What would you like to see in series 4?

[sherlockandjohn]

Seeing as series 3 was very much about changes - brought on by big/dramatic events - I would love to see something happier, more exciting, more adventurous, in the style of A Study in Pink or Hounds of Baskerville. Or maybe something like The Great Game, in which we get more of Sherlock's cynical side.

[sherlockandjohn]

And let's give John a break, shall we, Mofftiss?! No friends faking their deaths or wives faking their identities...  Or, for that matter, friends faking their identities and wives faking their deaths!

 

I am really curious to see what this whole Moriarty thing is about, though. Now I've read that Mofftiss were planning to bring him back all along. Does that really mean he's alive, or are they tricking us (again)! "Is it a bluff... or a double bluff... or a triple bluff?"

[sherlockandjohn]

 

By the way, if Moriarty does reappear, then maybe at least we'll get more insight on The Reichenbach Fall, I hope. It would be very interesting to hear his side of the matter.

 

Yes!!!! Suppose we haven't heard the last of what really went on... Could be very interesting indeed.

[Carol the Dabbler]

I've heard Whovians complain that no one ever stays dead in Moffat's stories.  I am hoping that doesn't apply to Moriarty, though.  Bring back Andrew Scott, yes, I'd love that.  But please give him a new character to play with -- Series 4 / 5 would be about time for Jim's brother the Colonel to start raising a stink, claiming that his brother was falsely accused, etc.

 

[Alex the Dabbler]

I know this is a non sequitur, but how about a Benedict Cumberbatch colouring book?

 

http://www.radiotimes.com/news/2014-03-10/theres-a-benedict-cumberbatch-colouring-book---yes-you-read-that-right

[Arcadia]

Ehrmahgerd.

[Carol the Dabbler]

I know this is a non sequitur, but how about a Benedict Cumberbatch colouring book?

 

http://www.radiotimes.com/news/2014-03-10/theres-a-benedict-cumberbatch-colouring-book---yes-you-read-that-right

 

Sure.  Why not?

 

The publisher's web site gives the release date as March 21st, versus the RadioTimes report of the 28th.  People may have to camp out that whole week if they want to be the first in line!

 

They also have a "Colour Me Good London" book.

[Janine M. Adler]

i lke to see adaptations from Gloria Scott, Vally of fear, The solitary cyclist , Devil's foot . and the illustrious client, 

 

I'd love if they bring Irene Adler back if they ever make any complete adaptation for The Illustrious client. If Morierty can be back from dead, why not she. Besides her ending is still unclear. Plus I can't resist to see another brain duel between them.

[Pamela]

i lke to see adaptations from Gloria Scott, Vally of fear, The solitary cyclist , Devil's foot . and the illustrious client, 

 

I'd love if they bring Irene Adler back if they ever make any complete adaptation for The Illustrious client. If Morierty can be back from dead, why not she. Besides her ending is still unclear. Plus I can't resist to see another brain duel between them.

Judging from what Sherlock said about Irene in SoT (in the 'courtroom') - "God knows where she is" - I assume she's alive.

 

I don't suppose this will be popular, but I'd like to see more of Sally Donovan.  I enjoyed the friction between her and Sherlock.

[Mauss96]

I think there's quite a dilemma. I want john to move back to bakerstreet, but I also really like Mary. I think they'll leave Mary in the show for a while, but that will definetely change at some point. I do want a really evil clever Moriarty vs. Sherlock battle. I also want to see more of Lestrade and I want to see Irene Adlers return. I think they should come up with a story which includes Sherlock learning something about London he hasn't noticed. I mean like, some sort of organization or something. A network or gang he did not know which influenced everything that happened to sherlock before. I also want a descent true explanation of Sherlock's fall because It wasn't very satisfiing. But I don't think that will happen  I want Mycroft and Sherlock to do some field work together, because that would be a nice change...

[Slithytove]

I second the vote for more Lestrade. A great character, criminally underused. Another example, to my mind, of the vast superiority of Sherlock over Elementary. I hated what they had done with Lestrade's character in the latter, turning him into a publicity-seeking oaf. The character as portrayed by Rupert Graves retains some of the original Lestrade's baffled scepticism but he is a good-hearted, humorous and loyal friend - they should definitely put him in a few more scenes. I thought his reaction to Sherlock's return from the dead was lovely.

[Caya]

Hello Mauss96 and welcome to the forum!

 

Mycroft doing field work? He had to leave his beloved club once already to bail Sherlock out in Hearse, he'll probably consider that sufficient fieldwork for the next decade or two .

[Carol the Dabbler]

Definitely -- it would involve legwork!

 

Hello, Mauss96 -- welcome to Sherlock Forum! 

