The Abominable Bride

The long-awaited Sherlock special, "The Abominable Bride," is supposed to satiate our hunger for Sherlock, since we see him so rarely.

It did and it didn't.

I want to disclose up front that I flew to London to see Benedict Cumberbatch in Hamlet.

This episode was as divisive as Cumberbatch's looks. Some people thought this was the worst thing they've ever seen, and others thought it was wonderful.

I'm somewhere in between. Without giving anything away, I'll say, given the idea behind this episode, the story as it unfolded made sense. It was chaotic, confusing, and filled with strange things -- it was supposed to be.

Instead of taking the idea so literally, I would have preferred something more straightforward with Sherlock returning to Victorian times. There were too many interwoven ideas and people popping up.

One thing I was very impressed by was how much, in Victorian times, Cumberbatch resembled the standard idea of Sherlock Holmes' appearance. He looked amazing.

The production values and acting were both excellent; besides the leads, Andrew Scott was incredible. A good deal of the dialogue was fun. "He said the crime solution was so easy that even I could have solved it," Lestrade tells Mrs. Hudson. "Oh, I'm sure he was exaggerating," she assures him.

I wish they would release more episodes before 2017. For a man the producers objected to when he was cast, Cumberbatch is now too busy to be available for episodes. The price of fame.

What can I say about the "Sherlock" Christmas special, "The Abominable Bride?" Extremely little, for fear of spoilers.

I will say that I loved it — I'd rate it a perfect 10, as I would just about any episode of this amazing TV show. Also, as good as the trailer was … I can say that it offers much more in its story than you'd expect.

I'd also say that it strongly, strongly parallels a movie that I happen to love — right down to its surprise plot device, key character interactions, and a symbolic act by the main protagonist in the climactic scene. The similarities are just too much for this to be a coincidence — it's just got to be a well done (and a damn fun) homage. It's unexpected, too, as the film I'm thinking off probably appeals to a different fan base. "The Abominable Bride" also cheerfully skewers another excellent recent film and the twist employed there.

There's some terrific acting, especially between Sherlock (Benedict Cumberbatch) and our main villain. And the dialogue is as sly and superbly delivered as always. I don't think I've ever watched a new episode of "Sherlock" and not laughed out loud at least once. The stronger, more assertive John Watson (Martin Freeman) that we see is damn terrific. (There's a compelling and sensible reason why this iteration of Watson seems a little different than our usual mild anti-hero, but I just can't say why.)

My quibbles were wholly forgivable. I thought that the Victorian versions of Molly Hooper (Louise Brealey) and Mycroft Holmes (Mark Gatiss) were just so cartoonish that they seemed right out of a "Saturday Night Live" sketch. It "took me out of the movie," and hampered my willing suspension of disbelief. It felt more like farce and silly sight-gags, instead of the dry, dialogue- and character-driven humor that the show is known for.

I also though that the climactic scene occurring among three primary characters, felt a little … off. Was it just not staged right? Was the pacing off? Maybe I got the sense that I was looking at a soundstage? I'm not sure.

Finally, I am an inveterate horror movie fan, and I might have liked to have seen the director and screenwriters play up the horror story elements just a little bit more here. The mystery for this episode was a jewel of an opportunity — a garish, fearsome "ghost bride" that assassinates men. It could have been just a little scarier, given that story. I know that "Sherlock" is not a horror show, but its creators did just fine in making their adaptation of "The Hound of the Baskervilles" both a bit frightening and a proper mystery.

But, again, those are just forgivable quibbles. This show remains the best thing on television!

I did not fully get it the first time but when I watched it again, it all started making some sense to me. It may be difficult for those who are not devoted fans of this series to fully grasp the craziness of this episode, but once you open your eyes to the genius of the writers' intent on what they were trying to achieve here, I could not keep my eyes off the show and found myself watching it over and over again. If the writers of series simply made this an one-off episode to truly stick to the original storyline, then there would be numerous critical remarks about how the writers settled for the comfort of predictability and made the whole plot so ordinary and boring. Before shooting at the TV screen and calling it 'stupid', one may want to watch it one more time and there will be that "a-ha" moment!

Is this silly enough for you yet? ...It's in the script!... A character (I won't spoil you who that is) says that to Sherlock near the end, but it is addressed to the viewers of this episode too.

This series jumped the shark, the whale and maybe even the ...dolphins. It tries soooooo hard to be different and surpass itself that becomes unbearable.

To tell you the truth I disliked the 3rd season too, but the 4th is abysmal. I liked Irene's Adler episode and the Reichenbach Fall but this series turned into crap.

The main actors have a credibility and a presence but there is nothing else there. The writers are buried under their own creation, trying to be edgy. They don't even have the answers to the questions are presenting themselves.

This is a terrible episode. A complete mess that only some remaining hardcore fans will find "interesting". Holmes is a caricature of himself and in the whole episode doesn't "deduce" or observes anything. He is lost. A puppet. All the hype but zero substance.

The episode sets a million questions "how this?" "why that?" but fails to answer any of them.

There are some cheap humor here and there. Lots of swirly transitions between scenes (without a reason). A few puns. Some "reveals" about Holmes's personality, even his (non-existent?) past with women, but it is obvious that the writers were only trying to fill 90 minutes of "film" to justify the pointless episode.

Overall: After the disappointment of the 3rd season, the fourth is reaching new depths of humiliation for our beloved hero. Maybe I should check if there is any new episode of elementary. At least the U.S. series is far more honest to itself.

In a Sherlock Holmes mind trip he is taken back to the 1890s. In a setting very much like that Sir Arthur Conan Doyle would have envisaged, Holmes is a private detective, operating out of 221B Baker Street. Assisting him is Dr Watson. They are presented with a very baffling case. A woman, Emelia Ricoletti, publicly shoots and kills herself, only to appear a few hours later and kill her husband. Within the next few months other murders are committed by woman appearing to be Mrs Ricoletti. Even the police are thinking that paranormal activity is afoot. Then Sir Eustace Carmichael is threatened by such an apparition and his wife calls in Holmes and Watson.

The idea of filming a Sherlock Holmes episode in the original time and setting appealed to me. It gave us a taste of what the series would have been like if it hadn't been contemporised. However, at the back my mind was the nagging suspicion that the writers had run out of ideas and that going back to the 1890s was a gimmick, and the series' jumping the shark moment.

Ultimately it isn't as straightforward as an entire Sherlock episode set in the 1890s, so difficult to judge whether it was meant to be a gimmick or not. It ends up much more complex than that, and, to an extent, unnecessarily so. We have many jumps between the 1890s and the 2010s and it seems like style over substance.

However, it is very entertaining. The 1890s murder story is very intriguing and is woven into the overall plot well. The modern day side is reasonably well done, though the Moriarty scenes seemed a bit self-indulgent and overblown.

Overall, not brilliant but a pretty good episode nevertheless.