Sherlock - The Empty Hearse Spoiler Free Review (Plus a bit about The Tractate Middoth).

So I got to see a special preview of the first episode of Sherlock Season 3 at the BFI yesterday.  In attendance at a Q&A afterwards was the director Jeremy Lovering, producer Sue Virtue, showrunners Steven Moffat and Mark Gatiss (Who wrote this episode) and stars Benedict Cumberbatch and Martin Freeman, being asked questions by writer Caitlin Moran.  I'll let you finish the rounds of "you lucky bastard" before I continue after the break.

As good a look as my phone's camera could allow

So, without giving anything away, I can safely reveal that this new season is off to a fantastic start with this episode.  Now given the subject matter, and various moody promo images for the episode, you might expect this to be a fairly solemn affair, all about the consequences and hardships Sherlock's apparent death has had.  There's touches of that in here, but it should be said that this is instead the funniest Sherlock episode yet by far.  It's almost been made a mission statement in here that, as dramatic as things get, this series should be all about having big, silly, fun adventures, and this is no exception.  There's a playfulness and charm throughout the whole thing, and not just in the incredibly sharp dialogue one would come to expect from a Gatiss script.

One major way this playfulness shows itself is in the matter of expectations.  There are two major things everyone will be going into this episode expecting; the big reuniting of John and Sherlock, and the revelation of how the Reichenbach Fall was staged.  We do get both in here, but the episode plays a lot of really fun games with these moments, and how they are handled are both some of the most dramatic yet some of the most side hurtingly hilarious parts of the story.  Even better, given that the question of how has been bugging fandom solidly for the past two years, the matter of such speculation is actively part of the story, and there's a  fond nod to the fanbase, in all it's slightly insane, shipping glory.

While the story focus is definitely on the return of Sherlock, there are of course fresh mysteries to be solved.  Some of the deduction scenes here do allow for some pretty good different dynamics between some of the characters, and the actual main investigation leads to a truly nail-biting climax only this show could pull off.  This episode is less of an adaptation, more a new mystery with a lot of references thrown in, including a neat one to one of Gatiss' Doctor Who episodes.  There're also some very dramatic set-pieces, including one Gatiss probably drew a lot upon his horror background to come up with.  Major props must go to the new director to the series Jeremy Lovering (who recently did Fitz from Agents of SHIELD starring horror In Fear).  He keeps a lot of the floating words and quick shots we've come to expect from previous episodes, along with a few new tricks, including one of the best effects scenes of the series.  It seemed very appropriate to show this episode on the big-screen, as it definitely keeps Sherlock's cinematic quality.  Also, for those worrying about where can this go now Sherlock's greatest enemy is dead, this episode does a good job at setting up an all new big-bad for this season, one who'll definitely make for a superb final showdown.

In the end though, it's all down to the cast and characters that this works as well as it does.  At the end, Martin Freeman said that coming back to the character after all this time was like putting on a comfy old coat you haven't had on in a while.  That's exactly what this feels like, it's great just seeing everyone back together again, not just Benedict and Martin, but Gatiss as Mycroft, Louise Brearly as Molly, Rupert Graves as Lestrade and Una Stubbs as Mrs. Hudson.  Also, Amanda Abbington makes a great first impression as John's new love interest, Mary (which is appropriate, since she's the real Mrs. Martin Freeman).  There's something very comforting about this series, something everyone can connect with, and this episode is just the thing to the new year in with.  If the next two episodes, The Sign of Three and His Last Vow, follow on from this well, then it's another winner of a season on their hands.  Here's hoping though it will be a bit less than two years until the next batch if there is one.

