Sherlock - Episode 3 - "The Great Game"

The first series of Sherlock came to an explosive end with “The Great Game”.  And ‘great’ it was, too.  This short series has been fascinating on a number of levels – the depiction of Holmes as a nicotine patch covered, autistic genius was a brave move, and Benedict Cumberbatch delivered every line with obvious glee, as was the interpretation of the role of Dr John Watson as a war veteran with a penchant for danger, which Martin Freeman embraced with his usual pitch-perfect dead pan delivery.

The basic premise of this episode was quite brilliant – Moriarty is finally showing his face, but only if Sherlock is able to work out five separate crimes within set time limits, thereby proving his worth as an arch-nemesis for this bored sociopathic genius.  Starting with the murder of a young boy called Carl Powers 20 years earlier.  Through the locating of a pair of trainers in a disused room at 221B Baker Street, Holmes is able to deduce that Powers was poisoned through his eczema cream, which paralysed him, leading the boy to drown.

Each crime is related to Holmes over a phone – a perfect replica of the pink phone from “A Study in Pink” – which was found inside a safe in a building over the road from Holmes’ apartment, which was destroyed in a fake gas leak.  The clues are given to him by poor unwitting people all over London, who have been strapped with bombs, and must read exactly what is said to them over a pager.  Watching their every move is a sniper who will assassinate them if they give any additional information – as happens to the poor, sweet old blind lady – but more on that later.  The first victim is a middle-aged woman from Cornwall, who apparently was kidnapped and forced to sit in a car for hours and hours with a bomb jacket on.  Quite how no-one noticed her sat there, in the car park of a shopping centre, crying her eyes out, is one small discrepancy in an otherwise very strong and almost faultless storyline.  The same is true of the young man on a large and busy pedestrian crossing in the middle of London – in a city where everyone is suspicious of everyone else, it seemed strange that a man in a large, bulging parka coat didn’t make any of the locals bat an eyelid.

The next few crimes are a little more difficult than testing shoes laces for skin samples – and yet Holmes is given much less time to solve them.  Ranging from the ‘murder’ of a man who hired a car, to the murder of TV celebrity make-over specialist, and the discovery of a fake Vermeer painting, the cases get gradually more challenging, all coming together in one final, exciting finale by a swimming pool.

The opening sequences were excellent – with Holmes ‘educating’ a criminal in Belarus on the correct use of the English language.  The script was witty, and Cumberbatch took obvious delight in delivering his interruptions of the convict’s story to correct his grammar.  Following his return to England, we see how painfully bored he is by the lack of interesting crimes.  Laid in his armchair, firing his gun repeatedly into the wall, he portrays the quirks of the character with a great deal of flair, reminding us that Holmes isn’t ‘normal’ in any sense of the word.  His mind works differently to ours, and he craves mental stimulation in much the way that we crave cigarettes and caffeine.  The touches, like him not knowing basic primary school facts, were excellently delivered, as he pointed out that his mind is a hard-drive and he ‘deletes’ unnecessary information, like that the Earth rotates around the sun. 

My biggest bugbear of this latest episode is that Watson was given so little to do.  Up until now, Watson has been invaluable to Holmes, both as a patient ear and a second eye to the cases.  Here, though, he is simply following Holmes entirely, being given errands to run which come to no fruition.  His scenes in the home of the deceased TV star became redundant once Sherlock explained how she had been killed – and the script equally fed us red herrings.  I will admit that I was extremely pleased with myself the second that the cat walked in on screen, remembering the scratches and therefore deducing that she had somehow been poisoned by her feline companion.  To then be told that it was through her Botox injections, which there had been no way of guessing prior to this, should have been somewhat infuriating – and yet it didn’t irritate.  It intrigued me.  I wanted to know more.  It was just a shame that Watson hadn’t had the chance to prove his worth after his input in the last two episodes.

The one thing that Watson had to do was solve the crime given to them by Mycroft, Holmes’ brother.  The missing pen drive seemed at first to be another red herring, a pointless case to distract the detectives and the viewers alike.  That the crime then fed back into itself was something of a relief.  But again, as Watson pottered about, interviewing family and workmen, finally working it out, it was a tad disheartening that Holmes had already worked it out – this, despite the fact that he hadn’t even visited the crime scene!

