What would you like to see in series 4?

[sherlockandjohn]

Which Magnussen's fate is a good example of!

[T.o.b.y]

Do we know Mrs. Hudson's first name?

 

I think Mrs Hudson's name is Martha.

 

Maybe they'll just name their daughter "Mary" so that there's finally a real Mary Watson. I'd like it though if her name were more clever than that.

 

[sherlockandjohn]

Ah, well I like that name, but perhaps a bit too 'old' for a baby. 'Mary' would be dull.

[Carol the Dabbler]

Who was it suggested Gloria Scott Watson a while back?  That gets in the title of a Conan Doyle story plus Sherlock's middle name.

 

[sherlockandjohn]

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.

 

Well, I'm a bit unqualified/handicapped by not having read the original stories. However, no one stops me from speculating, and it's just too much fun to resist, so...

 

The first episode will reveal that the man we see at the end of HLV is Moriarty's brother, and it will also introduce Baby Watson. After Sherlock was revealed to be still alive, Moriarty's brother realises who had been dismantling M's network and is now eager to avenge his brother. He has some of his brother's mindplaying qualities, but is more vicious. He will go for hurting Sherlock personally by threatening John. John will be in grave danger and be very close to dying - he may even appear to be dead at one point, and this will send both Mary and Sherlock into turmoil and a vehement chase after the new master villain. Mycroft is in on it too, of course. The baby will be left with an anxious Mrs. Hudson. Moriarty's brother disappears, before anyone can get to him. John survives, obviously, but not before he has scared the living daylights out of his loved ones.

 

In the second episode, there will be a big case for Sherlock and John to work on, and that case forms the backdrop for lots of character drama and humor. It mainly revolves around the dynamic of Sherlock/John/Mary/the baby, but also featuring Molly and Lestrade (I'm betting they're being set up to get together).

 

Finally, we get a dramatic third episode in which Moriarty's brother is back to finish off his job, but Mary gets caught in the line of fire, and the series ends on a big cliff hanger. Dead? Not dead?

 

Hehe, this is fun

[Bakerstreet Irregular]

 

Who was it suggested Gloria Scott Watson a while back?  That gets in the title of a Conan Doyle story plus Sherlock's middle name.

 

     That was T.o.b.y.  The story "The Gloria Scott" told of a good man who was blackmailed into becoming much like what we see in Mary Morstan of "HLV".

 

    

 

That only makes the character more dangerous, I think, because what he says isn't necessarily what he thinks and it becomes even harder than before to guess what he's really planning, let alone feeling.

 

    I think in Season Three Sherlock learned how vulnerable he is when he allows himself to be led by his emotions. I think Moffat and Gatiss eluded to this in Season Two, Sherlock is always at the top of his game when he can remain cold, detached and focused on the case and not invest himself emotionally. So I think we will see the more mature and yet more the old snarky Sherlock because he now knows that this is where he needs to be.

[T.o.b.y]

Finally, we get a dramatic third episode in which Moriarty's brother is back to finish off his job, but Mary gets caught in the line of fire, and the series ends on a big cliff hanger. Dead? Not dead?

 

Hehe, this is fun

 

Oh my god, I bet you're right about the cliff hanger. That would make perfect sense, to have series 4 end with Mary's impending or supposed death. Because she (presumably) died in canon, everybody is waiting for her to die on the series, too, but on the other hand, simply killing her would be way too predictable, so I bet they'll use it as a cliff hanger (and let her live, after all, if we ever get a series 5).

 

[sherlockandjohn]

Yep. Just to trick us.

[Carol the Dabbler]

I sure hope they don't pull anything like that.  I like their "how'd he do it?" cliffhangers.  Don't care for the "Perils of Pauline" type at all.

 

[sherlockandjohn]

Whether or not Mary's past will play a role, which I kind of hope it will, it will be interesting to see where the writer's take her character. I wonder if she might have a bigger role on the show from now on. Also, Mofftiss have said that Mrs. Hudson and Molly will likely be featured more. Strange; I think Molly has already featured quite a lot. But Mrs. Hudson has mainly been kept in the background. Perhaps she really will have a 'nanny' function, as has been suggested on this forum.

[Oatcake]

I'm not sure how trustworthy Mrs Hudson would be as a nanny... 'herbal' cough remedies, maybe?

