"Not that it was hard considering there were no witnesses to his "dying"."

There was to the contrary though (retrofitted), there was Colonel Sebastian Moran, he saw Holmes escape and shot him. 

The reason Holmes did go into such complete hiding for three years was that Moran knew he was still alive. Presumably the same applies here.

I always thought that was a serious plot hole from ACD. The criminal underworld knows of Holmes escape, presumably, or at least the Moriaty in waiting does. And yet Holmes best and only friend and colleague never gets any word of it. He's never tortured for information, either about Holmes wherabouts or even any info he has from the past that might shed light. Always was a bit hmm there (I know in reality its a fudge by ACD anyway). Not only that but he lives a happy and quiet life despite being known to have been friends withand in on the cases of the sworn enemy of the most ruthless and dangerous man in Europe. I guess it was a gentler time ;-)

Oh the cyclist yeah, thats interesing. He comes from behind John. I've lost my bearings by this point but I'm not actually sure there is even a road there for him to come from. (fair enough, could be poetic license). He seems to be marking John, cycling slowly and watching him-and then manages to cycle into him and cycle off. That's not an accident.  The cyclist also slows, kind of checking John isn't badly hurt, kind of looking back, then off he goes. The cyclist (I think he's male) is also very hard to identify-he has a hat on which covers pretty much all his face-but the bits we see, the quite distinctive nose and the pale skin, look remarkably like Sherlock (the Solitary Cyclist even).  But how could he do that?

Also re the chalked rectangle. He falls and then rolls meaning that he falls into the rectangle and rolls out. (see I think this is the Jonathan Creek.trampoline theory myself ;-) )

My theory is that he somehow decelerated his fall, although I don't know how. His injuries, the speed at whcih he hits the ground, not to mention the actual time taken for the fall support this but there's a bit of a problem because he actually doesn't seem to do anything that might slow his fall ;-).

There is an additional issue with all these theories also. They kind of rely on half of Barts hospital being in on Sherlock's plan. Which given his plan was to pretend to fake his own death and Moriaty's henchpeople have spies everywhere as we know...maybe not cool.

(I do LOVE all the speculation here. Internet hive mind at its best :-) )

Well I am inclined to agree its dramatic effect more than anything.A two second fall would not be nearly as suspenseful. OTOH  I thought I'd better post this because if it turned out that this was what it was-and I was at least partly right-I would absolutely kick mysefl. 

Andy-"A parachute is a bit stupid idea. There was not enough time for the parachute to open and help Sherlock slow down and then disappear quickly enough not to be seen by John.".

Well obviously not an actual parachute, I mean something that acted as a parachute, parachute as a general noun iyswim but I could have been clearer. There is clearly no parachute opening in the scene. Its rather that he might be doing something to increase the drag.

I've looked at the stills again and there is nothing that looks like a parachute except one thing-his coat is consistently flapping in an odd way above him. But I really can't see anything there to increase drag. And if you were falling 70 feet your coat might well flap a bit. 

I've also noticed something else. We see his body falling right up to the point where he is nearly past the first floor. Meaning we are looking at only around fifteen feet or so unaccounted for even if he miraculously falls onto a truck. 

One small thing-he doesn't seem that badly injured given the height he's fallen from (and the fact he's fallen onto his face). In fact he seems to move over directly after the fall. His limbs don't seem obviously broken. 

I dunno, maybe the one in Jonathan Creek is the best "we dug out the pavement in Whitechapel Road to a depth of fifteen feet and added a concealed trampoline". Or maybe the Doctor was involved.

Or maybe he just had a concealed bungee wire or something. 

I don't think moving his limbs would slow him down that much-actually keeping them still but spread out might be his best bet-but you never know, it could be baritsu or something ;-)
 

;-) I am guessing it won't be this either but I do like the theory

I'll try and explain again, very simply. 

He fell at a quarter the speed he should have. This is not really something controversial. Its based on the idea that all objects fall at the same speed, meaning that if you know how far off the ground he is to start with you can work out how fast he hits the ground. Its physics at a level we are taught at around age 15 in the UK.

He does fall much too slowly. The question is, why? Is it for dramatic convenience (I accept yes, probably). Or is it actually a plot point? In other words, do we, and John, see but not observe?

The only two things likely to slow down an object in freefall are 1. something creating air resistance, like a parachute, or b. something pushing the other way, like a jetpack.

TBH there is a massive hole in this which is where on earth he got a parachute (or a jetpack). That would have to have been planted somehow earlier and I can't remember it being. Although....the sheet? But then he is on the lam, and probably didn't have a sheet to hand. 

ETA To put it simply: he falls far, far slower than he should. Far, far slower.

And its very, very easy to calculate how fast he should have fallen. 

ok in my post further down I noted that there is a discrepancy between how fast he should have been falling, given the height of the building, and how fast he actually does fall. 

Basically he takes 8 seconds to fall a distance that, in freefall, would have taken him more like 2 seconds. 

his makes a big difference to the speed. If he'd fallen 70 feet in 8 seconds, that is not too fast. Its about 3 metres per second or around 6 1/2 miles an hour. I'd say that's totally survivable. He'd probably be semi-conscious and the blood could well be real but so long as he was whisked away (and I don't think what Watson does is really taking his pulse) it would be fine. We know that the ordierlies must have been in league with someone anyway because no emergency services people would ever move a body that had fallen that distance without a neck brace.

He is also nearly upright and flailing for most of the fall, despite falling face first. As I understand it, if you fall face first you land face first. Freefall doesn't give you a chance to turn really. 

The latter could simply be that I presume that the actor had a wire attatched to him which meant he was uprightish. Or it could be part of the clue.

