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Series 4 (and Special) Speculation


T.o.b.y

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Hey,

 

I'd love to do some more or less serious and probably rather more than less crazy speculating about upcoming episodes, and I noticed we don't really, really have a thread for that yet - we have crazy rumors, but I'd like to include reasonable theories, if anybody has any, and we have what we would like to see, but what we think probable isn't always what we wish for. So: The Game is on, okay? (And if we already had a thread and I missed it, I bet some nice mod will merge it with this...)

 

So: based on what we've seen and heard so far, what do you make of it all? Especially this period getup?

 

Theories I've had or saw other people had so far include:

 

 - It's all a big hoax to throw fans off and get them breaking their silly little heads about nothing

- Time travel

- A crossover with some other universe (Dr Who?)

- Flashbacks

- Mind Palace (possibly Sherlock solving an old case in his mind to get a better understanding of a recent one)

- Costume party (possibly a very morbid costume party staged by some sick crazy villain)

- An episode not really connected to the Sherlock we know, but a direct adaptation of some Doyle work set in the original time, sort of as an experiment in what the show would have been like if they had not decided to change the era

 

Got any more? Care to elaborate, argue and go mad?

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This is me thinking aloud, trying to process.  Feel free to add/join in/correct...

 

Is this spoilery?  

 

So we KNOW for fact that the following people were gussied up Victorian style:  Sherlock, Watson, Lestrade, Anderson, Molly (basically Sherlock's crime solving team of sorts).  Stamford and Mary were there on Day 2 of filming but I dunno if they were seen in Victorian garb?  We know that Molly was back to normal attire by end of day yesterday, so I don't necessarily think Mary and Stamford were part of Victorian wear.

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Yes, the picture of Molly looked like her regular self, didn't it. So either there are scenes from the present as well as the past in the episode, or it's all in the present, in which case

why is there an old-looking set with bodies and pickled heads and a skinless leg or something like that lying around?

 

 

If it weren't for the costumes, I'd have thought museum or archaeological find.

 

Another possibility is some kind of equivalent to the crazy "how he did it" theories in The Empty Hearse. Meaning, this could be somebody's fantasy. Who knows, perhaps Anderson has found a new job writing crime novels and taken his big idol as the main character, thinly disguised by a different time period. Wouldn't that be really, really funny, come to think of it, if in the Sherlock world he ends up having a Victorian character based on him instead of the other way around? It'd be even funnier if the author's name (or pseudonym) would be Conan Doyle and the cases were actual Doyle cases.

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Speculation is so much fun. It's almost worth the wait to have this lovely time of guessing and theorizing and analyzing totally unreliable clues to bits.

 

Here's something to add to the confusion. In this article:

 

http://www.denofgeek.com/tv/sherlock/33528/sherlock-special-2015-news-casting-rumours

 

You can find these interesting statements:

 

Still on the subject of ghosts, is it significant that Sherlock Special director Douglas Mackinnon Retweeted the words of @SherlockSkull on the 25th of November, when he said “Oh oh oh... Ghost of Sherlock past... Got it! Bam! #ShSpesh”? Can the period dress and the ‘ghosts’ reference be explained by the simple fact that the Sherlock one-off Special is set back in Victorian times as an homage to the character’s original era?

Perhaps another exchange on Twitter can shed some light on the reason behind the period costumes? On the 25th of November, after the BBC released the first image of Sherlock and Watson in Victorian-era dress, Doctor Who writer Jamie Mathieson Tweeted, “The big question is not how modern Sherlock ends up in the Victorian era, but how a Victorian character ended up here in the first place”, to which Sherlock Special director Douglas Mackinnon tantalisingly replied, “That’s only the half of it”.

 

 

What the...?

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Yes, the picture of Molly looked like her regular self, didn't it. So either there are scenes from the present as well as the past in the episode, or it's all in the present, in which case

why is there an old-looking set with bodies and pickled heads and a skinless leg or something like that lying around?