 

[Caya]

Plaidder's currently writing a spectacular new fic, Law Like Love, and there's one scene in particular in chapter 7 that I would so love to see in series 4:

 

(putting this in spoiler tags cause it's a bit of a longish quote from her fic)

 

 

 

John smiled, a bit bashfully.

"What is it, John?" she said, softly, encouragingly.

"I just..." John said, pressing her fingers. "I just...we can't obviously get engaged, you know, but now Rachel's born and everything's settled I wanted to come here properly, without any surprise Sherlockery--"

Mary laughed, returning the pressure. She looked so happy, so beautiful, smiling in the lamplight. Just as she had the first time.

"I wanted us to come here and...to do what I should have done, the way I should have done it, the first time."

Mary's eyes shone with tears. John let go of her hands, reached inside his jacket, and pulled out a fat white envelope with "MARY WATSON" written on it.

"It's for you," he said, placing it, with an appropriate mixture of anxiety and confidence, on the table in front of her.

Mary picked it up, with a little gasp of surprise, and opened it expectantly.

John watched her take out the wad of white paper inside, and unfold it to its full size. 

He watched her face.

Nothing changed. There was no movement, not an extra breath, not a sudden blink, not a hair drifting out of place in response to a barely perceptible movement of the head. For the long moment that it took her to read the document, assess it, and consider her options, she betrayed absolutely nothing. All the same, John fancied he could see Mary selecting, from the range of possible options, the best emotional response for the situation. And after that, her hands began to shake, and her chin began to quiver.

"What is this?" she demanded, no longer quite so considerate of the diners around them. "If this is your--or Sherlock's--idea of a joke--"

"It is not a joke," John said, grimly. "I no longer have a sense of humor. Not where my family is concerned."

"I don't understand," Mary cried, as the tears quivered and began to fall.

"They should put that on a T-shirt," John said, bitterly. "Since you don't understand, let me explain. You hold, in your hands, which are shaking in such a finely calibrated and utterly convincing way, a form declaring that you voluntarily terminate your parental relationship to Rachel Adelaide Watson and grant me, the aforenamed Doctor John Hamish Watson, biological father of Rachel Adelaide Watson, sole custody in perpetuity. You will now sign it in the presence of a witness. I brought a pen, and there are plenty of waiters."

Mary glanced around, thought about making a scene, then decided it was too dangerous. "You want me to give up custody of my child."

"Our child," John corrected. "Yes."

Mary's hands came down on the table, in anger that might or might not have been genuine.

"You want a divorce too, I suppose," she snapped.

"I don't need one," John said, folding his arms over his chest and leaning back in his chair. "We were never married. If you will recall, Agnes Grace," John said, unable to hold back the venom now, "you married me under an alias belonging to a dead woman. You forged the marriage license."

Mary opened her mouth to argue.

"Don't even try. Well, our marriage was always void. I just made it official. Filed the papers the day Rachel came home from the hospital. I don't understand why this surprises you. Harry sent you three notices informing you of the proceedings and giving you the opportunity to lodge a protest."

"I never--" Mary shouted. She saw the expression on John's face and stopped dead.

"You never got them, you say," John replied. "I can't think why."

 

 

 

[Arcadia]

I wanna see Benedict give the performance of his life. Oh wait, he's already done that. Well, then ... more, please!

[Carol the Dabbler]

Plaidder's currently writing a spectacular new fic, Law Like Love, and there's one scene in particular in chapter 7 that I would so love to see in series 4:

 

(putting this in spoiler tags cause it's a bit of a longish quote from her fic)

 

Thanks for the spoiler box, Martina!  I may want to read the story, and would hate to know upfront what happens in Chapter 7.  I do like the author's Note at the beginning:

 

I've decided that the only way back into this fandom, for me, is to Moftiss Moftiss. Behold, the true story of what was REALLY going on during "His Last Vow," instead of all that shit you THOUGHT was happening.

[T.o.b.y]

Btw: Anybody interested in having a go at predicting what season 4 will include in detail? I think that'd be fun. Even if it's really embarassing when season 4 gets aired, and ever carefully constructed scenario is proven to be dead wrong.

 

I'm always happy to speculate! And since nothing can be more embarrassing than my crackpot ideas for the solution to the Reichenbach Fall and what happens after that, I'll be happy to let my mind run wild in full view of anybody who cares to observe. (Although I still think my idea for linking Mary and Magnussen was better than what they did, but then, I'm an arrogant little thing and besides, nobody's stopping me from imagining it anyway.)

 

So, series 4. This will probably change on a daily basis, but right now:

 

What I think is likely to happen:

- Moriarty is alive and we will get some kind of crazy explanation on how he survived the head shot which is similar to Sherlock surviving his bullet wound in the last episode (thereby explaining what those minutes were for, plot-wise, because so far, they are a lovely bit of television but seem wholly unnecessary and make Mary's vindication so much harder than it had need to be)

- There will be another crazy explanation for why Moriarty just sat back and watched Sherlock take down his criminal network for two years. Probably he wanted to get rid of some people, any way, and was happy to let Sherlock do the work.