[Slithytove]

The introduction of little Watson (Sherly, surely?) seems an odd departure from canon. ACD wisely avoided giving Watson any paternal responsibilities. Presumably it would have seemed more irresponsible for him to go off on dangerous adventures with Holmes, if he was a dad.

 

I'm intrigued to find out how the writers ate going to deal with the baby issue. I'm guessing they will either play it for laughs ( Sherlock as the world's most unsuitable baby sitter) or as a device to increase John's heartache (Mary loses the baby/runs away with it/it wasn't his child). I suppose baby and mum could just fade into the background, as part of John's domestic life, but then it seems a bit pointless to have introduced the idea in the first place.

 

A few fanfic writers have suggested that the baby is the reason why John & Sherlock are pretending to forgive Mary, so she doesn't bolt and go into hiding before the birth, thus depriving John of the chance to apply for full custody. I would like it to turn out that way, but I suspect it won't.

[Bakerstreet Irregular]

In canon John's marital life faded into the background....at least twice. Only Moffat and Gatiss knows why they think a baby was a good idea, but that too could fade into the background.

[T.o.b.y]

I'm intrigued to find out how the writers ate going to deal with the baby issue. I'm guessing they will either play it for laughs ( Sherlock as the world's most unsuitable baby sitter) or as a device to increase John's heartache (Mary loses the baby/runs away with it/it wasn't his child). I suppose baby and mum could just fade into the background, as part of John's domestic life, but then it seems a bit pointless to have introduced the idea in the first place.

 

I agree with you there. Making predictions is fun, isn't it? My money is on "fade into the background" and I hope it won't be playing for laughs, but either is possible. As for Mary running off with the child, I don't think that's likely. I'm pretty sure the writers mean her to be a "good" character, they just didn't succeed very well in getting that point across to a large part of their audience (a fact of which Mr Moffat, judging from the interviews I've read lately, seems to be blissfully ignorant).

 

[Carol the Dabbler]

I'm kinda doubtful about the blissful ignorance.  He usually seems to be aware of what the fans are up to, at least in a general sort of way, and it'd be hard to miss this furor.  Just as a guess, I'd say that he's feeling very smugly pleased with himself.

 

[Bakerstreet Irregular]

While I was slaving away at work, my mind was running around and the scenario of Mary being kind of a baddie and then marrying John and having a child is very similar to the plot line in a pastiche written by Charlotte Anne Walters called "Barefoot on Baker Street".  One may have nothing to do with the other, but....hey...one goes where the imagination leads.

[Carol the Dabbler]

I hadn't heard of that novel before, so looked it up on Amazon.  The customer reviews are interesting -- there seems to be general agreement that the story is a blatant Mary Sue (but some readers loved it anyway, while others hated it), with the author / protagonist working herself into a number of the canon plots while having sex with just about everyone in sight.  One reader says this story inspired her to read Conan Doyle for the first time, so there's a plus.

 

[Arcadia]

 

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.

 

What the heck, I'm embarrassed most of the time anyway, so I'll give it a shot.

 

They've already said the ladies will have more of a presence, so here's my best guess:

 

Season 4 will start shortly after Season 3 left off, with several versions of how Moriarty survived his own suicide. The correct answer will be revealed by the end of the episode but no one will believe it.

           Moriarty will be seen only in flashbacks and tacky gifs, and it will turn out that it's all a trick staged by John Watson in order to rescue Sherlock from exile. This will explain why John was so calm and collected at the airport.

           Given who perpetrated the deception, it will take Sherlock about 5 minutes to figure it out, but it will take 50 minutes of screen time to depict his thought process. As he's deducing, Mary goes into labor and hilarious mayhem ensues while Mrs. Hudson tells everyone to stop panicking.

 

In episode 2, Sherlock achieves his lifelong dream and goes undercover at the ballet. Andrew Scott will return, dressed in drag and playing Jim's evil twin sister, Gem. Sherlock, naturally, will find her irresistable, because she "is him". Meanwhile, Mary, Molly and Mrs. Hudson will form a rival detective agency. They take all the cases Sherlock finds too boring and become fabulously successful, spunky and independent. John and Sherlock will babysit, causing an abrupt rise in estrogen levels worldwide. Several canon references will be dropped.

