Thankfully, Karen McManus has written a story both for people who love a good whodunnit and for those who might not be as familiar with the genre this story is her debut novel, “One of Us is Lying,” and it is all at once enthralling, exciting and enticing. Others might recall memories of reading classic Sherlock Holmes tales in high school (and writing the three-page essay that likely followed). Sherlock detectives will deduce a possible significance from this being the only one of the 13 episodes to use an original title without any alteration.īut even if the worst were to happen, fans of this super-intelligent and hyper-entertaining show – which reached new heights of action and emotion in The Six Thatchers – will note that Conan Doyle, after his Final Problem, had to bring the character back by popular demand.When you think of a murder mystery novel, what's the first thing that comes to mind? For some, it might be an old Agatha Christie volume - the kind of paperback you see on your grandmother's bookshelf that's dusty and looks like it hasn't been read for years. Ominously, the last episode in this run, which airs on 15 January, is called The Final Problem – the name of the Conan Doyle story in which Holmes dies.

Moffat and Gatiss told the same press conference that they were unsure if the remaining cast could be united for future series.

But soon afterwards, it emerged that the context was uncanny: the actors had actually separated shortly before filming. It’s unclear how Gatiss specified the sound in the script but, for King Lear, it was written as the hardest line in theatre: “Howl, howl, howl, howl!”ĭuring a Q&A session after a premiere screening on 19 December, Freeman and Abbington discussed the weirdness of a real-life couple acting the tragic end of a relationship. And with Mary taking a bullet meant for Sherlock, Martin Freeman’s Watson let out an extended, escalating, animalistic moan. And thanks to the dramatic impact achieved by director Rachel Talalay, the murder of Mary matched the death of M in Skyfall.Ĭonfronted with a dead friend, her widower and their motherless baby, Cumberbatch’s face (mainly required to remain blank) painted a picture of pain and confusion. The episode felt very Bond overall – Holmes has never done so much running towards or away from explosions. A new sub-plot involving the historical decisions of a villainous woman in Whitehall also logically seemed to lead to Thatcher, but the script again opted to give the BBC press office a quiet holiday. In one respect, Gatiss has even depoliticised the original, which is filled with references to immigrants and refugees, “the outcasts of Europe”. But the point, as Sherlock immediately realises, is that the vandal has no political motivation: he’s looking for something hidden inside a head. Here, the French emperor’s replacement with the former British prime minister has led to some muttering about the BBC’s supposed leftwing bias. The Arthur Conan Doyle story on which Gatiss based his script has busts of Napoleon being smashed by an intruder. But although the franchises have to some extent overlapped, both tending towards tragicomic love stories, viewers knew that as Amanda Abbington lay slain on the floor she would not shimmeringly regenerate into another actor. Sherlock co-creators Steven Moffat and Mark Gatiss also work on Doctor Who, which was awarded the other prime seasonal slot on the BBC on Christmas Day.

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