Sherlock [#3]

After watching the first two seasons of the BBC TV Series Sherlock while at the hospital, I found myself looking forward further adventures of Holmes and Watson and eventually “bought” the third season. And watched it over the past weekends. I liked it very much as this new season distanced itself from the sheer depiction of Sherlock’s amazing powers to a quite ironic and self-parodic story, well in tune with a third season where the audience is now utterly familiar with the main characters. They all put on weight (mostly figuratively!), from Sherlock’s acknowledgement of his psychological shortcomings, to Mrs. Hudson’s revealing her drug trafficking past and expressing her dislike of Mycroft, to  John Watson’s engagement and acceptance of Sherlock’s idiosyncrasies, making him the central character of the series in a sort of fatherly figure. Some new characters are also terrific, including Mary Morstan and the new archvillain, C.A. Magnussen. Paradoxically, this makes the detective part of the stories secondary, which is all for the best as, in my opinion, the plots are rather weak and the resolutions hardly relying on high intellectual powers, albeit always surprising. More sleuthing in the new season would be most welcome! As an aside, the wedding place sounded somewhat familiar to me, until I realised it was Goldney Hall, where the recent workshops I attended in Bristol took place.