Here’s the Times piece the BBC quote was from in case people are interested. Major spoilers for The Empty Hearse
SHERLOCK HOLMES is back in business after faking his death, and, as far as the BBC is concerned, his version of events, involving fake blood and an inflatable landing mat, is explanation enough.
A 70ft leap? Easily survivable. Dr Watson fooled by the old Harry Houdini trick of stopping the pulse with a squash ball under the armpit? But of course he fell for it.
Yet while the fictional Holmes was able to walk away from a seemingly lethal fall, the show’s creators are finding it harder to brush off the sceptical questions of the professional pathologists and police officers whom Sherlock lightly scorns.
Fans waited two years to find out what happened to Holmes after he flung himself from the roof of St Bartholomew’s Hospital, watched by a horrified Watson. More than 9.7m viewers tuned in to the show on New Year’s Day, and they shared a record 370,000 tweets as the plot unspooled.
There were two red herrings — one involved the fitting of a Sherlock mask over Moriarty’s face as Sherlock bungee-jumped to safety and kissed Molly Hooper, his laboratory assistant. The other involved tossing a dummy off the roof, before Sherlock and Moriarty clinched in a kiss.
But the BBC said: “The final reveal was actually how he did it. That is the fall dealt with now and it will not be revisited in episodes two or three.” The second episode is on BBC1 tonight.
In the show’s supposedly convincing version of events, devised by a pre-eminent sleuth at the height of his powers, Holmes landed on an airbag, which was quickly removed by waiting helpers, and a corpse placed on the spot.
While Watson is knocked over by a cyclist, the body is switched for Holmes, who has a make-up team on hand to spray him with fake blood and place a rubber ball under his armpit to stop his pulse.
It does not convince John O’Connor, a former head of the Flying Squad. “It’s ridiculous, there are just too many imponderables,” he said. “The sheer logistics of dumping the body, making sure Watson is going to be hit by the bike in the right place at the right time … are too complicated.”
He added: “If you were planning a crime along those lines, you would never get away with it. There is too much technical expertise required for the fall, but the main problem for me is the number of potential witnesses (in a crowded street).”
Steve Truglia, a stuntman who has worked on the Bond films Tomorrow Never Dies and The World Is Not Enough, said Holmes would have needed “balls of steel” to make the jump. “I’ve seen stunt men at that height with very shaky knees. It’s not as straightforward as it looks — you [can] miss hitting the bag, or land in the wrong position.”
Truglia, who has executed falls from heights of 100ft without wires or ropes, said someone without significant training was unlikely to survive the fall without serious injury.
“It’s not impossible you could do it without killing yourself, but even for a physical guy like Sherlock it’s extremely dangerous. When it comes to as high as 70ft, the chances of someone without training seriously injuring themselves, even if they are physically fit, is about 80%, and the chance of death is about 60-70%.”