Sherlock

BBC

Co-created by Steven Moffat & Mark Gatiss

Executive Producers: Steven Moffat, Mark Gatiss, Beryl Vertue & Sue Vertue

Music: David Arnold & Michael Price

Regular Cast: Benedict Cumberbatch (Sherlock Holmes); Martin Freeman (Dr John Hamish Watson); Una Stubbs (Mrs Hudson); Rupert Graves (DI Greg Lestrade); Louise Brealey (Molly Hooper); Mark Gatiss (Mycroft Holmes); Andrew Scott (Jim Moriarty); Vinette Robinson (Sgt Sally Donovan); Tanya Moody (Ella); Jonathan Aris (Anderson); Zoe Telford (Sarah Sawyer)

Mark Gatiss and Rupert Graves do not appear in The Blind Banker. Gatiss does not receive a credit in Season One (since to do so would ruin the revelation at the end of A Study in Pink that he is not, in fact, Moriarty).

Louise Brealey does not appear in The Hounds of Baskerville.

Andrew Scott appears in The Great Game in Season One and throughout Season Two.

Vinette Robinson appears in A Study in Pink, The Great Game and The Reichenbach Fall.

Tanya Moody appears in A Study in Pink and The Reichenbach Fall.

Jonathan Aris appears in A Study in Pink and The Reichenbach Fall.

Zoe Telford appears in The Blind Banker and The Great Game.

Season One

1X01: A Study in Pink

UK Airdate: 25 July 2010

Writer: Steven Moffat

Director: Paul McGuigan

Guest Cast: Siobhán Hewlett (Helen); William Scott-Mason (Sir Jeffrey Patterson); Victoria Wicks (Margaret Patterson); Sean Young (Gary); James Duncan (Jimmy); Ruth Everett (Political Aide); Syrus Lowe (Political Aide); Katy Maw (Beth Davenport); Ben Green (Reporter); Pradeep Jey (Reporter); Imogen Slaughter (Reporter); David Nellist (Mike Stamford); Louise Breckon-Richards (Jennifer Wilson); Jonathan Aris (Anderson); Lisa Mcallister (Anthea); Stanley Townsend (Angelo); Peter Brooke (Taxi Passenger); Phil Davis (Jeff); Lasco Atkins (Late Night Pedestrian)*; Alison Egan (Jimmy’s Mum)*

*Uncredited

Plot: Former army surgeon John Watson is finding it hard to come to terms with civilian life, plagued as he is by memories of his tour of duty in Afghanistan. His therapist Ella encourages him to write a blog, but Watson insists that nothing worth writing about ever happens to him. He’s largely oblivious to the bizarre series of suicides plaguing London and dismaying Detective Inspector Lestrade. All three victims have voluntarily taken the same poison, but there are no clear connections between them.

Watson bumps into his old friend and colleague Mike Stamford. Over a cup of coffee, Stamford mentions an acquaintance who, like Watson, happens to be looking for someone to share the expense of a flat. John is first introduced to Sherlock Holmes in the lab at St Bartholomew’s Hospital. Sherlock has his eye on an address on Baker Street, no.221B, just above Speedy’s Sandwich Bar and Café.

As they are in the process of moving in, Sherlock is visited by Inspector Lestrade - another suicide has been discovered in an abandoned house in Brixton. The victim is a woman named Jennifer Wilson, who in life favoured an alarming shade of pink. For some reason, she scratched the letters R-A-C-H-E into the floorboards as she died. Sherlock deduces that she came from Cardiff, and possessed a suitcase. But the case is missing. Excited, he rushes off.

John is left to walk home alone. He receives a sinister call from a mysterious individual instructing him to get into a waiting car. He’s driven to a warehouse where he is questioned by the same urbane gentlemen who spoke to him on the telephone. The gentleman describes himself as Sherlock’s arch-enemy, and offers John money to keep an eye on his new flatmate. John flatly refuses.

Returning to Baker Street, Sherlock asks John to send a text to Jennifer Wilson’s missing phone suggesting that she’s still alive and requesting a meeting with the recipient on Northumberland Street. The detective has found Jennifer Wilson’s case - the killer dumped it once he realised it was still in his vehicle, but Sherlock believes its probable that he still has the phone.

Staking out the Northumberland Street address from the Italian restaurant opposite, they see a taxi pull up at the kerb. Before they can question the passenger, the vehicle sets off again. Sherlock and John chase after the cab on-foot, and are eventually able to catch up with it. But the fare is a Californian tourist who has never been in London before - clearly, then, the cab was simply slowing down, and has nothing whatever to do with the crime.

They come home to find their Baker Street rooms being searched by Lestrade’s officers. The Inspector has grown tired of Sherlock acting on his own, and demands his co-operation. Rachel, it seems, is the name of Jennifer Wilson’s stillborn daughter. Sherlock realises that “Rachel” is also the password of her mobile phone, which can be tracked by GPS - she deliberately planted her phone on her killer. When John logs into Jennifer’s account, the phone appears to be within 221B Baker Street. As Lestrade’s officers search for the phone, a cab driver arrives to pick up Sherlock. He is the one one with the phone, the killer who stalks the streets of London unnoticed.

Leaving John and his house guests, Sherlock goes with the driver, Jeff, who has picked out another secluded spot for his victim, the deserted Roland-Kerr Further Education College. Jeff presents Sherlock with two bottles, each containing a pill; one is poisoned, the other harmless. Sherlock must pick one, and Jeff will take the other - the offer he made to all his victims. Sherlock correctly deduces that Jeff is dying of an aneurysm, but he is surprised to know that his serial killer adversary has a sponsor, who provides money to Jeff’s children for each crime successfully committed.

Troubled after the police have abandoned the search, John decides to track the phone, and, by extension, Sherlock and the killer. But when he arrives at the college, he picks the wrong building. He’s at the window opposite just as Sherlock and Jeff are about to take their pills - he shoots Jeff and brings an end to the challenge. In the killer’s final moments, he gives Sherlock the name of his sponsor: “Moriarty.”

Sherlock realises that John is the man responsible for saving his life, but doesn’t tell Lestrade in order to prevent his friend suffering any legal reprisals. As they leave the crime scene, they are confronted by the man who waylaid John earlier in the evening; he’s not Moriarty, but Sherlock’s elder brother Mycroft. He’ll be keeping a close eye on them from now on.

The best and the wisest man: Sherlock Holmes prefers to text rather than use a landline. He is owed a favour by Mrs Hudson, which comes in the form of a rent reduction after he took the trouble to ensure that her husband was executed in Florida. He keeps a skull, which he refers to as a friend (just as Elementary’s Holmes owns a phrenology bust named Angus). He finds he thinks better when he talks aloud, and until John’s appearance, the skull has served as his companion and sounding-board (it does, after all, have the grand gift of silence) - Mrs Hudson takes it away, though it appears in later episodes, serving as the hiding place for Sherlock’s emergency stash of cigarettes in The Hounds of Baskerville. He refuses to wear the traditional crime scene onesies, although he does so in the pilot version. He has more than one enemy. Now and then, people assume he’s guilty of the crimes he investigates. He picks Lestrade’s pockets whenever he finds the policeman annoying (and therefore has a fine collection of ID cards belonging to Scotland Yard’s silver fox, and, we learn in Season Two, one belonging to Mycroft). He’s placed a pair of eyes in the microwave as part of an experiment - good thing John didn’t need anything defrosting in a hurry. When Anderson calls him a psychopath, he states that he is, in fact, “a high-functioning sociopath.” Once he’s proven that Jeff’s gun is a fake, there’s absolutely nothing to stop him from walking away, but he just can’t bear to leave without knowing whether or not he has chosen the right pill - his addiction to danger is as powerful as John’s, especially if it results in him being acknowledged as smarter than his adversary. He’s not above torturing the dying Jeff to get Moriarty’s name (that sequence recalling Harry Callahan’s treatment of the killer Scorpio in the original Dirty Harry).

I am lost without my Boswell: It’s perhaps fitting that, as the actor who portrayed Arthur Dent in the big-screen version of The Hitch Hikers Guide to the Galaxy, Freeman’s John Watson is first seen in his pyjamas. Watson has kept his army revolver - it’s in an unlocked drawer in his flat, under his laptop. The potential risks in doing this hardly need pointing out - the laptop could get very badly scratched. He hasn’t written a word of his blog. He can read upside-down writing, and finds it difficult to trust (did someone let him down in a combat situation?). He considers himself very good at his job, although his observations at the crime scene aren’t particularly insightful. His therapist believes his limp is psychosomatic, and Sherlock agrees with her - in the opening scene, his stick is across the room from his bed, the implication being that he doesn’t really need it. He eventually leaves it in Angelo’s restaurant when pursuing Jeff’s cab, his limp forgotten in the excitement of the chase. He has in intermittent tremor in his left hand, which his therapist diagnoses as post-traumatic stress disorder. In fact, it’s just the opposite - once he’s under stress, the tremor stops. Despite the fact that he’s just been kidnapped, he feels confident enough to attempt to chat up Mycroft’s glamorous assistant Anthea. Freeman doesn’t sport the traditional Watsonian moustache. In fact, the famous upper lip adornment is the invention of Strand Magazine artist Sidney Paget - Conan Doyle doesn’t mention it until The Naval Treaty in the second short story collection, The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes. Trailers suggest that Freeman will sport the facial fungus briefly in Season Three. In the pilot, Watson throws away his gun to avoid prosecution, but that’s not the case here - he threatens the Golem with it in The Great Game, and in Sherlock’s hands it forms the basis of the season’s cliffhanger. The exact location of Watson’s war wound has been the subject of some debate among scholars. In A Study in Scarlet, he writes that he was “struck on the shoulder by a Jezail bullet, which shattered the bone and grazed the subclavian artery.” But in the second novel, The Sign of Four, Holmes questions whether his friend’s leg will stand a long trek in pursuit of the villain. Here, it’s explained that John’s was indeed wounded in the shoulder and that his limp is psychosomatic. Incidentally, Robert Duvall was the first actor to portray Watson with a limp, in the 1976 film The Seven-Per-Cent Solution. In the Robert Downey Jr series, Jude Law is seen to limp from time-to-time depending on whether or not someone reminds him.

The efficiency of our detective police force: Lestrade is played by the George Clooney-esque Rupert Graves, a far cry from Conan Doyle’s description of the character as a “little sallow, rat-faced, dark-eyed fellow.” His name is pronounced either “Lestrayde” or “Lestrarde” depending upon the adaptation (supposedly, Conan Doyle intended it to be the former). Here, it’s “Lestrarde,” as it is in the Basil Rathbone series. His first initial is G in the books - in The Hounds of Baskerville, we find out that his name is Greg. The Inspector knows enough about Sherlock’s history to expect to find drugs at 221B. Like his consultant, he wears a nicotine patch - just the one, though, it’s not like he’s addicted to them. He and Sherlock have known each other for five years. He believes the detective to be a great man, and hopes that one day he might be a good one, also.

Sergeant Sally Donovan is in charge of the press conference regarding the suicides. She addresses Sherlock as “freak.” She warns John that one day Sherlock will be responsible for the crime he’s investigating (a prediction she has reason to believe has come true in The Reichenbach Fall).

The forensics officer on the case is Anderson, who refuses to work with Holmes. Despite possessing David Mitchell’s voice and the worst haircut in London, Anderson is apparently having an affair with Sally Donovan; either that, or his floors really did need a good scrubbing. It’s a measure of Sherlock’s popularity that there’s no shortage of volunteers when Lestrade wants the Baker Street rooms searched.

There is a strong family resemblance about misdeeds: The plot is based surprisingly closely on the first Sherlock Holmes novel, A Study in Scarlet, originally published in 1887. Many lines of dialogue from Conan Doyle’s story appear verbatim in the episode. The significant difference, apart from the obvious move from the 19th to the 21st Century, is the fact that in the novel the killer is seeking vengeance on two specific victims, rather than outliving the healthy, largely out of spite. In Conan Doyle’s original, American Jefferson Hope - who, like his counterpart, Jeff (who isn’t actually named onscreen), is slowly dying from an aneurysm - hails from America, and his sole intention is to do away with his enemies by means of a fast-acting poison (although the second victim refuses to take it and is stabbed instead). Watson and Stamford drink from coffee cups labelled “Criterion” - in the novel, they have a chance encounter at the Criterion Bar. Holmes is first seen beating a cadaver with a riding crop, in order to ascertain what bruises form over the course of 20 minutes. He correctly deduces that Watson has been in Afghanistan. The clue regarding the message “Rache” is reversed for this story. It isn’t written by the killer, but the victim, and isn’t intended to be the German for “Revenge,” which, in the novel, it is.

Sherlock and John’s landlady is a Mrs Hudson - she points out that she’s not a housekeeper, though she acts like it. Apparently, she has a hip. Mrs Hudson is mentioned in many stories, though she only really plays a significant part in The Empty House and The Dying Detective. Her first name is never given, but many assume it to be Martha, the name given to “the pleasant old lady” who assists Holmes in his capture of the German spy Von Bork, in the World War I adventure His Last Bow. In this episode, Mrs Hudson mentions a Mrs Turner next door, who is landlady to a married gay couple. In A Scandal in Bohemia, Conan Doyle briefly forgot the name he assigned to the landlady and had Holmes refer to her as “Mrs Turner.” This was not his only lapse, however - in The Man With the Twisted Lip, Watson is called James instead of John (see A Scandal in Belgravia for more on this), and when the policeman from The Sign of Four reappears in The Red-Headed League his name has changed from Athelney Jones to Peter Jones.

