American viewers really can't get enough of Sherlock, one might deduce. After an appearance by Benedict Cumberbatch prompted scenes of hysteria in New York, US fans complained that eight minutes of the actor's performance had mysteriously gone missing from the hit show.
The BBC's modern-day reinvention of Arthur Conan Doyle's sleuth has joined Doctor Who and Downton Abbey as one of British TV's most successful exports.
When the US PBS network invited viewers to join series star Cumberbatch for a preview screening of A Scandal In Belgravia, the episode featuring whip-smart dominatrix Irene Adler, more than 10,000 fans applied for seats at the 400-capacity French Institute in Manhattan.
The ticket-winners included Sherlock obsessives who had travelled from London and South Korea. Cumberbatch's arrival on stage was greeted with the kind of screams that normally accompany singer Justin Bieber. When the episode aired this week, it attracted 3.2 million viewers, doubling the average prime-time PBS audience. The new series also topped the US iTunes television download chart.
However online sleuths, who had previously acquired British DVDs or seen illicit downloads of the episode, spotted the PBS version was reduced from the original broadcast by the BBC in January. Eight minutes was cut from the 90 minute length to fit PBS's scheduled running time. "They cut scenes. Good ones. What the hell...that makes no sense," one viewer complained on a Sherlock Tumblr blog. "It's frustrating..."
READ MORE: http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/tv/news/sherlock-holmes-and-the-mystery-of-the-missing-eight-minutes-7738001.html
No comments:
Post a Comment