Sherlock - Season 2 News

It's been a while but with Benedict Cumberbatch, Martin Freeman and the show itself all being nominated for BAFTAS this Sunday, it's timely that news about the series second year has leaked.

According to The Sun (yes, they can be reliable on a rare occasion), the three stories that will form the show's second run will be A Scandal In Belgravia, The Hounds Of Baskerville, and The Reichbach Fall. I can't wait to see how all three of these are brought to life.

Again these stories will be scripted by Steven Moffat (A Scandal In Belgravia), Mark Gatiss (The Hounds Of Baskerville) and Steve Thompson (The Reichbach Fall) and while Moriarty will also likely to be returning for the second run (am I the only one who liked Andrew Scott?), Irene Adler will also be the main focus in the show's second year.

Press Release: http://www.bbc.co.uk/pressoffice/pressreleases/stories/2011/05_may/16/sherlock.shtml

Season 2 of Sherlock will air on BBC1 in the winter.

Sherlock Renewed For 2nd Series

Was there any doubt that there wouldn't be? Expect three more 90 minute episodes with Benedict Cumberbatch and Martin Freeman in 2011. Here's hoping that Andrew Scott flourishes as Moriarty as well.

Details: http://www.digitalspy.co.uk/tv/s129/sherlock/news/a269018/bbcs-sherlock-to-return-in-2011.html

My Review of Sherlock's 1x03: "The Great Game"

Written by Mark Gatiss
Directed by Paul McGuigan

Moriarty: “Do you know what happens if you don't leave me alone, Sherlock? To you?”
Sherlock: “Oh let me guess, I get killed."
Moriarty: “Kill you? No. Don't be obvious, I mean I'm going to kill you anyway...some day. I don't want to rush it though. I'm saving it up for something special. No, no, no, no, if you don't stop prying...I'll burn you. I'll burn the heart out of you.”

Well, it’s about bloody time, isn’t it? Three episodes in and Moriarty finally made his on screen debut and it really couldn’t have happened a moment too soon as far as I’m concerned. The teasing in the first two stories was fun but it was time for a pay-off and this one certainly did that in spades.

For a while now, I assumed that we would get a fairly big name for the role of Sherlock’s greatest enemy but the casting of Irish actor Andrew Scott as Moriarty was an interesting choice. Apart from Lennon Naked, he’s someone whose work I am unfamiliar with and his take on the classic villain is easily compared to a certain someone else – John Simm.

Yes, Andrew Scott seemed to mirror with Moriarty what John Simm did with the Master by making the devious genius as lethally dangerous and over the top camp as humanly possible and like Simm, it’s certainly a performance that’s rather divisive amongst fandom.

Personally I like the take on Moriarty myself. Andrew Scott is a perfect match for Benedict Cumberbatch and the two of them play off well against each other. \I also liked the fact that Moriarty went a little gay at the start by posing as a closeted boyfriend for Molly. It certainly played on Sherlock’s belief that the best way of disguise was hiding in plain sight.

Even though the pool confrontation was arguably short in some ways, it was the biggest moment of tension there. Two enemies finally meeting up, comparing notes, threatening to kill the other while making the usual attempts to second the other one as well. It’s moments like this that almost made me forget about Watson being the fifth and final unlucky person to be strapped with a bomb.

Though to be honest, I never once thought that Watson would die. Sherlock did manage to get the bomb off him in time before Moriarty decided to change his tack and attempt to kill the crime solving duo. As cliff hangers went, that one was utterly brilliant and frustrating in equal measures. There’s no way that this show can end like this and given the overnight ratings, the BBC really do have incentive to bring it back.

For a 90 minute episode, this one had a far more evolving pace than the first two stories. Moriarty’s spate of strapping bombs on people while Sherlock and Watson had to right wrongs was skilful story telling and surprisingly, I was grateful for the BBC not showing us the sight of a blind grandmother being blown to pieces in the process.

There were a lot of little moments in this story aside from the Sherlock/Moriarty confrontation that really sold it to me. I loved Mycroft trying to influence Watson into getting his brother to take an interest in one case, I liked the insight into Sherlock’s attitude towards the solar system and even the stuff with the Golem was far better handled in comparison to the Black Lotus plot in last week’s episode and more importantly, there were more appearances from Lestrade and Sally, who were better in this one than “A Study In Pink”.

