Chapter Text
Regarding “distributed”plots, through-lines, and the spine of a narrative.
At some point in an interview or written piece—and, no, so help me, I can’t recall which one—Mark Gatiss comments that Dorothy Sayers wrote lovely literary works, but that unlike Agatha Christie she didn’t have the killer plot lines for mystery. As a massive fan of Sayers and a mere moderate fan of Christie, part of me wanted to bridle in offense. Sayers’ plots were, in my opinion, complex, detailed, intricate embroidery, coming together at the end to provide outcomes that were satisfying emotionally, intellectually, and thematically. Much of what made her plots work, for me, was their distributed nature, in which the bits and pieces oozed in along peculiar paths of entrance, were associated with the story in unexpected ways. What held these distributed plots together was a narrative spine tied not to the mystery itself, but to the character arcs, and in particular the character arcs associated with Lord Peter as he grew, and explored, and cared. This would ultimately resolve in Busman’s Honeymoon, which was quite honestly subtitled, A Love Story with Detective Interruptions…a subtitle that, to me, has always seemed even better suited to the book’s immediate predecessor, Gaudy Night. In both those books the narrative spine of the story—the skeleton on which the actual telling of the mystery hangs—is not a mystery structure, but a character/romance structure which provides a form through which the mystery is wound.
In contrast, Christie’s plots were always mystery plots, and any romance trappings were wound through a direct, clear mystery-based through-line. Christie appeared to have no doubts what her job was: it was to arrange for a crime to be committed, and then play games teasing that crime through about 300 pages of novel, with a clever solution at the end and an entertaining detective in the middle. Christie’s narrative spine—her dramatic through-line—is always the mystery itself.
Both provide good models for how to build a story. Both actually have to provide great stories. Both depend on strong skeletons and strong dramatic through-lines. One, however, must focus on the mystery itself at all times. The other can digress, because the heart of the other only allies with a mystery without itself being a mystery. It can be a love-story with pertinent detective interruptions.
Which is better depends, in part, on how you define your mysteries and what you look for in your plot lines. Which leads to a comment regarding Sherlock. Moffat and Gatiss have made it reasonably clear that, ultimately, they don’t regard Sherlock as a “mystery show.” It’s a character show about a man who happens to be a detective. It’s a love-story about a friendship, in which one of the friends happens to be a detective and the other is his best friend in the entire world. Calvin and Hobbes play detective…but remain forever a boy and his tiger before all else.
That being the case, the distributed plotlines of shows like “Scandal in Belgravia,” and our two recent Series 3 shows, “The Empty Hearse” and “The Sign of Three” make perfect sense. Interpreted in that light, they’re stories about Sherlock and love, just as Moffat said ages ago about “Scandal.” Their narrative spine is, rightly, the emotional element of how Sherlock and his love-ties grow, and how his eternal friendship deepens and intensifies with time and events. Any detective interruptions must support that central spine, because love is always the dramatic through-line.
Which is great if you share Moffat and Gatiss’ vision of Sherlock. If, however, at heart you think the show is a mystery show before all else, with mere love-story interruptions, then you’re going to keep coming to the conclusion that the mysteries are bloody weak and annoyingly peripheral to the central dramatic through-line. After all, it’s about detectivin’, to use a lovely word invoked by Lord Peter in one of his mysteries. Let’s get the detectivin’ underway, then, for goodness’ sake. Stop with the folding of serviettes and the indulgence of Sherlock’s best man speech and so on and so forth: quit confusing a good plot with all this irrelevant blather.
Now, let’s be honest; the very, very best of the stories occur when Moffat and Gatiss and Thompson find stories in which the emotional and mystery through-lines are literally one and the same, in the end. That was one of the great successes of “Scandal,” that emotionally the Irene/love story was completely integrated with the Bond Air story. They were front and back of the same tapestry. The magic was the realization that what had looked rather messy and sloppy was, instead, just the story teller moving back and forth, from front to back, showing you the essential details to understand both by the end.
Right now I’m not inclined to think either “Hearse” or “Sign of Three” work as brilliantly as “Scandal.” “Scandal” was, to me, roughly equivalent to Sayers’ Gaudy Night, in which plot, theme, character arcs—everything worked out as a complete, integrated, fully enabled whole in which nothing, not even little frivolous scenes, failed to feed back into the vast central dialog, and in which every way of viewing the story turns the reader back on the questions of love versus calling and social role versus individual dignity. “Scandal” and Gaudy Night are exceptional examples of stories in which there’s really no choice between the character development and the mystery development: they’re so interrelated as to be the same thing.
“Hearse” and “Sign of Three” can’t really make the same claim. As a result those who are looking for a mystery in their mystery are reasonably peeved and set on edge by all this romantic, sentimental lovey-dovey stuff getting in the way of the writers developing a nice strong mystery spin, and a nice strong mystery-based dramatic through-line. I can’t blame ‘em a bit. If you think you’re supposed to be functioning in what’s essentially an Agatha Christie fictional universe, all this Dorothy Sayers-style stuff is merely so much faff and fuss you were not looking for and don’t really want. If, however, you agree with Moffat and Gatiss that it’s essentially a love story, first and before all else, then the secondary position of mystery in the two episodes is a failing, but by no means a serious failing: indeed, it’s proof the authors do know what their own central goals should be. Tell the love story first and foremost, and give us your mystery as best you can within that central goal.
If the third show of the season turns out to provide a strong, strong classic mystery element—even an element that can’t be resolved this series—then those who see things from a Dorothy Sayers POV will likely be satisfied. I’m not sure the pure Christie-ites will ever be, though. This series has simply refused to be a Christie-style run, and its dramatic through-lines and narrative spines have failed to meet the Christie challenge of being about the detectivin’, rather than about the heart of the detective.