<p>My boys and I loved season 1. I bought it for them for Christmas. They are 15 and 17. I previewed episode 1 of season 2 last night. They taped it on the computer last night, so they can watch it today…</p>
<p>Sigh… I just don’t know…the whole dominatrix (sp thing.) The scene where she was naked was just so long. Now I know it didn’t really show anything, but still… Ugg… I didn’t like it nearly as well as last season… Part of it was my husband kept coming in and asking me questions and was buying a plane ticket and I had to find his passport, so I got somewhat lost in the middle. I liked the last part. Although… was he remembering that he saved her?? Or was that just a fantasy thing?? I was so confused.</p>
<p>Anyway, do I show it to the boys but just have them avert their gaze while they listen to the dialogue?? There are some crucial things in there. Would you just skip that scene and summarize? Would you skip the whole episode. Sigh… I just don’t know. I know many teens are seeing so much more. I just don’t know how to handle this… My 15 yo was mad because he wanted to watch the second showing and I wouldn’t let him. ( It shows it at 8 and then again at 9:30) Oldest has the AP Chem exam today and wasn’t going to watch it until today anyway… They have been waiting since the end of last season for this…</p>
<p>Personally, I’d let my teens watch it, esp. if they had watched Season 1. The show features considerable human cruelty, implied or portrayed. What difference does it make now? There are other things about it that make it worth watching.</p>
<p>The nudity was nothing. It was less racy than what you’d see in an art museum. No bare breasts or anything. I also thought the disadvantage that Sherlock experienced (he is used to judging people by their clothes) was very interesting and necessary to the plot. He could not “read” her even though she was, technically, totally exposed. She put him on the back foot. I thought the scene was extremely effective.</p>
<p>I actually saw the show. I’d watch it with them and explain what you don’t like about these images of women and how and why they are destructive. They can find it on the Internet if you withhold it from them. I watched it with my 22 year old son who is home for a year. He had already seen it on the Internet. He explained to me the unpleasantness of the images because I’ve been talking to him about it for so lLong. He lives many genres of drama, some with very negative images, but he has always been a progressive force among his friends. BTW he is going to be an Art Historian so the discussion of imagery and how things are portrayed really stuck. Your sons may be doctors or economists or something very different, but these discussions might fertile ground, even if the boys don’t show you while you’re talking to them.</p>
<p>D2 is a huge Sherlock fan. She is also very modest. Interestingly, she watched last night with DH & D1 (I missed because of a headache) and while telling me about it, the nudity wasn’t even mentioned. She’s usually pretty squeamish about that, so that tells me that it must have been woven into the story line and wasn’t gratuitous. She also said that it’s not her favorite episode because it moves a little slow. </p>
<p>Your call of course. I’d be less concerned about the 17 y.o. than the 15 y.o. and even then I’d take it in stride as long as it wasn’t exploitative.</p>
<p>I agree with this. I don’t think the nudity is gratuitous, it was very effectively integrated into the plot, and I don’t think it was necessarily demeaning (you could argue that the entire portrayal of Irene Adler was demeaning, but for the character it was a strength that she knew how to use to her advantage - it was power, basically). There’s material for some great dinner-table discussion (or elsewhere, if the idea of having this discussion at the dinner table is unappetizing). </p>
<p>What I appreciate about Sherlock the show is that the creators make it so clear that the line between Sherlock and Moriarty is so thin (and you’ll see this more than ever in the season finale). Personality traits and actions aren’t inherently good or evil - it is choices that are, and even so they can be ambiguous. I think there is much more productive dialogue to be had with a show such as Sherlock than with many others that don’t push the limits of sensibility and never manage to put the spotlight on issues of human nature and morality.</p>
<p>(And yes, he does go to Karachi to save her. I bought the DVD in London and the DVD commentary makes it clear, for everyone who really has to know… though why and how Sherlock goes to Karachi to wave a sword at a bunch of armed terrorists they don’t say. … man, you all are going to have such a treat. Season 2 is even better than season 1.)</p>
<p>Honestly I don’t think it’s a problem for 15, 17 year old boys, esp. since they really didn’t show anything. I personally think the part is beautiful - not the body, but how the body played the role in the whole plot. Later when Sherlock went to identify her “dead” body part… Oh that’s brilliant. No it is absolutely not gratuitous.</p>
<p>Your husband walked in while Irene Adler is wearing her “battle suit” and just asked you a question without sitting down to watch? :eek: </p>
<p>;) :)</p>
<p>Agree with others that the nudity is anything but gratuitous. </p>
<p>If you want to make it educational, why not have your boys read the original Sherlock Holmes story (“A Scandal in Bohemia”) and see how it compares with the “Sherlock” episode?</p>
<p>No. He didn’t come in during that part and would probably have made me turn it off if that were on. My middle one has already read all of the Sherlock Holmes as well as every Agatha Christie ever written. We own a lot of the Poirot movies/series as well.</p>
<ol>
<li><p>If you didn’t like last night’s show at least as much as last season’s shows, you were really distracted. Watch it again. I’ve seen all six of the the shows made so far, and I think that the Irene Adler one is head-and-shoulders the strongest episode.</p></li>
<li><p>Unless your 15- and 17-year-old sons have been living under a rock on a different planet, neither the coy nude scene nor any of the suggestive dialogue will go beyond things that they have seen or heard often in the past. Except in cleverness and sophistication. The script not only says that “Brainy is the new sexy,” it shows how sexy brainy can be as well.</p></li>
<li><p>In the end, even if the glimpses from behind of a naked woman, or the puns about S/M, are providing your children with new, not especially welcome information, isn’t it a reasonable trade for something that shows how powerful and, well, sexy, an intellectual attraction can be? And how it isn’t necessary to proceed immediately to rutting?</p></li>
</ol>
<p>choirfarm, it sounds like your family’s stance on what’s appropriate entertainment is somewhat stricter than what many others here hold by. In that case, our opinions might not offer you much guidance. </p>
<p>That said, while I can understand parents deciding on what is inappropriate for their children, I’m startled by your saying that your husband would have made you turn off the TV if he walked in during the Adler nude scene. Would his concern be that your children might walk in and see? Or would his objections apply to having it on at all, regardless of who was watching?</p>
<p>Was the first season just three episodes?
I missed it last night, but I am downloading the PBS app so I can watch it on my iPad.
I am generally squeamish, although if sex is actually sex and not violent I can handle that. I will report back.</p>
<p>Just watched it, IMO, the " nude" scene wasn’t gratuitous or even sexual, rather it was a power play, I wouldn’t have trouble letting kids watch it.</p>