- Watson’s blog is generating popularity, much to Sherlock’s chagrin. Sally listing things for Watson to do instead of hanging out with Sherlock was amusing as well.
- Peter Davison was the voice on the planet documentary that Professor Cairns was listening to before she was killed.
- Did we actually get that awful man Jeremy Kyle in this episode? That man should have less airtime, not more.
- The homoerotic subtext between Sherlock and Moriarty was quite out there to be honest. I can imagine fans having a shit fit if Moriarty in this version did turn out to be gay.


Mark Gatiss, you are a genius. Not only did you appear in “The Great Game” but you wrote and kept the tension up for the whole 90 minutes. The life and death moments, intriguing puzzles and the Sherlock//Watson/Moriarty moments made this the best out of the three episodes we’ve got. Please BBC, make another series.

Rating: 10 out of 10.

My Review of Sherlock's 1x02: "The Blind Banker"

Written by Steve Thompson
Directed by Euros Lyn

Watson (to Sherlock): “I thought bankers were supposed to be heartless bastards.”

Following the success of the first episode, is it expected that the second one would have some problems compared to it? I guess so. This episode isn’t particularly bad but it’s definitely something of a letdown from the previous one I suppose. Maybe because of the lack of other characters in it or the plot not being that strong.

Even though I mentioned in my review for the first story that I felt the likes of Lestrade, Anderson and Sally Donovan were underdeveloped, I missed not seeing them here. Mainly because I want to see them developed as much as Holmes and Watson and also because the guest detective of the episode – Dimmock wasn’t all that interesting to be perfectly honest.

As for the story itself – I don’t want to pull the racial stereotyping card because I’m not someone who gets annoyed by villains being foreign characters but this episode felt a little on the pastiche side of things with the big bad this week, compared to the charismatic villain we got last week.

The victims of the episode – Eddie Van Coon and Lukis didn’t really engage me all that much either. The story of them smuggling goods in from Asia into the UK and them being killed as the result of the Black Lotus somehow felt lacking to me. Granted there were some interesting moments with the unfortunate Soo Lin Yao though.

Gemma Chan is a pretty charming actress and if she’s not appearing during the final days of the 10th Doctor or being cast in a movie with Danny Dyer (who’d want that?), then she makes a decent guest appearance in this episode. Soo Lin might have died halfway through the episode but at least she felt like a proper character as well as a plot device.

We saw her niche at the museum with tea pots, fighting off the advances of her co-worker Andy and then we got her unfortunate back story (both her and her brother were forced to smuggle things into the country) as she tried to hide away from the Black Lotus. Even though they didn’t mean to, both Sherlock and Watson inadvertently got her killed by tracking her down. However at least she was smart enough to try and make some headway in cracking the cipher code of this episode, which was literally everywhere during the 90 minutes of this week.

Funnily enough though, Sherlock might be the brains of the bunch but I noticed that both Soo Lin and Watson’s fellow doctor/date for the circus, Sarah actually seemed to have made more headway with the code that Sherlock did at first. I kind of liked that actually, even if Sherlock is supposed to be the brains of the bunch.

As for Watson getting kidnapped by the Asian baddies along with Sarah in the episode, it added some much needed tension in an episode that lagged in places. I’m not going to be too harsh on the series because it’s still finding its feet and right now, it’s certainly better than anything else but I wish that Moriarty would make his move already as well. This episode while having a decent enough plot with smuggling and Asian gangs and asserting the dynamics between Holmes and Watson just wasn’t as good as last week.

- Who was the guy that was duelling with Sherlock at the beginning of the episode? Is that something we’ll find out next week or never at all?
- Moriarty seemed to have been involved with this week’s killers as well. I wasn’t surprised when he had that woman killed at the end though.
- Watson sensibly has gotten a job as a doctor given that Sherlock doesn’t exactly pay him. This episode also seemed to lift stuff from the books, The Adventures Of The Dancing Man, The Sign Of The Four, The Valley Of Fear and The Five Orange Pips.
- In positive news, it’s also looking likely that this series will get a second run given the ratings success it’s had so far. Well deserved.

As I’ve said above, I didn’t enjoy “The Blind Banker” as much as I did the previous episode but the episode wasn’t lacking completely. It’s nice to see Watson dating and also to see someone from Sherlock’s past (banker Sebastian), even if it wasn’t the most interesting person going. I just hope that the next episode is more impacting than this one was and that we get some Sherlock/Moriarty scenes.

Rating: 7 out of 10.

My Review of Sherlock's 1x01: "A Study In Pink"

Written by Steven Moffat
Directed by Paul McGuigan

Sherlock (to Watson): “The name’s Sherlock Holmes and the address is 221b Baker Street.”