- Moriarty will be proven to have been behind a lot of what happened in series 3. Maybe he even had some kind of connection with Magnussen. He timed the video message so it would air just at the right moment when Sherlock's plane is about to leave England, because Moriarty thinks it's a grand idea to make Sherlock go through all the sadness of taking leave but he does not really want him to go, because he'd be terminally bored without him and he has no thoughts of leaving London himself and going to play in Eastern Europe.

- Mary and John will be a happy couple with a cute kid as if nothing had happened.

- The kid will serve to show another "human" side of Sherlock (similar to what they did with Archie, that was basically road testing for Miss Watson)

- Because the writers know that a majority of the audience expect Mary to die at some point because that is what (supposedly) happens in canon (and that some viewers even want her to), they will play with that idea, but she won't actually be killed, because that would be way too predictable. Either they'll do another fake death or she'll narrowly escape dying for real. Perhaps she'll have to play dead for a while to shake off somebody from her past (which would be a good starting point for an adaptation of "The Valley of Fear")

- Irene Adler will make another appearance, as will Janine. If Miss Adler is lead to believe Janine is truly Sherlock's girl friend, we might get a civilized little cat fight on the side lines.

- At the end of series 4, we will find out that Magnussen might be alive as well, because who ever dies of a gun shot on this show?

 

What I wish would happen:

- Moriarty is stone dead and the video was launched by somebody who wanted to prevent Sherlock's exile, preferably not Mycroft. Mummy Holmes would be cool.

- Speaking of Mummy Holmes, she'd be very welcome to feature more

- Mary's past is gradually revealed as it becomes the center of a new case for Sherlock. John is forced to come to terms with who she really is and what she did.

- Irene Adler does not show up again in person, but we see a lot of her as a voice inside Sherlock's mind. Same with Moriarty. There are occasional hints that Irene is keeping an eye on Sherlock, though (similar to the rose he received while in hospital).

- If Irene hast to come back, I'd like that to be announced be Sherlock's phone making the old text alert noise at the very end of an episode

- Lestrade features more and we get a case where he and Sherlock both try to prove their conflicting theories, as in "The Norwood Builder" (of course, I'd want Sherlock to be mostly right in the end). Lestrade also finds a nice girl-friend to keep him company. If Molly likes, that can be her, I wouldn't mind a bit...

- Where Lestrade goes, Sally Donovan goes as well and we get some of the old venom between her and Sherlock which gradually reaches a strange level of affectionate bickering

- Besides "The Norwood Builder", we get adaptations of "The Speckled Band", "The Valley of Fear" and, if they can manage it without melodrama and sap, "The Sussex Vampire" (using the Watson baby, so that it finally makes some kind of sense as a plot device).

[Janie]

I think, that what you think is likely to happen is too crazy even for Mofftiss But on the other side, nobody knows what is inside their funny old heads so you might be right. I would probably stop watching the show if any of that happened.

[Bakerstreet Irregular]

 

- Moriarty is stone dead and the video was launched by somebody who wanted to prevent Sherlock's exile, preferably not Mycroft. Mummy Holmes would be cool.

- Speaking of Mummy Holmes, she'd be very welcome to feature more

- Mary's past is gradually revealed as it becomes the center of a new case for Sherlock. John is forced to come to terms with who she really is and what she did.

- Irene Adler does not show up again in person, but we see a lot of her as a voice inside Sherlock's mind. Same with Moriarty. There are occasional hints that Irene is keeping an eye on Sherlock, though (similar to the rose he received while in hospital).

- If Irene hast to come back, I'd like that to be announced be Sherlock's phone making the old text alert noise at the very end of an episode

- Lestrade features more and we get a case where he and Sherlock both try to prove their conflicting theories, as in "The Norwood Builder" (of course, I'd want Sherlock to be mostly right in the end). Lestrade also finds a nice girl-friend to keep him company. If Molly likes, that can be her, I wouldn't mind a bit...

- Where Lestrade goes, Sally Donovan goes as well and we get some of the old venom between her and Sherlock which gradually reaches a strange level of affectionate bickering

- Besides "The Norwood Builder", we get adaptations of "The Speckled Band", "The Valley of Fear" and, if they can manage it without melodrama and sap, "The Sussex Vampire" (using the Watson baby, so that it finally makes some kind of sense as a plot device).

 

     This is pretty much my take on Season Four. Although I would have liked to see Anderson and Donovan get a real dressing down. I know that Anderson became so guilt ridden that he had to leave the force, but now he holds a prominent medical space in Sherlock's Mind Palace, oh well. Donovan is neither demoted it seems, nor does she seem in the least remorseful. Maybe, like some have said, she or Sherlock will have to save one another lives...but yeah "a strange level of affectionate bickering" would be on par for this program.

