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What a lovely, insightful discussion! One thing seems nearly certain: with 800,000 fewer viewers than TEH and such contradictory reviews, the Abominable episode won't get any BAFTA or Emmy nominations any time soon, it's so controversial!

What a crafty idea! No ugly needles, no give-away sniffing, and the whole process taken from A Rebours! Well, his grandmother was Vernet's sister! Art in the blood and all that! Pure genius, but then he is one!

Yes, because this is not really Sherlock Holmes, just Sherlock, fanboy recreation, with no depth in storytelling, no serious respect for the intelligence of the viewer, relying on a handsome lead and some puerile in-jokes. Amazon reviews continue to drub the Abominable episode, but the worst hit came from IMDb, where I gave it a seven, like here, but the reviews are single to three-star maximum, and those are people who paid good money to watch it in the theatre! As for the hacking, Sherlock himself used the same protocol for mobiles, slightly different from the one on TV, in SiP when he hacked into all the journalists and the police's mobiles with "wrong", no Moriarty genius needed, just the ways modern electronics systems interconnect and can be infiltrated!

Three months is OK! TF1 and 2 plus TV5 are keeping absolutely silent on the eventuality of showing the Special, so shall have to order the DVD! Agree with inge that ignoring most of Europe is more than a bit NOT good in terms of fans, selling and advertising!

Well, the leaves are from Copper Beeches, the eyes on the creatures of the first pane are the blue carbuncle, the marine creature itself is depicted four times, the Hound is obvious, the lion's manes are yellow in colour, denoting The Yellow Face, The Illustrious Client is the heraldry symbol top right, and the Study in Scarlet the indistinct shape at the bottom.

Happy new Year to everybody! (J.P. those photos look stunning, but I fervently hope you didn't buy the book of the Creators's choices! They couldn't even be bothered to write a proper introduction themselves, and as for the fragments and exclamation marks at the beginning of each story, the less said the better at a time of jollity and forgiveness!)

Snowflakes falling all around!

Snow definitely distracting! Even more so than the profile of ALL in that link! Shall follow practical advice to avoid both snow and the Victorian "humbug" Special until I have watched it several times and made the aporopriate connections with the literary works ideas have been lifted from THIS time! BTW, is our esteemed Administrator playing Scrooge? Because that's a rather famous retort.

And the intrepid duo will finally be revealed as true Sherlock Holmes fans or as crafty entertainment-industry opportunists: ostensibly, they went all period Holmes to get some plot lines across that couldn't be worked into their 21st century incarnation. One of the clues, according to Mr Moffat, is in Chinese. And here the fun starts: will they have used proper Mandarin or Cantonese, which were the prevalent dialects at that time, since Holmes is roughly contemporary with the Boxer uprising, or will they have used the artificial construct of the late Mao Che Tung, known as putong hua, created to bring a unified language to the country, and very much a 20th century construct? After the problem with their ostensibly favourite ACD stories' collection, I shall be watching very carefully, since use of putong hua will mean they're doing it all for the money, not any ostensible fanboy reason!

Never having been a fan of Ben Stiller's, I shall give this latest venture a miss, BC cameo or not. However, the minority petition is legitimate in its phrasing, since he's portraying something he may never be.

At the moment, I'm more concerned about having to travel to Jersey yet again, and on and on NewYear's Day on top of that, just to see the Sherlock Special! We know that the French have been the British mistrusted allies for at least a century, but that is carrying vengefulness a bit too far!

Sorry not to be able to distance myself from the fact that countrymen and countrywomen died in a senseless act of violence perpetrated acted by religious fanatics. Not even Hitler was able to devastate Paris, not even Krupp's Big Bertha in WWI caused such mindless destruction in the name of what? Religious freedom is sacrosanct, but so is human life in any religion except the Muslim one: if you are not a faithful, you are a natural enemy! Such an atrocity must have gained them a lot of enemies worldwide. Benedict should not only talk about Syrian waifs, but of European children left orphans in the wake of this massacre, not to mention the ones who died in it outright!

Investigate our underwear? No!

Here's the one from the Sign of the Four: "A wonderfully lurid tale with some of the best deductions, a loyal but deadly midget, a wooden-legged man and the seven-per-cent solution. Hard to beat! -Mark and Steven" And from A Case of Identity: " A charming, rather sad story that's hardly ever adapted, largely because it only really works on the page. But it contains many small gems, which we've used in Sherlock. -Mark and Steven " The Sherlock Holmes Society should vote to rescind Mr Gatiss's membership on the strength of the 'largely...' sentence, bringing the language into disrepute with the double intensifiers!

