As for me, I never thought groundbreaking could be associated with Mary. I have two or three ideas what it might be but she is not among them. 

EMP and/or something about the childhood/youth/family history of the Holmes brothers.

Definitely.

Didn't they try to fool us with this 'death of a major character' thing last time?
When CAM had his brain blown out.

Amanda suggested that something similar had been done before.   The previous most "groundbreaking", "television history" thing that they've done was the fall at the end of TRF.  I remember it well, even though I wasn't watching Sherlock at the time, because it made national news.   So maybe that's a starting point for looking at the kind of thing they might be doing in S4. 

Why was the fall 'groundbreaking'...? Serious question, because I never considered it to be groundbreaking.

As for the major character death, I'm not saying that I'm having any hard evidence for this, it's just that in my mind I keep coming back to the fact that we have two Watsons now. And one of them seems to be presented to us as being far more clever than the other one. And I can't help myself, but exchanging one for the other would be extremely groundbreaking. John dies, Mary stays with Sherlock.

I know, not a pleasant thought!

SolarSystem wrote:

Why was the fall 'groundbreaking'...? Serious question, because I never considered it to be groundbreaking.

I think "groundbreaking" is a word that's bandied about a lot even when it's not clear what ground is actually being broken, but anyway, here's an article describing it as http://www.radiotimes.com/news/2013-07-19/sherlock-steven-moffat-and-mark-gatiss-open-up-about-human-series-three .  I got the idea that it was groundbreaking in that it was so much talked about - not just on social media but in the national news.   It was one of those "Who shot JR?" moments. 

Mind you, I suppose you could say the same about the Great British Bake-Off final.  So maybe it's the combination of the media attention along with the unsolved puzzle left for two years.   I hope we're not going to have to wait years to resolve something in S4.
 

Solar: I agree with what you say about EMP. 

But what we would be groundbreaking about replacing John by a woman (has been done at least once, in "Elementary)? Why would this make TV history, apart from a momentary shock, probably followed by disappointment? 

Last edited by SusiGo (August 27, 2016 11:29 am)

As for the fall being groundbreaking - in a way it was, Solar. Because it was the first time, I think, that Sherlock Holmes committed suicide. Which is quite a big thing.