"You're Sherlock Holmes. Wear the damn hat."
Well, that was different. As weird as it was, I was happy to see Sherlock and John again, even if it was only for one episode.
I just wish the special had been a contained adventure, with no asides to the present day. I know they had to tie the episode in to "His Last Vow" and keep the Moriarty storyline going, but it takes you out of the fun of seeing the boys as Victorian detectives. It feels a little silly when it turns out that the Victorian re-imagining is just some drug induced case theory in Sherlock's mind palace. And then whole is he awake or not, which world is the real world, and so on, it's just one element too far. Keep it simple, Moffat!
Ignoring the whole vivid drug dream angle, I loved seeing Sherlock and John and Mary and the whole gang in Victorian London. Everything still works, which is the cool thing about Sherlock Holmes. Even the style of the show is still there. Had Moffat and Gatiss not modernized Sherlock and kept him in his native era, but still developed a TV show, it would totally look like this special. The episode is everything the Guy Ritchie Sherlock Holmes movies wanted to be but never quite achieved. I also loved how the setting gave Moffat and Gatiss an opportunity to reference even more things from the stories, but also get kind of meta about how Holmes is a real person but also a fictionalized character.
The main case, with the supposed zombie bride, felt very era appropriate. It's not the sort of case the boys would encounter in the present day. It's also like The Hound of the Baskervilles, in that, it seems like the killer is something supernatural, when really, there is a logical explanation. So, I get that it was a group of women behind all of the murders, but was the mastermind Lady Carmichael? I don't think we get a confirmation, since the plot seemed more intent on throwing in Moriarty. I actually would have been happy if the re-imagining had simply been a dream of Sherlock's. You can still have the present day scenes, just fewer of them, and it's less of a shock when the story pulls out of the Victorian setting.
So it seems like a group of people are using the idea of Moriarty to stir up trouble. This make more sense than Moriarty rising from the grave. As for what this will mean in the new season, I'm sure Sherlock and John will go up against them at some point. I haven't read too much about season four, not that there would be much since they haven't started filming, but I hope there's an episode that deals with the birth of John and Mary's baby. There doesn't need to be an entire episode devoted to it, but I'd love to see John out with Sherlock on a case, and then he gets the call from Mary that the baby is on the way, or Sherlock is with Mary when her water breaks and he is totally out of his depth. I want a befuddled Sherlock who knows nothing about babies. We would get to see another side of him.
Random: I totally expect people to mash up footage from this episode with clips of Vastra, Jenny, and Strax from Doctor Who. Please, someone put together a fanvid. Please. I felt really sorry for Mark Gatiss, being in that fat suit. I wonder if Moffat wrote that in to be mean. ;-) Also, weird how Molly was introduced as a man, but it actually tied in nicely with the plot. God, the hairstyles in this episode. Lestrade has mutton chops, Watson has that incredible moustache, Molly has to be done up as a man. Must have been fun for the hair and make-up people. I can't wait to see Mary in the new season. Now that the boys know about her special skills as a lady assassin/spy, she's totally going to be an awesome asset.
So does filming for season four start soon? I guess it all depends on when Benedict Cumberbatch is done filming Doctor Strange. It'd be nice if the episodes actually aired this year, like the fall or something, but I doubt we'd be that lucky.
I just wish the special had been a contained adventure, with no asides to the present day. I know they had to tie the episode in to "His Last Vow" and keep the Moriarty storyline going, but it takes you out of the fun of seeing the boys as Victorian detectives. It feels a little silly when it turns out that the Victorian re-imagining is just some drug induced case theory in Sherlock's mind palace. And then whole is he awake or not, which world is the real world, and so on, it's just one element too far. Keep it simple, Moffat!
Ignoring the whole vivid drug dream angle, I loved seeing Sherlock and John and Mary and the whole gang in Victorian London. Everything still works, which is the cool thing about Sherlock Holmes. Even the style of the show is still there. Had Moffat and Gatiss not modernized Sherlock and kept him in his native era, but still developed a TV show, it would totally look like this special. The episode is everything the Guy Ritchie Sherlock Holmes movies wanted to be but never quite achieved. I also loved how the setting gave Moffat and Gatiss an opportunity to reference even more things from the stories, but also get kind of meta about how Holmes is a real person but also a fictionalized character.
The main case, with the supposed zombie bride, felt very era appropriate. It's not the sort of case the boys would encounter in the present day. It's also like The Hound of the Baskervilles, in that, it seems like the killer is something supernatural, when really, there is a logical explanation. So, I get that it was a group of women behind all of the murders, but was the mastermind Lady Carmichael? I don't think we get a confirmation, since the plot seemed more intent on throwing in Moriarty. I actually would have been happy if the re-imagining had simply been a dream of Sherlock's. You can still have the present day scenes, just fewer of them, and it's less of a shock when the story pulls out of the Victorian setting.
So it seems like a group of people are using the idea of Moriarty to stir up trouble. This make more sense than Moriarty rising from the grave. As for what this will mean in the new season, I'm sure Sherlock and John will go up against them at some point. I haven't read too much about season four, not that there would be much since they haven't started filming, but I hope there's an episode that deals with the birth of John and Mary's baby. There doesn't need to be an entire episode devoted to it, but I'd love to see John out with Sherlock on a case, and then he gets the call from Mary that the baby is on the way, or Sherlock is with Mary when her water breaks and he is totally out of his depth. I want a befuddled Sherlock who knows nothing about babies. We would get to see another side of him.
Random: I totally expect people to mash up footage from this episode with clips of Vastra, Jenny, and Strax from Doctor Who. Please, someone put together a fanvid. Please. I felt really sorry for Mark Gatiss, being in that fat suit. I wonder if Moffat wrote that in to be mean. ;-) Also, weird how Molly was introduced as a man, but it actually tied in nicely with the plot. God, the hairstyles in this episode. Lestrade has mutton chops, Watson has that incredible moustache, Molly has to be done up as a man. Must have been fun for the hair and make-up people. I can't wait to see Mary in the new season. Now that the boys know about her special skills as a lady assassin/spy, she's totally going to be an awesome asset.
So does filming for season four start soon? I guess it all depends on when Benedict Cumberbatch is done filming Doctor Strange. It'd be nice if the episodes actually aired this year, like the fall or something, but I doubt we'd be that lucky.