No matter what century he's in, Cumberbatch's Sherlock still isn't keen on his deerstalker hat.Mary returns for the special, and is just as duplicitous. She turned out to be some kind of secret agent with a very deadly set of skills, even shooting Sherlock when he found her on an assassination mission.
WATCH SHERLOCK THE ABOMINABLE BRIDE TONIGHT ONLINE SERIES
One of the major changes in the third series was the addition of Amanda Abbington as Watson's mysterious wife Mary.They squabble and bicker like an old married couple, even debating what clothes they should wear when they go to the morgue. The 'bromance' between Holmes and Watson is very much the same, whatever the era.The same goes for the show's signature camerawork - with pauses and pans aplenty as the viewer is given every chance to pick up on the clues left behind.As seen in the trailer, Holmes is up to his old tricks again, reflecting on a crime scene from the comfort of his armchair. Sherlock uses his 'mind palace' in both settings - where the detective uses a photographic memory to visualise everything he has seen, with the audience taken along for the ride.Just like in the modern version, he gets plenty of fame and flack for his writing. The 21st century Dr Watson records his adventures with Sherlock via a series of blogs, and in the special Martin Freeman's physician jots down their escapades as books.The Abominable Bride had two fatal flaws: it was both too basic and too complicated.Īs Holmes kept pointing out ‘there are no such things as ghosts.’ The ghost story it was based on was about as scary as a ride on Brighton pier.Īt the same time, like many of Moffat’s Doctor Who extravaganzas, it was too clever by half – with endless ostentatiously witty quips and references to previous episodes.Ĭumberbatch's Sherlock banters with Una Stubbs' Mrs Hudson in the Sherlock special trailer, pictured, Here he made Sherlock a poor man’s Doctor Who – someone who could only time-travel in his ‘mind palace.’ The message was clear: it was his show and he could do what he wanted with it – make Sherlock go anywhere. It was more an instance of Moffat having his cake and eating it (or Sherlock’s case, having his opium and smoking it). Making an episode set largely in the Victorian era was an opportunity for Cumberbatch and Martin Freeman he said he found ‘irresistible.’
You could also call it The Curse of Steven Moffat, the brains and imagination behind both Sherlock and of course Doctor Who.įlitting between time periods is his speciality, his obsession, and on this evidence, his Achilles heel. He even expressed the fear that it had ‘jumped the shark’ – the term named after Happy Days that the media uses for shows that have done something so fatal its reputation is irredeemable, finished. ‘A playful conceit’, the Beeb called it, while Cumberbatch himself said when he first heard of the idea he thought it was ‘madness. Questions remain over whether Andrew Scott's evil mastermind Jim Moriarty, left, is alive and we still know little about Dr Watson's mysterious wife Mary, right, who turned out to be a secret agent in the modern show,