Sherlock (Steven Moffat BBC series)

[Ursa major]

More on the Moffat Biggy:

"There is a clue everybody's missed," he [Moffat] says tantalisingly. "So many people theorising about Sherlock's death online – and they missed it! We've worked out how Sherlock survives, and actually shot part of what really happened. It all makes sense." In this, he argues, he and co-writer Mark Gatiss have gone one better than Doyle. "He cheated outrageously. He has Watson deduce that Holmes fell off a waterfall. But there was no body. And it only means one thing in a detective show when there's no body." That the victim survived. So you set yourself the test of killing off Sherlock, putting his corpse in plain view and then bringing him back from the dead to watch his own funeral? "Yes. We had to have Holmes dying in Watson's arms – and get away with that, which we have." But how? Moffat sips his tea silently.

From: http://www.guardian.co.uk/tv-and-rad...ock-doctor-who.

[Interference]

That's it! And so simple, too. It's all in that innocent quote, "sips his tea silently". It can only mean one thing: The tea was drugged!

I'll be back in my box if anyone asks....

[Dave]

I do think that the hallucinatory Baskerville drug must have played some part. Otherwise, if what we saw happen really happened Holmes would certainly be dead or have severe injuries. On the other hand, this was on the TV recently (though the clip is from last year.):
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-12773427

[AnyaKimlin]

Originally Posted by Interference

That's it! And so simple, too. It's all in that innocent quote, "sips his tea silently". It can only mean one thing: The tea was drugged!

I'll be back in my box if anyone asks....

In the sugar ? I think Watson is in on this.

I keep wondering about all the superior/average brain comments. Such a big deal of him apologising and pointing out John Watson's good points in the Hound of the Baskerville's.

[PTeppic]

There are various compounds which can allegedly cause the imbiber to appear lifeless, even down to a dramatically lowered pulse and breathing. Though I don't think we've seen it mentioned in either season so far.

[No One]

My default stance on literature adaptations into tv or film is usually an unfavourable one, even more so when it comes to modernisations, but I've really enjoyed catching up with this series.

As with many people here, my first impressions of Moriarty were disappointing, but he grew on me quite a bit in the last episode (assuming he is Moriarty and not in fact an actor). A friend of mine proposed that the female reporter could in fact be Moriarty! I'm not sure how I'd feel about that. Cumberbatch remains an excellent choice for his part though.

I won't jump into the theories, I only hope that Moffat is serious when he says it all makes sense and it's not a cheap solution. Looking forward to more.

[rune]

I was so relieved to see Sherlock alive at the end of this series. It would of been awful to loose this great program. And I do love the banter between Sherlock and Watson. Its so funny at times - LOL

[Cayal]

Originally Posted by Dave

I do think that the hallucinatory Baskerville drug must have played some part. Otherwise, if what we saw happen really happened Holmes would certainly be dead or have severe injuries. On the other hand, this was on the TV recently (though the clip is from last year.):
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-12773427

If what Moffat is saying is true (that no one has mentioned/thought of it) then this certainly isn't the case...as is nothing else we have mentioned.

I just hope it isn't cheap.

[TheEndIsNigh]

Coming in late hear so it might have been covered. But...

He asks the pathologist to help. Pathology labs have a few attributes, however the main one is dead bodies.

So get a dead body, sew on a wax/reshaped head/look-a-like and drop it of the roof. If you noticed Watson never actually get his hands on the body so he wasn't really able to give an opinion of the body.

Holmes seems over tall for someone that far up on a high building. He was also most insistent that Watson didn't get any closer so some form of smoke and mirrors was going on.

There was also the bus/van obscuring the actual impact so the possibility exists fro a chute into the cellar or ground floor window.

That, or a pulley/wire come motorised support system which would be easiest. The type that slows you down in the last six feet to a dead stop, so you can lie on the floor in a pool of carefully placed (conveniently extracted blood)

The real question is, did JM actually blow his brains out, or was that a con too.

In any event the answer will be simple. It's like the impossible magicians trick that no one can understand. What takes people in that none of the audience is prepared to believe what extraordinary lengths and expense a magician is prepared to go to, to get the trick.





Just thoughts

[Cayal]

Originally Posted by TheEndIsNigh

Coming in late hear so it might have been covered. But...

He asks the pathologist to help. Pathology labs have a few attributes, however the main one is dead bodies.

So get a dead body, sew on a wax/reshaped head/look-a-like and drop it of the roof. If you noticed Watson never actually get his hands on the body so he wasn't really able to give an opinion of the body.

Holmes seems over tall for someone that far up on a high building. He was also most insistent that Watson didn't get any closer so some form of smoke and mirrors was going on.

There was also the bus/van obscuring the actual impact so the possibility exists fro a chute into the cellar or ground floor window.

That, or a pulley/wire come motorised support system which would be easiest. The type that slows you down in the last six feet to a dead stop, so you can lie on the floor in a pool of carefully placed (conveniently extracted blood)

The real question is, did JM actually blow his brains out, or was that a con too.

