But later that same evening, the very same Emelia – the eponymous abominable bride – is seen murdering her husband (Gerald Kyd).
Lestrade (Rupert Graves) tells them the puzzling tale of Emelia Ricoletti (Natasha O’Keeffe), a consumptive bride who opened fire on innocent passers-by before shooting herself in the head. With the breakneck pacing that we’d become accustomed to, the episode restages Holmes and Watson’s first meeting from A Study in Scarlet before jumping forward a few years to present the pair with a particularly baffling case.
#Review sherlock holmes bride series#
It never escapes the trappings and style of the television series but transplanting the characters back into their original time is a startling development after three years set very firmly in a very modern London. The Abominable Bride begins with a rapid-fire run-through of all of the salient plot developments of the first three series before we rewind to find Holmes (Cumberbatch) and Watson (Freeman) in an alternative history, detectives in a Victorian London more familiar to readers of the Conan Doyle stories. With stars Benedict Cumberbatch and Martin Freeman reaping the benefits of the show’s success and carving out successful film and stage careers and with Moffat still overseeing Doctor Who (2005-), episodes of Sherlock were becoming increasingly few and far between so a “one-off”special to tide us over until the fourth series began in January 2017 seemed an obvious idea.
But there’s no arguing with viewing figures and by the time the third series of three adventures had ended with The Last Vow in January 2014, each adventure was pulling in around 8 million viewers. For every one that enjoyed the often “tricksy” direction, there was another that found it insufferable. The series was hugely popular but also divisive – for every viewer that loved the intricate game-playing of creators Steven Moffat and Mark Gatiss’ scripts, there was another who found them impenetrable, pretentious and needlessly convoluted. This was “sold” by the BBC as a stand-alone episode of their smash-hit television series Sherlock (2010-) though it turned out to be nothing of the sort.
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