Sherlock - what did you think of his resurrection?

[THECliffRichardSucksEggsinHell]

After all the theories floating about?

I thought it was very clever of them to kill him off in such a mysterious way and then let the Twitterati and bloggers solve the mystery for them.

I loved every minute of it, especially all the red herring theories.

There was Sherlolly. There was Sheriarty. There was JohnLock.

Fangirls paradise.

I think the whole program could have been 90 minutes of him reading the phone book out loud and I would still have thought it was the best thing ever. Dear god, he is just divine

I thought it was a bit jumpy-around, with the occasional clunk. Obviously it's part one of a three parter, so lots of red herrings need to be laid out for us, and lots of teasers. But it did keep all of us quiet and still for a whole 85 minutes, so must have been ok.

The link above is for Lotto

For a die-hard fan of Holmes, there were so many references to the books and stories, including the little bit about John being James (Conan Doyle once had Mary Morstan refer to Dr Watson as James) which made it a real treat. It's lovely to see a modern rendition of Holmes produced by obvious fans of the stories.

And the resurrection of Holmes, just like in the books, was rather implausible. Didn't someone on Mumsnet mention the squash ball under the armpit? I do think they just took bits from all the theories online to cobble together an explanation, which is fair enough, like I said the original wasn't that clever really. I even loved it when the forensic guy admitted he was disappointed with the explanation.

Mark Gatiss and Stephen Moffat are very talented writers.

Clever clever script writing. Mr Gatiss you are amazing.

To be honest I was just happy to have it back on the screen so the amusing not revealing which of the 13 possibles is just a bonus. I especially liked it because had to explain bits to my DP which made me feel clever.

Now watching for the second time. Officially sad middle aged woman ...

If I'm honest I thought it was a bit of a let down, maybe I should watch it again if everyone else thought it was good.

Absolutely loved it and after that kiss have a huge crush on BC!

Loved that Mary is played by Martin Freeman's wife - I really like her.

Also loved Sherlock/BCs parents! :-D

The interplay between Sherlock and Mycroft is wonderful!

THECliff, the explanation he gives the forensics guy is not necessarily the truth. He says repeatedly that there were thirteen possible explanations, and after he tells Anderson the squash-ball one Anderson is briefly jubilant but then says something along the lines of 'Why on earth would Sherlock Holmes tell me the real truth?'.

We are all still left hanging. It's anyone's guess whether or not they'll reveal the real solution over the series.

Duck you'd be equally disappointed with the explanation in the books too, Conan Doyle didn't want to bring his creation back to life, he was persuaded to do so by his mum, the explanation he gave for Sherlock surviving the fall was hardly adequate either.

I hate the interplay between Holmes and Mycroft personally. They never quarrelled. That Mycroft was the more intelligent was never under any dispute, Holmes said he would make a better detective than he but Mycroft was quite podgy in the books and never left his armchair in the Diogenes Club. As for his parents, they were never mentioned. Not once.

TheHeadlessLadyofCannock yes it is good that they left everyone guessing still, but I do wonder how many comments they read and how many ideas they gratutiously stole from fans. The squash ball was mentioned on Mumsnet and I think that poster needs to claim the credit for that particular idea.

Looking forward to the next one - any idea when it will be?

I do think they just took bits from all the theories online to cobble together an explanation, which is fair enough, like I said the original wasn't that clever really. I even loved it when the forensic guy admitted he was disappointed with the explanation.

I'm sure that wasn't the real explanation, for the reasons given by Anderson. I'm also sure the writers know perfectly well they're not going to get away with a weak explanation, even if Conan Doyle did.

Not sure a mumsnetter can claim total credit for the squash ball thing - it was all over the internet just after the last episode; I saw it in several places.

I like the way they give little nods to the fans - Moffatt did a similar thing in Doctor Who's Blink, when Billy Shipton told Sally Sparrow the TARDIS wasn't a real police box because 'the windows were the wrong size' - a criticism pedants fans had been making for ages...

We all squee'd when he mentioned the word 'nebulous' .

best radio comedy ever in case you are wondering

As others have said, that was not the real explanation.

No doctor would ever check the pulse peripherally in a serious accident, so the tennis ball trick would be useless.

I don't think they took bits from the internet & cobbled it together - I think they pretty much knew how he did it when they filmed it.

Why would Sherlock be bouncing a squash ball at all if it wasn't going to be key? And there's only one way it could be.

Also - Sherlock is not some mystical super hero. He's a human being. If you jump off a roof of that height and survive, there's actually only one explanation - your fall was broken by something soft. This must have been the explanation they had in mind when they filmed it.

The only bit that jars is Molly providing the body of the lookalike. This makes no sense to the narrative because it wasn't necessary. Sherlock could just have lay on the ground initially, with the Homeless Network covering him in blood when John was lying in the road.

I suspect this was to give Molly something visible to do, rather than just say that she faked records off screen, since she was supposed to be so important to the whole plan.

The bits they did cobble together afterwards were the two fake explanations, which they'd obviously based on fanfic stuff they'd read - and that was a nod to the fans & acknowledgement of all the interest.

But - I reckon there's still more to all this. It can't be a coincidence that the man trying to blow up Parliament was called Lord Moran. SM was a pretty important character in the books (the 2nd most evil man in London, after Moriarty) and it seems odd that his name was used here.

If SM was still active - then maybe Moriarty is too? Also, "Lazarus"?

Why do you think it's odd they used the name Moran? Colonel Moran was the villain in The Empty House, the first story after his return in the books, so it was logical to use the name for The Empty Hearse.

I was a bit disappointed too, not that it wasn't good.
Just not as good as I was expecting.
Maybe I was expecting too much.

I think they were right not to give a definitive answer and agree that SH probably fed Anderson a theory rather than the truth. This may be a geek too far, but I like the Doctor Who/SH cross reference - Gatiss played the villain in an episode called The Lazarus Experiment. (I do know Lazarus wasn't invented by Doctor Who but I like the coincidence!). I also loved all the fan fiction references - meant we got to see a bit more of Andrew Scott, too.

The whole bomb under parliament plot seemed really contrived and the weakest element of the episode but I'm hoping that' s because it was contrived by the new arch enemy to test Sherlock in some way. We'll see.

Wasn't the bomb in the tube under Parliament already done in V for Vendetta?

Because Sebastian Moran was Moriarty's first lieutenant.....his number two. Seems a little odd that they skipped that bit and just made him the baddie of the week.

Rusty got in before me but yes, the squash ball theory was all over the internet, not just on here. In fact I think I read it somewhere online myself and then mentioned it on here .

The ball was either significant or was placed in the last episode of Series 2 as though it was significant. Either way, I think the writers planned out the possible scenarios during the writing of Series 2 rather than cobbling them together from fan theories. I don't know though if they anticipated the amount of fan theorising that would follow the Series 2 finale, or if they only realised that after the fact and incorporated it into the writing of Series 3.

The second episode is tonight, at 9pm according to my Guardian Guide but 8.30 according to my actual TV's onscreen listings so who knows?

I liked it. For me, after seeing those three explanations (with the one Sherlock gave himself being the most plausible) I realised I didn't actually care how he faked it. There are actually only a few ways he could, and really it doesn't matter too much.

If there is a different explanation from the one Sherlock gave, I don't think they'll tell us until the 3rd episode

"I don't know though if they anticipated the amount of fan theorising that would follow the Series 2 finale"

I think they probably did, both having experienced it with Doctor Who!