Sherlock. The problem with The Final Problem

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Sherlock. The problem with The Final Problem

January 20, 2017 - 19:04
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Was that the last ever episode? Fingers crossed. I don’t think I can stand a second more of the wall to wall tedium.

Sherlock

Was that the last ever episode? Fingers crossed. I don’t think I can stand a second more of the wall to wall tedium.

For most of Sherlock’s stupefying series finale three boring blokes stood in a room talking nonsense. It was awful. I thought it would never end.

As is usually the case with this shameless jackdaw of a drama, the garbled story was basically a rip-off. This time the writers raided The Silence Of The Lambs and its genuinely terrifying caged monster Hannibal Lecter. In the unimaginatively named The Final Problem, caged bland bombshell Eurus was about as terrifying as the Teletubbies.

As for the great detective’s famous “Mind Palace”, it clearly needs major renovations. His dodgy memory is so hazy he confuses his childhood best friend with a dog. And he’s forgotten he ever had a sister. What a dumbo.

Sadly, he can’t forget his smug git of a brother Mycroft who fills in the gaping holes by droning on about the breath-taking brilliance their sinister sibling. “I was remarkable,” he recalls, modestly. “But Eurus was described as an era-defining genius beyond Newton.” Cut to a dim looking woman with frizzy hair playing the violin badly in a glass tank. Beyond Newton? Beyond Newton Abbot more like.

To emphasise his gifted relative’s dazzling braininess, Mycroft reveals: “After an hour on Twitter she predicted the exact dates of the last three terrorist attacks on the British mainland.” LOL. Truly amazing.

But Eurus didn’t turn out to be a force for the good. In fact she’s a wrong ‘un who’s so dangerous they have to lock her up on a remote rocky island under constant guard. Art Malik’s running the high security joint so well that his lone prisoner escapes and kidnaps his wife. To stop evil Eurus from shooting his missus, Art tops himself. But she shoots her anyway. Who cares?

To add to the trashy mish mash of pop video style images (most pointless scene award to the Baker Street explosion), the ultimate baddy Moriarty keeps cropping up to say things like: “Fasten your seatbelts, it’s going to be a bumpy ride.” Wow. And Eurus spouts such mind-numbing gobbledegook as: “Focussing on internal conflicts while strategising around a largely intuitive moral code appears to create a counter intuitive result.” Ooh, isn’t that clever? No.

Meanwhile, Sherlock is piecing together the dreary jigsaw puzzle of his tortured past and some kid is on a plummeting plane full of unconscious people, including the pilot. Can Sherlock save them all? To find out, you have to stay awake until the confusing conclusion. No mean feat.

Along the way, trite trio Sherlock, Mycroft and Watson get bossed around by Eurus who for no apparent reason wants them to kill each other. Suddenly, Sherlock tells the wicked witch: “You killed my best friend!” Ah, the penny’s dropped. “You were upset,” explains Eurus. “So you told yourself a better story.” Shame he didn’t tell the writers a better story.

Anyway, after 90 rambling minutes of poorly constructed, painfully slow narrative meanders to an uninteresting denouement, there’s more from dead Mary's interminable farewell film and a collage of favourite moments that seems to indicate that this past its sell-by date production is shutting up shop for good. Let’s hope so.

At the very least, it should go into an extended period of hibernation. Sherlock has been trading on past glories for too long. Even its most devoted fans were turned off by the unthrilling three-parter that began on New Year’s Day and haemorrhaged disappointed viewers to such an extent that The Final Problem pulled in the smallest ever audience. Best to quit while it’s still vaguely ahead.

There are 2 Comments

Llwynog45's picture

A bang on review. Yes, it was totally awful, I totally agree.

scottss's picture

it cuts its pretentions and gets back to what worked so well...solving the crime/mystery. Doyle never went this far with Sherlock, why do that for this show?