Could the small surveillance camera that Moriarty planted in the flat have any significance? I wonder if Sherlock took it with him when he was arrested. I've no idea how it would fit with the plot though!!

The Americans were successful in re-making Steptoe and Son which became Sandford and Son about two black scrap dealers, and Till Death became All in the Family which was also a big hit (Archie Bunker et al).They had a disastrous re-make of Dad's Army which was pulled after a few episodes.One wonders what they will make of Sherlock

^defn get more than 3 eps every 2yrs

I did have a little problem with that scene. There's no way he could have got the bacteria looking so nice and simple and all lit up like that without much more preparation. I also don't know of any chemical that when mixed with a sample will make asphalt and vegetation suddenly visable and separated nicely from the rest of the sample!

He got twenty year old pollen from a pair of trainers too

Unlike ACD the science doesn't stand too much scrutiny. Linseed oil doesn't fluoresce under UV light, you cannot see individual molecules under an optical microscope...

Maybe it'll be like the old flash gordon series, where in the next episode he wouldn't have fallen at all but will be saved by a flag pole half way up.

But they are not going to remake Sherlock, they are going to do their own modern version. Cue infringement of copyright action by Moffat & co.

Seen it said before, but Monk might be seen as an american Sherlock. Watson is to some extent his carer, literaly in the last episode as he prompts him as to what the socialy acceptable norms are. The question is, how much is social niavety due to spending his head in books as a child and how much is Aspergers. I can't remember if Mycroft managed to hire Watson or not.

Other examples might be Bones or Reed from Criminal Minds, although those deal with teams.

It's. not impossible for the USA to revisit the source of modern detection and do so well it's just a question of how well they adapt it. The unique bit in Sherlock might be the supporting characters rather than the lead.

I think since most of Conan Doyle's work is in the public
domain in the US, there's no legal reason why the Yanks can't make
a Sherlock Holmes show which is set in modern times.
Granted, it comes across incredibly derivative, but I'm
not sure they'd be breaching copyright.

Good luck to Vertue/Moffat if they think they will be successful in suing an American company in an American court over a fictional character who's already been plagiarized to death and has been out of copyright for years. Just don't waste our licence money in trying.

US TV like to be inspired by UK programmes, there's Merlin and Camelot, then now Sherlock and there sure is more. It's not that the themes by themselves are original, it's the timing and the success of the original programme. I think it's flattering if anything else.

I noticed that too when rewatching last night!


I've read this theory elsewhere and I like it. Sherlock's singing of 'I've Got You' could be a clue to this too, but other than that I have no idea.


I was thinking the same about his shoes. They look far too elegant for a private detective who does a lot of running around. I do think they're supposed to be his shoes though.


Yes he did, but then he was obviously prepared to survive it so all's well that end's well. Sherlock obviously thought that he had a better chance of surviving the final encounter with Moriarty if he chose the time and the place (and thus the whole set up for his 'death'). Had M chosen the place, the end would have been so very different.

I popped round to my parents last night for tea and ended up watching the repeat last night (we've all already seen it) and we had quite good fun looking out for clues all the way through. We ended up tying ourselves up in knots as there wasn't a neat answer to anything. We are thinking either Moriarty has faked his own suicide or...Well, I'll come to that at the end of this post.


Well presumably, if he was going to kidnap two children, the kidnapper would have done a reccy of the hideout first to check it was deserted. What self-respecting kidnapper wouldn't?


Ah but did Moriarty plant it??

The Moriarty Theory

Now to a theory which my dad had concerning Moriarty. It could well be too far-fetched but it's pretty interesting. We were looking out for something out-of-character (turns out a lot of what Sherlock does in this ep could be termed out of character!) and my dad struck upon this. When Sherlock and John visit the journalists house and the whole Rich Brook thing is being explained, Sherlock says nothing. He simply stares at Rich Brook while Watson does all the talking. Only at the end does he start to shout, before they all run out. My dad's theory is that Sherlock's speechles as he's becoming to realise that this isn't the Moriarty who he's met before. There are two Moriarty's. Lookalikes but probably twin brothers, Identical except for slightly different mannerisms and one brother is more balanced than the other. He is Jim Moriarty, the slightly more sane of the two, though a psychopath nonetheless. His brother, NotJim is fully insane. They pretend to be one person, as one person in charge of an empire is stronger than two (esp when one's VERY insane). They both call themselves Jim Moriarty, and NotJim comes to believe that he is Jim Moriarty and has many identity problems. NotJim is the one who dies on the roof. Now Jim Moriarty survives, safe in the knowledge that he has now advertised his skills to the criminal world and can secretly go about his business as the police, press and public believe him to be dead and his greatest adversay, Sherlock is also dead. This is why he had to ensure Sherlock killed himself, even after Moriarty's own death. Because it wasn't the real Jim Morarity which had died, it was the brother.

He might even go by the false name of Sebastian Moran, and only be known as Moriarty in the underworld.

Sherlock recognised this at the journalists house, and knew that Moriarty was planning Sherlock's death and the death of his double, with the ultimate aim of going back deep underground. Sherlock's only way of sniffing the real Moriarty out, was to also go deep underground. Sherlock is playing Moriarty at his own game.

