4 Great Things And 4 Abominable Things About The Sherlock Special

1. The Appreciation

'Blame it on the illustrator, he's out of control'. Watson's talking about growing his moustache so people will recognise him, but there's a better joke in there €“ Sherlock's famous deerstalker hat came from illustrator Sidney Paget and was never mentioned in the text. This level of detail shows just how much Moffat and friends appreciate Conan Doyle's original work and what has happened to it since. Sherlock is about paying homage and there is no greater presentation of this than the special. At times it almost crosses over into breaking the fourth wall, but this is all at the service of gently mocking the original stories whilst showing how much they have influenced the writing.

The memorable image of Fat Mycroft is another clever bit of appreciation €“ and a shock to the audience. The way Mycroft has been presented in Sherlock seems to suggest he is actively fighting the sedentary lifestyle but still comes to Sherlock for the 'leg-work'. Conan Doyle's Mycroft is 'corpulent' (read: fat) but there is another level which the show-runners have added here. Because of the twist (spoilers!) we get to see that this is the way Sherlock perceives his brother €“ a clever bit of thinking there.

Those who have seen any previous adaptations, or read any of the novel and short stories, will know that a lot of plot points, ideas and sometimes even whole lines of dialogue are lifted straight from their pages, and this is no bad thing. As Holmes says at the end of the episode, "I've always known I was a man out of my time" €“ this could be either the past or present version of the character talking about the other, and goes to show how well the show continues to pull off the transition.

Now that that's out of the way, on to the painful stuff...