4 Great Things And 4 Abominable Things About The Sherlock Special

3. The Plot

By itself, a solid murder/ghost mystery with an interesting resolution. This would have been fine, but the episode continues so that it can fill its 90 minutes run time. The idea of having Sherlock solve a mystery from the past in order to convince himself that Moriarty is truly dead could have been a brilliant mid-series diversion, but here feels like a cheap excuse and a big middle finger to the audience all in one.

After the big twist, it is harder to keep track of what is real (in the context of the show) and what is inside Sherlock's mind-palace €“ a neat concept when used sparingly (such as the solving of the mayfly man case in The Sign of Three) but here it seems to be a convenient explanation for doing whatever they want. This means that it no longer matters about...