The further characterisation of Lastrade was another pleasing element of this wonderful episode.  Whilst he had featured in the first episode, begrudgingly calling on Holmes’ expertise, he wasn’t present in episode two at all, only name-checked once.  Rupert Graves is brilliant as the Detective, desperate to solve the crimes, but without the first clue of how to go about them.  He clearly has a disdain for the excitement Holmes derives from hunting murderers and serial killers, and in particular the respect he shows them for their ingenuity, but there is also a great deal of appreciation for the work Holmes does, displayed through nuanced facial expressions and the occasional sigh.

Gatiss’ script shone for this episode – despite the fact that, in one 90 minute instalment, he had five times as many crimes to solve, he managed to keep the pace as tight as ever, with equal chance for character development.  The tone is darker, but in a welcome way.  I would have liked perhaps a little more depth to each of the cases, but time was of the essence, both for Holmes and Gatiss himself, and it’s a small miracle that he was able to provide so much exposition and information in such a short space of time!

Similarly, Paul McGuigan’s direction was superb – as it was in “A Study in Pink”, he keeps action focussed intently, and manages to capture the excitement of the case in every frame.  The use of on-screen graphics was back in full force, adding a great deal of tension to the proceedings – as numbers flicker onto the screen, reminding us of Holmes’ fierce schedule, the tension ramps up further.  The use of the scrolling search bar on Holmes’ phone allows the audience to work out some of the information, but we’re always at least one step behind Sherlock, as the most pertinent information is withheld until Holmes shares it.  Episode two took a slight dip, as both the writing and the direction were slightly less focussed than here and in the first episode.  Dealing with so much in such a strict timeframe can be no mean feat, and as such both Gatiss and McGuigan must be applauded for keeping everything so tense throughout - even the side plots like Watson’s blossoming romance with Sarah, and the fight sequence with the Golem in the Observatory kept everything moving.

Watson’s distaste at Holmes’ lack of respect for human life ensured that there was a depth to the performances.  As Holmes claimed that feeling anything for the victims could jeopardise his case, we are reminded again of the almost Aspergers nature of Holmes character – his tunnel vision is particularly troubling, and so Watson remains the voice of reason throughout.

The scenes with the bombing victims were particularly touching, as they shuddered with tears whilst following the orders to the letter.  The only victim to be murdered for sharing too much information was the little old lady, who, due to her blindness, had to be spoken to in Moriarty’s soft, soothing tones.  By sharing this information, it jeopardised Moriarty’s cover, and so she was swiftly dispatched in a huge explosion in a block of flats, killing 12 people.  Interestingly, as Holmes put the phone down, he looked truly distraught – although whether this was over the lost lives, or the fact that he’d ‘lost’ the game, was unclear.  Indeed, he later threw a petulant strop, claiming that he’d beaten Moriarty, that he’d solved the case.

The final fifteen minutes were exhilarating, and nail biting, as the showdown came to a head with the big reveal of Moriarty.  Andrew Scott’s performance was perfectly honed, and outstanding.  That he was so similar to Cumberbatch’s portrayal of Holmes was telling of the similarities between the two characters – both bored by the mundane world in which they are forced to live.  It shows us that Holmes could easily have followed the ‘wrong’ path, and become another Moriarty, had he not kept himself under tight control and followed the right route, stopping criminals rather than being one himself.  I personally loved the suggestion that Moriarty has become a master criminal, a king pin in the underworld, just to stave off his boredom – the ‘Consulting Criminal’ to Holmes’ ‘Consulting Detective’. 

Scott’s balance of calm and controlled, through to his explosive rant that dying is “what people do!” was brilliant.  I must confess that I never saw it coming.  When Dr Watson stepped out of the cubicle, I cringed, thinking that it was going down such a ‘predictable twist’ route.  However, within seconds I noticed the coat, hiding the bomb, and my heart jumped – again, there was a further twist.  And I was also extremely pleased that it didn’t go down the predictable route of it being Mycroft, too – Gatiss is brilliant at bad characters, but it would have all been too simple, especially for him scripting, to have provided himself with a character with that darker streak. 

