used to keep journals, people didn’t keep journals for a long time, and suddenly we doing it again with blogs!

MG: It’s funny, isn’t it? Because in a way…I was talking to a friend of mine who’s a real Luddite about all kinds of things, and I said, “Isn’t it odd that people are now composing E-mails?” I mean, they may not even be able to pick up a pen anymore… (Laughs) …but they’re writing more, and you would’ve predicted from the age of the telephone, say, 20 year ago, that that would’ve been it.

SM: Letter writing has just completely come back, and until the internet, I had probably written literally three letters in my life. And, now, I probably write twenty a day from my E-mail.

BE: I actually have to practice my handwriting once in awhile. I do it so rarely now.

MG: Yeah, that gets a bit frightening. I had to do this book were you had to write a letter to your 16-year-old self, and it was a really interesting thing, but when I actually came to do it, I was… (Fumbles across the tabletop) I tried to do it too quickly, and I found I wasn’t actually forming letters anymore!

SM: It’s true. I can barely write a check. Seriously. The age of computer technology has turned us all back into typists… (Laughs) …which is an extraordinary thing.

BE: Now, when you guys were writing this series, I just have visions of you having The Sherlock Holmes Encyclopedia on a desk, flipping madly through the pages, going, “Oooooooh, we could reference this!”

SM: Nah. We’ve got it in our heads. This comes from a place of us being fans. This wasn’t a case of, “Let’s grab that off the shelf and update it.” It was, “We love this, we think everybody’s been getting wrong, and we think we can get it right.” Unless you think you’re correcting everyone else, you shouldn’t be doing something. You should be saying, “Now this is the way it should be done.”

MG: But it’s a funny thing. It sounds so heretical, and you’re always immediately prepared for it, but an interesting dry run happened, which was that I was asked to address The Sherlock Holmes Society of London. I’d been a guest the year before, and they asked me to do it. And, essentially, I made the speech full of Sherlock Holmes jokes, but the bulk of the spine of it was basically the pitch for this series, because it seemed like an interesting argument. Now, with this group, the oldest Sherlock Holmes Society in the world, you would think they would be the most dusty, fossilized, Inverness cape wearing conservatives, but, really, they loved it. Because they love Sherlock Holmes, and we do as well. What’s been so refreshing and thrilling about the reception we’ve had at home is that people who were very skeptical go, “Oh! You got me!” Because it’s all there, you know? And what’s there is Doyle and these characters.

SM: We sort of took the Victoriana out, but put Donald back in…who’s been curiously missing from Sherlock Holmes for a long while. No, seriously, he has been!

(Writer’s note: Not being able to match Moffat’s knowledge of Sherlock Holmes lore, I have no idea what he’s referring to here, so if someone can fill in this gap for me, I’d be highly appreciative.)

BE: How did the casting of Benedict and Martin come about?

SM: Well, the casting of Sherlock Holmes was hilariously easy, given that it can be very difficult. Sue (Vertue) and I had been thinking about just who should play the part, we happened to be watching “Atonement,” we saw Benedict Cumberbatch, and we said, “He looks like Sherlock Holmes. He’s perfect!” I mentioned him to Mark, and Mark knows him, and he said, “Yeah, that’s a good idea!” So we sent him the script, and he came in and read for it, and we realized after the reading…it was, like, what is the point in carrying on looking? It’s him. There isn’t going to be somebody else. And then the challenge became to get our Watson who could match up to that. And, of course, as we keep saying, it’s a double act. Both characters are equally important. It’s only within the fiction that one’s senior to the other. Within the mechanics of the drama, they are equals. So who is going to be the other one? A host of brilliant people came in as Watson. The first person we saw, oddly enough, was Matt Smith, who is the new Doctor Who. A few days later, he was cast as The Doctor.

MG: He had a good week. (Laughs)

SM: (Laughs) He had a very good week! And then Martin came in, and when we stood him next to Benedict, he just became Watson instantly, and he somehow altered the way Benedict played it.

MG: They also had an instant chemistry, and it’s very interesting that Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson are like chalk and cheese, and, actually, Benedict and Martin are very different people who have very different approaches to their acting, but they just connected. They just have a spark, and you could see it in the room. The room lit up, and it just altered the way he was giving the lines. They changed. And…it was just there. It doesn’t very often. It’s a gift. I saw the other day where someone said, “Whoever cast these two should be showered with awards.” I thought, “Yes!” (Laughs) But, actually, I just liked the fact that they were pinpointing that. I thought it was great.

BE: Well, I must admit that I haven’t seen any more of the series than what was shown here today…

SM: …but those are the things that you will think. (Laughs)

BE: (Laughs) Probably. But something you touched on in the panel, and what was apparently in the clips, is that this plays very much like a buddy film of sorts.

SM: It’s even not “of sorts.” I really do think, as I said in the panel, that the real story of “Sherlock Holmes” is the story of the friendship, but nobody really talks about it because it’s told through the medium of detective stories. It really is. You warm to those two men, who…in different ways, but they’re quite difficult separately, and they adore each other, but…what’s the line you’re always quoting?