 

 

If it weren't for the costumes, I'd have thought museum or archaeological find.

 

Another possibility is some kind of equivalent to the crazy "how he did it" theories in The Empty Hearse. Meaning, this could be somebody's fantasy. Who knows, perhaps Anderson has found a new job writing crime novels and taken his big idol as the main character, thinly disguised by a different time period. Wouldn't that be really, really funny, come to think of it, if in the Sherlock world he ends up having a Victorian character based on him instead of the other way around? It'd be even funnier if the author's name (or pseudonym) would be Conan Doyle and the cases were actual Doyle cases.

That's actually quite brilliant and could be extremely funny. Best theory yet! :smile:

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I like everything so far and later, if I have time, I will see if I have any of my own to add to this fun-ness.

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My head hurts trying to reason out all of that... where are the non-goldfish at?  

 

Filming, hopefully! :lol:

 

Oh, by the way, are you guys sure that picture of Molly is recent? Could it be from series 3 filming or something like that? Just asking, because the umbrella looks so different from the other umbrellas...

 

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I like the book idea a lot.  Mostly because, yes, we have John's blog, and John is still the primary "Boswell" of the whole thing, but even so the show doesn't do a whole lot of exploration of the fact that the Sherlock Holmes stories are filtered through Watson's eyes, and they could conceivably be as fanciful or as exaggerated as Watson wants them to be.  Our John seems to be a fairly truthful blogger, but what if he wasn't?

 

Add to that, in the Russian Sherlock Holmes (2013) that I've fallen in love with, JohnWatson (my name for him, since this is how they all seem to refer to him; rarely John or Watson or Dr. Watson but JohnWatson as all one word) is an aspiring writer who is increasingly coached by his editor to make the stories of this genius detective more and more fanciful so they will get published.  If every iteration of Sherlock Holmes is considered canon reference for BBC Sherlock, this idea could come through, and it would sit very nicely on Anderson.  And what a nice one-off special -- maybe the crew is solving some modern case that Anderson is involved in, but he goes home by night and makes it this incredible Victorian story of a mastermind detective and tries to sell it.  (And fails.)

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I am torn regarding the book idea.  On the one hand, it kinda steals John's thunder, as the canonical documenter.  But on the other hand, if it's just more of Anderson's crazy theories, it could be a lot of fun.  It would have to tie in with the story arc and/or with an actual case, though, because I doubt that Freeman would've expressed so much enthusiasm if it were just a silly fantasy.  That's why I'm leaning toward the mind palace theory, presumably with Sherlock solving a Scotland Yard cold case from Victorian Times (e.g., Jack the Ripper).

 

So we KNOW for fact that the following people were gussied up Victorian style:  Sherlock, Watson, Lestrade, Anderson, Molly (basically Sherlock's crime solving team of sorts).  Stamford and Mary were there on Day 2 of filming but I dunno if they were seen in Victorian garb?  We know that Molly was back to normal attire by end of day yesterday, so I don't necessarily think Mary and Stamford were part of Victorian wear.

 

That makes me think the undercover-at-a-period-play idea is less likely.  If it were just John and Sherlock in period costume (plus maybe Greg and Anderson), it would seem plausible -- but Molly, in particular, seems out of place in that.  It could still be a Victorian-theme costume party, though.  If a case can arise at a wedding, then why not at a party -- it's not like it's never been done before!

 

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Halloween party with all the crap in the basement?  Did they lie to Sherlock to get him there?  Drug him?   ;)

 

ETA:  I also now have Monster Mash stuck in my head.

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Halloween party with all the crap in the basement?  Did they lie to Sherlock to get him there?  Drug him?   ;)

 

 

 

Well, at least offer him drugs.  "Hey, Sherlock -- we leave the sock drawer alone for a month if you go to this party!"

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I don't believe that the whole episode will be set in Victorian England because I still believe (I think it was) Gatiss who said that the special will explain everything about Moriarty. How could a story that is set ~150 years back in time explain what happened quite recently? Okay, maybe Gatiss was lying, you never know...