The new series has been confirmed for 2012, rather than the end of 2011, as had been originally hoped, but to be frank, I hope they leave it as long as possible.  The cliff-hanger was such that it left me desperately craving more, and yet wanting to keep that moment eternally – how will they get out of this situation?  What will happen with Moriarty now that Sherlock knows his identity?  Who was aiming all of those sniper rifles at them?  Sherlock has clearly spotted a get-out clause in the situation, and all that we can do now is wait and see how it all turns out.

And I, for one, can’t wait.

Sherlock - Episode 2 - "The Blind Banker"

This second episode of Sherlock was a little disappointing, in comparison with the first episode.  Not that is wasn’t excellent – it really was.  I’d just become desensitised to it by watching it so soon after the first episode.  I knew what to expect, how it was going to turn out, what was going to happen.  Or at least, I thought I did.  Moffatt’s new show still held a few tricks up its sleeve... and boy, am I pleased that it did!

This story opened with a beautiful scene in the National Antiquities Museum, with a young Chinese girl, played wonderfully by Gemma Chan, giving a demonstration on the correct care due to an ancient teapot.  This scene was beautifully shot by Euros Lyn, most noted for his work on Torchwood and Doctor Who.  The use of archetype horror techniques, such as the gentle wind, softly blowing curtains, cloths, papers and the like was utilised to excellent use,  creating a semi-gothic-horror environ, in which people can seemingly walk through walls and locked doors.

The plot begins properly with the introduction of Sebastian, a typically slimy banker from a high-flying background.  In his designer suit, with his flashy watch, he is dislikeable – which makes me even happier to see our heroes taking payment of £25,000 for a simple job like working out who got into the bank, and how.

This being a detective serial, rather than a sci-fi whodunit, meant that there had to be an entirely more human explanation, and in this serial, rather than working out how a suicide could be a murder (A Study in Pink) we see Holmes dealing with a mysterious cipher, a series of ancient numbers left in locations all over London, leading to people running for their lives, only to die within locked rooms.

My biggest bugbear with this episode is that Sherlock himself didn’t seem to work all that much out.  Instead, a great deal of it came down to coincidence or divine intervention – the discovery of the shop was down to Watson’s work.  The discovery that the cipher is a number was down to Watson turning the cup over and seeing the engraving.  The realisation that this cipher was to do with page and word numbers in a book was due to Soo Lin.  The discovery of the wall covered in a whole message was down to Watson (although they did think they were leaving it for Holmes, so I’ll let them off that one).  In fact, the only thing that really jumped out at me as being his own handiwork was the discovery of Van Coon’s body, and realising that Soo Lin was still in the museum. 

Again, Martin Freeman’s Watson was excellent – the opening sequence, in which he is fighting with a chip and pin machine in a supermarket, was brilliant – made even better by the juxtaposition of this sequence with Sherlock having a swordfight with some tribal man with a machete.  When Watson returns, defeated by modern technology, and criticises the fact that Sherlock “haven’t moved since I went out”, produced a wry smile across my cynical face.   

The humour throughout this episode is, again, spot on – Freeman’s delivery in particular helps the script sparkle, and the scenes in which Sherlock is pottering about the bank, popping up behind partitions whilst bemused staff look on was brilliant.  Similarly, Cumberbatch’s clearly disgruntled and jealous expression when he discovers that Watson is going out on a date, rather than spend time with him, is great.

Cumberbatch is really getting to flex a few muscles here too – comedy, intelligence, and now even quite a lot of fighting, from his swordfight at the beginning, to his choking in Soo Lin’s flat – and the entire sequence in the Chinese circus was excellent.

A lovely side-story involved Watson’s relationship with Sarah, which was performed with awkwardness and shyness perfectly – the lines about the perfect date were brilliant, and of course, knowingly ironic for what was to follow.

It was similarly refreshing that, already, LeStrade had been sidelined in favour of introducing a new detective, DI Dimmock, this one seemingly a great deal keener to accept Sherlock’s advice after his provisional dressing down.  That Sherlock continues to work with him with such disdain and disregard is great to see, but it does seem a little harsh – the man is practically bending over backwards to help!  Similarly, I’m surely not the only one that doesn’t enjoy seeing him manipulate the pretty little morgue employee, right?  Twisting her around his little finger, persuading her to help him despite it being against the rules, on the basic premise that he may, at some point, kiss her all seems a little dark to me!

