After a two-year break, BBC’s Sherlock will be airing a third season of three ninety-minute episodes premiering at 8:58 p.m. CST on Jan. 19, 2014 on PBS, with Benedict Cumberbatch and Martin Freeman reprising their roles as Sherlock Holmes and Dr. John Watson.
Season three has several changes from the previous two seasons, like evidence of an increased budget, new personality traits in Holmes and Watson, and new characters joining the series.
The third season of Sherlock has more digital manipulation and special effects, which suggests a higher budget than the two previous seasons. For example, in the first episode of season three, Holmes is thinking while riding down an escalator, and the background morphs into a subway with the car doors opening. The effect was like a glimpse into his mind, engaging the watchers to feel like they are taking active roles in solving the mystery in sync with the hero.
Also in season three, we see new personality traits to Holmes and Watson. While most television shows continue to further develop characters after the first episode, not all shows continue to reveal traits that make the audience question how well they really know the characters all the way into the third season. Holmes, who has appeared organized and focused for two seasons, is often distracted in season three. At one point in episode one he is trying to unravel a mystery but cannot keep old conversations with Watson from coming unbidden to his mind, which slows the solving of the case. In episode two, Holmes is puzzling out a mystery involving several women who believed they were dating ghosts, and Irene Adler (a.k.a. The Woman from season two episode one) suddenly appears in front of him, but only in his mind. He mentally dismisses her, claiming he does not have time to think about her at that moment.
Similarly, Watson changes significantly too. Earlier in the series, he seemed cautious and introspective and was described as “the sitting down type” by Mrs. Hudson, the 221 B Baker St. landlady, in the first episode of season one. In season three, he is a bit more aggressive and emotionally open. In the first episode of season three, he is honest with Holmes regarding the pain he had felt and his wish that Holmes would perform “one more miracle” and not be dead. Then in episode three of season three, Watson goes to pick up a neighbor from a crack house, and he takes a tire iron along with him. Watson does not use the tool, but he does intentionally beat up a junkie and sprain the man’s arm.
Furthermore, new characters are introduced in season three. (This paragraph contains spoilers). Amanda Abbington plays Mary Morstan, fiancée and later wife, of John Watson, in all three episodes. Ed Birch plays Tom, a man that Molly Hooper (still played by Louise Brealey) met during the two years Holmes was traveling abroad pretending to be dead. Tom and Molly are engaged for the first two episodes, but have broken off their engagement by the third. But perhaps the most surprising new characters are the parents of Sherlock and Mycroft Holmes. Wanda Ventham and Timothy Carlton Cumberbatch, the real parents of Benedict Cumberbatch, play as Mr. and Mrs. Holmes in the first and third episodes.
The episodes of season three—The Empty Hearse, The Sign of Three and The Last Vow—were written by Mark Gatiss, Stephen Thompson and Steven Moffat. Gatiss wrote the first episode, Moffat wrote the last, and they all worked together on the second episode. In the past, each man has written one episode per season, and they are the only writers of Sherlock.
Moffat has confirmed Sherlock will have a forth season according to www.theguardian.com. Sherlock has, in the past, aired three episodes every two years, so season four will likely be coming on in 2016.