 

 

I would probably stop watching the show if any of that happened.

 

  Ever stop watching the show?  Naw, I love the British sense of wackiness. Beats most American tv by 6 full city blocks. And as intelligent as I am, even if I don't get all the answers I would like, I'm not going to feel cheated nor insulted. But that's just my take on it and each of us have the right to go where our emotions and feelings take us.

[T.o.b.y]

what I don't want is Mr & Mrs Fluffy-Watson and their old pal Sherlock, solving crimes and being great mates and never addressing the issue that one of them nearly killed the other. I think that would be an insult to our intelligence, and I hope that the people involved feel the same way.

 

My guess is that if it will be addressed at all, then only for added humor. Like Sherlock going "so sorry about that last bit" to John at the wedding when he mentions tragic loss. On the other hand, why open up a gold mine of possible cases with this spectacular "assassin" background and then not use it? I have little hopes that John and Mary's relationship will ever find its way back to emotional realism, but I will keep my fingers crossed that the ghosts of her past aren't entirely dead and will come back to stir things up and make sure Sherlock is never out of work. I mean, come on, an ex-assassin working as a nurse, newly married and now with a baby on her hands, what kind of an adventure-story author just lets her be?

 

As for Sherlock, John and Mary solving a case together, I have now reached the point where I'd actually like to see that. I still wouldn't want it to become the concept of the entire series, but for a change - why not?

 

By the way, I do hope they let little Miss Watson live. I'm not thrilled at all about the decision to let the Watsons have a child (where did that come from? Who thought this was a good idea and why, for pete's sake?), but now that it's there, I think it would be kind of horrible to kill it off. Besides, if John has a little daughter, maybe he can finally farm out the "damsel in distress" role to her - hardly anybody would complain about political correctness if an infant has to be rescued.

[Janie]

 

 

I would probably stop watching the show if any of that happened.

 

  Ever stop watching the show?  Naw, I love the British sense of wackiness. Beats most American tv by 6 full city blocks. And as intelligent as I am, even if I don't get all the answers I would like, I'm not going to feel cheated nor insulted. But that's just my take on it and each of us have the right to go where our emotions and feelings take us.

 

 

Ok, I probably wouldn't really stop watching it (I'm so addicted to the show that it seems impossible to really do it) but now all these things seem so crazy that I feel I would  

[Bakerstreet Irregular]

 

but now all these things seem so crazy that I feel I would

 

  I know the feeling and I agree, up to that point, but it's the craziness that I love. So many of the programing now is sssooo predictable that now, at least here in the US, they are either "reality shows"....or like "Resurrection", "Intelligence", "Believe", "Grimm" and "Once Upon A Time", they have to reach into myth, fairytale, border science fiction/fact and or the supernatural. Which is ok, but Sherlock is by far more fun.

[Janie]

I love craziness too, but it has to be intelligent. If they continue doing it the way they've done it up till now, I will be happy even if it turns out that Moriarty is really alive and John and Mary will live happily with their baby with Sherlock around as a nanny.

[Ruthyone]

I hope that Mary will get her comeuppance, John will help to look after the baby (with Mrs Hudson's help), Moriarty will have faked his own death (because I like him as a villain), Molly will become involved with John (their 'love' of Sherlock draws them together), Mycroft will have a sex scandal with Irene Adler and Lestrade will beef up and become more macho.

[T.o.b.y]

  I know the feeling and I agree, up to that point, but it's the craziness that I love. So many of the programing now is sssooo predictable that now, at least here in the US, they are either "reality shows"....or like "Resurrection", "Intelligence", "Believe", "Grimm" and "Once Upon A Time", they have to reach into myth, fairytale, border science fiction/fact and or the supernatural. Which is ok, but Sherlock is by far more fun.

 

Yes, at least "Sherlock" isn't predictable. And it does the craziness exceptionally well. Some situations are so over the top unrealistic, but the way they play out have me glued to the screen, breathless, going "oh my god, this is really happening".

 

I also really like how the story does not make the usual simplistic statements about love. "Sherlock" shows it for the messy, complicated affair it really is with all its advantages and disadvantages.

 

I think the only development that might make me stop watching would be if they decided to ignore the Doyle stories completely in future. That would be a tremendous loss to me. Because however whacky the plot lines are by themselves, as a modern commentary on the (equally whacky) original Sherlock Holmes stories and the fan cult they gave birth to, they are really, really good and lend a level of cleverness to the show that I hugely appreciate.

Oh, and of course if an actor were replaced, I'm sure I couldn't stand that. I hate it when a character is suddenly played by a different person.