Sherlock Holmes looks terrible. Tired, dishevelled and haunted, he shakes as his brother Mycroft says: “The roads we walk have demons beneath. And yours have been waiting a very long time.”
Meanwhile, supposedly-dead arch-villain Moriarty repeats: “Did you miss me?” over and over again.
And this is just the trailer for Sherlock season 4, which begins tonight on BBC First, available on OSN.
With Sherlock boasting all the intrigue, action and suspense of the very best Hollywood blockbuster – indeed, the final episode of the show, which made a star of Benedict Cumberbatch, will be screened worldwide in selected cinemas – it is no exaggeration to suggest it is the most eagerly awaited television show of 2017.
Thankfully, Cumberbatch is looking much more chipper than his character when we meet him during the filming of season 4. His sunny disposition is probably thanks to the huge challenges – and rewards – Sherlock is presenting the Oscar-nominated actor with.
"I love the show more, and Holmes more, because of how I've been able to experiment with who he is and what he does," he says. "And in this series he is troubled and challenged. At the top of his game and at the very bottom of his soul. There are huge highs and huge lows, and you really find out who he is. It's the Holmes you know, and the Holmes you don't know."
As far as plot details go, that is all we really find out during our day on the Sherlock set, talking to the impressively tight-lipped cast members, producers and writers.
John (Martin Freeman) and Mary Watson (Amanda Abbington) now have had a baby – co-creator, co-writer (and Mycroft actor) Mark Gatiss says it "changes everything" – but that is as much as we get. We do not even learn of the casting of Toby Jones (Captain America, The Hunger Games) as the evil, almost Joker-like Culverton Smith until afterwards.
But then, that's the joy of Sherlock: its huge international success (it has sold more DVDs in China than Star Wars) is because it is genuine event television, where the audience sits down with Holmes and Watson for three 90-minute episodes each season, and is simultaneously wowed and confounded by Holmes's sleuthing skills. Spoilers would ruin all the fun.
“We aimed high to begin with and we keep on trying to surprise ourselves and our audience,” says Cumberbatch. “The level of invention, imagination, darkness and joy is beautiful – it’s bleak at times but it turns on a dime into something very funny as well.”
There’s also a sense of a journey. Over the past seven years – three seasons plus a Christmas special – it has been fascinating watching Holmes’s character gradually evolve.
As Cumberbatch puts it, he has “slowly thawed from someone locked in glacial ice into someone who we can relate to and understand”.
In the new season, that means Holmes is no longer the invincible hero. He makes some “spectacular own goals and mistakes”, but always has Watson to fall back on. Their chemistry is as intriguing as the crimes they try to solve.
“They’re an odd fit – the one crossover is danger, the thrill of the chase, the excitement of being in a world less ordinary,” says Cumberbatch. “That’s the risk that both of them take, with terrible consequences at times. But it draws them together, and in this series it’s become very clear that Watson is a humanising influence on Holmes.”
Freeman does not have a problem with playing Holmes’s intellectual inferior, because he says: “It’s generally accepted that Sherlock is the brains and John is the heart of the show.”
And though Watson has become as important on Freeman's CV as The Office, Fargo and The Hobbit, it is fascinating to hear that initially he had misgivings about the whole premise of the show.
“My reservations were that it would be too cool and knowing in the modern-day setting,” he says. “But as soon as I read a few pages, I knew it was smart, exciting, thrilling. The writers allow you to do your best work, and I think we’ve gone far enough away from Arthur Conan Doyle for it to be our show – but not so far that the fabric doesn’t hold.”
Gatiss adds: “Our abiding principle, right from the beginning, was to get back to what Conan Doyle did.
“The deductions and adventures are all part of it, but it’s principally Holmes and Watson’s relationship, and we wanted to restore that and give it our own spin. The devotion that has provoked from people around the world has been astonishing – and a great joy.”
Co-creator Steven Moffat, who is also the showrunner on Doctor Who, another huge BBC hit, shakes his head in mock astonishment as he considers the success of the show and its stars. "Benedict Cumberbatch," he says. "He went from 'are you making that name up?' to the most famous living Englishman in the space of 90 minutes one Sunday."
