fandomsecrets | [ SECRET POST #2419 ]

[ SECRET POST #2419 ]

⌈ Secret Post #2419 ⌋

Warning: Some secrets are NOT worksafe and may contain SPOILERS.

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Notes:

Way early because taking dog to the vet. :c

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There's a thing about the Murder Rooms franchise that has always been puzzling me: namely, the character of Cream (the main protagonists' archnemesis, Elspeth/Elsbeth's murderer and many other a thing). That is, in the TV!canon he disappears into nowhere. In the end of the pilot episode Bell and Doyle practically embark upon a revenge quest against him; it appears to be one of the main things (if not the only one) that brings them together, for Doyle tells the Doctor that he wishes he'd "never met him", and I don't believe that it was friendship that compelled him to stay (it doesn't seem to be a strong enough relationship as of yet - they're almost strangers, what with the difference in their hierarchical positions and the Victorian cultural background). It must be the desire to bring Cream to justice. "He will kill again," Doyle shouts.

...and then nothing happens?? The series does not so much as mention Cream in the subsequent episodes. I would've understood it if they ignored the pilot episode altogether; but Elspeth is quite clearly still remembered, as is Doyle's trauma of discovering her dead body on the beach. Her murderer, however, is gone into nothingness, and neither Bell nor Doyle himself will lift a finger to do something about it. I thought that perhaps it could be due to the producers' wish to keep whatever optimisim still remained in the atmosphere (grim though the series might be) - and in this they undoubtedly succeeded (which I am glad of; what would become of Murder Rooms without the jokes and the occasional light-heartedness? Hello, dystopic world).

In the books it is a different matter entirely. Cream is the protagonists' sole focus; at some point his invulnerability becomes ridiculous. Bell declares that he's ready to shoot him, if necessary (creating in Doyle's head a spectacular image of the outwardly peaceful and good-mannered Doctor walking into the local inn and murdering the equally gentlemanly Cream with a shotgun); Doyle, after being abducted and having escaped, hides in the nearby bushes with an intention of slaughtering Cream with a piece of glass; Bell tries to throw Cream off a cliff but does not succeed (instead he falls himself and has Doyle believe him dead); finally, Doyle pours Cream with kerosene, locks him up and sets the room on fire -

but Cream is still goddamn alive.

That, I think, might've been entailed by the author's intention to make the events fit the real timeline (since Thomas Neill Cream has a very real prototype, and so do Doyle and the Doctor); for the creators of the TV!canon it wouldn't be very important. Still, this difference between the books and the series is quite striking.

I have a headcanon that would make things somewhat easier to understand - that the last two episodes of the series would be about the local Reichenbach Fall, the case of The Dark Water; somebody on Amazon once said that the book!versions of Bell and Doyle seem to be more annoyed with each other than anything else (and that Doyle is an incredibly whiny narrator), but I cannot agree with this view, since there are some very, very heartwarming moments, and the "Reichenbach" scene is absolutely harrowing. (now whining is another matter, he kind of does it all the time. But then he does have it bad; and I can't dislike him for this)

The problem is, although it would fit into the series, it would be too dramatic a change to happen during the three remaining screen hours. And how could anybody explain Cream's disappearance? "Hello, we just remembered that the dude who killed Doyle's girl is still out there, so we thought we might as well bring him in"?

tl;dr: where the hell is tv!Cream? How could the series be wrapped up in two episodes? If anybody's familiar with the literary canon - why the difference?

I loved the show but I... had no idea there were Murder Rooms books. With the change in actors, I thought there might have been a bit of a soft re-boot after the pilot, so maybe the showrunners decided to shelve the idea of an arch-enemy when the production went to a multi-episode series. They could have assumed the show would return with more episodes (I certainly did) and they figured there would be time later to return to this plot line.

Yeah, a trilogy. Also unfinished (kind of), and at times badly weird, but I love it as much as I love the series. I've heard folks saying that Murder Rooms is dark - which is true, especially if we compare it to the Holmes adaptations - but it's a mere romcom in comparison to the books. In the literary version, there isn't a single book where Doyle omits to mention that he's about to die. Also, Cream sends him weird parcels and is being intensely creepy in other regards (as in "trying to disgrace Doyle by having him sexually coerced by a prostitute who was then supposed to mock Elsbeth's memory aloud"). His friendship with the Doctor sometimes sounds like morbid codependence (not that it doesn't happen in the series, too, but then I tend to notice it, because that's my favourite Murder Rooms fanon).

I think that seven episodes always were the general idea? It was supposed to be a miniseries. But I agree on the reboot version - and I'm glad they did it. Sure I'd like the Cream plotline to have a proper ending, but I'm afraid he'd evolve into the exaggeratedly evil and superhuman figure he is in the book series. Instead of all the fun that was The Photographer's Chair and The Kingdom of Bones we'd have another Moriarty (this is not to mention the fact that Cream is worse).

