Es­te blog es­tá acá ha­ce mu­cho, y es­cri­bí un mon­tó­n. ¿Cuan­to es exac­ta­men­te un mon­tó­n? Una es­ti­ma­ción a gro­so mo­do, me da 2568143 ca­rac­te­res, o 343105 pa­la­bra­s, en 45477 lí­nea­s, sin con­tar las tra­duc­cio­nes al cas­te­llano.

Pa­ra dar un po­co de con­tex­to, es un po­qui­tín mas lar­go que The Stand de Ste­phen Kin­g.

Y pa­ra mo­les­tar no­má­s, acá es­tán, más de 600 pǵi­nas de for­ma­to gran­de que es­pe­ro na­die des­car­gue ;-)

Firs­t, a bit of ad­vi­ce: If you ha­ve not seen Do­n't trust the bi­tch in apart­ment 23 go ahead and do it, it's ve­ry funn­y.

The he­ro of the sto­ry is a bri­ght young wo­man (pla­yed by an ac­tress that looks like Zooey Des­cha­ne­l's smar­t, evil cou­si­n) who has dis­co­ve­red a un­sa­tis­fied need in the real es­ta­te ma­rke­t: room­ma­tes who wi­ll take your de­po­si­t, make your li­fe he­ll, con­vin­ce you to lea­ve, yet co­m­mit no cri­mes vi­le enou­gh to wa­rrant po­li­ce's atten­tio­n.

Ha­ving found that nee­d, she, like any true hu­man, ful­fi­lls it in he­roic fas­hio­n, thus taking wha­t's ri­gh­tfu­lly hers by vir­tue of her in­ge­nui­ty and wi­ll­po­we­r.

Her la­test room­ma­te is attrac­ted to her mag­ne­tic per­so­na­li­ty and strong élan, and dis­pla­ys so­me in­te­res­ting wit of her own when she reac­ts to our he­ro­'s sche­me by ste­a­ling and se­lling all her be­lon­gings, whi­ch lea­ds to funny hi­ji­nks.

Sin­ce this is a uto­pic co­med­y, sta­te's in­ter­fe­ren­ce in the affairs of our he­ros is ine­xis­tan­t, allo­wing them to exer­ci­se so­ve­re­ign ri­gh­ts over their own bo­die­s, like when they gi­ve al­cohol to a thir­teen yeaar ol­d, or deal in drugs, whi­ch as we all kno­w, are vic­ti­m­le­ss cri­me­s, pla­yed for lau­ghs (and rea­ll­y, the chi­ne­se pi­lls bit is funn­y).

I ha­ve on­ly seen the pi­lo­t, but I look fo­rward to the pro­ta­go­nis­ts' star­ting a steel com­pan­y, or ma­y­be a rai­l­road cor­po­ra­tio­n, or ma­y­be joi­ning John Gal­t.

I gi­ve this show 4 Ran­ds out of fi­ve.

Em­pe­ce­mos con un par de ci­ta­s:

No es­tá cien­tí­fi­ca­men­te de­mos­tra­do que el al­ma no se trans­mi­ta en un tras­plan­te de ór­ga­no­s.

—Ma­ri­ló Mon­te­ro

Sa­bías que ca­da sie­te mi­nu­to­s, en es­te país, na­ce un ne­gro sin al­ma?

—BB King

Ma­ri­ló Mon­te­ro es una per­so­na que tra­ba­ja en te­le­vi­sió­n, y di­jo esa pe­lo­tu­dez. Po­dría ha­cer un post ex­pli­can­do edu­ca­da­men­te que el al­ma no se alo­ja en las cór­nea­s, ni en el ba­zo, pe­ro va­mos di­rec­to a lo im­por­tan­te: el al­ma no exis­te.

El al­ma, to­dos los que creen que te­ne­mos te lo van a de­ci­r, es in­ma­te­ria­l. Las co­sas in­ma­te­ria­les no exis­ten. El al­ma es útil co­mo me­tá­fo­ra, es útil co­mo ata­jo pa­ra des­cri­bir un con­jun­to de co­sas re­la­cio­na­das con la per­so­na­li­dad y la con­cien­cia, pe­ro el al­ma en sí no es una co­sa.

Y no, las no­-­co­sas no vi­ven en el in­tes­ti­no, así que no, no se trans­mi­ten.

¿Si no, cuan­do te ex­tir­pan las amí­g­da­la­s, te vol­vés un po­co más des­al­ma­do?

¿Cuan­do ca­gá­s, man­dás tu al­ma a Be­ra­zate­gui?

¿Cuan­do te cor­tás el pe­lo, te acor­tás el es­píri­tu?

¿Si me trans­plan­tan al­go de Ma­ri­ló Mon­te­ro, me vuel­vo idio­ta?

Creo que lo de la se­ño­ra Mon­te­ro es sim­ple­men­te un in­ten­to de mo­der­ni­zar al­gu­na su­pers­ti­ción me­die­va­l, y sien­do ella es­pa­ño­la, es po­si­ble su­po­ner que es al­go ca­tó­li­co. Su­pon­go que el sal­to de una re­li­gión a un cho­ri­zo lleno de al­ma de va­ca es bre­ve.

Ano­che ví John Car­te­r. Re­cuer­do va­ga­men­te ha­ber leí­do el li­bro en que es­tá ba­sa­do, "Prin­ce­ss of Mar­s" cuan­do te­nía unos 8 años y era so­cio de la Bi­blio­te­ca Ma­riano Mo­re­no, su­je­to a una die­ta es­tric­ta de Hardy Bo­ys, Bom­ba el chi­co de la se­l­va, y Bu­rrou­ghs.