 

By episode 3 the story will have skipped ahead a few years, and young Gloria Scott Watson will join the detective agency. The tone will turn quite dark as "the other one" finally appears. Played by Benedict Cumberbatch in a career-making performance for which he STILL will not win the BAFTA, her name is Alice Desdemona Felicia Holmes, or "Dezza" as she likes to be called. She has had amnesia all this time, after Mycroft sent her at the age of 12 into Siberia to retrieve a MacGuffin. In the final scene it will be revealed that she has, in fact, been the real Moriarty all along ... or has she....?

 

BTW, here she is....

[T.o.b.y]

 

I'd really like to see more of "Mummy Holmes". If they want to have more female characters, I don't think they should introduce new ones, but they have quite a stock of established characters by now who are all very promising. And Sherlock's mother, from what I've seen of her so far, has a lot of potential. I'd love it if she did find out who shot Sherlock. Not that I'd want her to really turn "absolutely monstrous" on Mary, but I'd just love to see her face. And I think it would be fun to see how she gets along with Mrs Hudson. Do they like each other and compare notes on how impossible Sherlock is or does Mrs Holmes resent the fact that her son has chosen his landlady as surrogate for herself?

[Zain]

 

What the heck, I'm embarrassed most of the time anyway, so I'll give it a shot.

They've already said the ladies will have more of a presence, so here's my best guess:

 

Season 4 will start shortly after Season 3 left off, with several versions of how Moriarty survived his own suicide. The correct answer will be revealed by the end of the episode but no one will believe it.

           Moriarty will be seen only in flashbacks and tacky gifs, and it will turn out that it's all a trick staged by John Watson in order to rescue Sherlock from exile. This will explain why John was so calm and collected at the airport.

           Given who perpetrated the deception, it will take Sherlock about 5 minutes to figure it out, but it will take 50 minutes of screen time to depict his thought process. As he's deducing, Mary goes into labor and hilarious mayhem ensues while Mrs. Hudson tells everyone to stop panicking.

 

In episode 2, Sherlock achieves his lifelong dream and goes undercover at the ballet. Andrew Scott will return, dressed in drag and playing Jim's evil twin sister, Gem. Sherlock, naturally, will find her irresistable, because she "is him". Meanwhile, Mary, Molly and Mrs. Hudson will form a rival detective agency. They take all the cases Sherlock finds too boring and become fabulously successful, spunky and independent. John and Sherlock will babysit, causing an abrupt rise in estrogen levels worldwide. Several canon references will be dropped.

 

By episode 3 the story will have skipped ahead a few years, and young Gloria Scott Watson will join the detective agency. The tone will turn quite dark as "the other one" finally appears. Played by Benedict Cumberbatch in a career-making performance for which he STILL will not win the BAFTA, her name is Alice Desdemona Felicia Holmes, or "Dezza" as she likes to be called. She has had amnesia all this time, after Mycroft sent her at the age of 12 into Siberia to retrieve a MacGuffin. In the final scene it will be revealed that she has, in fact, been the real Moriarty all along ... or has she....?

 

 

BTW, here she is....

bc_400.jpg

 

 

Oh god, I hope not.

Brilliant theory though

 

Mhh what about this:

Episode 1.

It's not an especially interesting case but it reveals that Mary faked her pregnancy to insert herself even more in John and Sherlock's life. Like many fans predicted, she got close to John after Sherlock's death because she actually had been working with Moriarty. She's "Moran", and the one we see in TEH is only a red herring the writers threw into our direction, someone by chance also called Moran (Moran didn't get more than one line, did he? He could be a brilliant enemy, I was really disappointed they didn't even draw some connection to Moriarty. So, here I am. Recycling the idea.). The thumbdrive only included her past without the gory details (her shared past with Moriarty). It was her plan to throw both off track to buy herself more time. Mary's real plan begins in season 4, now that Sherlock trusts her. She intends to take revenge for Jim. She's behind the fake message. If Sherlock had disappeared, she would have lost the chance to stage the last game when she ultimately kills him in a more "meaningul" way after destroying his life.

Of course, she gets away. John will be devastated, but his anger will this time be solely directed at Mary. After all, he had decided to trust her once more, and she had used it for her own gains.

The episode ends on a sad note because John mourns what he could have had. Even if the baby never existed, he feels like it has been ripped from his life. It's like a barrier between him and Sherlock who tries but cannot comprehend John's feelings.