High five, by the way :) Are you, by any chance, the OP of the last Murder Rooms secret?

Edited 2013-08-17 20:05 (UTC)

They are not ;D I doubt it will be hard to figure out who else it could be, lol.

Let's make a fandom together
or something
there are, after all, a whole three of us :D One will be the fanartist, another - the writer, the third - the podficcer. and we'll hire someone to write the meta for us

I call podficcer! XD I can't draw and my writing skills are shaky.

I kind of write already, but that's more out of despair :/ I actually wrote a 20k+ Kate Chopin crossover?? You could podfic the Yuletide Murder Rooms porn
and this spanking fic from ffn

Wow. That's a lot of Chopin *badum tiss*

I've never podficced anything before! does one need to have an awesome voice to do them? What are the pairings for the fic?

Yes, and it has daemons. Bell's is a magpie, and Doyle's is a fox. Sorry not sorry. Also, they investigate Desiree's suicide.

That was more of a joke, since the two existing works aren't particularly high-quality, but I'd totally listen to it (even though I'm not into Murder Rooms shipping, and all Bell/Doyle porn does for me is give me a good laugh). I don't think an awesome voice is a must - that's more about intonation, really.

So one's Bell/Doyle, and another one is gen but with spanking (it also cracked me up, because I can't take the situation seriously).

Oh, that sounds interesting :)

Lol ok. I was thrown when you said spanking fic. I wasn't sure what to say. I haven't read any Murder Rooms fic, so I thought maybe Bell/Doyle spanking was the fandom kink lol. I have to say, I can see that happening in the show in any capacity, unless Bell took to drink and thought Doyle was someone else. At least you get a laugh from them! :)

I didn't need this mental image :D Unfortunately, there's really no fandom - just some of my stuff and the two works written ages ago. But I'm totally requesting it on this Yuletide.

Haha. Sorry!

Hope someone fills it for you :)

I think you're probably right. I think Cream would have come back in the last episodes and the plotlines would have been tied up. I think they'd have shoehorned it in somehow... even if it made the flow a bit wonky.

I view the pilot episode and the rest of the series as different. I know that they reference Elspeth in the series again, but the actress is different as is Doyle. I think the writers kindof decided to go in a different vein, but wanted to keep Doyle's soul tortured so they kept Elspeth in.

Books and TV show/movie will always be different, so putting them side by side might not unlock all the answers, unfortunately. To me, I'd view them as different materials, Murder Rooms loosely based on the books. (I haven't read the books of course, so take this as you will.)

Edited 2013-08-17 19:59 (UTC)

I think the writers kindof decided to go in a different vein, but wanted to keep Doyle's soul tortured so they kept Elspeth in.

poor Doyle, but LOL irl :D That's the best explanation. For some reason being cynical towards fictional characters cracks me up.

Yes, you're probably right (although it's vice versa - the books are based on the series), mostly because the literary canon is written by Pirie alone, while the series is made by many a folk. The dark overtones must be partly due to Pirie's influence.

[unrelated, but sometimes I think of going to tumblr and making a blog with silly gifs from Murder Rooms. Perhaps some kind of community would eventually emerge]

Oh, whoops. I'm so used to books coming before movies, I just assumed it as such. I would think then, the books are like the filling of the show? They expand what the show brought forth, and that's why Cream is more central to the story telling?

Or possibly in the show, they wanted to go for the one case per episode forumla, but in the books, the author was able to expand on Cream's storyline. Give the audience what they were looking for. (Am I making sense or totally off base? I'm in need of some sleep, sorry.)

I guess I need to read the books now, as all this is speculation on my part!

Kind of: they do contain some of the events described in the show (the pilot episode is all there, and The Patient's Eyes), but these mostly remain untouched - original material constitutes the main part of the trilogy. Cream becomes a local Moriarty who turns out to be behind every single case Bell and Doyle investigate (The Patient's Eyes story being an exception). I usually dislike the whole concept of archnemeses, so I have no idea why it doesn't rub me the wrong way :/ He's, like, the king of ridiculously powerful villains. He's also quite scary.

Nah, it does make sense! But I'm not sure why - the easy way to make a Holmes (or a Holmes-like) TV production seems to be to introduce one powerful antagonist (the way they did in Sherlock) and keep him going. What the Murder Rooms folks did is probably more about the inner logic of the series, the overall atmosphere and idea.

The books are fun, so I recommend reading them if you have a chance. They're absolutely cheerless, though - not like the show in this regard - with quite a few Gothic elements (...yeah, I don't even know. Gothic!Murder Rooms).

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