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Before the start of the second series trilogy, it was all about The Great Game cliff-hanger: You see the twisted smile on the face of Moriarty (the delicious Andrew Scott) fade as he realises he's made a critical mistake. The bomb vest is practically at his feet, between him and the safety of the pool, with an unforgiving wall/window/door behind him. He can't have his sniper(s) kill Sherlock because even a head shot will cause a death-spasm finger squeeze of the trigger and he gets a bomb blast in the face. But Sherlock could choose to fire - Moriarty has nowhere to go and no time to get there, but Sherlock has John H. Watson, a crouching tiger poised and both are a good six feet away from the bomb. The instant Sherlock pulls the trigger, John can body-block them both into the pool; escaping uninjured is unlikely but protected by the shielding water from the fire and shockwave, both will live - unlike Moriarty. The scene fades to black...
To be resolved with wit and style and reasonable continuity to the tune of staying alive and a Dr Who & The Rani in-joke (albeit that sets up a cheerfully ignored continuity error (if Moriary had snipers lining up on Sherlock, they would have seen Irene Adler on the upper viewing gallery and told Moriarty she was there)).
As with most sequels, this second trilogy aims for bigger, bolder and yes, mostly manages with `better' too. Shrewdly Steve Moffat & Mark Gatiss take on the `Top Trio' of Conan Doyle's Holmes ouvre: love (Irene Adler) irrationality (the Hound) and death (Reichenbach Falls). Like the recently released film version, Game of Shadows, this trilogy is enormously helped by having got all the `scene setting' out of the way - we know who and what these people are, and they can launch straight into the story-telling. Both this trilogy and GoS are the better for it.
I am ambivalent about A Scandal in Belgravia even though it's the episode I enjoyed the most, for its sheer sense of fun and how it `invites' the audience to embrace the fun despite an effective use of pathos to make some serious points. Obviously TV/films aren't shot in linear order; they could have filmed #3's rooftop denouement on Day One for all I know, but ASIB just gives out that `vibe' of everyone being back together and enjoying it, as suggested by the beginning vignettes and The Naval Treaty/Navel Treatment's homage to Sidney Paget (1860-1908) the original stories' illustrator whose choice of a Deerstalker hat (his own), an Inverness Cape greatcoat (Sherlock's swirling big-collar modernised version) and a Meerschaum pipe (none of which appear in the texts) became iconic.
Martin Freeman clearly relished that `I always hear "punch me in the face" when you're speaking but it's usually sub-text', which so beautifully encapsulated the relationship dynamic; he also got to remind the audience that John Watson is a decorated combat veteran who should not be unexpectedly rabbit punched in the face unless you actually want to spend time taste-testing hospital food with your limbs in plaster.
Benedict Cumberbatch nobly sacrificed for art with a straight face in all that close proximity to Lara Pulver's salient features; we also got a bit of quid pro quo in `actors having to spend the day naked' with Sherlock and his sheet at Buckingham Palace. Again, those pectorals and that glutinous maximus weren't exactly hard on the eyes.
There was a kerfuffle over Lara Pulver's au natural state, but it was completely in context and exactly the sort of intelligent pre-emptive strike she would have made; remember that Irene Adler is the female Sherlock and has had the advantage of foreknowledge since she saved him at the swimming pool, whereas Sherlock had never heard of her until the morning he met her - we the viewer have omniscient knowledge lacked by Mycroft, Sherlock, John, etc.
The effectiveness of her strategy shows in her living room when John comes back in and Sherlock checks his own `reading' ability: the vast majority of his observations are drawn from people's clothing, not their bodies. What's more is that women are always in disguise even if undressed, like Irene: make-up changes our skin tone, hides guilty blushing, alters eye contour shape and the perceived colour of our eyes and hair; Sherlock had no clothing to read and her face was hidden behind a `mask'. For example, look at Irene when we first see her in that white chic dress and that perfect coiffure, then when Sherlock finds her asleep in his bed with her hair down and little make-up - for a second or two you don't even recognise her as the same woman.
A highlight was the confrontation between Irene and John; Irene points out that though there is no sexual relationship between them, they are a `couple'. The popularity of the stories, whether original or pastiches, has always been based in that mutual respect, love and friendship and quite simply they mesh, in an entirely platonic way.
