Interesting how they used the original title too... that makes my scalp prickle.

But it doesn't have to be the end. This story wasn't the last one was it? And Ben has several times calmed my nerves...

Oh, this is so clever! (and intriguing!) I hope all the loose plot threads come together nicely and we get answers to *everything*. (Why did Sherlock owe Moriarty a fall? How is Moriarty going to burn the heart out of Sherlock for good? etc, etc, etc...)

My guess is they'll wrap up the series with this episode (and have John and Sherlock involved romantically) and then in a few years they'll bring them back to the big screen for a few one-off movies of the ACD stories they didn't get a chance to adapt for TV.

OpalJade wrote:

Oh, this is so clever! (and intriguing!) I hope all the loose plot threads come together nicely and we get answers to *everything*. (Why did Sherlock owe Moriarty a fall? How is Moriarty going to burn the heart out of Sherlock for good? etc, etc, etc...)

My guess is they'll wrap up the series with this episode (and have John and Sherlock involved romantically) and then in a few years they'll bring them back to the big screen for a few one-off movies of the ACD stories they didn't get a chance to adapt for TV.

That sounds great. Getting answers to the yet unanswered questions and then moving the show to the Big Screen... almost too good to be true. But a fangirl can dream, right?
 

One-offs would be great, because hopefully it would be easier to get everybody together for them, rather than a three-part series. 

One big difference between TRF and The Final Problem (the short story), is that I think TFP was written as if Sherlock Holmes really did die.  It wasn't even a cliffhanger, and it certainly didn't have confirmation that he was alive and well as in TRF.  There was only the loophole of no body that allowed it to continue.  But (please correct me if I'm wrong on this, ACD fans), he didn't actually return for years.   The next book was Hound, which was set before TFP.  The follow-on from TFP, The Empty House, wasn't published until 1905, years after TFP.   So for all that time, Holmes was officially deceased.  (And if they were going to follow TFP as ACD did, they'd have to go back in time, before the fall.  Which is interesting, because there do seems to be suggestions of going back in time in setlock).

So I wonder if that somehow ties into what Benedict was saying.   Maybe this really will feel like an ending - I wasn't thinking of anything so blunt as Sherlock's death, more the end of an era - but maybe we will be left without even a cliffhanger.   Except that they've already planned how Sherlock's going to come back from it. 

I tend to think not, simply because ACD probably was genuinely finishing off, whereas Moftiss have no desire to, and obviously they wanted audiences to stay interested after S4, not just feel they are finished with it.   But ... the title seems to hint at something similar.   No wonder they held it back ... I just knew it had to be more sensational than The Three Garridebs (which seemed to be the main contender for a while)! 

I'm also thinking about the "insane wish fulfillment", and wonder if that ties into The Final Problem too.  Didn't they describe the waterfall scene in TAB as wish fulfillment?  

Or maybe the wish fulfillment aspect will be the Doctor Who crossover ... unless they're saving that till S5!
 

Last edited by Liberty (November 19, 2016 10:26 pm)

I think we should not assume that there is a close connection between story and title. Just think of what they did with TSoT and HLV which had practically nothing to do with the Canon stories. And this is probably why they did not give us the title of their own accord, at least not yet. Because Steven and Benedict have been bombarded with questions about the possible end of the show and they probably did not want to start that all over again. And as we can see, this is what happens now. 
 

Well, as they adopted Reichenbach "jump" twice, what else could they be reffering to while using exactly this title? I am at my wits end....

Or would they throw Sherrinford into the waterfall this time?

The final problem could be so many things...

(and the leak has been removed almost minutes after it got out...)

It could be a final obstacle that had to be removed... a problem that had to be solved... someone who has to be removed... even the word 'final' has other meanings than 'the last one' too... 

 

If that is the real title, it might be the final revelation concerning Moriarty. "The final problem" is a phrase that he has used a few times on the show. There are hints as to his return (if he does, hopefully to tell a truly great story, because the fake dying is getting a bit old), but we have also seen him in Sherlock's mind palace and we know that Sherlock will have to face some "demons". Also, in the end, in canon, TFP is not the tale of Sherlock's demise, but of Moriarty's. So my guess would be on a Moriarty-heavy story. There are still plenty of questions to be answered: Why is Moriarty "more than a man"? How will he "burn the heart" out of Sherlock? Why is he "desperate" for Mycroft's attention? And of cause: What is "the final problem"?

But in real life, it was a ten years long hiatus between "The Final Problem" and "The Empty House"...

@kgreen20, what I meant about the hiatus in the ACD stories was that for years after The Final Problem, as far as the readers were concerned, Holmes died at Reichenbach (as Nakahara mentioned).   Then years later, The Hound of the Baskervilles was published, but that didn't bring back Holmes, as it was set "in the past", and it must have seemed as if all future stories would have be set before TFP.  Then years later again, The Empty House resurrected Holmes, with very little ceremony and a story about baritsu. 

IIRC neither Holmes nor Moriarty's bodies were found, which makes Moftiss's hints that Moriarty might be alive fair game (and I presume is what Sherlock is referencing when he says that Moriarty's body was never recovered, in TAB - although he must mean the body actually went missing in the present day too, which confuses me). 

It just seemed to me a coincidence that the episode that Benedict said seemed like the end of an era, difficult to come back from, etc. turns out to have the name of the episode which genuinely was the very last Sherlock Holmes story for many years.   It would be audacious of Moftiss to do that, and they've made it clear that they plan to continue so we wouldn't really believe them anyway, but I wonder if they would go for something along those lines. 

I've wondered about Moriarty being Sherrinford.  But I've also wondered if it's Sherlock, Mary, Mrs Holmes, etc!  The other things that keeps springing into my head is that "fake" scene they filmed with Mycroft shaking Moriarty's hand.  It might have been very prescient of them.  Oh, and "it's never twins".  I feel there's got to be a twin in there somehow now!