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Maybe it turns out that Moriarty was actually Jack the Ripper, who escaped from Scotland Yard in 1888 by using his time machine to travel to 2010?

 

Added:  I sure hope not!  But if Sherlock is solving the Ripper in his mind palace, he might very well visualize him as Moriarty -- giving Andrew Scott a chance to return!

 

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Reaching, Carol!:p

 

On the other hand, who am I to say, as I cannot come up with a single credible (or even incredible) explanation for anything at the moment. This cold weather has sapped my will to do anything but sit here and stare blankly at this screen...........

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Maybe it turns out that Moriarty was actually Jack the Ripper, who escaped from Scotland Yard in 1888 by using his time machine to travel to 2010?

 

Added:  I sure hope not!  But if Sherlock is solving the Ripper in his mind palace, he might very well visualize him as Moriarty -- giving Andrew Scott a chance to return!

 

Ah, yes. And Moriarty teams up with the Master to help take over the universe.  B)

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Umm, I was joking.  At least I hope I was!  In the first paragraph, I mean -- the second one seem perfectly plausible to me.

 

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I don't believe that the whole episode will be set in Victorian England because I still believe (I think it was) Gatiss who said that the special will explain everything about Moriarty. How could a story that is set ~150 years back in time explain what happened quite recently?

 

Well, there are possibilities. There could have been a very similar occurrence (man shoots himself in the head, survives, disappears, comes back) in the past, and Sherlock could be investigating that to the point where he, in his mind, becomes totally immersed in it, just to get an idea what might have happened in his world. Another possible theory is that Moriarty isn't really a person so much as a position, the head of a criminal network that has been around since Victorian times at least, in which case he could be "reborn" as often as anybody suitable comes along.

 

What I do not get is, if part or all of the episode was a real flashback to late Victorian England, why do the protagonists look just like the regular cast? How would they explain that?

 

I still like the mind palace theory the best. I love the mind palace anyway, and I wouldn't mind the show spending an awful lot of time there.

 

Whatever the solution is, I predict that the episode will begin with a period scene and we're supposed to sit there thinking WTF???? until it is somehow explained somewhere along the way, by which point our brains are too fried to ask any picky questions.

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I don't believe that the whole episode will be set in Victorian England because I still believe (I think it was) Gatiss who said that the special will explain everything about Moriarty. How could a story that is set ~150 years back in time explain what happened quite recently?

 

Well, there are possibilities. There could have been a very similar occurrence (man shoots himself in the head, survives, disappears, comes back) in the past, and Sherlock could be investigating that to the point where he, in his mind, becomes totally immersed in it, just to get an idea what might have happened in his world. Another possible theory is that Moriarty isn't really a person so much as a position, the head of a criminal network that has been around since Victorian times at least, in which case he could be "reborn" as often as anybody suitable comes along.

 

What I do not get is, if part or all of the episode was a real flashback to late Victorian England, why do the protagonists look just like the regular cast? How would they explain that?

 

I still like the mind palace theory the best. I love the mind palace anyway, and I wouldn't mind the show spending an awful lot of time there.

 

Whatever the solution is, I predict that the episode will begin with a period scene and we're supposed to sit there thinking WTF???? until it is somehow explained somewhere along the way, by which point our brains are too fried to ask any picky questions.

 

 

And our response will be *fists raised and flailing like an angry mob with a raised voice (some yelling)* "Moftiss?!?!?!?!" (with the possibilities of some choice words added).

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And I agree, don't see how it could be a flashback.  And the spoiler photos of the interior set dressing (see link here) don't seem appropriate for a costume party, and probably too elaborate for a play.  So unless they're pulling time travel on us (which I HIGHLY doubt), then with all those regulars in Victorian get-ups, it's gotta be someone's imagination -- either mind palace or daydream or regular dream.  Or maybe several people's imaginations.

 

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Also could be someone's high fever/drug induced hallucination

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