I fully support ASIB writer Steve Moffat on that point; I find it very sad that we now live in a society where sex taints everything. Remember those 1970s-80s Morecambe & Wise sketches in a double bed (including the famous musical breakfast); Ronnie Corbett & Ronnie Barker had only one argument in forty years, and the deep respect and love between Ronnie B and David Jason was long apparent. Yet nobody ever dreamed of impugning ulterior motives into their friendships. Today, two people of the same sex (particularly men) cannot enjoy a deep and abiding friendship without having to continually not just explain it but justify and defend it; their alternative is to simply endure endless slurs - like William Hague who regrettably did not politely but firmly tell the British press and public to grow up when he was hounded for being like everyone else and sharing a twin room with a friend/colleague as more cost effective. I wonder how much of that nonsense Steve Moffat (straight and married) has had to put up with due to his friendship/writing collaboration with Mark Gatiss (gay and married)?
The John/Irene confrontation scene reinforced the idea of that bond - Irene is clearly not anticipating John's fury on behalf of his friend or that she can't make John roll over and do what she wants. John gave her orders to cease her deception now or else he will. John didn't know Sherlock was there, so his reactions were raw and honest and Sherlock got a ringside seat view of how he could trust and depend on John's protection and loyalty, without them having to resort to all that mawkish sentimentality and talking about our feelings drivel - that is not how men interact with each other, no matter whether they're gay straight or bi!
Another nice touch was Una Stubbs getting to do a bit; meaningful interactions between Mycroft and Sherlock that developed their messed up psyches and referenced their messed up childhood; Rupert Graves and Louise Brealey shone during the `Christmas party' scene, and there was that very nice little moment, just a second, when John and Sherlock both look at the tied up CIA goon and that tiny little half-smile curving John's lips as he realises exactly what Sherlock is about to do to the man who hurt Mrs Hudson, and is mentally cheering him on.
It was Irene-Adler-as-dominatrix that gave me pause. In A Scandal in Bohemia, the morally vacuous King laments to Holmes, without irony, about what a great queen she would have been had they been of `the same class'. Holmes agrees with the king, who does not realise he is being insulted because Holmes means she outclassed him in every way.
By writing that, showing that a person's good - or bad - character is nothing to do with the social `class' they were born into but stemmed from their own choices in how they lived their lives, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle was making a very valid and socially controversial point for Victorian England, then deeply infected by racist eugenic notions that criminality only existed in the `lower orders'. Irene Adler, a working-class American, was intellectually and morally superior to a royal scion from an ancient imperial dynasty and Holmes freely acknowledges the fact.
Conan Doyle was not aristocratic but nor was he an inverted snob or liberal bigot who vilified anyone who appeared to be upper class (as someone who is slightly deaf due to illness I actually wish everyone spoke Received Pronunciation, because people enunciate clearly. It's beyond me why poor speech, nothing but swear-words and mumbling have been turned into some sort of social virtue today). Conan Doyle's opinions, even though expressed in fiction, were therefore very influential on his readers and wider society. Taking Irene Adler from self-made career woman to dominatrix bisexual prostitute might have been fun for all concerned, but was it really respectful to the character and in keeping with Conan Doyle's point? However, I don't in anyway think Moffat was being sexist or misogynistic or any of the other psychobabble drivel spouted about the episode. I'm quite sure Lara Pulver would not entertain something obviously misogynistic.
One thing that did surprise me, given Steve Moffat's obvious relish in writing ASIB, was the obvious mistake at the palace where we find John was `formerly of the 5th Northumberland Fusiliers'. I doubt it very much! In A Study in Scarlet Conan Doyle had Holmes about 22 and Watson about 5 years older (27). From A Study in Pink, I'd estimate Sherlock and John to follow a similar pattern - Sherlock to be about 25 because he's graduated university, set up his Science of Deduction website, been consulting with Greg Lestrade for at least 2 years and met Mrs Hudson the year before meeting John, who in turn seems about 30. (I'd also suggest Irene Adler as also 30, Molly Hooper 25, Lestrade and Mycroft about 35). 2010 minus 30 is a birth year of 1980 for John/Irene, 1985 for Sherlock/Molly and 1975 for Greg/Mycroft. In short, the earliest John could have joined the Army on an officer candidate commission was 1998. But the 5th Northumberland Fusiliers had ceased to exist 30 years earlier when they were amalgamated to form the Royal Regiment of Fusiliers in 1968.