This theory ties in a little with ACD's Moriarty and his brother. ACD names both Professor Moriarty and his brother James Moriarty. This was a mistake, of course, but Gatiss and Moffat have gone on record (on S2 commentaries) as saying that they try to include ACD's mistakes as injokes, and try to give them a logical explanation. They also mention the two James Moriartys coming up in S3. Now chances are, they are saying this as a joke to tease the fans with no intention of ever doing it. Or maybe there's something in it, as this is the ACD mistake which most people notice and remember. It is like Gatiss and Moffat to want to explain it away.

Either that, or the one and only Moriarty killed himself on the roof.

We still have lots of questions as to the various hitmen, their deaths and who they were hired by to begin with, and what the whole point of them was anyway due to the code's lack of relevance. I seriously hope it's all neatly tied up in the next episode. If anyone else wishes to clarify though, feel free .

There's more on this in DS News but basically you can't copyright the character of Sherlock Holmes.
On a more general point of aping American programmes and films (and vice versa) I believe the BBC has claimed that ER was inspired by Casualty; The Magnificent Seven was certainly inspired by the Japanese film The Seven Samurai;My Family was devised by an American who had worked on US sitcoms;several BBC shows (unfortunately) have been described as ''the British version of Mad Men''.

Sherlock said You to Molly

IOU are 3 vowels

A and E are the other two vowels.

I zoomed in and I thought it looked like Sherlock's brother! You are right though, it does look a bit like Moriarty too..

Let's stick with this then and the theory I have is:

Sherlock asked Moriarty for privacy because he wanted Moriarty to back away from the edge. Sherlock obviously knew that Moriarty was going to kill himself but he wanted it to be done out of the way of Moriarty's "people" so they wouldn't see.

When Moriarty killed himself, Sherlock went to the edge to ensure Moriarty's people focused on him (Sherlock). Meanwhile, Molly & co came to get Moriarty's body which they subsequently threw out of a window.

Sherlock did jump but his fall was broken, it was Moriarty's body that hit the ground (and was taken away).

They then buried Moriarty as Sherlock (orchestrated by Mycroft) which would explain why there was no mention of Moriarty in the papers and would also explain the statement " I am you." Moriarty became Sherlock and Sherlock became Moriarty.

P.s: the out of character thing that Sherlock did? He begged. He stated in the belgravia episode that he doesn't beg, well he begged Moriarty for privacy.

You can't copyright an idea

Has anyone else noticed that as Sherlock is backing away with Watson after deafening the police officers with their siren that on the wall in the background is IOU painted with wings around it? On the BBC iplayer version this is around 55.10. The wings could be to signify that can't be killed by jumping off a building. Ravens were pictured at the beginning of the episode, perhaps mirrored later in the episode? The wings also have a point of light at the bottom, like a spark. Significant maybe? Then, later in their escape, whilst they're in the alley, a word that initially looks like Vollat is painted on the wall. I paused it to have a closer look and there are two lines painted above and below the V. This makes it look like an I. The double L looks like a U and the t at the end could be an f. If this is right, the letters appear to be: IOUAF. Or I O U A Fall? This may be pushing it, but if you want to have a look, on the iplayer version this is at 55.46.
As to what Sherlock does that is out of character, anyone else notice that he says please and thank you without being prompted more than usual? When he is presented with gifts at the beginning, he has to be made to thank the person, but later in the episode he starts to say 'thank you' and 'please' more often. Just a thought?

Of course not, but any marked similarities with Sherlock will no doubt be noted in case the American writers are too lazy and just lift chunks out of Sherlock. It would be difficult to make a good case, as both shows will be based on ACD's work.

I have never quite understood why the US has to adapt a UK idea, especially for a period piece, rather than just showing the UK show. No doubt it all comes down to money!

Is it certain that ACD didn't mean for the Moriarty brothers to be named the same? For one thing I think all George Foreman's sons have George in their name. For another it might be that they're not full brothers, perhaps their parents married again after losing or divorcing their partners. A remote possibility would be an inheritance where the bequest depends on a child's name and the child is kidnapped or lost so the parents name another the same. An imediate thought would have been a case of infant mortality but that kind of precludes them both being alive. Another possibility is that Moriarty stole his brother's name.

At the end of the day it may have been a simple oversight on the part of the writer but inside the story there's an explanation for it.

I thought the IOU thing just referred to binary code .

It could mean Irene or Ursula. I'm being random

The "corpse's" eyes are blue like Sherlock/BC. Moriaty/AS has brown eyes.
The corpse was also wearing Sherlock's clothes. and we all know that that coat is out of stock now, so where would Molly have got one from.

You can copyright the additions to it. For one thing Watson's limp was a reason for his discharge but by "curing " it Holmes showed that it was an expression of combat fatigue. That background is not in the ACD version. So assuming an american version of Watson has a limp due to a recent conflict then that wouldn't be a problem. The problem starts if they decide to cure it in the same way.

But the Americans will no doubt want him working with the Noo Yoik PD trying to save the President from some gawdam terrorists or aliens probably involving lots of shooting people and the odd car chase