Tonight's Sherlock slithered towards the precipice with its silly repeating gag about sinister foreign assassins bumping each other off, as if we were suffering interference from a parallel Clouseau world. There have been moments in this micro-series where we seemed to be straying dangerously close to the perimeter wire of Doctor Who and its penchant for clever self-indulgence. (Note to producers: isn't there a job for Mark Strong here somewhere?) As Moriarty himself put it, "every fairytale needs a good old-fashioned villain". Nor would he have his very own super-villain to keep him up to scratch. Watson is forever whispering rational advice in Holmes's ear which could, if followed, make him appear a little more like a functioning member of society rather than a sociopathic pariah with a God complex, but if Holmes wasn't arrogant, abrasive and egomaniacal we might as well all give up and watch Inspector Lynley. "Two jurors are having an affair, with each other it would seem." At this point he was bawled out by the judge, who couldn't tolerate being upstaged in his own courtroom.īetween the seesawing poles of hubris and nemesis stands the doughty Dr John Watson ( Martin Freeman), who has the moral conscience and straight bat of an upstanding Edwardian cricketer, even if you still can't help thinking of him as that guy from The Office.
"The foreman's a medical secretary, trained abroad judging by her shorthand," he announced. that's really not your best line of questioning" etc), then delivered a swift analysis of the jury members after one sweep of the benches with his hi-def zoom eyesight. Odder still, he offered no defence.Ĭalled to the stand, Holmes patronisingly lectured his barrister on what questions she should and shouldn't ask him ("no, don't ask that, it'll be overruled. The smirking Mephistopheles of Crime had broken into the Bank of England, Pentonville prison and the vault housing the Crown Jewels simultaneously, though curiously hadn't stolen anything.
The theme of Holmes being too clever for his own good resounded loud and clear through the scene where the Great Detective was called as a witness in Moriarty's trial at the Old Bailey. Cumberbatch's expression of lemon-sucking contempt as he was forced to model the headgear in front of the cheering constabulary will surely become a cherished YouTube moment. "All my cuffs have buttons." Next up was a tie pin ("I don't wear ties"), then the coup-de-grâce from Inspector Lestrade (Rupert Graves, pictured below) and his police comrades - a deerstalker hat. "Diamond cufflinks," grunted Holmes irascibly, without bothering to tear open the elegant wrapping. He was handed a package for retrieving a Turner painting of the Reichenbach falls. The opening scenes had been devised as a montage of Holmes being acclaimed for cracking assorted cases, and receiving gifts from grateful clients. Although there was no trip to Switzerland, we had a final plunge which might not have been all that final, as well as a false identity for Moriarty which translated as Reichenbach (Rich Brook).Īmong other pleasures, there was some superb comic writing. Once again the story had been devised as a set of variations on a Conan Doyle original ( The Final Problem, in which Holmes and Moriarty fought to the death). I felt the piece flagged a bit with about 20 minutes to go, as if everybody was treading water while the writer racked his brains about which rabbit hole to dive down, but eventually he came up with a cracking conclusion which left you with a lump in your throat while scratching your head. This would include the press, incarnated here by the ambitious and unscrupulous tabloid hackette Kitty Riley (Katherine Parkinson, pictured below left).
Many, in other words, would prefer to believe that Holmes was a cunning con-man rather than a far-too-clever genius of detection, not least those who had been made to look foolish by his brilliance. Moriarty's cunning plan was to paint Holmes as a fraud, and as Sherlock himself commented, the fiendish part was that it was "a lie all wanted to believe". This week's screenwriter was Steve Thompson, who had been set the daunting task of constructing an escalating battle of puzzles, bluffs and conundrums as Moriarty sought to lure Holmes onto the battlefield and then destroy him by means of his own cleverness. I suppose this criminally meagre ration leaves us eager for more, though the way Benedict Cumberbatch's career is rocketing skywards and Hollywood-wards, it might have been wise to shoot some more episodes with him while he still had the overcoat on and the violin to hand.Īnyway, Moriarty was back, played once again with a kind of amphibian slipperiness by Andrew Scott (pictured right).
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