And as introductions go, that is somewhat snappy. On a list of flatmates that John Watson could’ve ended up, it’s safe for him to assume that life with Sherlock Holmes will never be boring again. In fact, it will certainly be anything but.

Modernising something like Sherlock Holmes for a 2010 audience is definitely a dodgy thing to do. The Victorian era has always been the staple of whatever televised incarnation of the legendary detective and even Guy Ritchie wasn’t daring enough to make the character and his complicated world as recent as the 21st Century.

However in spite of the reservation, it actually worked perfectly. Not only will it be the most obvious thing to set it apart from all the others but it also manages not to feel like a generic cop show while almost taking a devilish glee in sending up some of the more slick and over polished shows that we’ve had in the last decade from both sides of the Atlantic.

A murder mystery can only be done in so many ways and even when it looked like the first three victims all killed themselves, as an audience member, there’s the nagging feeling that something isn’t right. Sherlock wasn’t the only person who had certain jubilation in realising that fourth victim; Jennifer Wilson was murdered instead of voluntarily taking her own life. Even I was ecstatic to have my own suspicion confirmed that it was murder all along with the bodies piling up in this episode.

And there was the villain of the piece himself – bored, dying cabbie driver Jeff. Phil Davis has this uncanny knack to imbue his villain of the piece with a duality of sinister malevolence and total a pathetic need to have his genius glorified. Like Sherlock, he had a need to exercise his genius but by taking lives, he showed little regard for the consequence of his genius.

Sure, he was dying and there was something sponsoring his killing spree (Moriarty of course) but you could also detect the pure desperation in him when Sherlock refused to play his game. Sherlock also exhibited a lesser desperation in wanting to know whether or not he had guessed correctly with the vial containing the pill that could kill or save him.

Jeff’s method of killing his victims was certain less gruesome (bar Jennifer of course) than expected but it also served as a testament to Moffat’s genius as well. Where else would we get a moment where poor Jennifer was able to trick Jeff in being found, only for Jeff to use the opportunity to snatch Sherlock literally under the police noses?

In terms of depictions, Benedict Cumberbatch played the role of Sherlock as if he were auditioning for Doctor Who. I’m not saying that in a harsh manner because when you think about it, both the Doctor and Sherlock Holmes are actually similar characters in their own way and you could definitely say that Watson fills the companion role in more ways than one.

Writing him as an army vet who misses being in trenches was a clever move and it certainly played with Martin Freeman’s strengths as well. Mycroft needled him perfectly about the war aspect but also openly revelled in the fact that his brother now had a partner to fight crime with. As a team goes, this is definitely a different but interesting take on Sherlock/Watson and I certainly approve, even if the gay jokes seemed a little tacked on. What am I kidding, they were funny.

As for the other police members, well they were largely written as clueless in order to highlight Sherlock’s genius. Lestrade himself had to organise a drug bust in order to try and get Sherlock to play ball and Sally herself also came across as too embittered as well. Hopefully they’ll develop better in later episodes along with housekeeper, Mrs Hudson.

- This was originally meant to be four 90 minutes episodes but the BBC scrapped one of them and now we’re left with three.
- I was really hoping for a second that Mark Gatiss would turn out to be Moriarty, though I like his take on Mycroft.
- Sherlock’s use of texting in this first episode was pretty amazing actually, even if it did come across as a little on the gimmick side.
- John Watson has a blog and Sherlock’s site The Science Of Deduction has some interesting comments from a certain someone. Plus I loved his intrigue when he learned about Moriarty.

For a 90 episode, “A Study In Pink” certainly flew by and with a good team in Cumberbatch and Freeman, this is certainly a promising take on things. Here’s hoping that the next two episodes are equally as strong.

Rating: 8 out of 10.

First Look: Sherlock Holmes

Okay, so we're a while from this actually transmitting but at least we finally have some images from the BBC adaptation of Sherlock Holmes by Steven Moffat and Mark Gatiss and directed by Euros Lyn. Yes, there's another one.

I don't want to make comparison but the first picture of Sherlock (Benedict Cumberbatch) and Watson (Martin Freeman) does remind a little of the Doctor and Martha cast shots from the third series of a certain show. Anyways, both Cumberbatch and Freeman look like they'll make for a more dynamic team than Robert Downey Jr/Jude Law last year.

The BBC are airing this in three parts and it's rumoured that a fourth part was scrapped due to quality but it's definitely going to be one of the biggest things on TV during the Autumn season and something I'll be looking into review wise.

Benedict Cumberbatch Interview: http://www.digitalspy.co.uk/tv/tubetalk/a223953/benedict-cumberbatch-talks-sherlock.html