Reviewed: Sherlock: 'The Abominable Bride'

Spoilers!

Doctor John Watson, recently back from the war and recovering from physical and psychological injuries, is introduced to the rude but insightful Sherlock Holmes... and a partnership is born. But this is Victorian England, not the contemporary meeting that the BBC's Sherlock spun several years ago... and we are about to witness an alternative history as Holmes tries to uncover a web of secrets, lies and escape-plans of which Sir Athur Conan Doyle himself might well have approved.

A woman dressed in white is seen to shoot herself in public... so how can she be responsible for the death of her husband several days later. As her confirmed body lies in the morgue, Holmes investigates the first of several such equally confirmed sightings... and then learns that another man has witnessed the late, great Emelia Ricoletti and he is being scared... to death? Might this case be such a handful that even women could help him solve it?

As Holmes sees visions of the Reichenbach Falls and glimpses strange versions of his colleagues and associates, just what is the bigger picture?

Every time I review a Sherlock I find myself torn. For ninety minutes I have great fun - I laugh and admire some of the tricks of the trade - but even as the credits start to appear, the quibbles set in. It's like watching a very charming and erudite politician on the stump, entertaining a crowd but then suddenly realising he's entirely dodged the important question he was there to answer. In essence: it's one part Sherlock another part sheer spin.  

And if we're being honest... The Abominable Bride, the first new story for Sherlock in over a year, is, for better or worse, simply fan-fic writ large, however welcome. Inspired and a mess in equal amounts,

As a high-concept one-off it has undeniable charm to spare and written by its usual creative team there's insight and a sureness of style, but the fact that its 'hook' is taking the toy-box and merely dressing it up in different colours, doesn't quite excuse the excuse for being somewhat smug with the result. Take away the wardrobe and the impressively SFX'd London skyline and from being a 'special', in many ways this is now the archetypal Sherlock episode - and one could quite possibly argue the same applies to Moffat's Doctor Who - in the way that it places the look-at-me structure and marvel-at-the-banter ahead of actual story...the latter at the mercy of the former, rather than the other way around. It's not that it's not enjoyable to watch in the moment: the snarks are witty, many of the deceits and twisty turns fun to see revealed; Cumberbatch, Freeman and their supporting cast can do all this spectacularly well in their sleep and it all passes the ninety-minute mark with aplomb. The likes of Una Stubbs (Mrs Hudson), Rupert Graves (Lestrad), Mark Gatiss (Mycroft - here looking like a refugee from a certain Monty Python sketch), Amanda Abbington (Mary Watson) and Louise Brearley (Molly) give it their all and enjoy themselves.

But scratch the surface even slightly and once the admitted gleam is suspect...it's devilishly devious but  doesn't really make sense. Not for the first time, the big 'reveals' are fun but don't quite cover the entire puzzle. They talk about motivations and sleight of hand but even when a character on screen notes 'Wait, what about... that still doesn't explain what...', Moffat's script and character basically shrugs and just winks to camera with a 'Well, where's the fun in explaining everything?' That's fine once in a while or over a minor plot point, but it's now becoming a trademark that is beginning to feel contrived and lazy rather than enigmatic. Almost every episode we're getting (even if they are very few, very far-between and possibly a reason we'll get less Who in 2016) relies on such tricks and what could be excusable, once-in-a-while fun is now becoming the norm - gimmick or punchline over story. Here we are spun the story of a group of vigilante suffragettes involved in murder, but when their leader is revealed and the important question of why she involved Holmes at all is raised, there's no answer. 

I expressed some doubt that the Victorian conceit would be quite what it appeared several months ago and about two-thirds of the way through The Abominable Bride the veil is, indeed, lifted to reveal how it all fits into what has gone before (hence the necessary recap at the start). It works well and 'Ten points to HufflePuff' if you worked it out in advance, but it was a little obvious. But if the 'mind palace' is a device to shift focus to a different era then it also ultimately acts like more of a safety buffer for both the Victorian and contemporary stories, shifting between them as needed to keep the smoke-and-mirrors aspects in place. If this whole Special was truly about how Holmes is working out how Moriarty could have survived his apparent suicide, then it's also telling that the solution is allegedly worked out but not revealed to the audience. Yet more shrugs-to-service scenes.

It was a case of New Year's easter eggs. There's in-jokes a'plenty and there are probably more call-backs to previous episodes then even the most die-hard fans will spot in first viewing. Many are clever and fun to spot. But there are too many acting as punctuation.

It may be style over substance, but it would be Scrooge-like to deny the basic appeal the show has and the genuine enjoyment it brings in the moment. It's deception meets Inception and in and of itself it was done well.  However for Sherlock to be considered as more than the polished and high-brow but largely self-congratulatory treat it's become, we need a solution that proves to be more than 7 per-cent plot and 93 per cent showing off.