Now, I remember seeing what happened the last time Hollywood modernised The Great Detective, when Basil Rathbone was suddenly dragged forward in time from fin de siecle London and dropped off in the 1930s. It clunked. Besides, to me, Jeremy Brett will always be Sherlock Holmes.
But Dennis insisted that the BBC reboot was "smart...sexy...funny," and he went so far as to snag the first two series on DVD. So I sat down to "A Study in Pink," and was *hooked*. Uh-oh. I snagged the original A.C. Doyle canon, and have only left one short story unread (saving it for a special occasion), and know the rest well enough that I can re-watch episodes and go, "Aaaaaah--I see what you did there!" when the writers slyly sneak in references.
Like most good nerderies, the A. Conan Doyle canon has the selling-point of a limited supply: Four (short) novels and fifty-six short stories, plus a few extra-curriculars for the hard-core fans. (Mercifully, we're not talking "The Dresden Files" here--he can't write more.)
But if the original canon is limited, BBC only produces three "Sherlock" episodes every two years. And they've left each season on a cliffhanger. Jerks. Worse, they loooove to tease the fans--witness the 6-minute mini-episode released Christmas Day. The two principal actors, Benedict Cumberbatch and Martin Freeman, are hot properties on both sides of The Pond, so we'll be lucky to see Series 4 before 2016.
That's a lot of time for speculation--and by "speculation," I mean terabytes worth of fan-fic, YouTube mash-ups, and the obligatory online food-fights. Team Johnlock, Team Sherlolly, Team Sheriarty, and whatever you'd call Sherlock plus Irene Adler. Even rumours of a for-charity mash-up of "Sherlock" and "Dr. Who." ("Sherlock" co-creators Steven Moffat and Mark Gattis are also writers for the latter series. British show-biz is nothing if not incestuous that way.)
*** HERE THERE BE SPOILERS ***
So if the hot question in 2012 was, "How did Sherlock survive jumping off a tall building?", in 2014 it's "Is Moriarty really back from the dead himself?"
It's already been pointed out that when Sherlock turns back to Moriarty's corpse sprawled on the rooftop, the gun with which Moriarty committed suicide is still in Moriarty's hand. The gun should have gone well afield when Moriarty's body hit the roof (literally). (There's also some noise made about "Richard Brook" being right-handed when "James Moriarty" is clearly a southpaw.)
Yet, just as Sherlock is leaving the U.K. on what is guaranteed to be his last service to his country, Moriarty's face is on every screen in the country--the Max Headroom of the 21st century--asking, "Did you miss me? Did you miss me? Did you miss me?"
So, for the record, here's my over-obsessive fangirling on the hot question of 2014.
Naturally, we eliminate the impossible to arrive at the implausible truth. So let's start with the basic premise that we have absolutely no reason to believe that the person who put a gun in his mouth and pulled the trigger on the top of St. Bartholomew's Hospital was in fact the person known as "James Moriarty."
One thing that's bugged me since S1E3 ("The Great Game") is the killing of the blind hostage. All the hostages are wired with explosives which will be set off if the hostage deviates from her/his "script." Because Moriarty can't communicate with the blind woman by text, he has to speak to her--stepping at least partly out of the shadows, as Sherlock points out at the time. But after her "puzzle" has been solved, she starts to describe Moriarty's voice to Sherlock & Lestrade, and Moriarty has the trigger pulled. That made absolutely no practical sense, simply because that was information she could have given to Scotland Yard once she'd been rescued and defused. Conclusion? She was still reading from the script until the very end.
Thus, we don't even have any guarantee that Moriarty is actually a dude.
Which leads to my premise that Series 4 will uncover the real "Moriarty," and she will wear the face of pathologist Dr. Molly Hooper.
Yep. Molly-arty. Better yet, Molliarty.
If you're familiar enough with the original canon to know that "Moriarty" was "Professor James Moriarty," you can make a case for it being Dr. Mike Stamford, but I think Molly's more plausible. Here's why:
- The "Jim Moriarty" we see doesn't have many interactions with Sherlock that couldn't be scripted. Molly is present at the first meeting in Bart's lab. Moriarty briefly exits during the poolside meeting, and then receives a phone call when Sherlock takes things in an unexpected direction. Moriarty pretty much controls the script in the flat, and basically pwns Sherlock in the cab scene. For the rooftop showdown, Sherlock had already worked out his plans, and was coordinating with Molly as well as his brother Mycroft and the Homeless Network.
- When Irene Adler monologues Mycroft and Sherlock, she says that Moriarty calls them "The Iceman and the Virgin," suggesting a character read that could only be had first-hand.
- Molly has a sociopathic streak herself. When we first meet her (and Sherlock), she's wheeling in the corpse of a former co-worker, "I liked him; he was nice.". Sherlock then beats Mr. Nice with a riding crop to test for bruising after death. Molly's response is to smirk, "Bad day, was it?" before asking Sherlock out for coffee. Also, at John's wedding, she sticks a fork into the back of her fiance's hand to shut him up.
- When Irene Adler fakes her death, the body in the morgue just happens to be shown by Molly, who claims to have nothing going on on Christmas Day. Molly very, very quickly produces the corpse "double" when Sherlock fakes his own death. That suggests connections that NHS pathologists are unlikely to have.
- When Sherlock deduces that Mary Watson is not who she claims to be, he notes both her "orphan" status and that her friendships have been formed w/in the last few years. Molly also seems to lack close relationships, particularly after her engagement to Tom fails. (See above.)
- When you're in the consulting criminal business, working in a morgue (not to mention being the person who officially determines the cause of death) comes in really handy. 'Nuff said.
- Molly is conveniently on hand when Sherlock decides to face Moriarty head-on. She has already let him know that she guesses what he is contemplating; he would have been stupid to refuse her help.
- When General Shan (sp?) is trying to excuse her failure to Moriarty, she is talking, but "he" is typing, and then under the screen name of "M." The "M" could also stand for "Molly," and indeed, balance of probability suggests first name, rather than last name, is more likely for a screen handle.
- Actor Andrew Scott is openly gay, but we have no reason to believe that Moriarty is--even with the "Jim from I/T" performance. When Moriarty first contacts Sherlock, "he" addresses him as "Sexy." Later, Moriarty says, "You and I were meant for each other." That sounds suspiciously like Molly's (apparent) feelings for Sherlock.
- At the beginning of S2E3 ("The Reichenbach Fall"), Mycroft confesses to John that to get any information at all from Moriarty when they had "him" in custody, he had to trade tidbits about Sherlock, including their childhood. We later learn that the young Sherlock was left emotionally scarred when their dog, Redbeard, was euthanised. Yet somehow that information finds its way into the hands of blackmailer Magnussen. Given their personalities, the likelihood of them working together is absurd. However, Magnussen would have paid handsomely for Sherlock's "pressure points," giving Molliarty more capital to rebound for Round III with Sherlock.
- Moriarty only returns when Sherlock is being sent on a kamikaze spy-mission, but also after Sherlock has whacked the only other criminal with the resources--notably a media empire--to be viable competition. Bonus points for a strategic double-cross there.
Which, with the exception of John having unwittingly married a trained assassin, pretty much sets the same pieces back on familiar squares for Series 4. Except that if I'm right, it means no more Andrew Scott, which would suck because he's riveting in that role.
*** END SPOILERS ***
Unless I splurge on the full Jeremy Brett "Sherlock Holmes" from the 80s/90s, it's gonna be a looooooooong time until Series 4. For, I suspect, Dennis as much as me.