MG: I was just thinking that…because, of course, we’re always thinking psychically. (Laughs) I’ve forgotten the line, but Watson persuades him to go out for a walk because nothing’s happening, and he says, “We walked for the most part in silence, as befits two men who know each other intimately.” It’s beautiful. And then they come back, and it’s, like, “You bastard, I told you!” (Laughs)

SM: (Laughs) Yeah. And there are those details throughout it. Doyle, despite what people tended to say about him, didn’t do anything by accident. These are all very deliberate, cleverly written stories, albeit at the same speed. And the fact that it is a friendship is intentional, but there is that moment of total affection between them that happens once and is never repeated, and it’s there for a purpose. So when Sherlock Holmes works, it’s when you believe in the relationship between the two of them. Nigel Bruce departed a long way from the character of Doctor Watson in the stories, but why I absolutely believe those Rathbone / Bruce films is because they’re the two best friends in the world. They actually were best friends, Rathbone and Bruce, and it’s on the screen. You think, “They love each other!” Why do they live each other? Because they love each other.

MG: It’s also key to it…going back to “Doctor Who” or, really, any successful series or drama, you want to spend time with these people. And I think sometimes you can get very hung up on a kind of solemn, very grave version of Sherlock Holmes in which they’re getting the carpet details right but they forget to get people who actually like each other. (Laughs) And you find yourself not wanting to spend time with them, because they’re not having a good time. They look like they’re miserable!

BE: Lastly, talking about Rathbone and Bruce and, indeed, getting it right, are there any other incarnations of Holmes and Watson that either of you were particularly struck by?

MG: Oh, yeah. Jeremy Brett in the ‘80s…I can so vividly remember hearing that there was a new “Sherlock Holmes” series and being so excited, but for some reason, in my head, when I heard Jeremy Brett, I thought it was Nigel Havers. But I remember seeing the trailer, a big “coming soon” thing, and it was “The Speckled Band,” in which he’s wearing a sort of deer stalker, and Jeremy Brett had a proper hero close-up, and I was just like… (Gasps) “He’s got it! That’s Sherlock Holmes!” And that series has become an absolute icon for so many people. It’s a very interesting thing to do the stories much more as written, but without raining on anyone’s parade, there’s always an inherent problem, I think, in taking a very fast paced short story and making it an hour like that. And some of them do suffer just from, again, taking it too seriously. Well, taking it absolutely seriously, but taking it too gravely.

BE: As a teenager, I was always a fan of “Young Sherlock Holmes.” Not the best film in the world, but certainly an entertaining one.

MG: The other thing we must mention, because it’s absolutely key for us, is the Billy Wilder film “The Private Life of Sherlock Holmes,” which is a masterpiece and, in so many ways, is tonally what we’re trying to do.

SM: There are a lot of things that we’ve taken from that, and we can’t say what they all are, but one of the things that Wilder and Diamond got right was the humor. The banter between the two was spot on. And, again, that Colin Blakely (who played Watson in “The Private Life of Sherlock Holmes”) had as big a part and his stature within the story was every bit as big as Robert Stevens (who played Holmes). The two of them were equals. That’s always the case in the successful versions of “Sherlock Holmes,” in my view. I rather liked Ian Richardson as Holmes. I don’t think they were necessarily the best films in the world, but he got a lot of the humor rather well.

MG: Well, that’s the thing, isn’t it? There are two hundred odd films and 75 Sherlock Holmeses between them. That’s in the Guinness Book of World Records. I was talking to someone the other day, and one of the researchers in a horror documentary runs a silent movie festival and asked if we wanted to go open a festival of silent “Sherlock” films. There are so many that I don’t think anyone can ever really know which is the best. Some of them are lost, they’re so long ago. You only know them from stills in old books. I remember once, one afternoon when I was off school, one of the Arthur Wontner films was on…I think it “Silver Blaze” or something…and it was, like, “Oh, my God, how old is this?” (Laughs)

I started off with a non-specific question, asking how Michael Gambon had found his way into the “Who”-niverse.

“We sent him a script, asked him to do it, and he said, ‘Yes,'” said Moffat. “Simple as that.”

Had Gambon been a fan of the show?

“I don’t know,” he admitted. “I didn’t get the impression that he was a fan of ‘Doctor Who,’ except insofar as everyone in Britain is at the moment, but it’s really…with these guys, send them a good part and there’s a really stonking chance they’ll do it. I mean, if it’s a good script…and you think it is…they’re being offered prime-time on Christmas day, really, so there’s a real chance you can get anyone for that. But it’s very exciting. He’s brilliant. Of course he’s brilliant. Absolutely brilliant. What a voice.”

The time had come to make the jump and ask something specific, so I wondered aloud if the teaser line at the end of season finale about the Orient Express in space would indeed come to pass come this Christmas.

“Who knows?” replied Moffat, stonefaced.

I told him he was a terrible person…which caused the stone face to break into a laugh.

“You wouldn’t really want to know,” he said. “I can tell. Also, what you have to keep in mind that I genuinely lie. I do. I actively lie to people about what’s going to happen in ‘Doctor Who.’ I’m not officially employed with the BBC. I can say any old thing I like. Even if I told you something, there’s no guarantee that it’s true. Disinformation and the white noise of nonsense is how we get through this!”