I'm not being picky; this is important. Another reason for the popularity of Conan Doyle's stories was that they were cutting edge and contemporary - as poor Steve Moffat has to keep pointing out ad nauseum. Readers loved them because they could `suspend their disbelief' and pretend that it might be possible to visit 221B Baker Street and find Sherlock Holmes `really there'. The current re-imagining is popular for exactly the same reasons: Sherlock `could' be real.
But it does not pay to despise the god of small things, and it is only respectful to get things right/take a minute or two to quality check, particularly when you are dealing with something like the British military and especially as Martin Freeman has gone on record as saying it was important that Watson be portrayed as confident and competent because medicine and the military are both `vocations' rather than merely jobs.
It also feeds into the fans' ability to `suspend our disbelief'. Remember that John didn't voluntarily return to civilian life in 2010 - as a 12-year soldier who'd achieved a captaincy he was clearly a career soldier and doubtless well liked and respected; probably heading towards promotion to Major with the smart money eyeing him up for brevet Colonel.
If the 3rd or dare I say, 4th trilogy brings in Sebastian Moran as a sort of anti-John, as Moriarty was the anti-Sherlock, you need to get their back-story right - John couldn't have had a `history' with Moran that included the Cold War (gone 1989) or the 1st Gulf War (1991), but 1998 would have let him in at the tail end of the Balkan Genocides, Northern Ireland, 9/11, the 2nd Gulf War, and so on.
As a fan, my enjoyment of any show is lessened if I have to ignore a blooper so big you could pilot the QE2 through it sideways. I'm surprised someone of Steve Moffat's calibre made such a careless mistake. I presume a fair few fans of Sherlock are military, and that was a lazy, unnecessary error that will justifiably irritate them. It's especially annoying since the show went to the trouble to get other small touches right - notice John's favourite tea mug has a regimental crest on it for instance? The real 5th NF featured 9 VC winners, 1 GC winner and was one of the Six Old Corps of legendary repute entitled to wear the badge of St. George Slaying the Dragon rather than the simple royal cipher of other regiments.
One other thing I did notice, which confused me, is that Mycroft is wearing a gold band on his wedding finger; I believe it was established both Holmes' brothers were incapable of forming meaningful romantic attachments, and both trilogies so far imply that is the case, unless Mycroft has been widowed for many years or, more likely, wears the ring to make himself blend in with other civil servants and lull people into a false sense of security that he's an ordinary, normal chap. Of course I'm sure it was nothing so mundane as Mark Gatiss just forgetting to take the ring off and nobody noticing!
The Hounds of Baskerville was the best episode from a `technical process viewpoint'. You could practically smell the testosterone as Mark Gatiss was clearly determined to drag the story baying and howling into the 21st Century. Of all the `canon' and the Top Three, The Hound of the Baskervilles is one Holmes story that's a pain to modernise - Conan Doyle wrote it as his first Holmes story 8 years after killing off Holmes because it was easier than thinking up something new for the ghost story he was writing in collaboration with Bertram Fletcher Robinson (1870-1907) (they collaborated again on The Adventure of the Norwood Builder in 1903). The label of `Holmes' ensured the novel would sell well, and he shrewdly set it up as a reminiscence by a grieving Watson.
Mark Gatiss clearly put a lot of work into it, and it shows. It was nice to see Mrs Hudson treated as a rounded-out real person with an actual life, not a sexless caricature (`see, I told you, there will be life below the neck after 40' a friend of mine told me the day after it aired. Hmmm...) Plus a nice bit of showcasing John's military achievements - he was a skilled officer - Captain Watson, to you, Corporal. He, not Sherlock, gets them started on the grand tour.
Benedict Cumberbatch clearly has awesome lungs as showcased by that monologue rant in the pub where I don't think he paused for breath once. Key also was that exchange between John and Sherlock - in ASIB when he thinks he's going to meet Mycroft, John claims that Sherlock `doesn't always follow me everywhere' - he thus acknowledges Sherlock's habit of stalking him and the utter disregard by Sherlock (and Mycroft) of his right to personal privacy.
But he accepts it as a tolerable `quirk' until Hounds where Sherlock oversteps the mark with that snarling tirade in the pub. Again there's no mawkish talking about feelings, without a word Martin Freeman conveys how John is seriously considering packing up and returning to London to clear out his things and abandon Sherlock and Baker Street - it's all there in the rigid body posture and that blown out breath and the expression that clearly says he had to leave the room or resume Belgravia violence on Sherlock.
