The Empty Hearse

I only gave "The Empty Hearse" 6 stars for the effort and out of respect for the actors, who did the best they could with a very poor script. The episode seemed like endless nodding to Sherlock's fans. The writers spent so much time nodding that they forgot to actually look at the characters and notice what they were doing. And they were not doing much. Sharp concise dialogue of Sherlock Series 1 becomes in "The Empty Hearse" either syrupy squirts of sentimentality or a parody of itself. Since the camera-work was gone out of the series by Season 2, there is no need to mention it here. However, the creators thought it wise to eliminate the iconic music from Sherlock this time as well. In short, whereas in Season 1 and partially 2 Gatiss and Moffat treated the characters as real, complex, multi-faceted people, here they decided to turn them into caricatures of themselves.

My favorite episode so far. It's badly bashed online because it really has its flaws. The main argument is that this episode is more of a parody to Sherlock than it is new Sherlock story. The fact is that this episode does not bring new complicated crime and Sherlock's genius solution, and to a certain extent I can understand the disappointment of those who waited two years for this episode. But I, who waited for it just a few minutes, really cannot recall last time I had so much fun. It may be bad from the crime/mystery genre point of view, but it's not written in the stone that every episode must follow that pattern. It's premium entertainment and I am thrilled.

9/10

However, I have one objection. It is not a big deal and most of the audience won't even notice it, because it is obvious only to former Yugoslavian audience and Russians, but it needlessly undermines the quality of this awesome show. I will quote Bosnian guy who presented this issue par excellence:

"Besides Serbs always being the bad guys, torturing someone when they have nothing else to do, how come they wear Russian parade uniforms and talk their Serbian like a parrot with Aerosinusitis, which is hardly intelligible. I know that Mycroft had few hours to learn Serbian, but the other Serbian guy speaks his mother tongue like a text-to-speech software. It seems that using google translate instead of human keeps production costs low... just as the quality of it."

2 years is a pretty long time to wait for something so excellent.Being a big fan of the source material,I've followed this show from the beginning and this episode lived up to our expectations..the wait was worth it!We finally got an explanation to the riddle which had been bugging our minds so long.

Is there something better than Sherlock and Moriarty about to make out, and Sherlock's parents, and Sherlock's scarf, and Sherlock kissing Molly, and John repeatedly attacking Sherlock, and Anderson's first name?I think not. This was by far one of the best episode of this show and provided a full dose of spectacular performances by Benedict and Freeman with a script full of amazing wit,whizz and humour.Also the way Sherlock explains the fall is stunning and it opened with a breathtaking sequence. And hats off to the creators for such an excellent episode. It deserves a 10/10.

I waited keenly to see the conclusion of the Reichenbach fall, and we get the Empty Hearse.

I enjoyed it as it continues to be bursting with exuberance, it's fun and wacky, but it is not the best, the plot is a bit on the thin side, and it just feels overly self satisfied. I could imagine Mark Gatiss and Steven Moffat laughing maniacally and patting each other on the back during its creation.

It feels a little like we have a 15 minuted story with 75 minutes explaining Sherlock's bizarre survival, the on/off switch has been slammed many times, I need not add to that, it just seems a wee bit lazy.

There are great points though, some of the imaginings of Sherlocks death are fun, his actual parents are brilliant, the bonfire scene was superbly done, and Louise Brealey continues to shine brightly as Molly.

It delivers largely, but the bar has been set so high more was expected, 7/10

With the last seasons being such a great spectacle to witness, the expectations were held high by all – would the new season's starter be able to repeat the success of the last season starter? Well, it definitely matched up to it in a way, but was always to be a slightly different episode, as the main events of the episode were be the explanation of how Sherlock's still alive, rather than planting a new villain story and also offer a deep mystery to solve in the first episode. All this would not fit into 90 minutes, would the editors provide maximum attention and detail to everything, it's going to be too intense and too much mystery would make the episode a little too twisty would not provide enough integrity - it would be all around the place. So the balance had to be found between all of these aspects and boy, wasn't that balance found! All of it was wrapped up into a perfect sequence of events that rolled open in front of our eyes and none of the sequences dominated the others... too much... and hence created an episode with excellent integrity. The acting and especially the visuals were always to be spot on, there is no other option with Sherlock. I can't compare it to Scandal in Belgravia and say its better, since they are not really comparable, as in Scandal of Belgravia, the directors needed about 5 minutes to close all the loose ends from the previous season and start another great mystery. This one needed a lot more of it and yet still made a great episode. 9.5 out of 10.