

The rest of the episode shuttles back and forth at a vertiginous pace between present day and the Victorian era, and who’s to say how real even the present day is? This isn’t a cheap cop-out, it’s seeing Sherlock’s mental disintegration from the inside, in all its confusing, non-linear glory.


The explanation is that Sherlock was in his mind palace trying to unravel Moriarty’s apparent return, but in order to get there he had taken a dangerous cocktail of drugs and read up on an unsolved Victorian murder. The “…and then he woke up and it was all a dream” twist is maligned for a reason, but if it takes talent to make a good cliché work, making a bad one brilliant is Holmes-level genius. That’s when the penny drops – or rather, when we realize that it’s been dropping just at the corner of our vision the entire episode. It’s not the Reichenbach Fall that will kill you. Oh yes, it’s shot beautifully, but the anchronisms are painful – does 1890s Mycroft really need to use the phrase “a virus in the data”? How did that not slip past the poor intern on historical accuracy duty?Īnd then Moriarty breaks into the even-more-fictional-than-normal Baker Street, unapologetically flirting with Sherlock at a time when that could get you imprisoned or worse, twirling Chekov’s gun like a music hall villain’s mustache and reminding us that the abominable bride’s death mimics his own in the “Sherlock” universe we all know. In fact, the whole thing feels like a sporadically enjoyable but generally irritating conceit – a real shame when Mark Gatiss gives such good historical telly. 'Everything I Know About Love' Review: Fun, Frank Look at Friendship and Romance in 2012 Londonįrom 'Reality Bites' to 'Fatal Attraction,' Keep Track of All the Upcoming Film-to-TV AdaptationsĮmmy Predictions: Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Comedy Series: Brett Goldstein Reps for 'Ted Lasso' 'Mike' Review: A Featherweight Replica of Mike Tyson's Real-Life Drama If one happened to be a reasonable expert in 1890s Britain, there are a number of inconsistencies at the beginning here that could be jarring, not least the inexplicably gloomy morgue lit by flickering gaslight – compare that to the nice, bright, clean(ish) morgue in fellow BBC stablemate Ripper Street and you wonder why Molly Hooper bothered with the fake mustache at all.
