Sherlock Lives! But how? All is revealed (or is it?) in the detective’s massive return!
Sherlock, a British modernization of the famous detective, has been hugely successful internationally. It ran for two seasons of three TV movies before… Sherlock fell, as he does in the original stories, at the end of Season 2.
With an almost-literal cliff-hanger as colossal as Season 2’s Reichenbach Fall, Season 3 must have been a daunting prospect for the show’s creators Mark Gatiss and Steven Moffat. We definitely saw our hero plunge to his death. We then definitely saw him return. If Sherlock has one great success it’s that it truly provoked extensive speculation. Where do you go from there?
Well, firstly you solve the problem. Faced with this, Gatiss and Moffat opt to engage in the drama’s meta-narrative and bounce off numerous fan theories and conspiracies before challenging the very core, the predictability and heroism, of Sherlock Holmes.
For the most part, that was a wise choice – it beats not offering any solution, it beats offering a singular potentially underwhelming solution. It is fitting that a show that extends so far beyond the screen should continue its dialogue with the audience, and dissenters of this need to remember that the nature of watching television has changed. Media and the media’s consumers are much more closely linked now, and we are all much more heavily invested in the shows we watch. Gone are the days when one behind-the-scenes photo of a drama in a magazine was the height of your intrusion into that world. Now we know what our favourite stars have for breakfast, if they tweet it. (Which they usually do.) So flirting with these theories, subverting our expectations when we thought they had been subverted for the final time, was a good move.
It does not, however, entirely work. The problem with this dialogue is that it can become a bit introspective, which this season suffers from, in part. The other problem is more of a problem to me: the fact that it could be accused of laziness, or at least a lack of bravery. A good choice it was, but it was also the easy choice to leave the fall sort-of unresolved. It’s a get-out clause, and a way of excusing any ideas they put out there if people say it’s not good enough. Maybe it’s unfair to begrudge the writers of such a high-profile show a bit of lee-way, but if it’s high-profile, it needs to earn to stay that way!
“So soon after Sherlock?”
There are other problems here: Watson’s monotonous non-Sherlocked life was quite half-heartedly communicated compared to the way it was so effectively shown before he first met him back in the first episode. That’s a shame as that would be a nice way to loop back round to the show’s beginnings, and would give Sherlock’s reuniting with Watson more impact.
It did have a fair amount of impact regardless, however. A very funny sequence, it was consistent with the lighter tone throughout this episode, which was a pleasing way to ease us back in to the show. The music, from David Arnold and Michael Price, is equally light and fruity. It can’t last forever, though – Sherlock’s melancholy is very important to him!
We are introduced to Watson’s soon-to-be wife, Mary, too, played by Martin Freeman’s real-life wife Amanda Abbington. But with her sparky wit and warm voice she proves herself more than deserving of the job as opposed to appointed-through-nepotism, although she isn’t given much of a character to work with. Given that we, like Sherlock, have just returned, that is excusable at the moment, but again it can’t continue. The ensemble slot nicely back into place – I love Louise Brearley’s starring turn as the new Watson – and Benedict Cumberbatch is as mesmerizing as ever.
“I need to get to know London again. Breathe it in, every quiver of its beating heart.”
We needed to get to know Sherlock again, and although the episode was entertaining, it wasn’t quite indicative of the show as a whole. At least I hope it wasn’t. Sherlock’s return lived up to the hype as an utterly euphoric television moment – our heroes reuniting is lovely, it just could have perhaps been complimented better with the surrounding story. Whilst the aftermath of the Fall was always destined to dominate this episode, it should have spun us off into a new self-contained story of its own, a reason for watching in isolation, a hook. “The Empty Hearse” didn’t do that (it also didn’t deliver on its promise of the stunning image: an empty hearse), but it did do a lot of other things, most of them wonderful. We may not know how but still, let’s be thankful that Sherlock lives!
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