Tonight sees the final outing of the BBC’s three-part Sherlock Holmes adaptation. It’s been an adventure that has energized summer television and breathed new life into one of the worlds favorite detective stories. To say that the series caught me off-guard would be an understatement.
I’ve had a peek at the episode description for tonight’s ‘finale’ titled, “The Great Game”, and it leaves me pondering one question – Will Sherlock finally meet his match? There are also promotional photos for tonight’s episode and an interview co-creator Mark Gatiss.
So without further ado, head past the jump to get your pre-episode fix.
Sherlock 1.03 “The Great Game” Synopsis:
Benedict Cumberbatch and Martin Freeman embark on their final thrilling, scary, action-packed and hugely entertaining adventure as Sherlock Holmes and Dr John Watson.
Despairing of the ingenuity of London’s criminals, Sherlock is invited to take on what looks to be a very ordinary case – a young civil servant found on a railway line with his head smashed in. It seems to be open and shut – or so he thinks.
The curtain is about to rise on a terrifying game of cat and mouse as a crazed bomber pits his wits against Sherlock. A 20-year-old murder, a blood-soaked car, a rediscovered Old Master worth millions – it’s just the kind of adventure Sherlock and John relish, but who is behind these deadly puzzles? London is set to become a battle ground as Sherlock confronts the one person capable of beating him.
Sherlock Holmes is played by Benedict Cumberbatch and John Watson by Martin Freeman, Mrs Hudson by Una Stubbs, Molly Hooper by Louise Brealey, Inspector Lestrade by Rupert Graves, Sargeant Sally Donovan by Vinette Robinson, Di Botcher by Connie Prince, Kenny Prince by John Sessions, Lucy by Lauren Crace and Miss Wenceslas by Haydn Gwynne.
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Sherlock 1.03 “The Great Game” – Promo Photos:
Sherlock co-creator Mark Gatiss spoke to Den Of Geek about adapting Sherlock Homes into a modern day adventure, where he gives some hints on tonight’s episode – The Great Game:
You’ve clearly treated the writing and production of these Sherlockadventures as films. How does the approach differ for you from your television work?
All you can think of is the scale of it. I’ve just done The First Men In The Moon for BBC Four, I think it goes out in the autumn. We’ve managed to go to the moon on a very low budget, and I think it looks fantastic. We had to work within our limitations.
Here, obviously, we have limitations. But you can’t sit down and say I’m going to write a movie. The story needs to deserve that slot. And 90 minutes eats story.
It’s really about the scale of it, and to me it’s an old screenwriting thing, coming in as late as possible and cutting out shoe leather. So, what I found in my episode [The Great Game], which is five cases in one, one of the most exciting things – in order to make it possible – Sherlock has to solve cases as quick as possible. And the great thing is you can cut out an awful lot of thinking. That gives it a kind of pile-driving, filmic narrative, because you’re really going for it.
The way it’s edited too is that there’s not a beat between scenes at times. We’ve gone straight from the end of a conversation directly into something else.
I think that’s very important. In [A Study In Pink], you’ve got this wonderful iceman cometh build-up. You don’t see Sherlock, you don’t see Sherlock, and then you see him upside down.
You clearly had a lot of fun with that.
Oh, yes, I absolutely adore it. It’s a brilliant idea of Steve’s [Moffat]. It’s a bit like introducing Bond.
But I think you just need to get people really hooked. You’ve got the murders, you’ve got John’s lonely life, and then suddenly here’s this man and everything changes. It doesn’t pause for breath for a long time, and that’s good, and when it does, you feel like you’ve deserved to sit down and wonder how do you do this.
Going forward, Sherlock is very much on your plate with Steven [Moffat] doing Doctor Who. What are you looking for next? Because I understandSherlock started out as six one hour episodes as opposed to the three 90 minute adventures we got. Are you looking – for want of a template – that you do a kind of Frost kind of thing, where every year you get another few?
Oh, yeah. Three 90s is a nice thing, it’s a mini-series.
That’s still three months of filming, though?
It is. It is a lot, yeah. If you keep thinking of them as movies too, that’s a lot.
We hadn’t plotted six episodes. We had some vague ideas of where we’d go. So, it’s not like we had to [change] the entire thing. It’s about upping the scale of the threat. But without giving too much away, what we’d like to do if we get some more is tackle some of the favourite stuff. And what that would mean, if we could, would be to start then making it feel like our version. So, if anybody was to say you’re doing Moriarty too quickly, it’s really about not deferring your pleasures, you know? Why wait for season five?
But what that would mean if it happened, if we did some more, is that right, this series of three could be John gets married as he does in the original stories. What does that do to the dynamic? There’s so much to play around with.
The genius of Doyle is it’s all there, and sometimes it’s not quite in the right order. He admitted it himself: he married John off, and went, “Oh, god, now I’ve got to do the stories retrospectively!”
Check out the entire interview here.
If the previous two episodes are anything to go by then tonight’s final part should be a real cracker. The only downer is that the series will be over. The good news? There’s a great chance of more episodes getting made. “We would like there to be another series“, said Ben Stephenson, the BBC controller of drama commissioning. So would we Ben, so would we! Plus, America will be getting the first series from October 24, on PBS.
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