Category: Television

After last week’s dog’s dinner, last night’s final episode of Sherlock was a triumph in every way. Razor-sharp writing from Mark Gatiss and terrific performances from the cast. And typical of Gatiss’ audacity to leave us with a cliffhanger ending in the form of a standoff between Holmes and Moriarty.

As written by Gatiss and Moffat, Moriarty is the evil twin of Holmes – anti-matter and matter, with the very real danger of an annihilating explosion in the final moments of the episode when they meet face to face.

In a nice touch, Gatiss sprinkled references to the original Conan Doyle stories throughout the episode. And yes, the plot required suspension of disbelief a number of times – for example, I know the night sky over London is not deep black and filled with stars, more a yellow sodium glare with occasional appearances by the moon – but it didn’t matter. The energy of the production propelled the whole thing along with great verve and excitement. I can’t wait for the next series – and to see how Gatiss resolves the final standoff.

My way of saying that I was rather disappointed in last night’s episode of Sherlock. While the first episode was a real cracker, I thought that, by comparison, last night’s was a bit of a mess. Cumberbatch and Freeman were still very good, but the standard of the writing (this week by Stephen Thompson) was nowhere near as sharp or as deep as last week’s opener by Steven Moffat.

There were some flashes of brilliance, though, so it wasn’t all bad; but they were just that: flashes. I liked the scene between the mortuary assistant and Sherlock; that really did build on last week’s business between the two, with Sherlock beginning to understand the power of compliments in social interactions, even if he was using it shamelessly to gain access to a particular body in the mortuary.

And there were some nice visual touches, the use of tilt-shift focus in some of the shots of London to make it look like a model of the city instead of the real thing.

But overall, a bit of a disappointment, I’m sorry to say. I see that Sam Wollaston, the Guardian’s TV critic, thought that last night’s episode was even better than the first, so I suppose it’s all just a matter of personal opinion. However, as Mark Kermode would say: I’m right and he’s wrong…

So I watched last night’s opener of Steven Moffat’s and Mark Gatiss’ Sherlock, and, as I suspected, I was not disappointed. I thought it was terrific. Benedict Cumberbatch is perfect in the role of Sherlock Holmes and plays it, as Holmes himself says, as a high-functioning sociopath. The script was good, with some witty updating of the original Holmes traits to 21st Century London – e.g. the three-patch problem (nicotine patches, that is) in place of the three-pipe problem. That particular bit of business was also introduced with a visual joke clearly meant to allude to the original Holmes’ predilection for injecting heroin.

I have to say that I guessed who the villain would be shortly before it was spelled out, but that didn’t detract from my enjoyment. However, I did wonder whether he would have been allowed, under Health and Safety regulations, to be allowed to continue in his line of business following his diagnosis (I’m trying not to give too many spoilers here…).

Mark Gatiss gave another of his masterful cameos as Mycroft. Like Dr. Watson, I was left wondering at the first meeting between the two, whether this person was a villain or not. Was this Mycroft or Moriarty? Or, I wonder, both?

And perhaps I’m reading too much into the visuals, but the climatic scene involving two identical buildings side by side seemed to echo the murder weapons used by the killer.

Yep, I enjoyed this very much indeed.

Whoa – Steven Moffat and Mark Gatiss? Writers don’t get tougher than this! (to coin a phrase)

What’s not to like?