Sherlock: The Great Game Retrospective

A superb finale, The Great Game benefits most from its staggering pace and abundant shocks and twists that manage to ensure the narrative never becomes stale. Admittedly, the aforementioned surprises were so memorable that for this viewer, watching the episode for a second time was perhaps a little less captivating, and yet in many ways seeing the strands being laid early on in the case makes for an altogether more well-rounded watch too. Mark Gatiss took every pleasure in keeping us on the edge of our seats throughout, never restraining from giving us moments of sheer disgust or fear to fully bring across the nature of Moriarty-the use of a blind woman, gunned down for simply describing the villainous mastermind, was particularly harrowing and so doubly effective. And of course, when Sherlock's famous nemesis finally reveals himself, it is a moment of dramatic perfection, Andrew Scott instantly recognisable as an installer of tension and pure evil, his swagger and coldhearted sense of humour made all the more disturbing by the atrocities he has had commited over the course of the series, and no doubt future schemes of darkness as well. The culminating ten minutes form one of the best climaxes to an episode of television I have ever seen, the uncertainty and danger of the bomb and sniper situation at the pool exuding out from our screens and into the living room, as if we're right there with Cumberbatch, Freeman and Scott. Nothing has changed since I first saw The Great Game last summer: the plot is consistently both intelligent and thrilling, the casting spot on as usual and the cliffhanger unbearably tantalising, all coming together to bring us an episode just as sublime as Steven Moffat's A Study In Pink. Does it manage to top Moffat's effort? Perhaps, but it could be stated that its reliance on its shocks makes it seem a little slower in repeat viewings. That there is even such a difficult question regarding Sherlock just shows the unspeakably high quality of its opening series, and I only hope that when the show does return next year (yes, you read right, at least five whole months before we see what happens next) the ingenuity and innovation present frequently here continue to make it one of the finest dramas on television.