Forgiveness and patience.

As we roll into the last episode of BBC Sherlock season four, which I have been completely enjoying, it occurs to me that there is a reason I'm enjoying television so much of late. Just look at the culprits:

Steven Moffat, born in 1961, currently fifty-five years old.

Mark Gatiss, born in 1966, currently fifty years old.

And me, born in 1957, but always a bit developmentally delayed, currently fifty-nine years old.

These are my guys, writing from a place I'm all too familiar with. They've come up through the same eras I did, they're male, share certain caucasian ancestral traits, and they're Sherlock Holmes fans.

Now, if you don't fall in that particular demographic, I can understand an immediate reaction of "Well, fine for you, old white guy!" But wait . . .

If you are a twenty-five-year-old, multi-racial woman now, there's a good likelihood that by the time thirty-four years have passed, you will see a Sherlock Holmes written by someone who is not male and not white, and written from a perspective that's very much like your own. You've got time.

Impatience is natural. In my twenties I was completely pissed off at the old man Irregulars of the 1980s for not seeing a modern perspective well enough to allow women into their little club. Change would eventually come, but at that time the old guys were still playing out the point of view they had built up in their younger days. It seems to be the natural pattern of things . . . those who have finally attained a position to control or produce are often doing it from a mindset built in a time a few decade past.

And it works the opposite direction, as well. There are those Sherlockians whose mindset skews older than mine for whom the Granada Sherlock Holmes series with Jeremy Brett will always be the peak of Sherlockian television. It was of its generation, painstakingly faithful in parts, yes, but in the Reagan-Thatcher conservative era, would we expect any other approach?

Personally, I never was too satisfied with Brett's Sherlock, as I was waiting for a Cumberbatch Holmes, even before I knew such a thing could exist. But given time, and a couple of fellows whose time on Earth corresponded closer to my own, I got a Sherlock I really loved.

So my point here is this: We all have our path, and as hard as it is to forgive someone for not seeing things from your perspective sometimes, there is always a chance that someone a little closer to seeing things your way will come along eventually. (Or already did.) None of us gets what we want for an entire lifetime, but you've got to trust that your time will come. And when it does come, make the most of it, because it's not going to last forever.

Patience before that time and forgiveness after that time (and before, too, really) are some great virtues to have.

On to Sunday night.