![]() I’ve seen things like this done in many contrived ways in the past, but here it worked well, and the layers were carefully put in place earlier in the episode.īehind the camera, the difference between Paul McGuigan’s superb, at times very still direction of A Study In Pink and Euros Lyn’s handling of The Blind Banker was spottable. I also liked the way in The Blind Banker that Watson was mistaken for Sherlock. The key to decoding them? Ultimately, it’s a book that everyone has. Sherlock uncovers that it’s a smuggling organisation that’s behind them, using them to communicate. It’s still a good device, though, with the symbols floating across the screen and, once again, it’s not overplayed.Īs Sherlock digs into the decoding of these ciphers, anyway, the mystery gradually unravels. That said, I didn’t feel this effect worked quite as well this week as it did with the text messages and deductions in A Study In Pink. These ciphers, capturing the style of last week’s instalment, consequently appear across the screen, too. This week’s particular case involved ciphers, which appeared on walls and surfaces across London, and needed cracking. Good on Stephen Thompson for this, too, because the mystery of the character of Sherlock is as compelling as the cases he’s faced so far, for me. Watson is given his fair share of heavy lifting to do, instead. He’s still the title character, but there’s no desire to put him in as many scenes as possible, and if anything, it feels as if Thompson has chosen to pull back on deploying Sherlock too much, if anything. Benedict Cumberbatch captures that terrifically well, and the desire for the writers to dig further into his character this early is tempered by the fact that he almost feels like the supporting act here. Sherlock himself meanwhile is still a relentless, chilly beast when he’s in the midst of a murder case. A thread has nonetheless been put in place that may be picked up on next week, as Watson very much remains a troubled man. The most obvious manifestation of that is when he goes on a date, but predictably, that doesn’t go quite to plan when Sherlock manages to gatecrash it. It’s still a cold-ish working relationship that the characters have here, but The Blind Banker attempts to defrost Watson a little by focusing on him coming to terms with his post-army life. It’s already feasible to see these two working together for many years ahead (it feels, in a good way, as if they have been already) and I, for one, hope we get the opportunity to see that happen. Whoever it was who ultimately threw Benedict Cumberbatch and Martin Freeman together deserves a very tasty drink, and can help themselves to a bag of Haribos too. It’s worth saying right here: the double act between the two leads here feels fleshed out and mature, and we’re already only two stories in to this Sherlock’s adventures. Fortunately, there was still plenty to get our teeth into. Even Moriarty was left to, effectively, an epilogue at the end, taking up just a minute or two of The Blind Banker‘s running time. There was no setting up of central characters and scenarios, instead an emphasis on telling one story, and telling it very well. After all, writer Stephen Thompson had 90 minutes purely to dedicate to the narrative itself. ![]() This was an adventure that arguably had just as tough a job as last week’s opener. And it’s already got me looking forward to many more Sherlock adventures in the years ahead.īut for now, back to The Blind Banker. Yet, despite lacking just a bit of the wit and sparkle that was sprinkled throughout A Study In Pink, The Blind Banker nonetheless delivered another 90 minutes of genuine entertainment, the ilk of which we’ve not been used to getting on Sunday nights. It’s perhaps a little inevitable that after the standard-setting opening episode of Sherlock last week, that the second instalment should not quite manage to match it. WARNING: THERE ARE (QUITE MILD) SPOILERS AHEAD IF YOU’VE NOT SEEN THE BLIND BANKER YET!
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