There is a precedent for this: Conan Doyle was baffled by the success of his stories in the late 19th century. So why do people love the TV adaptation so much?
"Well, the literature itself is so good," Cumberbatch says. "To all intents and purposes, our version is slasher fan fiction, which people love. Holmes is also an outsider who speaks to a huge teen audience, but he crosses generations, traverses cultures, ethnicities, national divides. But I'm still learning things about Sherlock and I think we all will in this new series – devastatingly so."
Later, we find out that the last episode in this season is called The Final Problem. You have been warned…
• Sherlock season 4 begins tonight on BBC First, OSN
artslife@thenational.ae
How to protect yourself when air quality drops
Install an air filter in your home.
Close your windows and turn on the AC.
Shower or bath after being outside.
Wear a face mask.
Stay indoors when conditions are particularly poor.
If driving, turn your engine off when stationary.
Huddersfield Town permanent signings:
- Steve Mounie (striker): signed from Montpellier for £11 million
- Tom Ince (winger): signed from Derby County for £7.7m
- Aaron Mooy (midfielder): signed from Manchester City for £7.7m
- Laurent Depoitre (striker): signed from Porto for £3.4m
- Scott Malone (defender): signed from Fulham for £3.3m
- Zanka (defender): signed from Copenhagen for £2.3m
- Elias Kachunga (winger): signed for Ingolstadt for £1.1m
- Danny WIlliams (midfielder): signed from Reading on a free transfer
TRAP
Starring: Josh Hartnett, Saleka Shyamalan, Ariel Donaghue
Director: M Night Shyamalan
Rating: 3/5
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UAE currency: the story behind the money in your pockets
MATCH INFO
Uefa Champions League semi-final, first leg
Barcelona v Liverpool, Wednesday, 11pm (UAE).
Second leg
Liverpool v Barcelona, Tuesday, May 7, 11pm
Games on BeIN Sports
Israel Palestine on Swedish TV 1958-1989
Director: Goran Hugo Olsson
Rating: 5/5
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Navdeep Suri, India's Ambassador to the UAE
There has been a longstanding need from the Indian community to have a religious premises where they can practise their beliefs. Currently there is a very, very small temple in Bur Dubai and the community has outgrown this. So this will be a major temple and open to all denominations and a place should reflect India’s diversity.
It fits so well into the UAE’s own commitment to tolerance and pluralism and coming in the year of tolerance gives it that extra dimension.
What we will see on April 20 is the foundation ceremony and we expect a pretty broad cross section of the Indian community to be present, both from the UAE and abroad. The Hindu group that is building the temple will have their holiest leader attending – and we expect very senior representation from the leadership of the UAE.
When the designs were taken to the leadership, there were two clear options. There was a New Jersey model with a rectangular structure with the temple recessed inside so it was not too visible from the outside and another was the Neasden temple in London with the spires in its classical shape. And they said: look we said we wanted a temple so it should look like a temple. So this should be a classical style temple in all its glory.
It is beautifully located - 30 minutes outside of Abu Dhabi and barely 45 minutes to Dubai so it serves the needs of both communities.
This is going to be the big temple where I expect people to come from across the country at major festivals and occasions.
It is hugely important – it will take a couple of years to complete given the scale. It is going to be remarkable and will contribute something not just to the landscape in terms of visual architecture but also to the ethos. Here will be a real representation of UAE’s pluralism.
Result
UAE (S. Tagliabue 90 1') 1-2 Uzbekistan (Shokhruz Norkhonov 48', 86')
Greatest of All Time
Starring: Vijay, Sneha, Prashanth, Prabhu Deva, Mohan
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Tips for job-seekers
- Do not submit your application through the Easy Apply button on LinkedIn. Employers receive between 600 and 800 replies for each job advert on the platform. If you are the right fit for a job, connect to a relevant person in the company on LinkedIn and send them a direct message.
- Make sure you are an exact fit for the job advertised. If you are an HR manager with five years’ experience in retail and the job requires a similar candidate with five years’ experience in consumer, you should apply. But if you have no experience in HR, do not apply for the job.
David Mackenzie, founder of recruitment agency Mackenzie Jones Middle East
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