Which leads to the churchyard: As a military man, where would John, smarting and frustrated, feel a connection to - a cenotaph. Not to forget that although John doesn't do too badly, his health is not in top shape - he suffered right-side body injuries in Afghanistan sufficient to invalid him out of the Army. He knows how close he came to being another name on such a memorial.
The scene also enables Sherlock to be vulnerable without being sentimental - logic, rationality is all and his Room 101 is meeting something that can only be explained by the supernatural. I also liked how Gatiss didn't take the easy way out with a magical moment of mawkish understanding either - John's sharp `stick to ice' barb clearly hits home and Sherlock's stuttering semi-apology is perfectly in keeping with a sociopath's behaviour. It's great that John isn't a doormat - we know he's not going to tell Sherlock to clear off, but Sherlock doesn't - and John doesn't just cave in and let Sherlock off as if `allowances must be made for genius' is a valid excuse for rude, bullying behaviour - it isn't. Sherlock was a vicious swine whose rant was bang out of order and John makes him admit it and sweat for a second or two
The lovely Rupert Graves is also allowed to shine in Hounds...Its clear there's more to Lestrade than meets the eye - when Sherlock calls him to go to Dewer's Hollow for the denouement, he warns him to bring a gun with no doubt Lestrade's got one to hand. Due to the UK's draconian and badly written firearms laws, the only people in real life who can easily get handguns in 2012 are the criminals who will mug and murder you at gunpoint, so the fact that Lestrade has ready access to a pistol legally is significant.
There's also the fact that Sherlock's age means he has only been `helping' the police for 2-3 years, which means Lestrade achieved the rank of Detective Inspector on his own merits and brains while Sherlock was still a spotty, snotty teenager believing he was brighter than everyone else around him. Greg Lestrade is therefore acutely intelligent, resourceful, innovative and courageous in his own right, and we get a chance to see all of that in Hounds.
Then the most anticipated episode, The Reichenbach Fall. I bet that final faked suicide scene has been watched in freeze-frame in a million places. I think the episode was excellently written by Steve Thompson; again, a terrific performance from Martin Freeman - he warns Sherlock that the social media are capricious and malicious and fickle and that they will turn on their darling of today tomorrow, very art imitating life.
Sherlock of course, doesn't listen and sows the seeds of his own media backlash by his clash with a seedy tabloid hack (hackress, in the feminine?) Kitty Riley [Katherine Parkinson] who subsequently swallows Moriarty's Rich Brook persona wholesale because anger and resentment at Sherlock's admittedly ill-judged arrogance have clouded her judgement and instincts.
TRF is excellent in as it shows how Moriarty doesn't so much discredit Sherlock due to the overwhelming brilliance of his `Rich Brook' plan, but how those around Sherlock - such as Sally Donovan and Anderson - do it for him because they want to believe Riley's `exposé' to be true - their own envy, spite, resentment of Sherlock's intelligence, and `meanness' of spirit makes them wilfully ignore any fallacies in Moriarty's claim that `Sherlock's a fraud who hired me as an actor to fake his great cases'. Even Mycroft doesn't act to kill Riley's story (and/or her) perhaps out of his own self-regarding belief (?) that his little brother needs a `lesson in humility' and in how much he `needs' Mycroft's oversight of his life. Interestingly, only John, Molly and Greg Lestrade never waver in their knowledge of the truth, though Lestrade is unhappily backed into a corner clearly against his will.
Outstanding again in this episode was Louise Brealey, who has been very much `always present but never there' as Molly Hooper; she has no `original series' equivalent but I think that's all the to the best a she is a strong character and helps move the stories on at key points where they could otherwise get bogged down. In TRF she comes into her own as the only person that Sherlock can turn to help him implement his avoiding-death contingency plan, as well as proving very astute and perceptive.
