BBC Sherlock Fan Forum - Serving Sherlockians since February 2012 / Missing Five Minutes / John's Theory

**Posted by Sherlock Holmes** January 2, 2014 1:19 pm

Did anyone else notice that the episode was slightly shorter than usual? By about five minutes?

I was talking to my mum about this, who's an experienced TV writer and producer, and she said the only explanation was that a scene or two was cut from the final edit.

So, I'm thinking...there was that moment where John said, "Are you gonna tell me how you did it then?" and Sherlock used that classic canon line "you know my methods...".

What if they cut the actual explanation scene, the actual real explanation? What if they were going to place it right there at the end before they go out and face the press then decided "nahh, let's keep hold of it and keep 'em guessing a little while longer...put it in somewhere else in another episode..."

And then I started thinking about that line..."you know my methods...."

What if it's John that actually explains the theory? What if it's John who works it all out, and tells Sherlock how he did it? And it's John that actually gets it right?

**Posted by Be** January 2, 2014 1:26 pm

Maybe they gave us the mini-episode in advance for some reasons. There are the missing minutes.
I am not really sure why they did it. What's missing?

**Posted by Maggi13** January 2, 2014 1:32 pm

Sherlock Holmes wrote:
Did anyone else notice that the episode was slightly shorter than usual? By about five minutes?

I was talking to my mum about this, who's an experienced TV writer and producer, and she said the only explanation was that a scene or two was cut from the final edit.

So, I'm thinking...there was that moment where John said, "Are you gonna tell me how you did it then?" and Sherlock used that classic canon line "you know my methods...".

What if they cut the actual explanation scene, the actual real explanation? What if they were going to place it right there at the end before they go out and face the press then decided "nahh, let's keep hold of it and keep 'em guessing a little while longer...put it in somewhere else in another episode..."

And then I started thinking about that line..."you know my methods...."

What if it's John that actually explains the theory? What if it's John who works it all out, and tells Sherlock how he did it? And it's John that actually gets it right?

I would like it if it was true, so neat.
Kept me wondering why it was too short. But I don't think they will make one episode 5 minutes longer, so it is a bit sad that we lost these precious minutes.

**Posted by anjaH_alias** January 2, 2014 1:35 pm

Sherlock Holmes wrote:
What if they cut the actual explanation scene, the actual real explanation?

There could be various reasons for cutting out scenes. And, honestly, which "real" explanation do you want? We were given three explanations through the episode, the first two were utter nonsense in every assumption, the last one, set in a time of high pressure, made sense in everything. And came out of the mouth of the detective, although the scene was surely fantasized. Nevertheless: Besides that it was fantasized by Anderson (who is good in and sometimes nailing the point while fantasizing, according to "Many Happy returns") everything was well proved, explained and even documented by camera . I think this is really an elegant twist.

Last edited by anjaH_alias (January 2, 2014 1:39 pm)

**Posted by Sherlock Holmes** January 2, 2014 1:44 pm

anjaH_alias wrote:
Sherlock Holmes wrote:
What if they cut the actual explanation scene, the actual real explanation?
I think this is really an elegant twist.

I think it's a cop out. Sorry.

**Posted by Be** January 2, 2014 1:56 pm

Maybe they decided to wait with the real explanation?

**Posted by anjaH_alias** January 2, 2014 2:01 pm

Sherlock Holmes wrote:
anjaH_alias wrote:
Sherlock Holmes wrote:
What if they cut the actual explanation scene, the actual real explanation?
I think this is really an elegant twist.
I think it's a cop out. Sorry.

No need to say sorry - we don´t know yet. I can only say that I didn´t doubt the truth of the explanation at all last night, and this was more a feeling than an observation. And this morning I was wondering that everybody was complaining about the missing explanation .

**Posted by FluteLocked** January 2, 2014 2:14 pm

I found TEH a bit confusing with many different storylines, five minutes could have helped to give everything a bit more time and 'calmness'.
They had to explain a lot and I fully understand that it wasn't a normal ep as we know it but I missed a structure in TEH.
On the other side my confusion could be caused by language problems, so I'm not quite sure if someone else feeled the same way...