Inge, sorry to say this, but we have been suckered by publicity! I spent a lot to have the book delivered next day! Serves me right to discover that the two con artists didn't bother with more than a single paragraph introducing each of their favorites! I extremely dislike being taken for a ride, such as this! May return the book and ask for a refund! If they cannot be a***** to write a proper introduction to each story, I refuse to be taken in by such transparent marketing ploys!

No information about French cinemas either! Guess the Europhobes have won in the British imagination, which is a pity, because with a crumbling Commonwealth and the Americans as their mistrusted allies, they will end up exactly as Jules Verne predicted 120 years ago: insular and still hanging on to the Rock of Gibraltar!

A look of annoyance crossed Sherlock's face, which didn't escape the compact blonde: "Mr Holmes, I hope and pray it's good news!" Inwardly, Sherlock cringed: from long experience, the good doctor knew not to phone him unless in dire situations: this was, obviously, one of them! "Amanda, please excuse me, while I take this call," he said and went out in the corridor, swiping the screen as he strode out of her office: "Hello, John, what's happened?" he asked cautiously, in view of the truly amazing facts he would have to give to his friend regarding Sheralyn in a few hours, if all went well: British train services had become so unreliable after their privatisation that reaching one's destination on time in the same train one started out in was well-nigh a miracle nowadays! A truly irate Dr Watson could be heard clearly taking deep breaths between words: "You can tell that towering imbecile of a brother of yours that all the Queen's horses and all the Queen's men couldn't prevent an apparently elite force of what sounded like former Spetnatz men from kidnapping Sheralyn." Sherlock felt light-headed, as if the world was spinning round him. The mobile fell from his grip and the next he knew, both Donovan and Pierce were hovering over him, bringing him to the inescapable conclusion that he was lying in one of the NSY infirmary beds. He struggled to a semi-recumbent position, but Sally forced him back down: "Amanda has communicated the news to Mr Holmes, our duty doctor says your blood glucose levels are a new low in her experience, I have notified DI Lestrade, and you are to remain here until you can stand unaided! What the flaming nonsense have you been doing to yourself, Holmes, running on fumes?" He lay back down, but couldn't prevent himself from a last jab at the person who was becoming his favourite sparring partner: "Wait until I tell John that Sheralyn is both his and ex-colonel James Moriarty's daughter, Sally!"

It's definitely in my wish list at Amazon.fr but I shall have a longer wait than the rest of you, apparently, since it won't be released until the end of the month, not in three-days' time!

Sadly, no news yet for French cinemas or any other possible venues! Must keep passport ready in case I have to travel to Jersey or Guernsey or mainland Britain, which the Almighty forbid, but such is obsession. If I'm not working over the New Year ( shift work being really tricky,) I might pop over to the main event!

Thank you, Carol, both for your effort and for the helpful notes! The Valley of Fear may form part of the Special, not that they haven't already used bits and pieces of the others in their episodes already! I must say I'm bit puzzled by the inclusion of The Yellow face; perhaps because Holmes himself considers it a failure?

I would be very much interested in a filmed version of this production! The last Shakespeare play I have on DVD is Kenneth Branagh's Henry V! That far back!

There's an American franchise of cinemas called Event cinemas, which will show the Special and tickets will be sold on the 5th and 6th of November. Cannot speak about anyone else, but I personally find him unlikeable, untrustworthy and prone to teasing the fandom to the point of cruelty.

From what I have seen of the trailers, Dr Watson is not such a good friend to Sherlock Holmes! Perhaps the quiz setters should re-evaluate their algorithms?

Basically, it says that we are Sherlock addicts, never mind lowering the quality over the years, not paying attention to proper British English, since he is so quintessentially a British character, following their fancies and having an eye on the bottom line, namely putting bums on seats! Over here the cinema screening is on January 2, I only need to book in time! Moriarty would say: well, good luck with that!

For my part, I listen to everything BC says wherever it is embedded! I just cannot get enough of that lovely voice talking about his work, his passions, what makes the real person tick, as opposed to Sherlock. And thanks for asking, I actually had to go to another country (Jersey) to see the production, but found it well worth the travel time and the extra cost!