The second forty-five minutes however leaves more than one bitter taste. For what seems like too short a time, this feature length offering is compelling, comedic, charming and immensely satisfying. Director Douglas Mackinnon employs some very showy camera work (which works) to set up the particular game which is afoot this time, with Natasha O'Keeffe's deathly pale bride being both dead and able to murder her way through some English aristocracy. The opening forty-five minutes or so is the show at its best, as Sherlock (Benedict Cumberbatch) and Watson (Martin Freeman) are introduced again briefly to justify the late 1800s setting (an intertitle after a recap of seasons one to three tells us that this is how the narrative may have proceeded 'alternatively'). Indeed, most criminally, the twist throws away the mystery of the bride, a mystery we have, until that point, believed to be important. The twist is reversed, then re-engineered again in order to leave the character just where the writers need him but nowhere near where he needs to be to make this a satisfying stand-alone narrative. The writing in The Abominable Bride shouts about its own cleverness, revels in its 'seen before' twist and then continues to postulate on both for far too long. Whilst the character can get away with being, at times, unlikeable, gleefully arrogant and smarmy, the show as a whole, cannot. The half way point reveal of The Abominable Bride is Sherlock at its absolutely worst, the chutzpah of the show's lead character ill-advisedly transferred to the show itself.

Not only were the 'too clever' features of Mark Gatiss and Steven Moffat's writing back but, like the titular character, they were back with a vengeance, hunting down the audience with maniacal glee designed to smugly kill off your satisfaction. 'Not only are the 'too clever' features of Mark Gatiss and Steven Moffat's writing back but, like the titular character, they're back with a vengeance, hunting down the audience with maniacal glee designed to smugly kill off your satisfaction.'Īfter a third season of the BBC's Sherlock offering which managed to reign in (nay, even laugh at) some of the show's wilder, more metatextual ideas, it was a surprise bordering on criminality to find them all reappear in the show's Christmas special, The Abominable Bride.

Sherlock the abominable bride movie