**Posted by FluteLocked** January 2, 2014 2:19 pm

anjaH_alias wrote:
Sherlock Holmes wrote:
anjaH_alias wrote:

I think this is really an elegant twist.
I think it's a cop out. Sorry.
No need to say sorry - we don´t know yet. I can only say that I didn´t doubt the truth of the explanation at all last night, and this was more a feeling than an observation. And this morning I was wondering that everybody was complaining about the missing explanation .

It was the same for me, at first I also took the last explanation for the real one. Then I read more and more posts and started doubting it.
But I think we will learn more about it.

**Posted by anjaH_alias** January 2, 2014 2:21 pm

FluteLocked wrote:
anjaH_alias wrote:
Sherlock Holmes wrote:

I think it's a cop out. Sorry.
No need to say sorry - we don´t know yet. I can only say that I didn´t doubt the truth of the explanation at all last night, and this was more a feeling than an observation. And this morning I was wondering that everybody was complaining about the missing explanation .
It was the same for me, at first I also took the last explanation for the real one. Then I read more and more posts and started doubting it.
But I think we will learn more about it.

The additional problem for me is, that the last explanation is going hand in hand with mine . Let´s wait and see....

**Posted by SolarSystem** January 2, 2014 9:00 pm

FluteLocked wrote:
I found TEH a bit confusing with many different storylines, five minutes could have helped to give everything a bit more time and 'calmness'.
They had to explain a lot and I fully understand that it wasn't a normal ep as we know it but I missed a structure in TEH.
On the other side my confusion could be caused by language problems, so I'm not quite sure if someone else feeled the same way...

I also missed a structure, I had the feeling that we had various little stories instead of one big story. And some of those little stories were combined quite fittingly, but not all of them (in my opinion).
And yes, they had to explain a lot - but not that much, really. The thing is, they've chosen to take their time with the explaining that they had to do, and maybe that's why I had the feeling that they stuffed quite a lot (maybe even too much) into this episode.

**Posted by besleybean** January 2, 2014 9:39 pm

I feel much better about it after a 2nd watch and my hubby enjoyed it..as well as pickig up on all the things I'd missed!

**Posted by tonnaree** January 2, 2014 11:29 pm

Could everyone be overthinking the "missing" 5 minutes? I watch a lot of original dramas on HBO and Showtime. Technially they are considered hour long shows but many times they are not exactly 60 minutes.

Not that the Sherlock fandom has a reputation for overthinking or anything.,

Last edited by tonnaree (January 2, 2014 11:30 pm)

**Posted by besleybean** January 2, 2014 11:34 pm

I'm fantasising that it was the real kiss between Andrew and Benedict, that they had to chop out..snigger.

**Posted by Sherli Bakerst** January 3, 2014 4:14 am

So much for my powers of observation: I didn't even notice the episode was shorter than usual! But my excuse is I was paying close attention to certain other things on the screen...

**Posted by besleybean** January 3, 2014 9:04 am

Yeah. me too.
I know with the past episodes, they've all always been about 90 mins- but never bang on.

**Posted by Jacco111** January 3, 2014 4:02 pm

Swanpride wrote:
I kept complaining about the missing five minutes since the episode aired...but the minisode would be a little bit too long.

Probably they replaced it with the theory at the start, which is about 2 minutes long.

**Posted by dartmoordoggers** January 3, 2014 4:53 pm

The 2 minute 20 second BBC News item thats on Johns blog could have been cut from the original piece.

**Posted by besleybean** January 3, 2014 4:55 pm

And I really don't want to bring all this up again, but wasn't more of the bit where you can see fans is it?
Anybody at the preview confirm this is exactly what they saw?!

**Posted by silverblaze** January 4, 2014 12:26 am

The news item is quite slow compared to the episode. But I can hardly imagine that they filmed it just for the blog. Maybe they wanted to cut it into bits but then decided it still slowed it down too much. They used some news scraps, just a very short sequence.