On 8th of August 2010, the final episode of the first season of the mini tv series aired with the title ‘The Great Game’. The episode was a great success, and like all the previous episodes, it was a fulfilment of the promise that the TV series Sherlock has made in the very first episode: it was worth the time watching. What was peculiar about this episode, in my opinion, was that it was not just an episode where Sherlock Holmes was the typical Sherlock Holmes solving cases and everything, but it seems to be a promise, or more like a pre-warning of the producers, where they seem to send the message: do not be alarmed, this is not the last ‘game’ but the beginning of a very big game that Sherlock will get into and eventually solve one way or the other.
The episode begins in Minsk, Belarus with Sherlock and a prisoner sitting across from each other and talking. We almost instantly presume that it is a case and we are proved right as the prisoner tells Sherlock why he ended up in prison. The interesting thing is that Sherlock is constantly correcting the prisoner’s grammar, only to get the prisoner more agitated and angry than he already is. I see this scene as the showing of Sherlock’s limitations; he is not afraid to get an already angry prisoner, who is in jail for murder, even more angry by doing a very simple thing like correcting his grammar. The prisoner would probably feel demeaned and looked down upon by Sherlock, and Sherlock would probably be feeling annoyed that his precious time is being taken up by someone who cannot even properly use the English grammar. Nevertheless, Sherlock is not amused and sees nothing that is worthwhile his time. In the next scene, where Sherlock is shooting at the wall in his apartment back in Baker Street, London, he cries out that he is ‘bored’. After his argument with Dr.Watson, there is a sudden quietness followed by an explosion. The events all leading up to the explosion seem to me to be the warning of a storm approaching ahead. Sherlock wants an interesting case to solve, he stays in his flat in his robes waiting for the case to come to him, Dr.Watson suggests a few but he declines, and as soon as Watson leaves, there is an explosion, which would be the storm, or in other words the big case for Sherlock to solve. It’s actually in these very first scenes that we see the theme of pre-warning appear in the episode.
The producers very successfully use the tool of story telling as mentioned by screenwriter Andrew Stanton in his Ted Talks, where he says: “When you’re telling a story, have you constructed anticipation? In the short-term, have you made me want to know what will happen next? But more importantly, have you made me want to know how it will all conclude in the long-term? Have you constructed honest conflicts with truth that creates doubt in what the outcome might be?” (Stanton, 10.06). In the short-run, we see that Sherlock will be facing a set of cases where he will be pre-warned, just like the producer pre-warned us with the ‘silence before the storm’ idea in the very first scenes. However, in the long-run, we see that Sherlock is embarking on a journey, with Dr. Watson of course, where Sherlock will be going through a maze of games solving riddles and Watson will be part of that maze in helping Sherlock out.
The game begins with a simple phone call, the victims call Sherlock and speak as though they are reading the lines dictated to them by someone. Sherlock is a given a riddle and time to solve the case and save the victims. This system of calling and solving goes on for four victims, one of which dies because she starts to describe the person dictating the messages. As we can see Sherlock is pre-warned but the bomber, and given time to solve the cases. As Sherlock goes through solving the cases, he is actually racing with time, which is one of the biggest challenges. We feel this more specifically when he is solving the final case of the painting and trying to save a kid in 10 seconds.
I think, these cases, are by far the most elaborate and difficult tasks that Sherlock has had to face. He is given no clue except to follow the news and solve the cases, and in a very limited time. Throughout the episode, I always felt that these five bomb cases also seem to be a pre-warning or more so a distraction from an even bigger case. And towards the end I was proved right. All the cases were a distraction to keep Sherlock focused on the bombs and the victims so that the missing missile plans mentioned by Mycroft in the beginning could be taken out of the country. Here, for the first time, we see someone almost equal to Sherlock by exactly his opposite: a Consulting Criminal. It seems, Jim Moriarty is not the criminal who kills the people and steals the missile plans, but he is the brain behind all the plotting. In a sense, he is the flip side of Sherlock Holmes, the evil twin who prepares the scene for the crimes, and Sherlock steps in to clear the crime but not the scene. This actually is the ‘GreatGame’, the scene is set for the crimes, and Sherlock will manage to clear the crimes every time, but not the scene because in order to clear the scene, the Consulting Detective would have to come face to face with the Consulting Criminal.
The episode once again promises a beginning of war between opposites: the good Sherlock Holmes and his evil twin Jim Moriarty. As the next season unfolds, we will be seeing the unfolding of this war and how the two will challenge each other in difficult cases. However, hope remains for Sherlock, because he has his blogger, Dr.Watson, when he says, “What would I do without my blogger?”