Steven Moffat skilfully works in references to other Canonical adventures. The second victim is named James Phillimore, who meets his fate after returning home for his umbrella. In The Problem of Thor Bridge, Watson lists several of Holmes’ unsolved cases, including that of “Mr James Phillimore, who, stepping back into his own house to get his umbrella, was never more seen in this world.” Watson complains in The Musgrave Ritual that Holmes is in the habit of keeping his unanswered correspondence transfixed by a jack-knife into the very centre of of his wooden mantelpiece. Here, Sherlock is seen to embed a knife in the fireplace. His website is called The Science of Deduction, and seems to play the same role his magazine article The Book of Life did in the original. The Science of Deduction is the title of the second chapter of A Study in Scarlet and the first chapter of The Sign of Four. When Holmes is consulted about the body in Lauriston Gardens, he declares: “the game, Mrs Hudson, is on!” a variation upon the oft-quoted “the game is afoot!”, Holmes’ declaration in only one story, The Abbey Grange, itself drawn from Shakespeare’s Henry V. The deductions relating to John’s phone are very similar to the ones made by Holmes in The Sign of Four concerning the pocket watch formerly owned by Watson’s dipsomaniac brother. In this instance, however, Sherlock is slightly wrong - Harry isn’t John’s brother, but his sister.

Watson’s shooting of the villain at the story’s climax is somewhat similar to Sebastian Moran’s attempt on Holmes’ life in The Empty House - even more so in the pilot episode.

The text John receives from Sherlock - “Come at once, if convenient; if inconvenient, come anyway” - is almost identical to the message Holmes sends in The Creeping Man. His conversation with Italian restaurant owner Angelo is taken almost verbatim not from any Canonical source, but from the final Basil Rathbone/Nigel Bruce movie, Dressed to Kill (AKA Sherlock Holmes and the Secret Code, AKA Prelude to Murder). Good thing it’s in the public domain, too.

One of the waiters at Angelo’s restaurant is named Billy. Given the sheer mass of Canonical references in this episode, it’s probably not a stretch to suggest that he’s named after the Baker Street page boy, who is first identified in the final Holmes novel, The Valley of Fear. Billy is a creation of actor William Gillette, who included the character in his 1899 stage play. There’s another Billy in The Hounds of Baskerville - he’s the cook at the Cross Keys Inn, but that probably is just coincidence.

The “three-patch problem” is a play on the “three-pipe problem” of The Red-Headed League. Holmes is famous for smoking, of course - not solely pipes, but let’s be honest, mainly pipes. The Sherlock of, um, Sherlock, doesn’t smoke, but only because modern social constraints have made it impossible (unless you’re outdoors, of course).

Sherlock’s elder brother Mycroft also appears, a further embellishment upon the plot of the original pilot. Mycroft appears in only two stories, The Greek Interpreter and The Bruce-Partington Plans. He’s seven years older than Sherlock in the Canon, but it isn’t confirmed in the BBC series that Mycroft is the elder of the two until A Scandal in Belgravia. His influential role in the British Government is established in the latter story. His main qualities are his idleness and his size; Conan Doyle describes him as “absolutely corpulent.” Of course, had producers of Sherlock cast an absolutely corpulent actor in the role, it would’ve been instantly obvious to the initiated that Big Brother is watching John, and the fellow who attempts to bribe him is not, therefore, Moriarty. In the final scene, Sherlock makes a gibe about his brother “putting on weight,” though Mycroft insists he’s actually losing it - this is the age of liposuction, after all. There’s a mention of his diet in the final episode of this season, The Great Game. Oddly, there have been more thin onscreen Mycrofts than fat ones, including Christopher Lee in Billy Wilder’s The Private Life of Sherlock Holmes (1970) and Richard E Grant in A Case of Evil (2002). Here, he’s played by Sherlock’s co-creator Mark Gatiss, who dyes his hair for the role. The makers of Elementary have cast their own slimline Mycroft, Welsh actor Rhys Ifans, for Season Two.

The offer of money to keep an eye on Sherlock made by the mysterious figure who might be Moriarty, but actually turns out to be Mycroft, suggests David Stuart Davies’ pastiche novel The Veiled Detective, in which Watson is in Moriarty’s employ.

The disdain with which Mark Gatiss utters the letter “B” in John’s new address is a deliberate homage to Charles Kay’s delivery in the 1991 adaptation of The Creeping Man, starring Jeremy Brett.

I have never loved: John spends much of the episode insisting that he and Sherlock are not gay (Martin Freeman’s deadpan comic skills get a good workout in these sequences, so file this under A certain unexpected vein of pawky humour, too). Mrs Hudson assumes they’ll be sharing the same bedroom. At the Italian restaurant, Angelo (who looks as though he should be comedian Bill Bailey, but isn’t) places a candle on Sherlock and John’s table to make things more romantic. During their conversation, Sherlock says that girlfriends are “not really his area” (he’s utterly oblivious to Molly Hooper’s attempts to win his affections at Bart’s). When questioned about boyfriends, he mistakenly thinks John is trying to chat him up. “I think you should know that I consider myself married to my work, and while I’m flattered by your interest...”

A seven-per-cent solution: Sherlock appears to be in the throes of a drug-induced euphoria as John returns to their Baker Street rooms. In fact, he’s wearing nicotine patches. “Impossible to sustain a smoking habit in London these days,” he complains. John finds the idea that Sherlock might take drugs laughable. His flatmate is less amused.

A certain unexpected vein of pawky humour: John returns to Baker Street in response to a summons from Sherlock, who just wants to use his phone, and didn’t like disturbing Mrs Hudson.

Sherlock: “Shut up.” Lestrade: “I didn’t say anything.” Sherlock: “You were thinking. It’s annoying.”

A nice visual gag: there’s a completed Rubik’s Cube in the flat at Baker Street.

John: “Why didn’t I think of that?” Sherlock: “Because you’re an idiot. No, don’t look like that. Practically everyone is.”

John: “So I’m basically filling in for your skull?” Sherlock: “Relax, you’re doing fine.”

Sherlock: “If you were dying, if you’d been murdered, in your very last few seconds, what would you say?” John: “Please, God, let me live.”

Sherlock: “Anderson, don’t talk; you lower the IQ of the entire street.”

My head is in a whirl: It takes a surprisingly long time for Sherlock to work out just how the killer can be invisible and in plain sight simultaneously, almost as though the writer had been forced to add an extra half an hour to the episode.

You’d think that a thorough search of Baker Street by a team of police officers would turn up all of Lestrade’s missing ID cards, but no.

It’s bizarre that the coppers should simply leave Baker Street and forget all about the phone just because its location has altered. Wouldn’t that be a reason for chasing after it, especially if, as Donovan and Anderson are both convinced, Sherlock has it because he’s the killer?

Why, exactly, is Moriarty sponsoring Jeff? There’s no financial gain in it for him. Does he keep a file of projects listed “Shits & Giggles”?

“Is it nice not being me? It must be so relaxing.” After three failed attempts to bring Sherlock Holmes back to our television screens, the BBC finally hits upon a successful formula, one that proves how little Conan Doyle’s works have dated in the last 130 years. A pacey plot, sparkling script (a brilliantly-constructed patchwork quilt of references) and endearing performances all combine to make Sherlock an instant hit, in spite of the series’ lack of pre-publicity. The most notable and original feature is the unique visual element - the projection onto the screen of both Sherlock’s thought-processes and the many texts sent and received during the course of the series. The cab chase is accompanied by maps and road signs as he works out the best route by which to pursue his quarry. The music within the episode itself - different from that used in the one-hour pilot version - is seemingly inspired by the gypsy melodies in the Oscar-nominated score for Robert Downey Jr’s film, as composed by Hans Zimmer. It’s a nice touch, too, that at the climax John, when offered a 50/50 choice, chooses poorly, and enters the wrong building.

1X02 The Blind Banker

UK Airdate: 1 August 2010

Writer: Stephen Thompson

Director: Euros Lyn

Guest Cast: Gemma Chan (Soo Lin Yao); Al Weaver (Andy Galbraith); Bertie Carvel (Seb Wilkes); Dan Percival (Eddie Van Coon); Paul Chequer (Detective Inspector Dimmock); Howard Coggins (Brian Lukis); Janice Acquah (Museum Director); Jack Bence (Raz); John MacMillan (Community Police Officer); Olivia Poulet (Amanda); Jacqui Chan (Shopkeeper); Sarah Lam (Opera Singer); Gillian Elisa (Surgery Receptionist); Stefan Pejic (Box Office Manager); Philip Benjamin (German Tourist); Joanna Burnett (Tour Guide)*; Claire Cage (Eddie’s Neighbour)*; Joe Hall (Homeless Guy)*

*Uncredited

Plot: John is having cash problems, and is forced to borrow his flatmate’s debit card. With bills piling up, Sherlock suggests a trip to the bank. The bank in question is Shad Sanderson, at the heart of London’s financial district - University pal Sebastian Wilkes needs Sherlock’s help. The empty office of the bank’s former chairman has been broken into, and a portrait of the man himself defaced with yellow spray paint. Additionally, the intruder has scrawled several indecipherable figures on the wall. Security records show that the door to that particular office did not open at all, so how were the bank’s defences breached?

Sherlock realises that the graffiti was intended to be seen from the office of Eddie Van Coon, head of Shad Sanderson’s Hong Kong Desk. Sneaking into Van Coon’s flat, they find the banker lying dead on his bed, an apparent suicide. Sherlock has no hesitation in informing Detective Inspector Dimmock that he’s dealing with a murder, though, once again, there’s no indication of how the culprit entered and left.

That night, freelance journalist Brian Lukis is murdered in his flat under very similar circumstances - shot by someone who can seemingly walk through walls. Sherlock is convinced it’s the work of the same killer, and demands that Dimmock give him the opportunity to search Lukis’ flat. Checking the skylight, Sherlock deduces that they are dealing with someone capable of scaling walls and entering premises via open windows. He finds a book from the West Kensington Library, taken out on the day of Lukis’ death. At the library, he and John spot another cipher.

Behind the National Gallery, they seek advice from graffiti artist Raz, who promises to track down any more examples of the cipher.

Sherlock sends John to collect Lukis’ effects from the police. As he leaves Baker Street, he’s unaware that he is being photographed.

Sherlock questions Van Coon’s PA, Amanda. His travel receipts suggest that he was taking an item to an address near Piccadilly Station. According to Lukis’ diary, he too, went to the same store - the Lucky Cat Emporium - on the day he died. Van Coon and Lukis were both smugglers, delivering their goods to the Lucky Cat. One man evidently stole from his employers, and because it could not be determined which one it was, both were killed.

The address of the flat above the store belongs to Soo Lin Yao, but she has been absent for several days. Breaking in, Sherlock encounters another intruder, who attacks him before fleeing. Questioning one of her colleagues at the National Antiquities Museum, they find more ciphers, which Sherlock has now identified as Hang Zhou, an ancient writing system.

Raz has discovered more examples of the graffiti - the killer practised his craft on railway tunnel walls. The messages are numbers, and Sherlock is certain they are a message to underworld confederates from someone who wants their merchandise back.

Returning to the National Antiquities Museum, Sherlock deduces that Soo Lin Yao is still somewhere on the premises. Locating her hiding place, he and John learn that she is a former member of the Black Lotus Tong, who was contacted by the killer (who is also her brother), seeking her assistance in locating the missing item. Her brother’s name is Liang, but he is known to the Tong general Shan as Zhi Zhu - the spider. Before she can give reveal the cipher key to the detectives, she is killed by Zhi Zhu.

Sherlock convinces Dimmock that Van Coon and Dimmock were also Tong members, smuggling ancient Chinese artefacts into the country to sell at auction. He and John spend all night studying the books belonging to the dead men in the hopes of cracking the code.

At Sherlock’s suggestion, John takes his new girlfriend Sarah to the Yellow Dragon Circus. The detective tags along, convinced that one of the acrobats in the show, billed as the Deadly Chinese Bird Spider, might be Zhi Zhu. He’s attacked while searching backstage, and the fight eventually disrupts the show.

At last, Sherlock realises that the book used to decode the cipher is the London A-Z. The full message is “Nine Mill (sic) for jade pin. Dragon den, black tramway.” While he’s out of the flat, John and Sarah are kidnapped by the Tong and taken to their hideout. They are confronted by the female General Shan, who is under the impression that John is Sherlock Holmes (he still has Sherlock’s debit card). Shan threatens Sarah’s life, demanding that John reveal the location of the jade pin. Sherlock arrives in the nick of time, and in the confusion, Shan escapes and John is able to rescue his girlfriend and kill Zhi Zhu.

Leaving Dimmock to tidy up the loose ends, Sherlock tracks down the jade pin - Eddie Van Coon gave it to his PA and former mistress as a gift, not realising its true worth.

In hiding, Shan reports to her London contact, a man known as M. To protect his anonymity, M has her killed by a sniper.

The best and the wisest man: Sherlock considers himself resourceful, dynamic and enigmatic (but evidently not modest). He uses John’s laptop to check his e-mails when he can’t be bothered walking to the bedroom to use his own computer. He doesn’t eat when he’s working: “digestion slows me down.” He looks unusually pale in this episode. He knows a lot about escapology, describing the act at the Yellow Dragon Circus while John and Sarah watch. He’s visibly annoyed by Sarah’s presence at Baker Street, but surprisingly jovial when he tells Amanda she’s had £9m pinned in her hair.

I am lost without my Boswell: John is forced to ask Sherlock for money, but it’s a waste of time, since his associate isn’t even listening. He’s quick to take Sebastian Wilkes’ retainer when Sherlock turns it down. He applies for work as a locum, welcoming the mundane routine (the very opposite of his attitude in the previous episode - did his hand tremor return?). After spending the night searching for the cipher code with Sherlock, he falls asleep at the surgery. Much to his chagrin, he winds up with an ASBO after being (falsely) charged with defacing a listed building - shades of Nigel Bruce. It’s interesting to note that, after Van Coon’s body is discovered, he handles the questioning of Sebastian Wilkes while Sherlock looks on. Clearly, the partnership has matured since A Study in Pink. He learned the clarinet at school.

The efficiency of our detective police force: Detective Inspector Dimmock is in charge in Lestrade’s absence. He takes an instant dislike to Sherlock, firstly because it saves time, secondly because he resents an amateur handling evidence at a crime scene, and lastly because the consultant mistakes him for a mere sergeant (wouldn’t a trained observer be able to figure something like that out?). He varies between helpfulness and disdain, depending upon how the investigation is proceeding. Sherlock says he has high hopes for Dimmock. “I go where you point me,” the Inspector admits. There’s no shortage of policemen in the original stories, so why couldn’t Dimmock have been given a Canonical name? I’d nominate Inspector Forbes of The Naval Treaty, with whom Dimmock shares a number of traits.