The cipher business aside, this was a fairly run-of-the-mill detective show – the tattoos on the soles of the feet of the victims would surely have been picked up on by the morticians, so it was essentially redundant that Sherlock has wasted so much time pursuing the tattoos in the first place?  His original task was to work out how the wall had been defaced in the banker’s office, within 60 seconds, without the door opening – and again, it seems a little twee that the answer was “through the window”.  It struck me as a little bit of a cop-out that Ju-Jen, the Spider, should literally be a circus entertainer that can climb up walls and in through windows, as this left no mystery beyond the second killing about 5 minutes in, where Sherlock pointed out the skylight. 

Again, the final ten minutes were predictable – it was obvious where the pin was, and how it got there.  But the fact of Sherlock isn’t in trying to keep you guessing, but rather, simply entertaining you...  Which it manages to do with great aplomb. 

All in all, this was an entertaining second instalment, but not quite as up to scratch as the first episode had been.  One more to go, though – fingers crossed it steps up to the plate.

Sherlock - Episode 1 - "A Study in Pink"

Stephen Moffat’s newest creation, Sherlock, is a stroke of genius.  No, really, it is.  By taking those elements which we commonly associated with the eponymous hero of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s works, and merging them with the giddy speed of mass communication and the fascination with modern killers and police dramas, the pairing of Moffat and Gatiss have created a masterpiece.

The pairing of Benedict Cumberbatch and Martin Freeman is wonderful – they play off of each other with a magic that we rarely see these days in modern pairings.  The scenes in which each thinks that the other is asking him out, and the confusion surrounding this, are extremely well-written – although they would seem a little more at home in a Russell T. Davies drama than in a reimagining of Sherlock Holmes.  But that is probably picking holes because I need to – there are very few things to fault in this story.

The simple premise is that 4 people have committed suicide in identical ways, taking the same type of poison, in a place where they should never have been.  Each of these victims was happy, and had shown no signs of suicidal tendencies.  Sherlock believes each one is connected somehow, but is only allowed to assist in the investigation after a note is left by the fourth victim.  Soon follows a game of cat and mouse with the killer that leads to Sherlock himself being caught.

The introductory sequence to the murders was very flashy, providing all of the set-up needed, showing the death of the first victim, a Lord, in an abandoned building.  After this was a drunken lady, followed by a young man in the rain.  Once we have seen each of these victims, we are introduced to Inspector LeStrade, at a press conference, as he relates the facts to the hungry media.  Throughout these sequences, text messages are sent to every person in the room, simply reading ‘wrong!’  The humour is excellent, as LeStrade tries to pacify the press whilst being mocked by Holmes – indeed, when he makes a flippant statement to one member of the press, before being warned that she is ‘Daily Mail’, and having to back-pedal, I chuckled heartily aloud.  

Martin Freeman’s performance as Dr. John Watson is outstanding – as a huge fan of The Office, The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy and his performance in Love, Actually, I had prepared myself for another of his usually dry comic turns.  However, as Watson, he is understated, a man haunted by his memories of war, but desperate to return to action.  In the opening sequence, reminiscent of Apocalypse Now, Freeman was tossing and turning in bed, with images of the war bursting out of his dreams and onto the screen.  As he woke, and looked around his lonely 1 bed apartment, my heart bled for him.

Of course, Holmes is something of a difficult character to encapsulate – Basil Rathbone did it very well.  Jeremy Brett, arguably, better.  But what Cumberbatch does so effectively is to capture the essence of the man as a struggling genius, a self-proclaimed sociopath, who wonders what it must be like to be ‘boring’, and not to be intelligent like him.  His first meeting with Watson was fantastic, both funny and enlightening, and the use of the intercut words appearing on the screen are an incredibly useful original tool to help the audience see things as Holmes himself does.  As he analysed Watson’s character, from the broken relationship with his brother (sister!) to the psychosomatic leg injury, Freeman’s face was as shocked as mine – in fact, another lovely touch was his constant outbursts of “Incredible!” or “Brilliant!” every time he watched Holmes at work.