Basically, one option is that something caused him to slow down a lot on that fall. Something acted like a parachute to really slow his fall. Something we can't see but which must have been planted earlier in the episode...(I want to say his coat but, awesome as it is, I don't think it would create quite enough air resistance. How cool would it be though if it was his coat!) 

Ok I know that this is probably just cartoon physics going on. The fall needed to take 8 seconds for the drama to occur. But I love the idea that physics rescued Sherlock and it woudl not be the first time he'd

ok more geekery here now from me. If I get a chance I'll come back and check this with an actual calculator. I'm terrible for converting badly feet to mph and metres and so on-using mixed measurement systems (owing to my age!) so I might have made a mistake in there.

I've happened upon an interview which said that the distance fallen was actually around 70 feet, less than I thought, which would make the speed on impact closer to 40 mph-which I understand is probably dead but not so definately and that anything to cushion the impact might actually make a difference.

Ok here is the problem. I've just rewatched the video on youtube and it has him falling for 8 seconds. Which means, unless I've made a big mistake (we're out of coffee-never good!) he hits the ground at around 250 feet per second which is something like 180 miles an hour. I don't think pillows will help him survivie this.

The trouble I'm having -that I've always had - is that I know Barts and it is a really tall building. I mean every Londoner knows Barts, so its not rarified, specialist knowledge or anything. I honestly don't think the screenshots really capture this-yes its three or four stories high but they are high stories. But to be fair I'm looking at another photo now and there's a phone box in it and assuming that a phone box is about 10 ft high that makes the particular part of Barts he jumped from around 70 ft meaning that the impact speed was about 40 mph.

There is an issue with the pavement and the truck too. You don't really get a sense of this I think in the show but actually, its a really wide pavement and I'm not sure how Sherlock could have changed his trajectory midfall anyway. Unless he had a rocket booster or something ;-)

Oh dear. Before I drown in a swamp of geekery (physics and Londonalia!) I think I'd better go and do some work. And it does seem possible to me that when the writing team laid out their clues as to his survival they weren't expect

Actually though-assuming we are looking at a very late 2013/ 2014 air date, aren't we probably looking at nearly three years anyway? Or does it just feel that way? Near enough anyway.

Was it actually three years in canon? ACD was a bit random with dates anyway at times.

Do you know what my hunch is about that episode? That it will be like the first Dr Who after he reunites with Donna. They spend a whole episode nearly finding each other and not quite. I think this will have some intrugue and adventure for John and we'll also see his relationship with his wife as completely separate and developed through the episode. It will be a mature relationship, which is fitting since they may have spent more years togther now than John and Sherlock . We'll get, basically, a healed, family man John who occasionally, sentimentally, might think of his exciting past but as something done and gone. And then a weird or unusual series of murders or something starts up and he gets dragged in somehow and Sherlock comes along and saves the day. And then what happens is anyone's guess.

Oh and then she has to die I guess because that is basically what Mary Morsten is there for, to take John away from Sherlock for a bit, grow up up a little, and then hand him back when stories need to be told. 

hmmmm

certainly interesting. I really like the theory

What I'm hesitating over is that the writers don't really depart far from the canon. They play with it and let it inform their work and deconstruct it and turn it inside out but at the end of the day, everything can be traced back to the canon or if not the canon, a side nod to the fanfic/spin offs.

I do wonder if she's just exposing mahoosive plot holes (like, yeah, Moriaty being a long term actor, I wondered about that too. Though one thing I wondered-its not clear whether he has just joined the cast of the long running show. Being an actor is actually a potentially perfect cover for Moriaty because he can claim to have been trying to get jobs for years.

The funny name "like the fairy tale" I just thought was "Grimm" or something. I didn't see it as that significant. Maybe I see but do not observe.

I wonder if there might actually be no violence, nothing save perhaps these terrible swear words

I mean yes they might go for this but I think it would be interesting to see something else:  that rather than spent two years moping and venturing out only to see his therapist, he will have done something far more unsettling to Holmes which is to have grieved, raged and then moved on. If they follow the books, he might even have settled down with some nice young woman called Mary. 

I tend to see the show as in some ways John's journey. Because the show kind of focusses on Sherlock and his foibles -he's the title character-I think its easy not to see how deeply not perfect, how deeply screwed up and damaged John actually is. This is a man who is fine after shooting someone, who-I think we kind of realise in aSIB-has killed before (I think Sherlock-and our-assumption initially in SiP is that this was his first killing, perhaps overcome by the situation-whereas actually, he is calm and its premeditated). . He's someone who will defend to the hilt honesty and justice and all the rest but get on the wrong side or push him too far and he will snap. Someone who carries a concealed, loaded, weapon around London and shoots with it. Someone who can kind of be ok with a friend drugging him and scaring the life out of him in HOTB - I don't know why but I guess it might be because he has an adrenaline thing going on. People who carry loaded weapons around and punch their friends in the face, even with provocation, are actually not balanced people, not in 21c London.  He's an adrenaline junkie still recovering/processing PTSS who starts the series with a longing shot of a gun. And through the two series he gets better, gradually, to the point where, even in the scene with the therapist at the end he is still more functional, less defensive, for his two years or so with Sherlock than he was at the start.

So I wonder if, after Sherlock's "death", he actually does manag

" It was hard watching them at the end"

I agree with this so much. I grew up with him as the definitive Holmes and reading what happened to him and the cost to him of filming in the end is actually quite heartbreaking, to the extent that I don't think I could watch the later episodes nowadays.

Its such a hard one, I have such great memories of watching the earlier series but to watch a man disintergrate like that in front of the cameras...so hard.

In some ways that's why I like the new Sherlock a lot more. Its far more deconstructed, far less about setting up a hero, far more human. I find it very hard to watch the Jeremy Brett years while knowing the truth about what was going on behind the scenes. 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeremy_Brett