There is a strong family resemblance about misdeeds: After the plethora of references in the previous episode, and many more to come in The Great Game, this is story is extraordinarily light on Canonical influences. The killer’s entry and exit via a skylight recalls the death of Bartholomew Sholto, killed by the nimble pygmy Tonga in the novel The Sign of Four. The notion of a code in the form of apparently meaningless graffiti is derived from The Dancing Men, and the discovery that the key to deciphering the code is to be found in an easily-obtainable book mirrors the opening scene of the final Holmes novel The Valley of Fear.

I have never loved: John is quick to explain to Sebastian Wilkes that he is Sherlock’s colleague, heading off any of the misunderstandings that filled the previous week’s episode.

When Sherlock asks him how his job interview went, John absent-mindedly replies “she was great,” referring to Dr Sarah Sawyer. He doesn’t waste a whole lot of time in asking her out on a date, though given that it ends up with her tied to a chair with a crossbow pointed at her head, it’s remarkable that she agrees to see him again. Sherlock flatters Molly in order to get a look at the corpses of Lukis and Van Coon.

A certain unexpected vein of pawky humour: Watson has a disagreement with a chip and pin machine at Asda, while back at Baker Street, Holmes engages in a battle with the swordsman from Raiders of the Lost Ark. The fight relates to an unseen case, the Jaria diamond.

Sherlock asks John to pass him a pen, not noticing that his flatmate has gone to apply for a job. He’s quite content a wait an hour until John gets back, though.

When Sherlock says he needs advice in order to crack the cipher, John asks him to repeat the remark. “You heard me perfectly, I’m not saying it again.”

Sherlock and Raz flee at the sight of the National Gallery’s security officers, leaving John literally carrying the can. John insists that Raz appear at his hearing and clear his name, but it’s an unlikely eventuality.

Sherlock tells John they should go out an get some fresh air. John explains that he has a date: “Where two people who like each other go out and have fun?” Sherlock: “That’s what I was suggesting!” Sherlock crashes their date, of course, causing John much annoyance. “You’re going to chase some killer while I’m trying to get off with Sarah!” he protests somewhat loudly, just as she appears at his side.

Sherlock doesn’t admit to John that he was nearly strangled by Zhi Zhu in Soo Lin Yao’s flat. “You’ve gone all croaky. Are you getting a cold?”

My head is in a whirl: Why does Sherlock take Eddie Van Coon’s nameplate when checking the Shad Sanderson offices? Is he incapable of remembering it?

John addresses his friend by name in the Lucky Cat Emporium, and yet they still think he’s Sherlock Holmes?

Soo Lin Yao says that the Tong are never very far away “in a small community like ours” but is that any excuse for choosing a flat immediately above a shop used by the Tong as a base for receiving smuggled goods?

Zhi Zhu lets Sherlock live, even though he’s so close to asphyxiating him in his sister’s flat. If the Tong think John is Sherlock, why spare him?

“What kind of message would everyone try to avoid?” Though thoroughly competent in all departments, it’s impossible not to feel a tinge of disappointment at this episode, coming just a week after something as truly remarkable as A Study in Pink. The direction boasts none of the imaginative flair seen in that first episode (to be fair, many of the visuals were the invention of director Paul McGuigan, who did not work on this episode). There simply isn’t enough to distinguish this plot from most other British crime dramas - it could just as easily serve as an episode of Lewis, Taggart, or even, at a stretch, Midsomer Murders (“A Chinese circus comes to Midsomer...”). The meaning of the episode title is vague and not strictly accurate - it refers to the defacing of the portrait of the bank’s chairman, a line of spray paint covering his eyes. The Blind Banker is the least satisfying of Sherlock’s first season, but even that couldn’t stop the show’s phenomenal popularity. As The Reichenbach Fall will prove, it would be a serious mistake to identify Steve Thompson as the weak link as the writing trio.

1X03 The Great Game

UK Airdate: 8 August 2010

Writer: Mark Gatiss

Director: Paul McGuigan

Guest Cast: John Lebar (Golem); Matthew Needham (Bezza); Kemal Sylvester (Tube Guard); San Shella (Andrew West); Deborah Moore (Crying Woman); Lauren Crace (Lucy); Nicholas Gadd (Scared Man); Caroline Trowbridge (Mrs Monkford); Paul Albertson (Mr Ewart); Rita Davies (Blind Lady); Di Botcher (Connie Prince); John Sessions (Kenny Prince); Stefano Braschi (Raoul); Jeany Spark (Homeless Girl); Alison Lintott (Julie); Haydn Gwynne (Miss Wenceslas); Doug Allen (Joe); Lynn Fairleigh (Professor Cairns); Peter Davison (Planetarium Voiceover)*

*Uncredited

Plot: After John walks out of Baker Street following a minor row with Sherlock over the presence of a severed head in the fridge, the building is rocked by an explosion, the result of a gas leak in the house opposite, it is supposed. Rushing back home after seeing the story on the news, John finds Sherlock unharmed and in conversation with his brother Mycroft regarding the death of MOD employee Andrew West, who has been found dead on the tracks at Battersea Station. West was in possession of a memory stick containing the plans for the Bruce-Partington missile program, but it was not found on the body, and it is feared that the young man may have been a traitor. Holmes turns the case down, even though he’s far from busy.

After Mycroft departs, Sherlock and John are summoned to New Scotland Yard by Lestrade. He informs them that the gas leak was faked, and that the only item to survive the explosion was a strongbox containing a pink phone identical to the one that featured in Sherlock’s first case with John. Someone has recorded a message on the phone - five pips, and a photo of the basement flat at Mrs Hudson’s house. Inside 221C Baker Street, they find a pair of training shoes, and as Sherlock is about to examine them, he receives a call on the pink phone - a frightened woman is reading out a typed message: “Twelve hours to solve my puzzle, Sherlock, or I’m going to be so naughty.” The woman has a bomb strapped to her body, and a sniper’s weapon is trained upon her. At the end of twelve hours, if Sherlock is unsuccessful, the sniper will fire and the bomb will detonate.

Sherlock is studying the shoes in the lab at Bart’s as Molly introduces him to her new boyfriend, Jim from IT, whom Sherlock has no hesitation in identifying as gay, breaking Molly’s heart yet again.

The shoes belonged to Carl Powers, who, in 1989 drowned in a London swimming pool, having come up from Brighton for a school sports tournament. Sherlock remembers the case, and was always puzzled by the absence of the boy’s shoes. He realises that a poison was introduced into Carl’s eczema cream. The killer is, John suggests, also the bomber. Following the discovery of the solution, the hostage is released, and her location disclosed to the police.

Sherlock receives another call from another hostage, also rigged with a bomb. He has eight hours to solve another puzzle - the abandoned car of banker Ian Monkford has been discovered, soaked in his blood. Sherlock and John speak to Ewart, owner of Janus Cars, the firm from which Monkford hired the vehicle. Holmes finds that the blood - exactly a pint - was donated by Ian Monkford some time earlier, and then frozen. Janus Cars is a company specializing in faking the deaths of individuals who wish to disappear. With the arrest of Ewart, the second hostage is freed.

The next hostage is an elderly blind woman. Relating Moriarty’s words, she gives him 12 hours to unravel the riddle of the death of TV’s makeover queen, Connie Prince, who supposedly contracted tetanus from a cut on her hand which, Sherlock notes, was made after her death. John poses as a journalist in order to question Connie’s brother Kenny, and begins to form a theory - the tetanus was on the claws of Connie’s pet cat. But Sherlock declares it too random and too clever for Kenny. Raoul de Santos, Kenny’s houseboy is the killer. He poisoned Connie via her botox injections, using the same toxin that killed Carl Powers. The case is solved, but the old woman being held hostage makes the mistake of attempting to tell Sherlock about Moriarty, and the bomb is set off by the sniper.

Another call, another case, but no mention of a hostage this time. A body has washed up on the South Bank. Sherlock identifies the dead man as a security guard, and a victim of assassin Oskar Dzundza, AKA the Golem. Alex Woodbridge, gallery attendant at the Hickman Gallery, has been reported missing, just before the unveiling of a recently discovered Vermeer worth £30m. John investigates Woodbridge, and finds that the dead man has an interest in astronomy and had received a message from a Professor Cairns. Sherlock and John track Cairns down at a planetarium, but are too late to prevent the Golem disposing of her. As the deadline approaches, the hostage, a child, calls - Sherlock has only 10 seconds to prove that the painting is a forgery. At the last second, he discovers that the painting includes the Van Buren supernova, which occurred almost 200 years after Vermeer supposedly painted the missing masterpiece. The Hickman Gallery’s curator, Ms Wenceslas, confesses to her part in the crime, acting under Moriarty’s guidance.

Mycroft continues to pester Sherlock about the death of Andrew West. John is put onto the case, and questions his fiancée, Liz, who says that on the night of his death, West saw something from his window that disturbed him. Shortly thereafter, he left the house. John is puzzled by the fact that there’s no blood on the train tracks. Sherlock has already solved the case, however - he’s been investigating all along, despite his insistence that he’s not interested. Searching the flat of Liz’s brother Joe Harrison, they find traces of blood. Joe admits to stealing the memory stick from his prospective brother-in-law. Joe killed West by accident after the civil servant confronted him and they struggled. He subsequently dumped West’s body onto the roof of a train that had halted under the window of his flat. The body came off the roof where the line curves.

As John goes out to visit Sarah that evening, Sherlock contacts Moriarty. A meeting is arranged at the swimming pool where Carl Powers died. But Sherlock is stunned when he is confronted by John Watson! John, however, isn’t Moriarty - he’s the next hostage, a bomb concealed under his clothing, and a sniper’s rifle trained on him. Moriarty finally appears - it’s Molly’s boyfriend, Jim from IT. He’s been throwing problems in Sherlock’s way, just to get him to “come out and play.” In return for John’s life, Sherlock offers him the missile plans, which the disinterested Moriarty tosses into the pool. He tells Sherlock that he will burn the heart right out of him if he continues to pry. Jim leaves, and Sherlock frees John from the explosives. They don’t get to enjoy the moment, however - Moriarty returns and informs Sherlock that he can’t be allowed to live, as they are suddenly targeted by multiple snipers. With John’s nod of approval, Sherlock aims his gun at the explosives positioned between them and Moriarty.

The best and the wisest man: The episode begins with a short scene in a Minsk prison (loosely derived from one of Gatiss’ League of Gentlemen stage sketches) in which Sherlock continually corrects the grammar of a condemned man. He’s taken a severed head from Bart’s morgue in order to measure the coagulation of saliva after death. He has no interest in any of the hostages. “There’s hospitals full of people dying, Doctor, why don’t you go and cry by their bedside and see what good it does them?” he asks, in a spectacular display of heartlessness, to which the destruction of Molly’s love life is merely the coup de grace. He considers the Carl Powers case his entry into the world of detection (at which point he would’ve been in his early teens). He thought there was something fishy about the boy’s death when he read about it in the newspapers at the time. The Home Secretary owes him a favour. He becomes a fan of reality TV.

I am lost without my Boswell: He’s written up their first adventure together on his blog as A Study in Pink. Sherlock hates it. Frustrated by the countdown, he desperately needs to do something, which is probably one reason why Sherlock puts him onto the Bruce-Partington affair. He knows about Moriarty. He and Mrs Hudson watch far too much daytime TV, including Connie Prince’s makeover show.

The efficiency of our detective police force: Lestrade and his colleagues all read Watson’s blog. He’s on hand for most of this adventure, but we don’t really find out much about him this time.

Sergeant Sally Donovan appears briefly. Her opinion of Sherlock hasn’t improved at all. She recommends John get a hobby instead of hanging around with the detective - stamp collecting, perhaps, or fishing.

There is a strong family resemblance about misdeeds: Where to begin? Well, this episode finally sees Moriarty make his big appearance. Though constantly popping up in pastiches, Professor James Moriarty barely appears within the canon - his only big scene, in The Final Problem, is related to Watson by Holmes (the basis for the notion in both Nicholas Meyer’s novel The Seven-Per-Cent Solution and Jeremy Paul’s stage play The Secret of Sherlock Holmes that the Napoleon of Crime never actually existed - see The Great Game). The Professor is also said to have played a part in the murder investigated by Holmes in the novel The Valley of Fear. Jim’s line, “Everything I have to say has already crossed your mind,” comes from The Final Problem. The depiction of a manic, impulsive Moriarty in this series is markedly different from that of a man so cold-blooded Conan Doyle likens him to a reptile. If anything, non-Professor Jim Moriarty owes as much to Heath Ledger’s Joker in The Dark Knight as he does to the Canonical character, and your enjoyment of this version depends upon your tolerance for the excesses the portrayal of such a theatrical villain demands. Radically different interpretations of Sherlock Holmes’ arch nemesis are the order of the day in both series discussed in this volume.

To clarify the “Dear Jim, please can you fix it...” line for non-UK readers, this relates to the long-running TV programme Jim’ll Fix It, in which young viewers had their wishes granted by host and popular DJ Jimmy Savile. After Savile’s death in 2011, allegations were made of sexual offences on a colossal scale. Had this episode been produced after the truth became known, it is more than likely that Gatiss would have omitted this reference from the dialogue.

Moffat and Gatiss are both fans of the Basil Rathbone/Nigel Bruce movies, and the main body of the plot bears more than a passing resemblance to Rathbone’s 1939 picture (his final one for 20th Century Fox), The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, in which Professor Moriarty (George Zucco) distracts Holmes with a puzzle involving numerous bizarre elements to enable him to pull off a spectacular crime without interference. Although, in this episode, Moriarty isn’t really all that interested in obtaining the memory stick, which he insists he could’ve acquired by other means.

Speaking of the Rathbone series, the killer known as the Golem is not dissimilar in size and brutality to the Creeper (played by Rondo Hatton) in the 1944 film The Pearl of Death, an updating of Conan Doyle’s tale The Six Napoleons.

