Big game (Sherlock)

The found painting of Vermeer comes to the National Museum of England. At the same time, John is dating Sarah. One day he receives news of a Baker Street bombing and rushes home to make sure Sherlock is alive. Mycroft presses on Sherlock to investigate the murder of the MI-6 clerk and the disappearance of a flash drive with important defense plans. Sherlock refuses, and then comes to Scotland Yard. Inside the bombed safe was a mobile phone containing messages for Sherlock, similar to the one belonging to the victim in the episode “ Etude in Pink Tones ”.

The message leads Sherlock to his own apartment, or rather, the closed part, in which he finds children's sneakers. He then receives a call from a frightened woman who reads a third-person text. If Sherlock doesn’t solve the puzzle within twelve hours, a vest with explosives on it will explode. While Sherlock in St. Bartholomew examines the sneakers, Molly Hooper interrupts him and represents her new boyfriend Jim. Sherlock concludes that Jim is gay, and Molly takes offense at Holmes. Sherlock traces the boy’s shoes, which was connected with the first case of Sherlock, which he tried to solve in his childhood. The boy drowned in a pool in London. He argues: the boy was poisoned with botulinum hidden in a cure for eczema. Sherlock announces decision to the terrorist. The hostage woman is released.

The second message shows a bloodied sports car. The second hostage gives Sherlock eight hours to uncover the secret of the driver’s absence. Sherlock interrogates the wife of the missing person and the owner of the car rental, and concludes that he was recently in Colombia. The blood in the car was frozen, Sherlock understands: the lost man paid the owner of the agency for helping him disappear . Sherlock announces the decision. Again - the hostage is freed.

The third message is related to the death of a television personality, apparently due to tetanus from a cut. However, the wound was done after death. Sherlock announces: the killer is a servant. He killed her by increasing the dose of Botox . Although Sherlock solved the puzzle, the hostage was killed because she described her captor. The kidnapper detonates a bomb, killing a hostage.

The fourth message is a photograph of the Thames without hostage calls. Sherlock finds the guard’s corpse at low tide. He was killed because the guard knew that Vermeer's painting was a fake. Sherlock understands that the killer is the giant Golem. Holmes is tracking the killer, but too late to stop another murder, an astronomy professor the guard was talking to after he realized that Vermeer's discovered painting was fake. While Sherlock is studying the picture, the fourth call from the hostage gives Sherlock ten seconds to prove that the picture is fake. He sees a too recent supernova add to an old painting. He barely manages to stop the bomb. The museum worker admits that this is fake and that her accomplice was called Moriarty.

John is investigating the Mycroft case. It turns out that Sherlock was secretly following John’s investigation into the death of the MI6 clerk. They come to the bride’s brother, who admits that he stole a flash drive and accidentally killed him. A person still has a flash drive, because he does not know how to sell it. Sherlock uses him to lure Moriarty, but John appears with an explosive vest. Moriarty appears and turns out to be Molly's friend, Jim. He tells Sherlock to stop interfering, but Sherlock refuses. Moriarty leaves them for a moment, and Sherlock takes off John's vest. Moriarty will soon be back with several snipers targeting Sherlock and John. Sherlock aims from a pistol at a vest filled with explosives.

As with all Sherlock’s episodes, the plot has references to Arthur Conan Doyle .

• Sherlock’s amazing ignorance is discussed on John’s blog, they have some sciences, including astronomy . This is a reference to the story " Etude in Scarlet " ^[1] .
• Sherlock’s irritation that ordinary people fill their minds with useless objects and are not able to use their brains normally also comes from “ Etudes in Scarlet Tones ”.
• Andrew West, the name of the MI6 clerk, as well as the entire line of investigation for his murder, comes from the story " Bruce-Partington Drawings ."
• The scene where Sherlock asks Watson to say what he thinks of running shoes, a reference to the stage at the beginning of the Blue Carbuncle , where Holmes asks Watson to say what he thinks of Mr. Henry Baker's hat.
• A pink mobile phone receives messages with beeps. With each message, their number decreases, which is a reference to the story " Five grains of orange ."
• Thick Bohemian paper comes from the story " Scandal in Bohemia ."
• Sherlock’s statement “I would be lost without my blogger” is a reference to the phrase “I would be lost without my Boswell” from “The Scandal in Bohemia”.
• The Holmes homeless network that helps him find the Golem is called his “eyes and ears throughout the city,” similar to the boys who appear in many stories about Sherlock Holmes.
• Sherlock shoots a gun at the smiley face sprayed on the wall at the beginning of the episode. This is a reference to the " Mesgraves House Rite " in which Holmes shoots VR in the wall.
• The scene where Watson examines shoes resembles the scene in " Identification ", where he tries to display information about Miss Mary Sutherland. Sherlock’s remark that Watson missed all the important details, also from the same story.

According to the audio commentary on the DVD, “The Big Game” is the first episode of “Sherlock” aimed at production after ordering the series ^[2] . The season was filmed in the reverse order due to the co-creator of the series and screenwriter of Etudes in Pink, Stephen Moffat, who was busy with the fifth season of Doctor Who ^[3] .

Andrew Scott first appeared as Jim Moriarty in The Big Game. Moffat said: “We knew what we wanted to do from Moriarty from the start. Moriarty is usually a rather boring villain. We decided to make him an absolute psychopath, someone who can be truly frightening ” ^[4] . Moffat and Gatiss did not initially intend to include the confrontation between Moriarty and Sherlock in the first three episodes, but realized that “they simply had to make a scene of the confrontation. We have to make our own version of the scene from “ The Last Case of Holmes ”, in which two sworn enemies first meet ” ^[2] .

The outdoor scenes of Sherlock’s house on Baker Street 221B were shot on Gower Street, 185 ^[5] . Shooting on Baker Street was not possible due to heavy traffic ^[6] and the large number of signs related to Sherlock Holmes that would have to be removed or masked ^[2] . Scenes in Sherlock’s lab were shot at Cardiff University ^[7] . Partially, the “Big Game” was filmed in an abandoned sewage treatment plant ^[8] .

The Big Game was first shown on Sunday, August 8, 2010 on BBC One ^[9] . During the night, the episode was watched by 7.34 million people on BBC One with a viewing share of 31.3% ^[10] . Final ratings rose to 9.18 million ^[11] .

Criticism Reviews

IGN 's Chris Tilly rated the Big Game at 9.5 / 10, describing it as “an exciting [episode] from start to finish” ^[12] . He also wrote that Moriarty "did not disappoint - there was no such incarnation of this character on the screen yet." He praised the script, saying that “praise should go to Mark Gatiss, as his script is the perfect combination of Conan Doyle’s classic story and modern technology and humor, creating an intricate detective story - the perfect mix of old and new”; in addition, he noted the acting of Cumberbatch and Freeman ^[12] . John Auntie in an article for The AV Club gave the episode "A-", calling it "unusually eventful for 90 minutes." He also praised Andrew Scott’s play, writing that his “presentation of Moriarty is a spectacular departure from the character’s earlier images” ^[1] . The Wallian’s Sam Wollaston was optimistic about the show, saying that “he [the show] was smart, entertaining, and quite confusing”; he also noted “The Big Game” - “a hash that shot” and “an episode so exciting that one can hardly sit still.”

• Big Game at the Internet Movie Database
• The Big Game on the BBC website