I have to say I've wondered a lot about `Molly Hooper' since A Study in Pink. Is she really what she seems to be? I just noted that there is a jarring mismatch between the two sides of her life, professional and personal. Professionally she's clearly highly intelligent, competent and confident - Sherlock wouldn't tolerate ineptitude and she wouldn't be a professional pathologist at Bart's. But personally she's a train wreck, despite being clearly attractive - again going back to how women are always in disguise, note the difference between her unmade up face and the scraped back ponytail in the work lab and that snazzy dress and perfect coiffure at 221B's Christmas soiree - she clearly can dazzle but also clearly carefully remains, chameleon like, blending into her background surroundings
Is there more to her than meets the eye? Did she secretly `know' that Moriarty was `really' gay and set herself up to be publicly shot down by Sherlock in front of other people (in that instance, John)? Likewise she almost seems to deliberately set herself up for public humiliation by an unwitting Sherlock - as in the Christmas gathering scene at 221B. If she knows that as a long as her colleagues and acquaintances (she doesn't seem to have any friends or family) pity her and secretly snigger at her as the poor sap with the silly infatuation for Sherlock Holmes then they won't ever really look at her as a person - they see, but they don't observe.
If she isn't who she appears to be, or if she is hiding from or running from someone or something, maybe that's the entire point - like Jeff the cabbie (only without the homicidal mania) is Molly hiding in plain sight, using an oblivious Sherlock (and to a lesser extent Mycroft and John, even Lestrade and Irene Adler) as `cover'? I'm interested to see how her character is developed in the third series of the trilogy next year.
This trilogy was all about the humanising of Holmes, and the Top Three `canon' stories do that - Irene Adler, his fear of failure or being `ordinary' and of course the truth that no matter how brilliant nobody can outwit death. The callously brilliant Sherlock in A Study in Pink slowly grasps the concept of friendship by The Great Game (after helping John free of the suicide vest he is so perturbed he paces up and down rubbing his head with the hand that is holding the loaded and cocked Browning!) and even begins to apply it, admittedly in his own sociopathic idiosyncratic way by often stalking and tracking John when he goes out, in order to protect him, and even stumblingly but doggedly (no pun intended) persisting with his apology in the Hounds of Baskerville - `I don't have friends, I have one.'
It is obvious that John is Sherlock's bridge to and interpreter for Sherlock making connections to others - the look on his face when he realises how poor Mrs Hudson has scrabbled for a finger hold as she was bundled upstairs shows exactly how dangerous he is. John even enables Mycroft to be a little less psychopathic.
And of course, there is that poignant final phone call to John - who must be made to believe he is really dead. Sherlock's distress is real, not because he's about to die (he's got that covered), but because he knows what he is about to put John through for several months at least, and he is again afraid, because he also knows there is a very good chance that when he eventually `returns', John may not forgive him for the deception.
In regard to that point - although I may be over-analysing, I did notice that on several occasions, John was drinking more than a splash of alcohol. I was told by a daily whisky drinker that it was a more effective painkiller for old battle injuries he'd got in WWII and had none of the side effects of the `socially acceptable' prescriptions his GP kept trying to farm off on him. He would be labelled a functional alcoholic but lived to his late 90s and was sharp as a tack to the end. Presumably `in universe' John, ever stoic with that quintessentially English `never complain never explain' worldview suffers physical pain from his injuries and flashbacks he never mentions and might drink for the same reasons as my WWII veteran. Being around Sherlock he has to be active, and won't risk `legal' prescription medicine that has debilitating side effects and interferes with that? Sherlock, as a sociopath, is likely oblivious to the whole situation, but as he obviously has John under surveillance (bugging the flat?) he might further worry if a grieving John increases his alcohol intake.
Of course I could be reading entirely too much into it and going all Star Trek fan-girl, but alcoholism is relevant to the `canon'. A long time ago I read somewhere that the Conan Doyle family have three ancient traditions: the military, medicine and alcoholism'. Regarding the last `in some generations it binds us together, in other generations it tears us apart'. Conan Doyle's father was initially an affluent, talented artist who suffered from depression and alcoholism which ruined his marriage and eventually caused dementia; in Sherlock, we know about John's wealthy, successful sister Harry, whose heavy drinking has cost her marriage and whose relationship with John is as dysfunctional as Sherlock's with Mycroft, and I suspect the parallels are not coincidental.
As for the suicide scene, I do believe personally that Moriarty is really dead, though I loved Andrew Scott's malevolent relish. But it's in keeping with the character because Moriarty didn't understand. A psychopath (JM) is like a T-Rex - merciless, deadly but inflexible. A sociopath (SH) is like a shark - still deadly but adaptable.