The subplot of The Great Game is based very closely on The Bruce-Partington Plans, in which the murdered man, Cadogan West is believed to have stolen the plans of an experimental submarine. Gatiss works another stolen plans story, The Naval Treaty, into the solution. In that story, as in this, the thief is named Joseph Harrison, brother of the woman to whom the victim is affianced.

The five pips on the telephone refer to Conan Doyle’s The Five Orange Pips. As Sherlock says here, these seeds were sent by secret societies (the KKK in the original story) along with threatening messages to their intended victims. The decreasing number of pips signifying the number of crimes remaining to be perpetrated is an element of the Rathbone film The House of Fear, in which they are, of course, actual seed pips.

The shoe deduction scene is top-heavy with references. For starters, it resembles the famous hat sequence from The Blue Carbuncle. Holmes’ remark, “You missed almost everything of importance, but, you know...” is a variation on a line from The Hound of the Baskervilles, as is, “You know what I do - off you go,” a modernisation of the famous phrase, “You know my methods - apply them.” When he tells John, “You’re on sparkling form,” he’s channelling the Holmes of The Valley of Fear, who informed his comrade, “you’re scintillating this morning.”

In The Musgrave Ritual, Watson describes Holmes’ less-than delightful qualities as a fellow lodger: “I have always held, too, that pistol practice should be distinctly an open-air pastime; and when Holmes, in one of his queer humours, would sit in an armchair with his hair-trigger and a hundred Boxer cartridges and proceed to adorn the opposite wall with a patriotic VR done in bullet-pocks, I felt strongly that neither the atmosphere nor the appearance of our room was improved by it.” Following his return from Minsk, Sherlock shoots a smiley face into the wall. Coincidentally, Robert Downey Jr’s Holmes creates a VR of bullet-holes (no doubt his tribute to Pulp Fiction actor Ving Rhames) in his first movie.

Sherlock identifies the envelope containing the phone as originating in Bohemia, as did the letter received by Holmes in - surprise, surprise - A Scandal in Bohemia. The script’s numerous references to the Czech Republic are revealed to be a red herring, or they would have if that line hadn’t been cut. The famous phrase “You see, but you do not observe”, repeated by Sherlock in this episode can also be found in A Scandal in Bohemia, along with “I am lost without my Boswell” (updated to “I’d be lost without my blogger”) and the exchange between Holmes and Watson in which the detective notes that his friend has gained seven and a half pounds since getting married, while the doctor insists it is only seven. In The Great Game, that conversation is between Sherlock and Molly, and the weight increase a less insulting three pounds.

Sherlock’s lack of knowledge about the solar system is described in A Study in Scarlet. In the novel, he likens his mind to an attic rather than a hard drive, though the same speech, taken from the same source, appears in the second episode of Elementary, where the attic analogy is retained.

The number seven is an important one to the Holmes of the Canon - he’s devised seven separate explanations to explain the conundrum of The Copper Beeches, and in The Missing Three-Quarter, he has seven different schemes for getting a look at an important telegram. At the scene of Alex Woodbridge’s murder, he says he has formulated seven ideas so far, and has another seven in The Hounds of Baskerville.

Holmes’ unfavourable reaction to Watson’s published account of their first adventure in The Sign of Four matches Sherlock’s complaints about John’s blog entry, A Study in Pink.

The Homeless Network are Sherlock’s modern day equivalent of the Baker Street Irregulars, AKA the Baker Street Division of the Detective Police Force. “These youngsters... go everywhere and hear everything,” he tells Watson in A Study in Scarlet. The Irregulars also appear in The Sign of Four and The Crooked Man. The Homeless Network are mentioned again in A Scandal in Belgravia and The Reichenbach Fall.

The Three Garridebs occurs, Watson says, “in the same month that Holmes refused a knighthood for services which may perhaps some day be described.” Following the recovery of the memory stick, Sherlock says he has been “threatened with a knighthood - again,” although he hasn’t actually returned the memory stick at this point, so he may only have been threatened the once. In A Scandal in Belgravia, he jokes about his knighthood being “in the bag” now that certain incriminating photos of a royal personage have been recovered.

Sherlock is seen to play the violin in this episode, pretty badly. In fact, the Canonical Holmes is a reasonably proficient player, but filmmakers seem to find it more fun to have him play abominably. He’s improved by the time of A Scandal in Belgravia, so he was probably deliberately making a din here. In The Reichenbach Fall, Moriarty considers Sherlock’s interpretation of Bach appalling.

Having scripted several episodes of the Doctor Who revival and a number of novels featuring the Time Lord, it seems only natural that Gatiss should slip several oblique references to the series into this episode. Sherlock describes the Golem as “One of the deadliest assassins in the world,” a vague nod toward the 1976 Tom Baker story The Deadly Assassin, both scripts apparently suggesting that there are other sorts of assassins, apart from deadly ones (I suppose there might be harmless assassins, but I can’t see them getting a lot of work). The Fifth Doctor himself Peter Davison (alongside whom Gatiss has appeared on several occasions, notably in two Doctor Who audio stories produced by Big Finish and an episode of the hilarious sci-fi radio comedy Nebulous) supplies the recorded commentary in the planetarium, during John and Sherlock’s tussle with the Golem. And might the Hickman Galley be named after former Doctor Who Magazine editor Clayton Hickman?

I have never loved: John sleeps on the sofa at Sarah’s place - their relationship is still in its early stages, and the next time we see John, in A Scandal in Belgravia, it’s over.

Sherlock considers breaking the news about Jim’s sexuality to Molly “kinder” in the long run. John disagrees.

Once Jim comes out as Moriarty, he mentions in passing that he was merely pretending to be gay.

John jokes about what people might say if they saw Sherlock ripping his clothes off in the public baths.

A seven-per-cent solution: Sherlock asks Ewart if he has change for the cigarette machine. In fact, he only wants to see the Columbian money inside the man’s wallet. He reminds John that he’s “doing well” on nicotine patches

A certain unexpected vein of pawky humour: Watson discovers a head in the fridge. Not a head of lettuce, an actual head.

In the lab, Sherlock asks John to retrieve his phone from his jacket - the jacket he happens to be wearing at the time.

Sherlock explains to Lestrade why the caller is leading them to the solutions of so many crimes: “Good Samaritan.” When the Inspector points out that Moriarty is press-ganging suicide bombers: “Bad Samaritan.”

Kenny Prince praises his sister’s makeover skills, particularly when it comes to girls who look like “the back end of routemasters.”

The “Meretricious” - “And a happy new year” exchange originates in Stephen Fry’s pastiche The Adventure of the Laughing Jarvey.

John, on Sherlock’s arrangement with the Homeless Network: “So you scratch their back, and..?” Holmes: “Then disinfect myself.”

My head is in a whirl: How far did John get after leaving 221B? He really didn’t hear the explosion? He should probably get that looked into.

Sherlock says there’s no suspect for the murder of Carl Powers among his friends, but he’s only had an afternoon in which to ascertain this. Given that Jim Moriarty did indeed kill Carl, it would seem that Sherlock’s best chance of tracking him down - in the unlikely event that he and John survive the confrontation at the swimming pool - would be to investigate this incident in depth, with an eye to locating a teenager with an Irish accent and access to Clostridium botulinum in 1989. Granted, Brighton was full of them in those days, but it’s a starting point. Yes, the second season will almost certainly focus upon this dangling plot-thread, I’ll stake my reputation as a writer of episode guides on it.

“Don’t make people into heroes, John. Heroes don’t exist, and if they did, I wouldn’t be one of them.” The equivalent of holding your breath for ninety minutes, there is not an ounce of flab on Gatiss’ pacey script, which never fails to compel - probably just as well given that, like the Rathbone film from which it draws much of its inspiration, it doesn’t make an awful lot of sense on close inspection. On the strength of two superior episodes, Sherlock has deservedly become a massive hit. Small wonder, then, that the BBC began advertising Season Two long before shooting had even begun.

Unaired Pilot: A Study in Pink

UK Airdate: N/A

Writer: Steven Moffat

Director: Coky Giedroyc

Guest Cast: Zawe Ashton (Sgt Sally Donovan); Joseph Long (Angelo); David Nellist (Mike Stamford); James Harper (Cabbie); Philip Davis (The Taxi Driver)

Plot: The episode, for the most part, follows the same path as the broadcast version, with only minor differences - John and Mike Stamford are reunited in the heart of London, rather than in Russell Square, and the subject of Sherlock Holmes’ search for a fellow-lodger comes up as they enjoy lunch in the actual Criterion Bar. Sherlock and John first meet in a media suite rather than in the lab at Bart’s. Speedy’s is named Mrs Hudson’s Snax ‘n’ Sarnies (in the series proper, she has no connection with the establishment, other than a desire to win the affections of the proprietor, Mr Chatterjee - see The Hounds of Baskerville). Their landlady doesn’t remove Sherlock’s skull (wow, that sounds odd). Jennifer Wilson, the lady in pink, is unnamed in this episode, her killer having removed all identification from the body. There’s no mention of Moriarty and no scenes with Mycroft. Angelo is played by Joseph Long, better known for playing another Italian restaurateur, Luigi, in the cult cop show Ashes to Ashes.

The major plot deviation occurs during the stakeout at Angelo’s restaurant - Sherlock has already deduced that the killer is a cabbie, and when a taxi pulls up in Northumberland Street and turns down a fare, he poses as a drunk in order to approach the driver (whose name is never given, but we’ll stick with Jeff). Sherlock calls Jeff on the pink phone and accosts the killer as he answers, not realising that he’s just been injected with something to knock him out. Jeff puts Sherlock into the back of his cab and drives him back to Baker Street. John takes chase on foot, leaving his stick behind.

Sherlock comes to in his flat as Jeff presents him with the pills. He has to fight through the haze of the injection in order to engage in mental combat with Jeff. The police show up, but not in time to prevent Sherlock picking a pill and preparing to take it. John saves the day by shooting Jeff from the window of the empty house opposite.

The best and the wisest man: Sherlock has already decided that the deaths are not suicides but the work of a serial killer before he’s had the chance to examine the body - hardly surprising, given that the cabbie has taken his victims’ IDs each time. He joins John in wearing a forensic onesie when examining the body. He doesn’t correct Sally’s description of him as a psychopath. In fact, he praises her assessment. He considers little old ladies better than any security cameras. One of his earlier cases involved a headless nun. Unlike his 90 minute counterpart, he doesn’t always favour a monochromatic ensemble, sporting a green shirt. Benedict Cumberbatch’s hair is noticeably lighter in the pilot.

I am lost without my Boswell: John doesn’t get the opportunity to show what he’s made of by standing up to Mycroft, which is a shame. He’s noticeably agitated as he heads back to Baker Street, irritated when a cabbie (not Jeff) tells him he looks “wired.” He throws his gun into the Thames after shooting Jeff.

The efficiency of our detective police force: Lestrade’s approach is slightly different in this version - he’s the one who decides to contact the consulting detective, before the murder of Jennifer Wilson occurs, instead of having Sherlock pester him during a press conference.

Sergeant Sally Donovan is played by Zawe Ashton in this episode only. She’s a uniformed officer, but though her appearance is different, her opinion of Sherlock isn’t.

Anderson is bearded and wears glasses. He urges Lestrade not to bring Sherlock in on the case.

Sherlock’s in-box contains e-mails from Gregson, Smith and Jones (presumably not Mel and Griff Rhys). There’s no policeman named Smith in the Canon, but Tobias Gregson appears in A Study in Scarlet, The Greek Interpreter and The Red Circle. Played by Aidan Quinn, Toby/Tommy Gregson is a regular character in Elementary. Jones could be either Athelney Jones of The Sign of Four or Peter Jones of The Red-Headed League. Sally is heard mentioning a Jones to another officer, but there’s absolutely no reason to suppose that she’s referring to Sherlock’s correspondent - it’s just possible, I suppose, that there are more than two Joneses on the force.

Sherlock’s reply to Gregson’s message reads: “If you can see the church bell from the bedroom window, Davies is your man.” Not famed Sherlockian pastiche writer and author of The Veiled Detective David Stuart Davies, surely?

There is a strong family resemblance about misdeeds: As in the original novel, John declares Sherlock’s article on the science of deduction: “Amusing.” Mycroft doesn’t appear in this episode, though his name is seen on an e-mail Sherlock sends while at Bart’s (his brother’s address is, appropriately, mycroft@deux.org). The message reads: “When you have eliminated the impossible whatever remains must be the truth.” Holmes’ famous mantra first appears in The Sign of Four, and it is in full: “When you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth.” He finally says it in the series proper during The Hounds of Baskerville. Holmes repeats the phrase throughout the Canon in The Beryl Coronet, The Blanched Soldier and The Bruce-Partington Plans.

Holmes’ claim in The Mazarin Stone, “I am a brain, Watson; the rest of me is a mere appendix,” resurfaces here, as Sherlock’s “The brain’s what counts, everything else is transport.”

The similarity between the climax of A Study in Pink and that of The Empty House is more clear-cut in this pilot episode. In Conan Doyle’s story, Moriarty’s right-hand man Sebastian Moran attempts to shoot Holmes from the window of the empty house opposite number 221B. While positioning John in that same spot is more familiar, it makes less sense (see My head is in a whirl).

The script appears to feature another Doctor Who reference from another Doctor Who writer. Sherlock’s line “Only a fool argues with his doctor” also shows up in the 1998 Sylvester McCoy story Remembrance of the Daleks by Ben Aaronovitch.

I have never loved: Sherlock is, as usual, utterly oblivious to Molly’s attempts to arrange a date.

During the scene at Angelo’s Sherlock indicates that he is entirely asexual, which would come as a bitter disappointment to Molly and Irene both.

A seven-per-cent solution: “Do a lot of drugs, Sherlock Holmes?” asks Jeff. Sherlock: “Not in a while.” Jeff: “I ask ‘cause you’re very resilient.” At this point, Sherlock hasn’t noticed there’s a syringe in his arm. You’d think the little prick might have tipped him off.