The scene with the lady in pink is equally brilliant, and again for the same reasons – as he analyses the body, words flickering in front of his eyes about how wet she is from the rain, the use of google maps to work out her place of origin, the status of her marriage and what luggage she was carrying, key words appear, asking us – daring us, in fact – to try and outsmart Holmes, to work out these details as quickly as possible.

And that brings us to another slight shortcoming of the show – I did manage to outthink him.  Every portrayal of Holmes before now has been a genius, whose ability to work out the most complex of puzzles is what makes him such an iconic character.  Here, though, whilst I was in awe of the speed and details he contracted from the corpse, I was able to work out who the killer was long before Sherlock did himself.  And, again, that’s an issue.  From the discovery of the pink lady’s body and the details that she had travelled from Cardiff, it was evident that the killer was a taxi driver – as such, the drawn out sequence in the restaurant where he talks about who ‘preys at night’ and ‘blends into a crowd’ and such like, I was essentially screaming at the TV.  I cannot stress my irritation when he caught up with said taxi driver, but simply looked at the passenger in the back!

The thing that I hadn’t worked out was the how.  The why was easy – the ignorance of the general public.  Added to this the bomb shell of a brain tumour (which I didn’t see coming) and his sponsorship by Moriarty (again, I hadn’t seen that coming), and the purpose of the murders became quite justifiable, and added a welcome flair of surprise.  But the how ­– how a taxi driver had managed to persuade so many people to commit suicide – still evaded me.  And that’s brilliant.  It wasn’t utterly unknowable, just really very clever. 

Unlike shows like Jonathan Creek, where it was impossible to work anything out until the last five minutes (in particular the episode in the underground bunker with the toilet – you may know the one?), it could have been figured out – the murderer was using the basic premise of the entire show, and inverting it for his own needs.  Our psychopathic taxi driver thought that he was the really clever one, and was using a game in which he dared people to work out the correct answer to kill them.  The program suddenly took on a very different feel.  This episode is knowingly clever, but was essentially warning of the dangers looking too hard at things, the dangers of trying to focus on details.  

Mark Gatiss’ appearance as Mycroft was equally excellent, and again added to the elements of comedy in the show – when Watson has been kidnapped and taken to see him, he is elegant and charming, whilst being dangerous and intimidating.  He proves himself the intellectual equal for Holmes, also focussing on specifics from Watson’s background.  When he attempts to bribe Watson to spy on Holmes for him, and describes himself as the ‘best friend a person like Holmes can have – an enemy... an arch-enemy’, we are genuinely beginning to feel the sense of danger – and I actually suspected it was Moriarty.  How pleasing, then, that the next time we met him, we were informed that he was Holmes’ brother, and the references to childish conflicts and enmity really were only references to their family connections.  Having said that, Moriarty is due to feature in the third episode – I do hope it doesn’t turn out to be his brother!  That’s so old hat!

The direction was slick, and very stylish – the show seemed to roll out so fluidly, I was totally absorbed.  Similarly, the music was excellent, and ensured that I was fully engaged for the full 90 minutes.  By updating the story, and utilising current technology to move the pace along, the end product is a surprisingly funny and incredibly current TV gem.

Much of the excitement around the show was from Moffat fan girls – excitement that the current producer of Doctor Who was making this new show, which in and of itself isn’t too far a shout from DW.  Whilst I’m not the biggest fan of Moffat, and the way that the show has currently been heading, it was refreshing to see him flex his intellectual muscles on a show that requires this hard-thinking behind it.  Whilst Doctor Who has become harder to follow, as we as viewers are asked to remember instances from whole series back, this format works well here.  Following the BAFTA win for Cumberbatch, a large number of fans vowed never to watch it again, as Matt Smith hadn’t won the best actor gong.  Similarly, in announcing that 2012 will be a year low on new Doctor Who, much was made, by fan sites in particular, of Moffat getting himself too bogged down in other projects and not focussing all of his attention on DW...  As a huge fan of Doctor Who, having now seen Sherlock, I can officially say – bugger it.  Make both.  Share your attention, Moff, because this was brilliant.