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Sherlock Christmas Special Thread

"Utter shit" was probably a bit harsh since I enjoyed some of it, but I've seen so many tv shows do the same thing but better (The Leftovers had a dream episode this year that was brilliant) whereas with this I was thinking "oh they have done the fake 'they're still in the holodeck' bit yet, great" and it just annoyed me so much that I wanted to say it was "utter shit" by the end.
 
See I felt the opposite. If it has just been just a straight "Sherlock but in Victorian times like the books" episode then it would have seemed to be a bit of a waste of an episode (AND WE DON'T EXACTLY GET MANY OF THEM) and it's not like there aren't 100's of other films and shows doing the exact same thing.

So I was actually happy they tied it into the actual show and made it an actual episode instead of just a one-off side story.
 
I didn't like series 3 because it seemed like a random collection of fan service and tumblr gifs. So I liked the idea of a Victorian episode because I thought it would force them to actually have a mystery story with a satisfying conclusion, but I was prepared for the possibility of it being an "it's all a dream" thing so I wouldn't have necessary hated it even if hadn't been a straight Victorian episode. So I don't know what happened but as soon as they started doing the Inception/Star Trek thing I instantly "felt, oh, they're doing that" and it took me out of the episode and ruined the immersion. Like I just felt like I was watching a tv show doing tv show things. Which isn't a feeling I got from say that episode of Futurama where Fry was in a bee coma (that was great.) And by the time they did the "oh he's still in the holodeck" thing I was just rolling my eyes. But I think even with this it could have been good! Even with a framing device they could have told a good story and when Sherlock was still willing to solve the crime even when he knew it wasn't real I thought "well it could be a good solution." As Sherlock said he wanted to see what it would be like to solve a crime using 1895 methods. Except they didn't really do anything with the setting and he didn't solve the crime with 1895 methods, Mary just came to them and said "I know where the killers are" and then it turned out it was every woman ever who did it which to me felt like something designed to be on tumblr or appeal to certain fans rather than a satisfying ending then Moriarty literally said "actually it doesn't make sense because it's a dream haha!" and it reminded me of that shit Gatiss Doctor Who episode this year so I was like "fuck off" and wow this is a long sentence sorry. At least they confirmed Moriarty actually is dead and won't need to spend another episode on it.

(Also the "nobody made me" bit felt far too similar to Hannibal's "nothing happened to me" line but maybe that was a tribute since they took the mind palace idea from Thomas Harris' books.)
 
Well I liked it. I expected going in that there would be a point where we'd go back to the real world and find Sherlock or Watson had had a bump on the head or something, so it wasn't a surprise when it happened, and as it turned out the drug induced mind palace thing was a pretty good excuse to do the timey winey thing.

The actual investigation wasn't that great. My flatmate guessed immediately that Sherlock was trying to figure out how Moriarty could've survived a headshot and I thought the peppers ghost and suffragette elements were far too clearly signposted to make it much of a mystery, but it was fun, funny, well acted and looked incredible. The fan service really doesn't bother me, probably because we get these episodes so rarely that when they come around I really am excited and onboard with the whole fanboy thing. But I do wish we could have one episode now and again that was just a simple murder mystery without any Moriarty or over the top plot twists. It'd be refreshing.
 
Data used the holodeck inside the holodeck to fool Moriarty into thinking he was going off into space with Stephanie Beacham.
 
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