Sherlock: The Six Thatchers (2017)

Directed by: Rachel Talalay | 88 minutes | crime, drama | Actors: Benedict Cumberbatch, Martin Freeman, Una Stubbs, Rupert Graves, Mark Gatiss, Louise Brealey, Amanda Abbington, Lindsay Duncan, Simon Kunz, Sacha Dhawan, Marcia Warren, Eleanor Matsuura, Paul Chequer, Gabrielle Glaister

It took a while before we could enjoy a completely new season of ‘Sherlock’ again, but at the beginning of 2017 – just under three years after the end of season three – the time had come. And it feels really good to see our favorite crime fighters – Sherlock and Watson – back together on the (small) screen; in a season that even got a trailer in the cinema, which shows how much loved and ‘high profile’ the series has become. Don’t get it wrong, the jaunt into the nineteenth century – via the special Christmas (holiday) episode ‘The Abominable Bride’ – was amusing enough. But it still feels a bit more like a warm bath when Benedict Cumberbatch, in his usual snooty way and in his familiar contemporary setting, puts everyone in their place with his great intellect and super-fast brain, using all modern means of communication. In that respect, the first official episode of this season – ‘The Six Thatchers’ – is just a nice ‘ride’ to experience for quite some time. The fact that it eventually becomes very emotional, but not all the drama is equally well placed or credible enough is presented, is then somewhat disappointing but far from enough to disqualify the episode. Sherlock is back and we are especially happy about that.

The beginning immediately re-acquaints the viewer with Sherlock in an appropriate way. The scene opens very solemnly, with a high-level meeting where Mycroft Holmes (Mark Gatiss, also writer of the series) tells the audience that what he is about to say is highly confidential, will be without proof and later denied by everyone. The CCTV footage showing Sherlock shooting his opponent at the end of season three has been manipulated to appear as if he shoots down to the ground and an unseen sniper fires the actual deadly shot. A Sherlock who has passed through the eye of the needle, you would think, and should be grateful and humbled for this. Well, then you don’t know Sherlock yet. He is present in the room, it turns out a little later, but does not even look at the presentation. He doesn’t seem impressed at all and is only busy with his smartphone. “Are you tweeting?” asks brother Mycroft in disbelief. He then verbally slaps everyone—just because he can—and walks off, making it clear in passing that he’s still obsessed with nemesis (the late?) Moriarty and what he might have posthumously planned for Sherlock.

He then takes on a series of cases, hoping for a sign from Moriarty, while also giving birth to John (Watson) and Mary’s baby, whom Sherlock is to become godfather to, much to his chagrin. In any case, it is not all that useful for Sherlock: even during the baptism of the baby, he apparently cannot muster the decency to be there with his full attention. After getting some dirty looks at first, he just continues typing messages on his smartphone, blindly behind his back. This is obviously meant to be comical, but it does get a bit ridiculous. How blunt can you be? And: how masochistic is Watson really if he wants to befriend or even hang out with such a figure? But as viewers, we just have to laugh.

Fortunately, the things that pass just as quickly – sometimes very quickly – are simply old-fashioned entertaining. It’s a bit of a shame that the case that leads directly to the clue to the episode’s central mystery – the one about the six ‘Thatchers’; read: Mary’s complicated past – in its essence easy to predict. But since the case itself is actually irrelevant, it isn’t a disaster either. It becomes more problematic when the central story is not so much about Sherlock’s virtuoso ‘sleuthing’, but rather takes the form of a fairly conventional (action) thriller, complete with intrigue, chases in different countries, shootouts and ‘nail-biting’ action scenes. All quite deserving of that, and – it must be said – also quite intriguing to unravel Mary’s past, but not really ‘des Sherlocks’. It even features a fierce fistfight between Sherlock and a (presumed) villain. How did he suddenly acquire these skills? Until now, Sherlock – Cumberbatch’s version then – has worked purely on the power of his brain. It’s like watching Jason Bourne or Ethan Hunt now. Or is the thought behind it that this Sherlock is going to look a bit more like the Robert Downey Jr. incarnation, where he can predict everyone’s punch or kick from his opponent in advance? Anyway, it doesn’t seem to fit quite right.

Dramatically speaking, the story is – as said – indeed interesting; but the viewer is left with the feeling that all this information has been good for little. The denouement turns out to be an anticlimax in several ways; the villain is hardly imaginative and the figure of Mary seems to be here mainly to test the relationship between Sherlock and John. However, this last aspect is not credible enough. The drama and conflicts are not all equally fair and are sometimes too much hyped. It makes the episode – and series – unnecessarily heavy-handed at the last minute; as if this were a Greek tragedy rather than the flamboyant, tantalizing detective series it has been all along (or for the most part) that we all love. Of course we also loved the characters themselves and we want to know how they will deal with the new challenges in their lives, but preferably with enough eye for the flair, humor, intelligence and light-heartedness that we are used to. A nice challenge for episode two so…