Moriarty made several references to boredom, and that was his problem from his worldview: because he was superior to the other 6 billion people on the planet, he was bored and fed up, coasting as a consulting criminal to `little minds' until Sherlock temporarily engaged his attention. But once he'd discredited and destroyed Sherlock, he had nothing left to live for, nothing will ever again match up to Sherlock in relieving the drear mundane tedium. Moriarty also remembered his mistake in The Great Game in picking John Watson as his last press-ganged suicide bomber, because John was angry, not terrified, and that miscalculation came within a whisker of getting him killed and worse, defeated.
By killing himself he ensured Sherlock would never get the `stand down code' but beyond that Moriarty genuinely believed he had won, that seconds later Sherlock would also be dead. He had no idea Sherlock was ahead of him and had contingency planned on being forced off the roof in some way, nor that in his whole tabloid expose he has given Sherlock exactly what he needs to restore his reputation and make himself untouchable in the future even if he were to take up fraud at some point, as John, his blogger, will immediately realise - but that's for future.
And of course, there is also the fact that Conan Doyle never intended to resurrect Holmes, so let Moriarty remain dead as he realised the backlash of trying to get readers to accept two highly implausible resurrections. This wasn't a problem in the original stories as Moriarty only actually ever appears once, in The Final Problem though Conan Doyle used him as a foil retrospectively in six other stories, all published after 1903 when he had resurrected the character.
Conan Doyle actually fleshed out Colonel Sebastian Moran more, possibly with the (never realised) intention of making him a more prominent character, a foil for and antagonist of Watson - both decorated military officers, both undoubtedly courageous, both intelligent, both killers, though Moran moved on to be a murderer; both chose to ally themselves with an extraordinary man who was both brilliant and dangerous; but Moran shows how John could have gone to the bad, and John shows how Moran could have chosen to be a force for good.
And of course, I'm really impressed by how the suicide scene itself was faked, though I won't reveal how it was done in this review, as I wouldn't dream of stealing Steve Moffat/Mark Gatiss/Steve Thompson's thunder (ahem), but it does bring me to my biggest disappointment, namely the DVD itself, which was rushed out within a fortnight of the trilogy. Now, I agree wholeheartedly that the format should not change - a trilogy 90 minute mini-movies that leave us champing for more is much preferable to a 6 or more episode series that goes off the boil and becomes stale, but the fact that it is a trilogy means a bit more effort could have been made with the DVD. Why only 2 audio commentaries and not 3; there should have been an audio commentary on the key episode of all - The Reichenbach Fall, and it should have had Andrew Scott present and correct. There were also several references to outtakes but we never even got a brief gag-reel. Although I will say that the one extra, Sherlock Uncovered, was Interesting and informative and I would love to have that hydraulic bed, if you've finished with it boys. Some reference was made to them being 'unable' to do a third commentary, but why couldn't they do the most important commentary of all? The previous two were extremely intelligent and well done and Russell Tovey asked several insightful questions he clearly realised viewers would like to know about. Why was the DVD rushed out so soon after the trilogy finale, when it would have been a far better idea to leave it a while until, say, about 2-3 months before the start of the 3rd trilogy, then produce it with all 3 audio commentaries and a gag reel. The BBC is making a fortune out of Sherlock and a bit more thought could have been put into the DVD.
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Now we have had the second series of Sherlock, and we know that there is a third series on the way, who would have thought that 'Sherlock Fever' would once again sweep the world. Conan Doyle wrote his serial detective and soon overtook the popularity of M Lecoq, the big sensation at the time. From there he has been filmed many times, arguably the ultimate old style stories brought to life in Sherlock Holmes - Complete Collection [DVD] by the definitive Holmes, Jeremy Brett. To actually dare to go back to the stories and look at ways to bring them into the 21st Century was a stroke of genius, but to actually make them work, and have not just a British but an international fan base for the series is just astounding.This two disc set gives us the three latest films, subtitles for those who need them, and a documentary about making this second series. The on screen chemistry between Benedict Cumberbatch and Martin Freeman is perfect, as well as the rest of the casting. With a Moriarty who is genuinely unpredictable and the delicious Lara Pulver as Irene Adler there is just so much to take in and enjoy here. The new Sherlock is believable and Cumberbatch has fallen into a role that seems to have been written just for him. Once again a series that is as good as the first one, and long may the new Sherlock be on our screens to entertain and enthrall us.
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