 

Episode 2 then, like the past second episodes of each series, will included hints for the final episode of the season but the case will not be connected to the "final problem." Sherlock maybe suffers a setback from his injuries in HLV. He "goes on a holiday" and visits Victor Trevor (a doctor!) whom he had lost contact with after a major fight in their university days. John has to come to terms with their new situation (about to move back to Baker Street), and Trevor will serve as an intermediary in the end (in the beginning, John and Victor fight like cat and dog while Sherlock is completely oblivious to the tension).

Preferably, Lestrade joins them for a case. While John is busy with keeping Sherlock resting ( which isn't happening!), Lestrade is set on solving some case or another that is important to him because it involves a girl (which is called Gloria Scott). Sherlock and Lestrade thus get some interaction time on their own.

John and Sherlock move past their problems, and John finally comes to term with Sherlock's fake death (in HLV, we see he's not past it yet). 

 

In episode 3, Mary makes her move. She originally had intended to go through John but during their time together, she has become fond of him, so now she uses Mycroft ( we finally get to see that Sherlock cares about his brother, too). She kills an important politician, and plants evidence that connects the murder to Mycroft. His position is precarious at best, and it is only a matter of days until they will decide how to get rid of him. Mycroft has to ask Sherlock for help.

When Sherlock gets involved, he by accident unveils his brother's inglorious past. Sherlock finds out about their half-brother, Jim, whom Mycroft had ordered to be killed in his twenties when he had shown interest in Sherlock, and after he had shown homicidal tendencies in his teens. Jim somehow survived but kept in the shadows, and changed his name to Moriarty (meaning: navigator) as a pun, to forever remind himself of who he wants to take revenge on. Mycroft, and by extension Sherlock (whose loss would break Mycroft's heart).

Sherlock realizes that whatever Mycroft saw in Jim (the darkness) is also part of himself, to some extent. He takes Jim's words, "You are me", to heart, and for the first time in his life sees Mycroft not as a meddling protector but as a possible threat to his own life. Sherlock retreats which leaves Mycroft alone and devastated. John, unlike Sherlock, understands that Mycroft in his own frightening way loves Sherlock, and is not pleased with the fact that Sherlock leaves Mycroft to fend for himself. They have a fight.

Then Mary who now has eliminated "the queen" from the chess board, goes in for check mate, and seeks Sherlock out to kill him. The season ends with her pointing the gun at him in 221b, to get some symmetry with HLV, as well as TRF. All third episodes nicely connected.

 

I'd like to see that in series 4. Not that I expect it to come true.

[Arcadia]

 

Brilliant theory though

 

Thanks! You can see I put a lot of thought into it.

[Carol the Dabbler]

Arcadia:        

 

Zain:  Despite my hopes that Mary will turn out OK, I really like your Ep 1 -- good plot turns.  Your Ep 2 is a good middle ep (far better than "Blind Banker," and please don't take that as an insult).  As for your Ep 3, I need to re-read it a few times (kinda like "Last Vow"), but all in all, your Series 4 is the best projection I've seen so far.

 

[Zain]

 

 

Zain:  Despite my hopes that Mary will turn out OK, I really like your Ep 1 -- good plot turns.  Your Ep 2 is a good middle ep (far better than "Blind Banker," and please don't take that as an insult).  As for your Ep 3, I need to re-read it a few times (kinda like "Last Vow"), but all in all, your Series 4 is the best projection I've seen so far.

 

 

Aw, thanks

I'd really like to see it happen - maybe it'll inspire somebody to write a fic.

 

Sadly, I do have a more realistic approach to season 4 than the above. It does not include most of my plot turns. I hope the writers will make something clever out of the mess they left us in HLV. I am a bit wary, though. I don't know if I could stand it if there was no clever twist. It doesn't have to be my solution, but it has to be some twist. Preferably not "Mary dies protecting Sherlock to redeem herself in the eye of the viewer." That'd be... lazy. In my eyes. Everything but clever.

 

I still hope we'll get a Victor Trevor.

And more Lestrade screen time.

(Well. And Mary gone, but I daren't hope for it...)

[Slithytove]

I like your ideas, Zain. Wish it would turn out this way......

[T.o.b.y]

I'm getting the impression that we're actually agreeing on something unanimously: More Lestrade! Might I add: And something nice happening to him? I don't care whether it's a professional success or a happy love affair or just Sherlock getting his first name right for once, but I'd love to see something else than him hanging around alone with his beer glass.