Sherlock: Season 3

Sherlock is cunning, daring, engaging, suspenseful, hilarious and invigorating, to name just a few of its best qualities. The show follows the adventures of Sherlock Holmes, an infamous detective well known for his inspiring crime fighting and solving skills and his drug and nicotine addictions. Hated by envious police detectives, adored by a sex-addict dominatrix, and always a master of deduction, Holmes traverses England and beyond solving only the oddest of crimes for the oddest of clients.The three-episode third season in the modern revival of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes aired Jan., 1 in the UK. At The Exonian, we are choosing to overlook the questionable methods students have been using to watch the latest installments because of the show’s widespread popularity. If you have yet to elicit a method of viewing and are a fan, I highly encourage you to tune into PBS this coming Sunday to enjoy the US release.The first element of Sherlock that must be lauded is the genius of the writers, who have successfully enraptured me and thousands of others. I, personally, am a new fan of the show, having started and finished the entire first two seasons during winter break and scrolling through internet pages to “get my fix.” The widespread and addicted gaggle of viewers granted the recent finale towering ratings.Another incredible quality of the show is that every single episode has the viewer guessing—there is never certainty. In fact, often when the viewer is quite certain of something, they end up being duped, quite similarly to our lovable Dr. Watson.Season three pits Holmes against possibly his most difficult enemy yet. The antagonist, who can be seen controlling events and pulling strings as early as the Guy Fawkes Day incident in season two, never failed to keep me on the edge of my seat. In many instances, he manages to clearly defeat Holmes using only blackmail, leaving his hands irritatingly squeaky clean. I far favor this more indirect approach to villainy, not in the slightest reminiscent of the diabolical plots spun by Moriarty, in previous seasons.Unfortunately, season three has too many highlights to mention (don’t worry—I’m not going to spoil anything). I can tell you that the impossible crime has never been more diabolical, the mind blowing speed of spontaneous deductions and crime-solving never faster, the excitement and thrill are taken to new heights in this third season.Of course, no show is perfect. I found the devotion of an entire hour and a half long episode to a wedding rather tedious. The humor of each joke was there, however, the set up for a fifteen minute scene about Lestrade’s failure ending in a simple query from Holmes, although funny, seemed like a time waster. For a show that releases a season biennially, time is of the essence and cannot simply be used for humor.That being said, the third episode of the season absolutely revolutionized my personal definition of a finale, and blew all previous episodes of Sherlock out of the water. Based on that episode alone, the show demands a five of five star rating. Looking to the distant future, what will season four bring us? How will the writers manage to out do such an explosive and exciting season? Only time will tell.