Sherlock: The Final Problem

When Steven Moffat, Mark Gatiss and the other guy reinvented Sherlock Holmes for the digital generation they struck television gold. Benny The Cumblepatch was perfect casting as the great detective, Martin from The Office an excellent Watson, Rupert Posh splendid as Lestrade, and Una Stubbs' tears great too.

Writing things up on the screen to allow viewers to see how astonishingly swift Holmes can operate his grey cells was clever enough to have been invented by Sherlock himself. The bromance between the two main characters was kept just shy enough of overkill to make their bond effective and emotionally compelling.

Best of all the scripts and the cases were, for the most part, of such high standard that audiences rode a switchback of tension, excitement and satisfaction made all the more fulfilling by cinematic camera work and production values.

For the most part.

In this, probably the last ever Bumblyman and Freedent instalment in detecting and adventuring, Moffat and Gatiss appear to have foregone many of the qualities that made their show such a success, apparently more interested in one-upping themselves, Conan-Doyle and possibly even John Logie Baird in an attempt to create the single greatest piece of televisual excellence ever. And failing.

Sentimentally cloying rather than genuinely touching, the emotional impact of this episode aggravates the gag reflexes rather than the frontal lobes. The plot is unnecessarily complicated, way more unbelievable than that whole business with the surviving a fall from a rooftop and extremely badly resolved.

To distract us from these cold, hard facts we are presented with the psychotic younger sibling of the Holmes brothers while the pre-recorded ghost of Jim Moriaty is dangled in front of our reddened eyes like we're two year olds unable to contain our excitement when we see a jack-in-the-box. The pre-recorded message thing is a really annoying motif of this series, what with Mary Watson's appearances in the second and third eps being largely restricted to maybe we don't miss her as much as we thought we might DVD cameos. Moffat and Gatiss may very well have taped their own contributions to the script meetings rather than sitting down and formulating a truly effective conclusion to their otherwise genius offering.

If the BBC persuades them to do more I for one will anticipate Sherlock's return less enthusiastically than I have done previously. One episode too many, run out of ideas, lacking in true drama aside from the Molly Hooper phone call. The word I've been avoiding so far is 'boring'. Sorry Sherl, for once it all left me cold and a long way from the edge of my seat. Can we have Luther back now please?

Sherlock: The Six Thatchers

Do you like Sherlock? Do you like spoilers? Then you'll love this review of The Six Thatchers. Unless you don't like sarcasm. Or curse words.

Episode One, Season Four and the Watsons have a baby. That's usually what happens when someone is pregnant, after a while they stop being pregnant and a baby appears. Slight hint of the good doctor being a bit of a bad doctor and having a fling with some random bus woman but who cares? Sherlock has been reprieved because of the Moriaty conundrum. Nobody calls it that but they should. It would be a great title for an episode. I'm great at pretend episode titles. I'm still waiting for the BBC to take me up on Doctor Who And The Spacey Bastards.

Sherlock's approach to working out what Little Jim's malevolent legacy might be is to act as though nothing has changed, except for the Watsons having a baby. Post aborted suicide mission to Eastern Europe is painless, it takes on many cases, one of which is about somebody smashing busts of Margaret Thatcher. Bad, bad liberal political bias from the BBC. Except it's not a political act, it's a mysterious stranger trying to retrieve an item hidden inside one of the busts. They know it's there because they put it there. Six years ago. After nasty antics alongside Mary Watson in a betrayed undercover mission in Tbilisi.

Keeping up? Well don't. Let it all unfold. You're supposed to think it's all about Moriaty, possibly connected to some stupid old pearl. And then you're shocked when it isn't and we realise Mary's former colleague wants to murder her to death because he thinks she betrayed him. But she didn't. Someone else did. Not Moriaty. Someone female. Not Lady Whatsername from the last proper episode (we're ignoring the drug hallucinations of last year's special). But someone. Ooh who can it be? I bet she's a right shithead: betraying people is what shitheads do.

Mary pretends to be some other people to flee the country and keep John and the baby (yes it has a name but no lines so I'm not telling you) safe. But Sherlock is cleverer than her. And her former colleague is clever too and they have a bit of a shooty moment in which we realise that the someone female who did the betraying isn't Mary. Well, we already knew that, right, because we like her. But it is now confirmed. Yay! She's my favourite Watson. And John is too.

Oh dear. Things and stuff and stuff and things happen and all of a sudden the Watsons are a trio no longer. No, John hasn't moved in his fancy woman for some farcically saucy seventies style Bohemianism. Mary's been killed to death. Taking a bullet for Sherlock. See what they did there? Debt paid. Former undercover operative with cleverness and skill set that steals focus from the title character removed from series.

Cue John blaming Sherlock and shunning his company. Cue pre-recorded posthumous message from Mary to Sherl asking him to save John. From himself. From his grief. Cue a window into the detective's own grief and guilt in those big old Cumblebum eyes. Why doesn't he just bend space and time and use mystical forces to revive Mary? Oh, because he isn't Doctor Strange in this one. Bollocks! He is good. Acting wise. Good acting from the Cumblyman.

And from Amanda Abbington, really going out on a virtuoso performance. Martin Freeman is almost an extra until the end when John's absence from Sherlock's life flavours a powerful but not overtly sentimental denouement. Still, he looks good with a daisy in his hair. And on buses.

Two episodes to come. How do our boys sort out their issues and bond yet again? Perhaps one of them could fake their own death and then come back disguised as a waiter.

Oh, and none of this was to do with Moriaty. Unless it later turns out that it was. Oh and the betrayer was a Whitehall secretary.