The Q&A was fun too.  (I was pretty surprised Martin and Benedict could make it, I figured they'd still be neck deep in The Hobbit interviews and such)  Caitlin Moran had a very pretty scattershot approach to it, and while I don't think it was quite as bad as this critic implies (just), there were definitely some big issues (and the Beeb apparently weren't happy about the end).  The questions from the audience though were much better, and I'm not just saying that because, awesomeness of awesomeness, I got to ask a question.  However, it's very plot specific, so I can't say what it was, but it seemed to go down quite well. The panel gave excellent answers, made even better by everyone's very obvious friendship and sense of fun throughout.  Also, Steve Moffat did his usual thing of asking us nicely not to spoil matters, listing of points we should not reveal, which is why I haven't mentioned moments like the visit to see Sigmund Freud, her Majesty Great Cthulhu, or the steampunk robot dragon.  He also said that maybe we should exercise the same sort of honesty we have come to expect from him (well, his exact words were "just lie").

So this was a fantastic time at the BFI.  The show was great, the Q&A questions had issues, but I cannot fault the answers, it was great seeing everyone in the flesh.  Not just onstage, the seats me and a friend were in were right by some of the cast, including Andrew Scott who was Moriarty last series, and a few other guests, including Wossy himself.  Also, the sight of the entire box office area of BFI Southbank filled with teenage to early-twenties girls in deerstalkers hoping for ticket returns will stay with me forever!

Sherlock: The Empty Hearse will be broadcast on New Year's Day at 9PM on BBC1.

While I'm here, Mark Gatiss has been the busy little bee this year, hasn't he?  Not only has he written two Doctor Who episodes, written and filmed Sherlock, he's also been on stage in a League of Gentlemen reunion, done a commentary with the League for a classic horror film Theatre of Blood, gotten a role in A Game of Thrones, and is currently performing Coriolanus with Tom Hiddleston.  What's more, this was his third Q&A at the BFI in a month!  Damn!  About this time last month he was there for the incredible An Adventure in Space and Time (wasn't that fantastic?), and a couple of weeks after that, he was unveiling another drama he wrote and directed this time, and a new documentary.  I got into that one, so let's talk a bit about M.R. James' The Tractate Middoth...

The Tractate Middoth is a revival of the old Ghost Stories for Christmas tradition, that the BBC used to do in the 70s, and is based on the works of classic writer M.R. James.  This one tells of a young librarian (Sacha Dhawan, who was also Waris Hussain in An Adventure in Space and Time), asked to find in the stacks an old text in Hebrew, only to have a ghastly encounter with something unearthly with an interest in the book.  It all links in with an elaborate story of a missing inheritance, and it leads to another chilling encounter.  

The story itself is one of the more "plotty" James stories (Gatiss' own words!), but it's all conveyed pretty well.  For a 35 minute drama, it covers quite a lot of ground, but at a decent pace, timing it's ghostly encounters well.  It has a marvellous sense of period (something Gatiss is very good at) with it's 1950s time setting and dialogue.  There're quite a few familiar faces in the cast to recognise, including Sherlock's Una Stubbs, Louise Jameson and Elanor Bron, many of whom bring a nice bit of sardonic humour to proceedings.  The ghost in here is extremely well realised, and is a very haunting presence, bought to life mainly through good old-fashioned make-up and camera effects.  Overall, it's a nice little spooky story, offering the sort of "pleasant terror" one would want.  When it's shown on Christmas Day, it's just the thing to scare the stuffing out of you!

Deja Vu all over again.

Immediately following this is a documentary by Gatiss, M.R. James Ghost Writer.  This is a loving look at the life of not just one Britain's most influential, but most fascinating horror writers.  An academic at Eton and Cambridge, his fictions were mostly a hobby to him, just a treat for his students, but they became what he's remembered for best.  If you saw any of Gatiss' previous horror documentaries, it's the same format here, linking in closely the direction of James' own personal life with that of his work, punctuated to visits to important locations, staged readings, and clips from the previous BBC James films.  Gatiss is the perfect host to take you through the story of the most English of authors, and will make you want to seek out the rest of James' works to read across Winter.  If on Christmas Evening you're still paralysed on the sofa from turkey exposure, definitely give this a watch.

The Tractate Middoth and M.R. James Ghost Writer will be broadcast on Christmas Day, 9.30 PM on BBC 2