A certain unexpected vein of pawky humour: John asks Sherlock if he’s going to eat at Angelo’s. “What day is it?” he asks. “It’s Wednesday.” “I’m OK for a bit.”

John, discussing matters of sexual orientation: “It’s all fine, whatever shakes your... boat. I’m going to shut up now.” Sherlock: “I think that’s for the best.”

My head is in a whirl: The scene with Sherlock and John discussing the mobile phone deductions in a taxi is fairly obviously shot in a studio.

When Sherlock approaches Jeff’s cab, he taps on the driver’s window. Moments later, Jeff reaches out and points at the unlit sign, the window having magically rolled down in an instant.

At Baker Street, Jeff is sat immediately in front of Sherlock. Why, then, when he’s shot by John, does the bullet pass through the cabbie and enter the wall instead of Sherlock?

Just why does John go into the empty house to shoot at Jeff instead of sneaking into 221? How does he even know it’s empty?

“You can’t beat a really imaginative serial killer when there’s nothing on the telly.” Apart from the issue of story length, the differences between the pilot and what eventually appeared onscreen are relatively minor. The episode doesn’t begin with an Afghanistan flashback, but it looks as though one might have been inserted had it actually been broadcast. There’s a different and far briefer title sequence, the familiar theme music less bold, and missing the influences of the movie soundtrack. It’s hard to say, on this evidence, just how different a one-hour series might have been, although the climax of The Great Game would’ve proved harder to arrange, given that there’s no gun for our hero to aim at the explosives.

Season Two

2X01: A Scandal in Belgravia

UK Airdate: 1 January 2012

Writer: Steven Moffat

Director: Paul McGuigan

Guest Cast: Lara Pulver (Irene Adler); Danny Webb (DI Carter); Andrew Havill (The Equerry); Todd Boyce (Neilson); Oona Chaplin (Jeanette); Richard Cunningham (Timid Man); Rosemary Smith (Married Woman); Simon Thorp (Businessman); Anthony Cozens (Geeky Young Man); Munir Khairdin (Creepy Guy); Nathan Harmer (Phil); Luke Newberry (Young Policeman); Darrell Las Quevas (Plummer); Rosalind Halstead (Kate); Peter Pedrero (Archer); Honor Kneafsey (Little Girl); Ilana Kneafsey (Little Girl); Thomasin Rand (Beautiful Woman); Greg Bennett (CIA Driver)*; Simon Blood DeVay (Detective - CID)* Amber Elizabeth (Commuter)*

*Uncredited

Plot: The tension of the standoff is ruined by the ringing of Moriarty’s phone. He’s had an offer which, apparently, requires Sherlock and John to remain alive a while longer.

The following months prove very fruitful with many demands upon Sherlock’s time, including a man who insists his dead aunt’s ashes have been switched, two children who weren’t permitted to see their grandfather after his death and, most perplexing of all, the presence in Southwark of a man who supposedly boarded a flight that crashed in Düsseldorf, the result of a terrorist bomb.

A man visits Baker Street, fearing that he’s wanted for murder. 14 hours earlier, he was attempting to repair his car in the countryside as a nearby rambler suddenly and unaccountably died from a single blow to the back of the head from a blunt instrument which has somehow vanished. John goes to the scene on Sherlock’s behalf. The mystery isn’t very complex: the hiker was killed by a stray boomerang, but Sherlock doesn’t get to reveal the solution before he and John are summoned to Buckingham Palace, where they are met by Mycroft.

Professional dominatrix Irene Adler is in possession of a considerable number of compromising photographs featuring a female royal. Sherlock is tasked with recovering them.

He shows up at Irene’s door posing as the victim of a mugging. John is in tow, acting the good Samaritan. But their arrival has been anticipated, and Irene is prepared for them, undressed to kill. The plan nevertheless goes ahead, with John setting off the fire alarm to get Irene to give up the one thing she has left to reveal: the location of her safe. But some unexpected guests arrive in the form of a group of gun-wielding CIA agents, whose leader, Neilson, demands that Sherlock open hand over the safe’s contents to them. He deduces the combination (it’s Irene’s vital statistics), overcomes the intruders and recovers the phone on which the photos are stored. The phone is password protected, however - the screen reads “I am ---- Locked” - and Irene refuses to tell him the four-digit code. While John is checking the exits, Irene drugs Sherlock and takes back her phone. When reporting to Mycroft, Sherlock hears his brother discussing “Bond Air” with a colleague.

On Christmas Day, Irene has her phone delivered to Baker Street. Sherlock tells his brother that he’s certain Irene will turn up dead, and, sure enough, her body is in the morgue, the face mutilated.

A week later, John is summoned to Battersea Power Station by a very much alive Irene - she’s made a mistake, she says, and wants her phone back. Sherlock has followed John, and when he gets back to Baker Street, he finds that Neilson, the CIA goon who threatened him at Irene’s house is holding Mrs Hudson at gunpoint. He overcomes the agent, and hands him over to Lestrade - after dropping him out of the window several times.

Irene shows up at Baker Street, on the run. She explains that she photographed an e-mail sent to one of her clients, an MOD official. The e-mail concerns a 747 leaving Heathrow for Baltimore from 6.30 - flight no. 007, Mycroft’s “Bond Air.” The British and American governments have discovered that terrorists are planning bomb a commercial airliner, and have decided to use the incident to their advantage, filling the seats with the recently deceased, and piloting the 747 by remote-control. Many of the cases Sherlock turned down or failed to solve in recent months - the phoney ashes, the deceased grandparent, the body in Southwark - are related to this incident and a similar operation in Germany.

Unbeknownst to both Sherlock and John, Irene notifies Moriarty, who in turn contacts Mycroft, ruining the operation. Sherlock’s eagerness to show off in front of The Woman has spoiled everything.

Irene tells Mycroft that she is in possession of many more secrets. She demands an extortionate sum in return for her phone and password. She claims never to have cared for Sherlock, but he has taken her pulse, and knows from its rate that she really does love him. He realises at last that the code for her phone is “I am SHER Locked.” Her secrets revealed, Irene is handed over to Mycroft.

Months later, John meets Mycroft at Speedy’s, and learns that Irene was recently beheaded by a terrorist cell in Karachi. Mycroft wishes Sherlock to believe that The Woman is alive and in the US Witness Protection Program. Little do either of them realise that Irene escaped her execution with Sherlock’s assistance.

The best and the wisest man: Sherlock’s new-found fame means that he has the opportunity to be ruder than before to an even wider range of clients. He’s left a bag of thumbs in the fridge. He’s quite prepared to walk out of Buckingham Palace naked (although it’s a safe bet that Prince Harry has already beaten him to it). He plays God Save the Queen and We Wish You a Merry Christmas on the violin, and composes a melody of his own after Irene’s “death.” He indexes his socks. He’s appeared on Crimewatch. Though his apparent heartlessness is frequently harped upon, his anger at Neilson’s treatment of Mrs Hudson finds an outlet. As a child, Mycroft says, Sherlock wanted to be a pirate. After the Adler case, he solves a triple murder in Leeds. He’s younger than Mycroft (by seven years in the Canon).

I am lost without my Boswell: John is flexing his writing muscles, and raising his colleague’s public profile at the same time. He’s recently returned from Dublin when he and Sherlock become embroiled in the Adler affair. He’s visibly smug upon learning that the Queen enjoys his blog. Through a series of onscreen deductions, we learn a lot about John: he uses an electric razor, has been wearing the same shirt for two days, has purchased a new toothbrush, has had a heavy night out on the town with Mike Stamford, and needs to phone his sister (evidently, relations between the relations have improved since A Study in Pink).

The efficiency of our detective police force: Lestrade actually seems to enjoy Sherlock’s fame. Is he proud of the lad, or does he just like to watch him squirm? Since he films a drugged and rambling Sherlock on his phone, it’s probably more the latter than the former. He advises DI Carter not to punch Sherlock. He’s back with his wife, and planning a holiday in Dorset, not realising that she’s sleeping with a PE teacher. He takes the news surprisingly well.

There is a strong family resemblance about misdeeds:

Of course, this episode’s main source of inspiration is the first Sherlock Holmes short story, A Scandal in Bohemia, the only one to feature the character of Irene Adler, the adversary always referred to by Holmes as The Woman, though not in any of the three other stories in which she is mentioned. Changing Bohemia to Belgravia in the title is an irresistible choice, but author Kim Newman got there first in his short story A Shambles in Belgravia.

In the original tale, Holmes and Watson are employed by the King of Bohemia to recover from Miss Adler a compromising photograph which could prevent his forthcoming marriage. Holmes disguises himself as a priest and pretends to have been injured breaking up a fight between two ruffians (the entire incident is, of course, staged). Holmes is carried into Irene’s house to recuperate, and the two meet face-to-face for the only time, with Holmes in disguise and Watson not present to relate what’s said. The doctor is waiting outside, and starts an alarm of fire, causing Irene to give away the location of the photo. Holmes and Watson withdraw to Baker Street, intending to return to Irene’s home the following day. They are passed on the street by a young man who bids them a good evening. When, in the company of their client, they attempt to collect the photograph the next morning, they discover that Irene has fled, taking the picture with her as security. Donning her own disguise, she was the young man who passed them outside 221B the night before.

Pastiche writers and filmmakers have frequently reunited Holmes and Irene, usually suggesting a romantic relationship between the two (though it’s hard to imagine where they had the opportunity to fit it in, if you’ll pardon the expression). In his famous biography, W S Baring Gould suggested that Holmes and Irene were involved sexually and that the child resulting from that union grew up to be Rex Stout’s famously rotund detective Nero Wolfe. In the 1976 TV movie Sherlock Holmes in New York, screenwriter Alvin Sapinsley also supposed that Holmes and Irene (played by Roger Moore and Charlotte Rampling) had a torrid affair, a fact exploited by Professor Moriarty (John Huston) who kidnaps their son in order to dissuade Holmes from interfering in this week’s crime of the century. Author Carole Nelson Douglas has written an entire series of Irene Adler novels.

The 2012 Irene is a professional dominatrix, who is known as The Woman for business purposes. It’s impossible not to be reminded of the hit US crime show CSI, in which, during the first seven or so seasons, lead investigator Gil Grissom was involved in a will-they-won’t-they or have-they-already-when-we-weren’t-watching relationship with a dominatrix named Lady Heather.

As in the short story, Sherlock takes on the role of a cleric when trying to inveigle his way into Irene’s residence. His justification for having John start a small blaze - “on hearing a smoke alarm, a mother would look towards her child” - has its origin in the Canon as “a married woman grabs at her baby.”

Irene gets to say the line she speaks while in male costume, “Goodnight, Mr Sherlock Holmes,” after drugging him in much the same manner as Jeff the cabbie did in the pilot episode. Good thing it was never broadcast, or there’d be no excuse for Sherlock falling for it again.

Holmes’ reward at the end of Conan Doyle’s story is a photograph of Irene. Here, he takes her camera phone, in spite of the inconvenience to Mycroft and the fact that it’s technically evidence. He might, of course, have replaced it with the duplicate he had made to fool Irene earlier in the episode, but evidently chooses not to. Brothers, eh?

Another apparent influence upon Moffat’s script is Billy Wilder’s 1970 film The Private Life of Sherlock Holmes, in which Holmes (Robert Stephens) is bewitched and hoodwinked by Gabrielle Valladon (Genevieve Page), alias German spy Ilse von Hoffmanstal. She is taken into custody by Mycroft Holmes (Christopher Lee), who comments, “You’re mush better than most operatives working for British Intelligence.” Compare this with “I wish our lot were half as good as you,” spoken by Mark Gatiss’ Mycroft here. Both co-creators have spoken of their admiration for Private Life, and the depiction of Mycroft in this series owes an equal debt to Conan Doyle’s original character and to Christopher Lee’s interpretation of the role in Wilder’s film.

Speaking of Holmes movies, it’s impossible not to see a touch of Guy Richie’s style in the slo-mo fight sequence with the CIA operatives at Irene’s house.

One of John’s blog entries is headed Sherlock Holmes Baffled, the title of the character’s very first film appearance, a short (and boy, do I mean short) from around 1900.

There are, needless to say, numerous references to other tales from the Canon scattered throughout the episode. John christens a case concerning comic books The Geek Interpreter, a pun on Mycroft’s introductory tale The Greek Interpreter. Other slightly altered titles include The Speckled Blonde for The Speckled Band and The Navel Treatment for The Naval Treaty.

Moriarty’s text to Mycroft - “Dear me, Mr Holmes, Dear me” - shares its wording with the note sent by a triumphant professor to Holmes the younger at the end of the final novel, The Valley of Fear.

Sherlock’s website, according to John, differentiates 240 types of tobacco ash (Sherlock corrects him - it’s 243). The monograph in which he describes his research is mentioned in The Boscombe Valley Mystery, where he’s only reached 140 brands - well, he’s had over a hundred years to work on it. The Elementary episode A Giant Gun, Filled With Drugs presents a variation on the same reference.

Once again, Sherlock chides John with the words “You see but do not observe.”

Likening the faked terrorist incident to the wartime bombing of Coventry, Sherlock comments, “The wheel turns, nothing is ever new,” which is not unlike his observation in A Study in Scarlet, “There is nothing new under the sun. It has all been done before.”

At Buckingham Palace, Sherlock asks, “And my client is..?” to which the Queen’s Equerry replies, “Illustrious.” What else could this be but a reference to The Retired Colourman? No, wait. Sorry. The Illustrious Client. “I’m used to mystery at one end of my cases, both ends is too much,” Sherlock complains, just as he did in the original. Why he should consider it a mystery, given that they’ve been brought to the home of Her Majesty the Queen, and are presently being addressed by her Equerry is, as Mycroft points out, hard to fathom.