In any event the answer will be simple. It's like the impossible magicians trick that no one can understand. What takes people in that none of the audience is prepared to believe what extraordinary lengths and expense a magician is prepared to go to, to get the trick.





Just thoughts

I don't believe JM is dead but Sherlock definitely jumped, that much is without doubt.

[PTeppic]

Originally Posted by TheEndIsNigh

If you noticed Watson never actually get his hands on the body so he wasn't really able to give an opinion of the body.

He did, trying to get to the radial pulse, but he was pulled away by the "bystanders" (i.e. almost certainly accomplices).

[No One]

I don’t usually watch the One show – dreary would be the word for it – but did anyone catch their solution to the Sherlock conundrum? In short, he dived into a garbage truck (or whatever it was) and enlisted the aid of Molly (which he clearly has in some regard) to provide a fake body. Simple.

Having re-watched the episode I do find myself with these questions though:

Firstly (and off-topic of the final scenes), regarding the initial trick that lead to the police officer suspecting Sherlock as the kidnapper, why did she not think ‘why would he willingly walk into the interrogation room knowing that the girl would recognise him?’ That would seem to be an excessively stupid move for someone who’d managed to pull the wool over everyone’s eyes. Still, minor point.

Anyway, Sherlock couldn’t have known Moriarty would kill himself (it does seem unlikely that Moriarty was actually an actor – I mean really, what sort of actor would allow himself to be caught and effectively tortured by the government for weeks on end? Sure, an abundance of wealth might blind him into doing it, but there could no guarantee that he wouldn’t crack under pressure). Anyway, why the ‘theatrics’ of Sherlock realising his fate if he already knew what he had to do and had already prepared for it? Am I right in thinking that only one of the assassins may have had an eye on him at the time? All he was interested in is seeing Sherlock fall. That would mean it was all there simply to fool the viewer, which compromises a kind of storytelling fourth wall for me. I just don’t like that sort of thing and Moffat's a good enough writer to not have to resort to it.

On the subject of a masked dead body: if the show is willing to be realistic enough to acknowledge that a few lines of coding can’t infiltrate any system, then it should also be realistic enough to acknowledge that there’s no technique in the world of making perfectly convincing replica masks (it clearly was Cumberbatch lying on the ground – which some people seem to think otherwise – and is something we’ll be expected to swallow when it’s revealed that, of course, it wasn’t). Also, a mask that won’t budge out of place upon impact is even more of a stretch.

If this is the solution then it’s a disappointment. It won’t stop me from watching what’s to come, but I think my expectations of an elegant and plausible resolution are fast waning. Then again, this is all still speculation, but when all is revealed I still think certain underhand cons (if that’s not a redundant term) have been played on the viewers.

Just to brighten the tone a bit though, my favourite episode was A Scandal in Belgravia, simply because Moffat’s script there was brilliantly paced, clever, touching and at times downright funny.

[Ursa major]

Originally Posted by No One

...it does seem unlikely that Moriarty was actually an actor...

Apart from anything else didn't we, the viewers see Moriarty behaving as Moriarty and organising things (e.g. over the phone) when the other characters in the story couldn't see him? Why would those scenes require a false Moriarty? They wouldn't. Thus we have seen the real Moriarty and he's the man who later claimed, falsely, to be merely an actor playing Moriarty.

[TheEndIsNigh]

Originally Posted by Ursa major

Apart from anything else didn't we, the viewers see Moriarty behaving as Moriarty and organising things (e.g. over the phone) when the other characters in the story couldn't see him? Why would those scenes require a false Moriarty? They wouldn't. Thus we have seen the real Moriarty and he's the man who later claimed, falsely, to be merely an actor playing Moriarty.

Plus it would seem a bit strange for Holmes to take it to the now revealed bitter ending. If JM was just an actor SH hired, what the hell was it all about?

In reference to the mask idea. Lets not forget that Madame Tussuad's is just up the road from 221B and a replica wax head/rubberised mould thing could easily be shoved on a fake body given we have all the technology of MI at our disposal. By the way, I think I saw a cassette smoking in the background.

[PTeppic]

Originally Posted by No One

Anyway, why the ‘theatrics’ of Sherlock realising his fate if he already knew what he had to do and had already prepared for it? Am I right in thinking that only one of the assassins may have had an eye on him at the time? All he was interested in is seeing Sherlock fall. That would mean it was all there simply to fool the viewer, which compromises a kind of storytelling fourth wall for me. I just don’t like that sort of thing and Moffat's a good enough writer to not have to resort to it.

By the time of the roof-top at Barts, the assumption is that SH knows he has to fake his own death/suicide to "beat" JM. We can assume he knows JM is likely to have a back-up plan: he's had snipers before. It would need to be a convincing death, because anything that was suspicious might indicate some trickery and thus the fall-back-plan being triggered. Hence the theatrics.