Me sor­pren­de mu­cho que ha­ya si­do el fra­ca­so eco­nó­mi­co que fue. Es di­ver­ti­da, es­tá bien he­cha, es un po­co an­ti­gua en el sen­ti­do de que cuen­ta una his­to­ria de ma­ne­ra di­rec­ta, sin vuel­ta­s. Hay que dar­le un pre­mio es­pe­cial al di­rec­tor por­que ¡Las es­ce­nas de ac­ción se en­tien­den! Siem­pre sa­bés quién es­tá ha­cien­do qué co­sa, y la re­la­ción es­pa­cial de la gen­te en las es­ce­nas tie­ne sen­ti­do.

Cla­ro, la his­to­ria pa­sa rá­pi­do, hay mon­to­nes de per­so­na­jes se­cun­da­rios que no se de­sa­rro­llan por­que no al­can­za el tiem­po, y es una pe­na que pro­ba­ble­men­te nun­ca vea­mos la se­gun­da par­te.

Often mo­vies or TV se­ries co­me in pair­s. The­se da­ys I wa­tched two se­ries that are ob­vious­ly re­late­d, Sher­lo­ck and Ele­men­ta­ry and the­re is even a mo­vie se­ries by guy Ri­tchie (whi­ch I ac­tua­lly like!) but le­t's ta­lk TV.

I am not going to be ori­gi­nal in sa­ying Sher­lo­ck is the su­pe­rior sho­w. But why is it?

We­ll, I thi­nk it mos­tly co­mes to one being do­ne by peo­ple who ha­ve read the books, and the other by peo­ple who heard about the­m.

For exam­ple, that evil word "E­le­men­ta­r­y". It's not in the books. It's in the mo­vie­s, thou­gh. So, if you fo­cus on se­con­d-hand sour­ce­s, it makes sen­se to use it, but if you ca­re about the ori­gi­nal ma­te­rials it makes sen­se to ca­re­fu­lly avoid it.

The­re's al­so the pro­blem of Ele­men­ta­r­y's Hol­mes looking like a ho­bo. Hol­mes was fas­ti­dious­ly nea­t. He was a slob about his lo­dgings, but he alwa­ys kept hi­mself clean and we­ll dress­e­d.

Or le­t's con­si­der addic­tio­n. Ye­s, in the books Hol­mes shoots co­cai­ne and does mor­phi­ne, Thing is, tho­se things we­re not even ille­gal at the ti­me. Co­cai­ne was a cou­gh me­di­ci­ne. So, trans­po­sing that in­to ni­co­ti­ne addic­tion makes sen­se, spe­cia­lly sin­ce Hol­mes was al­so a ve­ry hea­vy smo­ker even for vic­to­rian stan­dar­d­s. Tur­ning it in­to a drug ha­bit that for­ces Hol­mes in­to re­hab (re­ha­b!) does­n'­t. Al­so, "this is a th­ree pa­tch pro­ble­m"? Ha­ve to chu­cle at tha­t, du­de.

The Wa­tsons al­so are qui­te di­ffe­ren­t. I qui­te like Lu­cy Liu's dea­dpan de­li­ve­ry of eve­r­y­thin­g, but Wa­tson is not su­ppo­sed to be a da­ma­ged per­son that nur­tu­res. He's a th­ri­ll seeke­r, a ba­da­ss cha­rac­ter that is on­ly mil­d-­man­ne­red when com­pa­red to his com­pan­y. Agai­n, Sher­lo­ck wa­lks clo­ser to the books the­re, whi­le Ele­men­ta­ry tries to shoe­horn so­me weird per­so­na­l-­gro­w­th si­de­plo­t.

Ye­s, Wa­tson is the one that brings out the hu­man si­de of Hol­me­s, but he does that not by being all so­ft and cu­dd­l­y, he does it by being a hard hea­ded bas­tard who stan­ds up to hi­m. He's a true frien­d, and frien­ds do­n't take shit from frien­d­s, at least not wi­thout gi­ving shit ba­ck. In Sher­lo­ck he does tha­t, and clear­ly Hol­mes res­pec­ts hi­m. In Ele­men­ta­r­y, Wa­tson is to­le­ra­te­d, and treated like a pe­t.

Wi­nks. Bo­th se­ries try to make re­fe­ren­ce, mo­re or le­ss obli­que, to the sour­ce ma­te­ria­l. Agai­n, it feels like Ele­men­ta­ry is wo­rking from se­cond hand re­fe­ren­ce­s. If I could find you the "Hol­mes in­ten­tio­na­lly avoi­ds lear­ning things of no im­me­dia­te re­le­van­ce" bi­ts in bo­th, the Ele­men­ta­ry one was a groa­ning ex­po­si­tio­n, in­clu­ding ph­y­si­cal de­mons­tra­tion of how wa­ter dis­pla­ces oi­l. In Sher­lo­ck? We­ll, it's an ar­gu­men­t. In­cre­du­li­ty on one si­de, qui­rki­ness on the othe­r, funny dia­lo­g.

Be­cau­se tha­t's what Ele­men­ta­ry is­n'­t. it's just not fun. And a Hol­mes tha­t's not fun, is a bro­ken Hol­me­s.