Two significant items of attire make their first appearance in A Scandal in Belgravia. Sherlock is seen in a dressing gown, the Canonical Holmes’ garment of choice for lounging around Baker Street. And then there’s the deerstalker, which Sherlock grabs to evade the attention of photographers, accidentally giving himself a trademark look, referenced in all the episodes this season. This item of headgear has long been associated with Sherlock Holmes, and many films have had him wearing it whether in the town or the country. Like Watson’s moustache, it’s actually an invention of Strand Magazine artist Sidney Paget, who first drew Holmes wearing it in The Boscombe Valley Mystery. In Silver Blaze, Conan Doyle writes that Holmes is wearing “his ear-flapped travelling cap,” which Paget again depicted as a deerstalker. Critics have argued for decades over whether or not this was the writer’s intention (I happen to think that it was). It’s interesting to note that, after Paget’s death, the deerstalker vanished from the Strand until it resurfaced in Frank Wiles’ drawings for the final published story, Shoscombe Old Place.

Speaking of the publication that made Holmes famous, Sherlock says he’s taken a safety deposit box at a bank on the Strand. Given the degree of detail put into this series, that’s probably an intentional nod.

There is, however, something of a missed opportunity in our fist sight of Sherlock’s bedroom - in The Dying Detective, Conan Doyle notes that the walls are adorned with “pictures of celebrated criminals.” Here, it’s just the Periodic Table. Who might the 21st Century Sherlock have had in his room? Bernie Madoff? OJ?

Some of Holmes’ “missing” cases are name-dropped in this episode, too. The Queen herself enjoyed John’s reminiscence about the aluminium crutch. In The Musgrave Ritual, this is described as a pre-Watson problem, but we get no further details about it either here or in The Hounds of Baskerville, where it is mentioned in passing once again. Conan Doyle has ruined the lives of many a pastiche writer by forcing them to learn more about the properties of aluminium and the behaviour of bees than they would otherwise care to know.

In order to get John to duck when he’s about to open Irene’s safe and cause the gun within to go off, Sherlock yells “Vatican Cameos!” This is the affair Holmes was preoccupied with in The Hound of the Baskervilles at the time of Sir Charles Baskerville’s death.

We know about John’s army background, but this is the first episode to specify in the dialogue that he belonged to the Fifth Northumberland Fusiliers, as did the Canonical Watson.

He reveals in this story that his middle name is Hamish, and though this is not strictly Canonical, Dorothy L Sayers, the creator of Lord Peter Wimsey, suggested it as an explanation for the fact that Watson’s wife calls him James rather than John in The Man With the Twisted Lip, Hamish being the Scottish equivalent of James, more or less. Many pastiche writers have taken this as gospel - in Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows, Hamish given as the middle name of Jude Law’s Watson, too.

Why is the counter on John’s blog stuck at 1895? Because Vincent Starrett’s poem 221B ends with these lines:

“Here, though the world explode, these two survive...

And it is always eighteen ninety-five.”

I have never loved: We are given a surprising number of hints regarding Holmes’ sexual experience, or lack thereof. “Sex doesn’t alarm me,” he insists. “How would you know?” asks Mycroft. Mrs Hudson has never known Sherlock to be in any kind of romantic relationship. Irene asks him if he’s ever “had” anyone. He evades the question. She says that Moriarty refers to him as the Virgin, though he never does so onscreen.

Sherlock has to be brought to Buckingham Palace wearing only a sheet. When he attempts to march out, Mycroft stands on the sheet leaving his brother naked for a moment. A large percentage of Sherlock’s viewers pass out from a combination of shock and joy, and hope they haven’t missed too much of the episode when they’re finally brought round.

Irene, too, is naked, but for a lot longer (though it’s all very tastefully shot, dammit). The pious Daily Mail ran a large picture of a naked Lara Pulver to remind us all just how arous- I mean outraged we should be.

Irene deduces John’s strong feelings for Sherlock, given that he avoided his friend’s photogenic nose and teeth when punching him. Once again, he protests that he’s not gay. Irene replies that she is.

John thinks he’s got lucky when a glamorous woman approaches him on the street, but she’s one of Irene’s assistants. It’s suggested that he watches porn on his laptop - a very convenient and time-effective way to acquire knowledge of women of many nations and three continents. He’s been through a string of girlfriends since Sarah. Even he’s having difficulty telling them apart, which is why the latest, Jeanette, walks out on him.

Irene changes the ringtone on Sherlock’s mobile phone - it’s now a sexy moan, though not after this episode.

Sherlock humiliates Molly at Baker Street by deducing that she’s seeing a man for whom she has romantic expectations - it’s him, of course. At least he apologises for a change.

A seven-per-cent solution: After Sherlock identifies Irene’s body, Mycroft offers him a cigarette (low tar), which he accepts. Mycroft warns John and Mrs Hudson, who search the flat for drugs. It’s not the first time, either.

A certain unexpected vein of pawky humour: Sherlock: “I dislike being outnumbered, it makes for too much stupid in the room.”

Moriarty’s phone plays Stayin’ Alive by the Bee Gees, appropriate in that it precedes his decision not to kill John and Sherlock after all. It’s heard again in The Reichenbach Fall, just prior to Moriarty’s death.

John: “Do you just carry on talking when I’m away?” Sherlock: “I don’t know, how often are you away?”

At Buckingham Palace, John asks if they’ll be seeing the Queen, at which point, Mycroft strides in. “Apparently, yes,” Sherlock responds.

The Queen’s Equerry: “People do come to you for help, don’t they, Mr Holmes?” Sherlock: “Not to date anyone with a navy.”

John: “You don’t trust your own secret service?” Mycroft: “Naturally not. They all spy on people for money.”

The fight scene between Sherlock and John is comedy gold. “I always hear ‘punch me in the face’ when you’re speaking, but it’s usually subtext,” the doctor says when asked to provide his friend with convincing injuries. The fight goes a little too far, and Sherlock attempts to call a halt. “I was a soldier,” John reminds him, “I killed people.” “You were a doctor!” Holmes protests. “I had bad days!” he replies.

John walks in on Sherlock and a naked Irene. “I’ve missed something, haven’t I?”

Another visual gag - a Cluedo board is pinned to the wall, for some reason. We find out a little more about this in the next episode.

My head is in a whirl: A hiker is killed by a stray boomerang? And we’re sure this comes under the category of “improbable” rather than “impossible”? Well, OK then.

The extraordinarily cautious Mycroft is extraordinarily careless in discussing the “Bond Air” operation in front of his brother. And how exactly is Flight 007 supposed to “save the world”? Plainly, the terrorist incident in Düsseldorf had no effect. Is Mycroft’s plan really to keep blowing up planes until it has the desired effect?

Most important of all, who’s the woman on the slab? Her body is an exact match for Irene’s - Sherlock, a trained observer, has no hesitation in identifying her corpse as the woman he matched wits with in Belgravia, so this is no spur-of-the-moment substitution. Which begs the question: did Irene murder her? If she did, it makes it a little tough to root for her. If not, how did this poor woman die, and who mutilated her features? Perhaps Moriarty, once again fulfilling the role of Bad Samaritan, provided the cadaver. That doesn’t really help matters, though, since it means that he killed an innocent woman and Irene was OK with that.

“All lives end, all hearts are broken. Caring is not an advantage, Sherlock.” The script for A Scandal in Belgravia is filled with those little touches of wit and invention one expects from Steven Moffat. The visual flourishes are back with a vengeance, including a smart sequence where Sherlock, Irene and Irene’s couch are transported to the scene of the hiker’s death - an interactive flashback. But for the first time, we have an episode that might have been better with a shorter running length. The pace of story varies drastically from scene to scene, perhaps due in part to the fact that it takes place over a considerable period of time, but needn’t. Obviously weeks or even months pass during which Sherlock’s reputation builds in those early scenes. Things start to move again once the Irene plotline begins, but then grind to a halt with the unnecessary acknowledgement of the Christmas and New Year festivities. Another six months pass, during which Sherlock has Irene’s phone (and the battery still hasn’t died - I want one), then at least another two months until news is received of her second “death.” Speaking of which, surely no-one really believes Irene is dead when that old mystery movie favourite, a body with a mutilated face is discovered? It’s simply a question of marking time until she shows up again. This element really feels like filler, and serves no useful purpose in the storyline.

It would seem from her password and her insistence in her call to Moriarty that he be allowed to live, that Irene has fallen for Sherlock big time without ever actually meeting him. Luckily, her feelings are reciprocated. So, take heart, stalkers of the world: there’s hope for you yet.

It’s questionable whether Irene would still be of the opinion that brainy is the new sexy if, instead of resembling Benedict Cumberbatch, Holmes looked anything like the author of this book (picture withheld out of sheer human decency).

2X02: The Hounds of Baskerville

UK Airdate: 8 Jan 2012

Writer: Mark Gatiss

Director: Paul McGuigan

Guest Cast: Russell Tovey (Henry Knight); Amelia Bullmore (Dr Stapleton); Clive Mantle (Dr Frankland); Simon Paisley Day (Major Barrymore); Sasha Behar (Dr Mortimer); Will Sharpe (Corporal Lyons); Stephen Wight (Fletcher); Gordon Kennedy (Gary); Kevin Trainor (Billy); Rosalind Knight (Grace); Sam Jones (Young Henry); Chipo Chung (Presenter); Simon Blood DeVay (Scientist)*

*Uncredited

Plot: It’s been a whole morning since Sherlock last solved a case, and the only fresh problem presented to him since then comes from little Kirsty, whose rabbit Bluebell turned luminous before vanishing.

Rescue from boredom comes in the form of Henry Knight. He brings with him a fantastic myth from his native land of Dartmoor - the myth of Baskerville Chemical and Biological Weapons Research Centre, rumoured to be creating genetic animal mutations for the battlefield. Henry is certain that, as a child, he saw his father murdered by a huge, furry beast with glowing red eyes. Young Henry was traumatised, his father’s body was never discovered. Now, twenty years later, he has returned to the scene of the killing, Dewer’s Hollow, where he discovers “the footprints of a gigantic hound!”

They follow their client back to Dartmoor to investigate the case of the dog in the Knight-time. Staying at the Cross Keys Inn, John notices an invoice for supplies of meat, despite their proud boast of a vegetarian menu. The manager, Gary is glad of the income the tale of the demon hound is bringing into the area.

Sherlock questions the local tour guide, Fletcher, who claims to have seen the hound - he, too, believes that the beast is an escaped Baskerville experiment, and has a plaster cast of an enormous paw-print in his rucksack.

Using Mycroft’s ID, Sherlock and John are allowed to inspect the Baskerville labs. They meet the genial and very tall Dr Bob Frankland and Dr Stapleton, whose name Sherlock recognises - she’s the mother of young Kirsty, owner of the glow-in-the-dark rabbit, Bluebell, one of her experiments. Sherlock and John’s deception is ultimately discovered. They are confronted by Major Barrymore, and rescued by Dr Frankland, who insists that Sherlock is indeed Mycroft. As well as being a friend of Henry Knight, Frankland is an admirer of Holmes’ work, and a regular reader of Watson’s blog.

Henry tells them that, during his sessions with his therapist, Dr Louise Mortimer, he keeps seeing the words “liberty” and “in.” Sherlock proposes taking Henry back out on the moor that night in the hopes that the hound, if it exists, will attack him.

During their expedition, Henry explains that his father and Frankland were friends, despite Knight Sr disapproving of the work going on at Baskerville. John is separated from the others when distracted by the repeated flashing of a light, a message in Morse Code - UMQRA. In Dewer’s Hollow, both Sherlock and Henry see the hound, though the detective initially denies it.

At the Cross Keys, Sherlock is visibly shaken, and finally confesses to having seen the gigantic hound. John follows up on the Morse Clue, only to discover a different sort of dogging going on - the amorous Mr Selden keeps catching his belt on the car’s light-switch, and the mysterious message is entirely unintentional.

Wining and dining Henry’s therapist, John tries to find out whether Sherlock might be suffering from the same mental malady as his client. Frankland ruins John’s chances of getting into, among other things, Louise Mortimer’s good books, by revealing the nature of his relationship with Sherlock Holmes.

The next morning, Holmes tells Henry that he took the case because he was intrigued by his client’s use of the archaic term “hound.” He runs into Lestrade, who is working undercover on Mycroft’s instructions. John tells him about the Inn’s order for meat. Gary confesses to keeping a large dog in a nearby mine shaft, hoping to boost tourism. Billy the chef (and Gary’s lover) claims that the dog was put down.

While Henry gradually descends into madness, Sherlock and John get Mycroft’s authorization to return to Baskerville. John’s search for the hound is terrifyingly successful. Having first been disoriented by light and noise, he finds himself trapped in an unlit lab, able to hear the snarling of the fearsome beast before he is finally rescued by Sherlock, who is now certain that, despite the evidence of their eyes, they have both somehow been drugged.

Sherlock remembers Project HOUND, an experiment that took place in Liberty, Indiana (hence Henry’s recollection of the words Liberty and In) two decades earlier. Deducing Barrymore’s password, he’s able to find out the details of the experiment, an attempt to create a delirient drug delivered by aerosol. Bob Frankland has evidently been continuing the experiments.

Convinced that he is being stalked by the hound, Henry fires a gun at Dr Mortimer. John gets a call from the distraught therapist. Lestrade, John and Sherlock catch up with Henry at Dewer’s Hollow before he can commit suicide. Sherlock explains that on the night of his father’s murder, he didn’t see a monster, but Frankland in a gas mask and a HOUND T-shirt. The dog he saw the previous night was an ordinary dog, he insists... but then the hound appears to all of them. Henry shoots it, and as the effects of the drug wear off, they see it for what it is - Gary and Billy’s dog, which they couldn’t bear to put down. The hallucinations were caused by the fog, actually the gas from the Project HOUND experiments. Frankland is present, too - he’s the one who’s been gassing Henry in the hope of driving him into madness before he can recall the details of his father’s murder. In making his escape from the chemical minefield, Frankland runs into the actual minefield surrounding the Baskerville labs, and is killed.

The case of over, but Sherlock’s difficulties are just beginning. At an undisclosed location, Mycroft Holmes has no option but to order the release of James Moriarty, a man with just one thing on his mind...

