The Irregulars

Netflix | Release Date: March 26, 2021

4.5	USER SCORE Mixed or average reviews based on 32 Ratings

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SteveRobMar 30, 2021

This review contains spoilers, click expand to view. The betrayal of Victorian London as a backdrop was excellent; the plot was good (not unlike some of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s more spooky tales). The show is well placed and exciting in parts. Intersectionality, race and gender politics were of course on show; and it felt like there was a lot of product placement going on (only 1.6% of people in Victorian London were actually BAME whereas the show ups the number considerably); this can be very annoying/distracting, particularly if you get the impression that the actors only there because they meet some race/gender quota; but happily each cast member provides a quality performance, making the race/gender politics stuff almost forgivable. I say almost, as making John Watson a person of colour, was I felt, a bridge too far. There’s subverting expectations and then there’s pushing an agenda, and this felt like more of the latter. If you check your brain at the door and accept it for what it is, then it’s eminently watchable. If on the other hand you happen to know the word clone (used in the second episode by a main character) wasn’t in use in Victorian England then you’ll find such sloppy writing frustrating. The show has loads of potential, the ideas are good (even original) but the dialogue, the politics, and ahistorical elements are off putting.… Expand

1 of 1 users found this helpful10

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DrBAMF_PhD_MMTMar 31, 2021

This show seems to go completely out of its way to defy expectations, past the point of it becoming pathological. Sometimes this is good, yielding a few unique and interesting moments, but most of the time (especially in the last fewThis show seems to go completely out of its way to defy expectations, past the point of it becoming pathological. Sometimes this is good, yielding a few unique and interesting moments, but most of the time (especially in the last few episodes) it just cheapens the narrative, abandoning all sense and rationality.

As others have said, this is one of those new streaming service shows that puts a huge priority on having non-white, non-heterosexual characters. Unlike some others that leave reviews on the internet, this trend doesn't really bother me when its done well. But this is 1800s, VICTORIAN london. The original Sherlock Holmes stories were set in the 1880s i believe, and while the Holmes and Watson characters have been borrowed for different periods before with great results, this show is very deliberately set in the original era, they even specifically state that the current Queen is Victoria. At this point in time, slavery and the triangle trade were still in living memory, and people of african descent in london were a tiny minority.

Showing the difficulties of Victorian-era black people could have been an interesting journey in its own right, yet here the racism and sexism of the time arent just sidestepped, they are deliberately RETCONNED out of existence. They have a black lord as a character, with a white wife, something that doesn't even exist NOW, as well as a huge population of affluent upper-crust black social climbers, many of whom wear makeup and earrings that would seem a bit much in a modern nightclub.

If they wanted to show the diversity of the real world, they would have been better off making these characters Indian instead, as there is a historical basis for affluent (and poor) Indians being present in Victorian London. So what are we to make of this? Racism and sexism, indeed prejudice of any kind seems essentially non-existent in this world, so is it intended to be some kind of alternative history fiction, set in a world where international, institutional, race-based slavery never existed?

Ok, I can accept that. After all, the entire point of the show is the investigation of supernatural, magical nonsense that clearly didn't happen in Victorian London anyway, so why not? Because the show tries to have it both ways. It spends all this time painting a world where racism, sexism, and anti-gay prejudice doesn't seem to exist, then also stirs in this Dickensian early-industrial poverty meat-grinder which isn't even slightly explained, then it tries to make these points about prejudice in the last few episodes that dont make an IOTA of sense to the world they've tried to portray.

And thats the real problem with this show, it doesnt know what its doing or what it wants to say. It seems to know that it wants to say SOMETHING, it just can't figure out what that is. The fact that Watson and Sherlock Holmes are part of this show is almost incidental, there is very little Holmsian investigation, and the focus is almost entirely, not just on the supposed irregulars but the Beatrice character specifically. She's smart, but not enough to figure things out for herself, brave, but not enough to do anything without having her hand held, and cares, but not enough to see past her own personal problems. Though in fairness to her character, that's pretty much the same for all of them. The world is under threat, and London is about to run down the tubes due to supernatural McGuffins running wild, and all anyone seems to care about, Holmes and Watson included, are their own stupid personal subplots. The whole story proliferates with ignominious personal problems, some of which are lifted DIRECTLY from Dickens books, none of which feel even slightly natural, and most of them don't even make any sense. Its infuriating how unfocused the entire narrative is, it makes you think "Well, if the characters who LIVE HERE don't care about the world, why the hell should I care about their pathetic ham-strung engineered dramas?"… Expand

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