Watson’s reaction is completely unfair, but provides the writers with an opportunity to deprive audiences of the beloved partnership without the threat of death to one or both of them (par for the course by now). The episode ends with Watson blaming Holmes for the consequences and demanding that he never darken his door again. Mary decides to leave John and their child for safety’s sake and is persuaded to return by Holmes. The focus of the episode is actually Mary’s past catching up with her (she was a freelance military contractor who worked for the CIA and the British government amongst others). Following the segue from the Special to season 4, “The Six Thatchers” sees Moriarty’s machinations fade into the background as a link emerges between two of Holmes’ new cases. The three episodes in the season all take their titles from original stories – “The Six Thatchers” (“The Six Napoleons”), “The Lying Detective” (“The Dying Detective”) and “The Final Problem” – and succeed in both paying homage to them and creatively reinventing them for viewers who have and have not read them. Once Holmes reassures the authorities that Moriarty is dead, his murder of Magnussen is covered up, and he is reinstalled in Baker Street to await the unfolding of Moriarty’s retribution. Most of the Special takes place inside Holmes’ Mind Palace (AKA his drug-addled brain for this case) so the time elapsed between the end of season 3 and the start of season 4 is a matter of days rather than the three years the tormented audience has had to wait. The episode finished with Moriarty (Andrew Scott) apparently returning from the dead, being broadcast on every television screen in the UK and asking “Did you miss me?” The Special began with Holmes being recalled only a few minutes after his exile and its purpose was to confirm Moriarty’s death and establish his revenge as posthumous. The third season ended with “His Last Vow” (based on the Conan Doyle story “Charles Augustus Milverton” rather than “His Last Bow” as the title suggests), where Holmes was sent on a suicide mission to Eastern Europe in lieu of standing trial for the murder of Magnussen. Season 3 was Moriarty-free and the overarching plot across the three episodes was the discovery of the real identity of Mary Morstan (Amanda Abbington), whom Watson married in “The Sign of Three”, interwoven with Holmes’ struggle against Charles Augustus Magnussen (Lars Mikkelsen), a very nasty blackmailer of people in high and low places. Moriarty is dead and he did commit suicide in the finale of season 2, “The Reichenbach Fall”. In my review of Sherlock: The Abominable Bride (the 2016 Special, which bridged the gap between seasons 3 and 4) in TQF55, I was clear that the conclusion of Holmes’ drug-fuelled investigation is that, whatever appearances to the contrary, Moriarty is dead. Ominously, the final episode of season 4 is called “The Final Problem” and it is telling that Doyle’s story of the same name – his half-hearted attempt to kill off Holmes after 26 episodes – is the only original case to have inspired two of the TV adaptations. Season 1 ended with Holmes and Watson about to blow up, season 2 with Holmes’ faked suicide leaving Watson bereft, and season 3 with Holmes exiled to certain death. In addition to the British tendency to disguise mini-series as series, writers Mark Gatiss and Steven Moffat seem intent on frustrating our enjoyment of the Benedict Cumberbatch (Holmes) and Martin Freeman (Watson) partnership in a way that Robert Doherty does not with Jonny Lee Miller (Holmes) and Lucy Liu (Watson) in Elementary. Compare Sherlock, which began in 2010, with CBS’s Elementary, which began in 2012: the former has a total of thirteen episodes across four seasons (I’ll use the American term to distinguish an individual season from the series as a whole) the latter is, at the time of writing, in its fifth season and will have aired a total of 109 episodes by the time this review is in print. Like Conan Doyle, who famously tired of his creation, the BBC seem curiously reluctant to represent Sherlock Holmes on the small screen.
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