The best and the wisest man: Sherlock is going stir crazy as the episode begins, not helped by the fact that he’s unable to get his hands on any cigarettes - Mycroft’s gesture in A Scandal in Belgravia evidently caused a relapse. Benedict Cumberbatch seems to be channelling Jeremy Brett in these early scenes. He’s written a blog on the identification of perfume and recognises the brand Mrs Hudson is using to drive Mr Chatterjee wild as Casbah Nights. In addition to stealing Lestrade’s ID (see A Study in Pink), he also has Mycroft’s “Access All Areas” pass. He really overdoes it when praising John, perhaps because he’s planning to drug him and it’s a form of pre-emptive apology. He’s able to drive - we see him behind the wheel of a vehicle in Dartmoor. He’s genuinely afraid after seeing the hound for the first time, and can’t prevent his hands from shaking. He stores memories in his mind palace. He sees Moriarty (the thing he fears the most) when he removes Frankland’s gas mask.

I am lost without my Boswell: John regularly e-mails his girlfriends, and Sherlock regularly reads those e-mails. He’s hidden Sherlock’s cigarettes under his skull (that still sounds odd). He’s retained his army ID and uses it when being escorted round the Baskerville labs - he enjoys pulling rank when he gets the chance. He’s wearying of Sherlock’s habit of turning his coat collar up in order to look cool. He considers himself Sherlock’s friend. “I don’t have friends!” his friend responds. The next day he clarifies his reply, explaining that he has only the one friend, singular. Entirely singular, in fact. He doesn’t take sugar in his coffee. John gets to work on his own for a large portion of the episode, but his pursuit of the Morse Code message and his subtle interrogation of Louise Mortimer, both end in humiliation.

The efficiency of our detective police force: Lestrade is just back from a holiday, and boasts a healthy tan. John knows his first name, Greg, but Sherlock has never bothered to find it out. He enjoys working outside London, and has no difficulty getting access to a gun.

There is a strong family resemblance about misdeeds: It’s quite surprising that the producers should have waited until the second season before taking a crack at the most famous Sherlock Holmes book, and, after Dracula, probably the most-filmed novel of all time. In the Conan Doyle original, Holmes and Watson are tasked with protecting the last member of the Baskerville family, Sir Henry. An ancient legend states that a spectral hound has stalked all the males of the family since Cromwell’s time. The hound is shown to be a very real threat, a massive dog coated in a handily unscented phosphorescent paint by Sir Henry’s neighbour Jack Stapleton, who turns out to be a previously unknown member of the Baskerville family, out for the inheritance. Given its reputation, it’s surprising that Holmes is absent for a large portion of the book.

Several plot elements have been cleverly updated. Sir Henry has been robbed of his title, which becomes his surname. The manuscript bearing the legend of the hound is replaced by a documentary on the secretive experimental site. Part of Fletcher the tour guide’s patter, “Stay away from the moor at night if you value your lives,” is very similar to the warning letter received by Sir Henry Baskerville: “As you value your life or your reason keep away from the moor.” Incidentally, the guide gets his name from Conan Doyle’s friend Fletcher Robinson, who provided the writer with the inspiration for the tale.

Many names from The Hound of the Baskervilles are recycled, though the characters in this episode bear no resemblance to those in the book. Dr Stapleton proves to be entirely innocent (of anything other than ungodly animal experimentation) while Jack Stapleton was the killer, using his own wife as a lure for the lovesick Henry Baskerville.

Major Barrymore takes his name from Sir Henry’s butler, who is receiving messages from a convict hiding out on the moor - his brother-in-law Selden, the Notting Hill Murderer. This aspect of the storyline is briefly acknowledged when John spots what appears to be a message in Morse Code - the romantic soul in the car accidentally signalling with his belt is named Selden.

The Frankland of the novel is no murderer, just a mean-spirited old swine obsessed with litigation. He has a daughter named Laura Lyons with whom he has broken all ties. There’s a Corporal Lyons at Baskerville, but absolutely no suggestion of any familial relationship. Frankland is played by Clive Mantle, who appears briefly in the 1988 Sherlock Holmes comedy Without a Clue, starring Michael Caine and Ben Kingsley.

Holmes and Watson’s client in The Hound of the Baskervilles is Dr James Mortimer, a local physician and friend of the Baskerville family. Louise Mortimer has at least some ties to Henry Knight, but is otherwise entirely unlike her namesake.

The Great Grimpen Mire, the swamp which (probably) claims the life of the evil Stapleton has been cleverly reimagined as the Great Grimpen Minefield, which claims the life of the evil Frankland. Gary and Billy keep their phoney hound chained up in an abandoned mineshaft, just as Jack Stapleton did.

Sherlock’s assessment of the case as “refined, cold-blooded murder”can be found in Chapter 12 of the novel. Elsewhere, he says of John, “You’ve never been the most luminous of people, but as a conductor of light, you are unbeatable. Some people who aren’t geniuses have an amazing ability to stimulate it in others.” This is an almost direct quote from the first chapter, and can also be heard in the Elementary episode A Landmark Story.

The substance Sherlock craves that is seven-per-cent stronger than tea, is, of course, cocaine. The oft-quoted dosage is mentioned just once, in The Sign of Four.

In his quest for cigarettes, he briefly checks a slipper for traces of cigarettes. In The Musgrave Ritual, Holmes notes that Holmes keeps his tobacco “in the toe end of a Persian Slipper.”

Sherlock first appears in this episode clutching a harpoon, and drenched with blood. The story Black Peter begins in much the same way, although the Holmes of the Canon thinks his experiment worthwhile rather than “tedious.”

His claim that his brother Mycroft “practically is the British Government” has its origins in The Bruce-Partington Plans.

In A Study in Scarlet, Stamford tells Watson that he could imagine Holmes giving a friend a pinch of a vegetable alkaloid “in order to have an accurate idea of the effects.” In fact, Sherlock only thinks he’s drugging John by placing sugar in his coffee - it later transpires that John has inhaled some of the gas from leaking pipes at the facility - but he’s still happy to take advantage of it and throw the doctor into a state of blind panic. Small wonder he has only one friend.

The term Sherlock uses to describe the suntanned Lestrade - “as brown as a nut” - is the same one used by Stamford when meeting Watson for the first time following his return from Afghanistan.

Fletcher the tour guide is tricked into showing off his cast of the hound’s print when Sherlock gives the impression that he has a bet with John, the same strategy employed by Holmes in The Blue Carbuncle when attempting to track down the seller of a Christmas goose containing a stolen gem.

Fletcher’s friend in the MOD claims to have seen rats as big as dogs in the labs. Might this be a reference to Holmes’ most famous missing case, the Giant Rat of Sumatra?

Henry’s belief that a man in a gas mask was in fact a hideous creature mirrors The Masks of Death, starring Peter Cushing and John Mills as Holmes and Watson. In the 1984 film, a drunken beggar sees German spies sporting gas masks, and thinks them pig-like creatures.

“I envy you so much,” he tells John. “Your mind, it’s so placid, straightforward, barely used.” This is the second reference in two weeks to Billy Wilder’s The Private Life of Sherlock Holmes. The very next line, in which he likens his own mind to “an engine, racing out of control,” is a variation on a quote from Wisteria Lodge, and is also placed in the mouth of Robert Downey Jr in his first Holmes movie.

In Dr Stapleton’s lab, we see a monkey apparently giving a Nazi salute, echoing the cheeky monkey in Raiders of the Lost Ark (I’ve had some bad dates, but most of them involved her pouring a drink in my lap and telling me never to call again).

While recovering from their first excursion to Dewer’s Hollow, John calls Sherlock “Spock,” referring not to the child psychologist but to the emotionless Vulcan from TV’s Star Trek. In the motion picture Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country, written and directed by Seven-Per-Cent Solution author Nicholas Meyer, Mr Spock (Leonard Nimoy) states that he is a descendant of Sherlock Holmes. Zachary Quinto’s Spock also quotes Holmes in the highly successful 2009 reboot.

The inspiration for the mind palace to which Holmes retreats in order to recover the information on HOUND might well be Thomas Harris’ 1999 novel Hannibal.

Billy the chef buys the food for the faux hound from Undershaw Meat Supplies, named for Conan Doyle’s Surrey home. Mark Gatiss is patron of the Undershaw Preservation Trust.

For some reason, Gatiss has first Sherlock and then John say “I’ve not been idle” in both his scripts, but if the phrase originates somewhere other than in the author’s imagination, I’m really not sure. Something for the Second Edition, maybe.

I have never loved: John’s given up on explaining that he and Sherlock aren’t gay, even when Gary at the Cross Keys apologises for not being able to provide them with a double room. Frankland probably gives Louise Mortimer the wrong impression about John’s preferences when she describes him as Sherlock’s “live-in PA.”

A seven-per-cent solution: Sherlock has paid off everyone in a two-mile radius not to sell him cigarettes. He complains that he needs something “seven-per-cent stronger” than tea. He later encourages Henry Knight to smoke.

A certain unexpected vein of pawky humour: Sherlock tries to persuade John to tell him where his secret stash of ciggies is kept in return for next week’s lottery numbers - even he knows it’s preposterous.

John refuses to play Cluedo again with Sherlock, who insisted during their last game that the victim did it, and the rules of the board game are therefore wrong.

John: “In your own time.” Sherlock: “But quite quickly.”

John attempts to sympathise with Henry, but it’s far from easy with Sherlock noisily inhaling their client’s cigarette smoke.

Dr Stapleton: “I have a lot of fingers in a lot of pies. I like to mix things up - genes, mostly. Now and again, actual fingers.”

My head is in a whirl: So why did Frankland kill Henry’s dad? It’s the issue at the heart of the story, but it’s barely acknowledged. Henry suggests that his father had “found something out.” How vague is that? In addition, Frankland’s explosive end means we never find out what he did with the body, either.

Why does Sherlock switch from saying he won’t be accompanying John to Dartmoor, to saying that he will mere seconds later? Of course, it’s a fakeout - in the novel, Sherlock claims he can’t go with John and Sir Henry Baskerville, but is, in fact, observing events from a nearby hut on the moor. Even so, the abrupt change of mind makes no sense in this context.

Listeners to the popular BBC Radio 2 morning show hosted by Chris Evans wondered just where Sherlock and John acquired the jeep they use in Dartmoor - presumably, they loaned it from Henry.

It seems out of character for the professionally mistrustful Mycroft to think nothing of the fact that his security pass is missing, the one that affords access to all government facilities. No harm in that falling into the wrong hands, surely?

Pity the producers couldn’t afford the voice of the real Elvis - even from a few short words, it’s plainly not the King himself.

It’s astonishing that Lestrade simply takes Gary and Billy’s word for it that they had their dog destroyed. How hard would it have been for him to phone the vet and confirm it?

Billy complains about “the ruddy prisoner.” But what prisoner? There’s an escaped prisoner in Conan Doyle’s story, but nowhere in this episode! He’s not referring to Mycroft’s incarceration of Moriarty, is he? Maybe Billy knows far more than he’s telling.

Just a small point, but why does the lady enjoying Selden’s company address him as “Mr Selden”? In all other respects, they seem quite close.

“Twenty year-old disappearance? A Monstrous hound?I wouldn’t miss this for the world!” Scriptwriter Mark Gatiss is evidently trying for a modern Hammer Horror-vibe with The Hounds of Baskerville, but the lack of a through-line in the plot robs it of much of its potential for suspense - Sherlock and John have to visit every location twice before any progress can be made. The absence of a motive for the killer, surely one of the prerequisites of the mystery genre, is deeply unsatisfying. It’s almost as though Sherlock has gone meta - Frankland is the murderer, not for any particular reason but because the series requires that someone be the murderer. It’s the second near-miss in two episodes, both from the writers of the standout entries in Season One. Scenes of Henry descending into madness seem to go on for ages. Gatiss modestly gives himself only one line of dialogue as Mycroft (who, of course, doesn’t appear in the original novel). When finally seen, the hound in this story looks as phoney as the one in the last BBC adaptation ten years earlier, but given that its appearance is largely imaginary, that might well be the point.

2X03: The Reichenbach Fall

UK Airdate: 15 January 2012

Writer: Steve Thompson

Director: Toby Haynes

Guest Cast: Katherine Parkinson (Kitty Riley); Tanya Moodie (Ella); Tony Pitts (Chief Superintendent); Jaye Griffiths (Prosecuting Barrister); Ian Hallard (Defence Barrister); Malcolm Rennie (Judge); Sydney Wade (Claudie Bruhl); Edward Holtom (Max Bruhl); Paul Leonard (Bank Director); Christopher Hunter (Prison Governor); Tony Way (Prison Warder); Lorraine Hilton (Miss Mackenzie); Samantha-Holly Bennett (Reporter #1); Peter Basham (Reporter #2); Rebecca Noble (Reporter #3); Robert Benfield (Gallery Director); Ifan Huw Dafydd (Clerk of the Court); Michael Mueller (Father); Pano Masti (Assassin); Douglas Wilmer (Diogenes Gent); Stuart Mulcaster (Camera Man); Michael Wisniewski (CPS Solicitor); William Charles (Waiter)*; Gillian Steventon (Nurse)*; Sy Turner (Paparazzi Photographer)*

*Uncredited

Plot: Sherlock’s fame increases with his recovery of the missing Turner masterpiece Falls of the Reichenbach, the rescue of a kidnapped banker and the capture of the notorious Peter Ricoletti.

Fearing that the press will inevitably turn on him, John suggests that Sherlock keep a low profile for a while, but that proves impossible when Jim Moriarty, posing as a tourist, visits the Tower of London to inspect the Crown Jewels. Simply by pressing the icons on his mobile phone, Moriarty unlocks the case protecting the Crown Jewels, the vaults at the Bank of England and the cells at Pentonville Prison. When the security guards reach him, he is sat on a throne, draped in ermine, waiting for them to arrest him. He has already sent Sherlock a text, inviting him to “come and play.”

Six weeks later, Sherlock is called as an expert witness at Moriarty’s sensational trial, shunning the attentions of journalist Kitty Riley, who attempts to get close to him by posing as a groupie. Moriarty does not offer any defence at his trial. It takes the jury six minutes to reach a verdict of not guilty.

Sherlock is already waiting as his adversary arrives at Baker Street. Moriarty freely admits to threatening each member of the jury via the televisions in their hotel rooms. Sherlock has deduced that Moriarty’s very public crimes were simply a demonstration of his ultimate weapon - a key code capable of accessing any computer program anywhere in the world, effectively ending privacy, secrecy and security forever. The trial was, in effect, an advertisement for his services.

Two months after the acquittal, John is brought to Mycroft’s club, the Diogenes. Mycroft advises him that spurned journalist Kitty Riley has, with the assistance of an informant named Richard Brook, written an article for The Sun which will apparently reveal “the shocking truth” about Sherlock Holmes. He’s also learned that four international assassins have all moved into Baker Street.

At the doorstep of 221B, John finds an envelope filled with breadcrumbs. He doesn’t get a chance to tell Sherlock about it, though; Lestrade and Donovan are already present, having brought the kidnapping of the children of US Ambassador Bruhl to the consultant’s attention.

Visiting the school from which the children were abducted, Sherlock discovers that Bruhl’s son, Max, has left them a trail in linseed oil. John notices that an envelope containing a book of fairy tales found in the daughter’s trunk bears a wax seal matching the one on the envelope found outside Baker Street. Sherlock thinks that Moriarty is suggesting the story of Hansel and Gretel to them, and hopes that traces of the sole of the kidnapper’s shoe will lead them to the witch’s house. With the help of the Homeless Network, he identifies the building in which the children are being held - a disused sweet factory in Addlestone. The children are rescued just in time - the wrappers of the sweets with which they have been fed are coated in mercury.

When Sherlock attempts to interview the girl, Claudette, she points at him and screams. For some reason, he reminds her of her kidnapper. Sally suggests to Lestrade that Sherlock himself engineered the kidnapping. Anderson is quick to back her up. On a cab ride home, Moriarty reveals to Sherlock that this has been his plan - he will burn the detective by destroying his reputation. The Chief Superintendent orders Lestrade to bring Sherlock in for questioning.

Rescued from a near-accident by a man in the street, Sherlock is stunned to see his rescuer shot dead by a sniper. John recognises the dead man as one of the assassins Mycroft warned him about. It would seem that they all believe Sherlock has something of value, but any one of them who approaches him to retrieve it will be killed by the others. The problem is, Sherlock doesn’t know what that something is supposed to be.

Sherlock is about to be arrested for kidnapping, but he and John flee. They meet up with another assassin who, at gunpoint, tells them that Moriarty planted the computer key code somewhere in the flat. He doesn’t get to elaborate before he, too, is killed.

Sherlock and John visit Kitty to ask about her source, Rich Brook. When Brook appears, they’re stunned to see that he’s Moriarty. Kitty believes Rich is an actor hired by Sherlock to play a criminal mastermind in order to appear more brilliant, even to the extent of arranging his arrest and trial, on the understanding that Sherlock would rig the jury.

Having worked out the last phase of Moriarty’s plan, Sherlock leaves John and seeks out Molly at Bart’s. He needs her help: “You’ve always counted and I’ve always trusted you,” he tells her.

John confronts Mycroft at the Diogenes - he’s the only one who could have supplied so much information about Sherlock’s background for Kitty’s story. Is he conspiring with Moriarty against his own brother? Mycroft admits he had Moriarty interrogated for weeks in the hope that he would give up the location of the key code, but he would talk only to Mycroft, and then only about Sherlock.

Sherlock invites his enemy to meet him on the roof of Bart’s. John is drawn away by a call informing him that Mrs Hudson has been shot. But when he gets back to Baker Street, she’s alive and well.

In their rooftop confrontation, Moriarty confesses that he’s been searching for distractions all his life, and though Sherlock served as the best distraction, now he’s been beaten, there’s nothing left. Sherlock has finally realised where the key code is hidden - it’s inside his head. He memorised it when watching Moriarty drum his fingers during their encounter at Baker Street. But the Napoleon of Crime has a trump card yet to play - there is no computer code, all his break-ins were accomplished with the assistance of accomplices. Now that Sherlock has been so utterly beaten, the only thing remaining is his suicide. The remaining three gunmen will kill John, Mrs Hudson and Lestrade if he doesn’t jump from the roof. Moriarty is the only man who can call them off, and he shoots himself rather than be put in a position where he’s forced to do so. Now there’s only one way for Sherlock to save his friends...

Standing on the ledge, he phones John, who’s just arriving at Bart’s. Sherlock “confesses” to being a fake, to inventing Moriarty and stage-managing his investigations. The call is his suicide note, he says. John watches in horror as Sherlock jumps. He’s knocked over by a solitary cyclist before he can reach the body as it lands close to a truck loaded with plastic bags, which sets off again just as John reaches his friend. A quick check of his pulse shows that Sherlock’s heart is no longer beating. The body is whisked away by hospital staff. In the moments following Sherlock’s death, all three assassins stand down.

Visiting Sherlock’s grave, John finally gets to express his feelings. He refuses to believe that Sherlock’s life was a lie. “I was so alone... and I owe you so much.” He asks for one more miracle, that his friend not be dead. But his request goes unanswered, and he turns away to rejoin Mrs Hudson in the waiting taxi, not spotting Sherlock Holmes watching him from a safe distance.

The best and the wisest man: In addition to involving himself in current crimes, Sherlock also solves the mystery surrounding the death of Henry Fishguard, the story of which is relating in an extremely dusty old tome. He’s never enjoyed riddles, he claims. That seems unlikely, frankly. Mycroft says there is too much history between the two of them for him to warn his brother about the hitmen living feet away from him. Molly notes that Sherlock looks sad when he imagines John’s not looking. Kitty Riley’s newspaper article contains a great deal of information about Sherlock’s background. A pity we never get to read it, or hear any of it read aloud. As Molly is working, Sherlock uncharacteristically plays with a rubber ball. This is really the turning-point for Cumberbatch’s Sherlock Holmes. Previously, he’s left issues of morality to John, being more interested in the prospect of a puzzle than the protection of the innocent. It took him a series and a half to admit that he has even one friend. Now, in addition to realising that he can no longer manipulate Molly Hooper but must treat her as a feeling human being, he is placed in a position where he must make an enormous sacrifice in order to save the lives of the three most important people in his life.

I am lost without my Boswell: Following Sherlock’s “death,” John sees his therapist Ella for the first time in eighteen months. This doesn’t necessarily mean that only eighteen months has passed since A Study in Pink - given that A Scandal in Belgravia takes up the good part of a year and the scene with the therapist is set three months after the recovery of the Turner painting, it’d be surprising if that were the case. More likely, John continued with his sessions for some time after he moved into Baker Street. John has friends on the force - he receives a warning that Sherlock is to be brought in for questioning. He chins the Chief Superintendent for calling Sherlock a weirdo.

His movements are very military as he turns from Sherlock’s grave. It goes without saying that Martin Freeman is excellent - when is he ever not? But when working opposite Benedict Cumberbatch, who’s giving it his all on a hospital rooftop prior to taking the ultimate step, he more than holds his own, in a beautifully understated manner.

The efficiency of our detective police force: Once again, Lestrade seems genuinely proud of Sherlock, but isn’t beyond embarrassing him, which is why he presents the consulting detective with a deerstalker hat at the Ricoletti press conference. Like Claudette, he feels like screaming when Sherlock walks into a room. He calls him CSI: Baker Street.

Anderson is summoned to St Aldate’s school, mostly so that Sherlock can compliment him on his “brilliant impression of an idiot.” He’s noticeably aggravated when Sherlock makes a comment about bribery. At least his haircut has improved.

Sally Donovan is the first one to experience doubt over Sherlock’s results following the kidnapping. She considers his deductions “unbelievable,” but not in a good way.

There is a strong family resemblance about misdeeds: There is, by necessity, very little of the story of The Final Problem in The Reichenbach Fall, since there’s very little story in the original. Watson (and by extension) the readers have never heard of Holmes’ arch-enemy Professor Moriarty before this tale, which happens to concern the dismantling of his criminal organization. Holmes and Watson go on the run to Switzerland, only for the Professor to catch up with his old enemy at the Reichenbach Falls. Watson is drawn away, but returns to discover the aftermath of a struggle in which both Holmes and Moriarty have presumably fallen to their deaths. As is well-recorded, Conan Doyle intended this to be the final Sherlock Holmes story, though it’s hard not to suspect that he at least considered the possibility of reviving his creation at some point (otherwise, why not have Watson witness his friend’s death?). So all that remains of The Final Problem is the title repeatedly referenced in Jim Moriarty’s dialogue, a sly reference to the place of Holmes’ mock death, both in the painting and in Moriarty’s alias Richard Brook (the German for Reichenbach), the way in which John is drawn away from the climactic confrontation believing that a woman is desperately unwell and, of course, the fall. There’s also a précis of Sherlock’s description of Moriarty as “a spider at the centre of a web, a criminal web with a thousand threads, and he knows precisely how each and every single one of them dances.” The original wording can be heard in the penultimate Elementary episode, The Woman. Watson’s epitaph for Sherlock Holmes, “The best and the wisest man whom I have ever known,” finds modern form as “You were the best man and the most human human being that I’ve ever known.” (Note to self: That “best & wisest man” thing is pretty catchy - try to work it in elsewhere, if possible.)

The episode features another Empty House reference - the second or third, depending on whether you count the pilot episode - in the fact that a Russian hitwoman is living in the flat opposite 221B (it must have had extensive repairs since The Great Game).

The abduction of the American Ambassador’s children suggests The Priory School (and, perhaps, an incident in Laurie R King’s famous 1994 pastiche novel The Beekeeper’s Apprentice where the daughter of an American Senator is snatched), and the manner in which Sherlock follows the linseed oil footprints mirrors the pursuit of Jonathan Small and his pygmy accomplice Tonga in The Sign of Four. John insults Sherlock by referring to him as a machine, just as Watson did in that second novel: “You really are an automaton - a calculating machine.”

Another of the missing cases, Ricoletti of the club foot and his abominable wife, is covered too, with Sherlock’s capture of the elusive Peter Ricoletti, who might or might not be single and might or might n- well, you get the idea.

The Guardian article on Moriarty’s trial name-checks Holmes’ creator: “In a twist worthy of a Conan Doyle novella, Mr Sherlock Holmes...”

Probably the episode’s greatest coup is the presence at the Diogenes club of Douglas Wilmer, star of the BBC’s 1965 Sherlock Holmes series, opposite Nigel Stock’s Watson. These programmes are available on DVD in the States, but aggravatingly, not in the UK. Wilmer also appears briefly as the detective in the 1975 Gene Wilder comedy The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes’ Smarter Brother, and features in the James Bond film Octopussy with Roger Moore. Moore famously contacted Mark Gatiss via Twitter to recommend himself for a role in Sherlock. Might he be the second former Holmes to make an appearance in the series?

As stated elsewhere in this book, the notion that Moriarty is an invention of Sherlock Holmes is an idea that’s been used before, but Thompson cleverly subverts the concept by having the man himself pretend that he’s a fiction.

Moriarty’s break-in at the Tower of London is yet another nod to the Rathbone movie The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes in which the Professor (George Zucco) almost gets away with the crown jewels. Sherlock’s Moriarty, of course, isn’t actually interested in getting away. The music he’s listening to on his stereo is, fittingly, Gioachino Rossini’s La gazza ladra (The Thieving Magpie).

I have never loved: It’s pointed out to John that he is described as “confirmed bachelor John Watson” in the Daily Star. “What the hell are they implying?” he asks (the term is repeated in another article following Moriarty’s Tower of London coup).

Kitty asks whether the relationship between Sherlock and John is just platonic.

John glances at Kitty as she joins him in the gallery. Given the comedic skills of both Freeman and Katherine Parkinson (the first female Doctor Who - not yet, but mark my words...), there’s a sitcom waiting to happen there.

Moriarty calls Sherlock “honey.” Make of that what you will.

Molly insists that she and Jim only went out three times. Bearing in mind what occurred after the break-up, Sherlock recommends that she avoid future attempts at a relationship.

Fleeing the police hand-in-hand (having been handcuffed), John remarks, “Now people will definitely talk!”

Molly: “What do you need?” Sherlock: “You.” It’s a long time ‘til morning...

A certain unexpected vein of pawky humour: Sherlock imagines that he might throw his deerstalker at opponents, like some kind of “death Frisbee.”

At Moriarty’s trial, Sherlock is told by the judge that any “showing off” will be treated as contempt. He opens his mouth to reply, and we jump to a scene of him being led into the cell.

Otherwise, not a lot of laughs in an episode ending with the title character’s suicide.

My head is in a whirl: The newspaper article on the kidnapping of the banker doesn’t even bother to mention his name (although we’ll all be very surprised if it doesn’t turn out to be Crosby).

Sherlock is absolutely certain that Moriarty is behind the kidnapping of the Bruhl children, but why? The name never comes up until he and John encounter Molly at the lab, and even at that point, the connection between the envelopes hasn’t been noticed.

The Chief Superintendent is astonished to discover that Lestrade has used Sherlock on several “proper” cases. So he doesn’t read the papers, then. Or watch the news. Or visit Scotland Yard.

As with the other two entries in this season, there’s an important plot point that goes unexplored: Why does Claudette Bruhl scream when she sees Sherlock? This is the turning-point of the episode, the moment where the tide of opinion turns against our hero, so it’s a big deal, and yet it’s barely addressed. Sherlock sees Moriarty on several occasions after this incident, but never thinks to ask him how he managed it. Even John points out that it makes no sense, and who am I to argue?

“Every fairy tale needs a good old-fashioned villain.”

Having scripted the least memorable episode of Season One, Steve Thompson comes up with easily the best entry in the second season. The story keeps its momentum, and the sense of inevitable tragedy pervades every scene. The writer makes full use of all the toys at his disposal this time round, having a map of London visible only to Sherlock, on which he locates the chocolate factory in which the Bruhl children are being held. Of particular brilliance, though, is the decision to show Sherlock alive in the episode’s closing moments. Like Irene Adler’s phoney demise in A Scandal in Belgravia, it’s no surprise to learn that he survived, the question is how? The levels of fan excitement reached with this episode will surely be tough to reach ever again, but I have faith.