| "A Scandal in Belgravia" | |||
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| Sherlock episode | |||
| Episode no. | Series 2 Episode 1 |
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| Directed by | Paul McGuigan | ||
| Written by | Steven Moffat | ||
| Produced by | Sue Vertue | ||
| Featured music | David Arnold Michael Price |
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| Cinematography by | Fabian Wagner | ||
| Editing by | Charlie Phillips | ||
| Original air date | 1 January 2012 | ||
| Running time | 90 minutes | ||
| Episode chronology | |||
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"A Scandal in Belgravia" is the first episode of the second series of the television series Sherlock. It was written by Steven Moffat and stars Benedict Cumberbatch as Sherlock Holmes, Martin Freeman as Dr John Watson, and Lara Pulver as Irene Adler.
Loosely based on "A Scandal in Bohemia", a short story by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, the episode follows Holmes' relationship with dominatrix Irene Adler, who has compromising photographs taken with female member of the royal family.
The episode was first broadcast on BBC One and BBC One HD on 1 January 2012, attracting nearly 9 million viewers. The critical reaction to the show was mainly positive, with reviewers generally praising the writing, acting and direction.
Contents |
The episode follows on immediately from the ending of "The Great Game". Jim Moriarty (Andrew Scott), whose snipers are aimed at Sherlock Holmes (Benedict Cumberbatch) and Dr John Watson (Martin Freeman) and who has stated his intention to kill them both, is interrupted by a phone call. He leaves, having "received a better offer", letting Sherlock and John return to their flat at 221B Baker Street.
Sherlock solves a number of cases over the next few weeks, turning down several others because they bore him, including a man claiming his aunt's ashes aren't hers and two girls not allowed to see their dead grandfather. Sherlock becomes a minor celebrity following John's blogs about his activities. One day, Sherlock's brother Mycroft (Mark Gatiss) has the pair brought to Buckingham Palace for a meeting. Mycroft and a Palace official explain that a female member of the royal family has had compromising photographs taken with dominatrix Irene Adler (Lara Pulver), and that she wishes for them to be retrieved. While Sherlock reviews photos of Adler, who is referred to as "The Woman", she looks at pictures taken of him that had been sent to her phone.
Sherlock and John visit Adler's home, attempting to use deception to get inside. However, Adler is expecting them and after considering possible outfits, she appears fully made-up but completely naked. Sherlock is consequently unable to deduce anything about her. After several rounds of banter between Sherlock and Adler, John sets off the fire alarm. Sherlock is able to determine the location of Adler's safe when she instinctively glances at it. Inside, a camera phone containing the compromising photos, as well as other valuable information, is hidden. Several American operatives appear and hold Sherlock, John and Adler at gunpoint, demanding that Sherlock open the safe. Sherlock deduces the password (Adler's measurements) and opens the safe, which is booby-trapped with a handgun and kills one of the assaillants. They disarm the rest of them. Sherlock acquires Adler's camera phone, but she attacks him with a drugged syringe and escapes through a window with the phone. During this time, John is in another room. Back at his apartment, Sherlock has a fevered dream in which he sees Irene returning his coat. He wakes to find that his coat has mysteriously reappeared, and Adler has added her number to his phone. She has added a personalised ringtone of a woman sighing erotically, which sounds whenever Sherlock's telephone receives a text message she has sent.
Six months later, whilst celebrating Christmas, Sherlock learns (via text message) that Adler has sent him the camera phone for safekeeping. Sherlock notifies Mycroft that he will shortly find Adler dead, knowing the value Adler put on her phone. Subsequently, the Holmes brothers arrive at St Bart's morgue where Sherlock identifies Adler's mutilated body. Some time later, John is contacted by an unnamed woman who takes him to the abandoned Battersea Power Station. The contact reveals herself to be Irene, not Mycroft as John expected: she faked her own demise to shake pursuers off her trail. John urges her to reveal herself to Sherlock. She initially refuses, but is persuaded. The two then discuss the nature of their respective relationships with Sherlock; during this, Adler's personalised ringtone is heard from an adjacent corridor, revealing Sherlock's presence and his awareness of Adler's survival.
Back in 221B, Sherlock detects the signs of a break-in and finds the American hitmen from Adler's residence holding Mrs Hudson hostage. Sherlock immediately realises that the landlady has been tortured and plans extreme retaliation. During the stand-off, Sherlock demands two of the gunmen go away, leaving him with their leader. While the man frisks him, Sherlock knocks him out cold, ties him up and eventually throws him out the window.
Later on, Sherlock finds Adler sleeping in his bedroom. Irene reveals that she's still being hunted and asks Sherlock to decipher a code she stole from a Ministry of Defence official. He effortlessly cracks the code, revealing it to be an airline seat allocation number. Irene secretly texts the flight number to her contact, Jim Moriarty. He in turn texts Mycroft Holmes, revealing that he is now aware of the MoD ploy to fool a terrorist cell that was attempting to sabotage the flight. Mycroft is visibly shattered by this development.
Adler's attempts to seduce Sherlock are interrupted by government officials who have come to collect him and deliver him to Heathrow airport. En route there, Sherlock remembers Mycroft mentioning Coventry on the phone and reminisces about the allegations that the British government allowed the Coventry Blitz to happen, so as not to alert the Germans that their military codes had been cracked. There, his suspicions that a similar situation is occuring are confirmed by Mycroft on board the aeroplane, which has been filled with corpses. The government had decided to fly a 'dummy plane' so as not to alert the saboteurs while avoiding casualties, which also explains the involvement of US agents. However, as Sherlock unwittingly helped Irene and therefore Moriarty crack the code, the scheme was foiled. Afterwards, the Holmes brothers and Adler sit down, while Adler reveals a list of demands, including protective measures for herself, against the release of further confidential material. Mycroft is helpless; however, at the last moment, Sherlock confronts Adler, deducing the password of her camera phone. Despite Adler's cold insistence that Sherlock meant nothing to her, taunting his lack of sexual or romantic experience, he has already concluded she is lying. He points out her dilated pupils and her elevated pulse during moments of intimacy - both indicators of her own attraction to him. He types S-H-E-R into the phone, which reads "I AM S-H-E-R LOCKED". Passing it to his brother, Sherlock walks out, ignoring Adler's pleas for protection. Without the insurance of the information she held, she is unlikely to be able to outrun her enemies.
Some months later, Mycroft informs John that Adler has been beheaded by a terrorist cell in Karachi, but asks him to tell Sherlock instead that she has entered a US witness protection program. Sherlock appears to accept this and asks John to give him Adler's phone. John leaves, while Sherlock re-reads her multiple flirtatious text messages to him. The scene changes to a flashback of Adler's "execution": Sherlock had infiltrated the cell and rescued her with seconds to spare.
The episode is based on Arthur Conan Doyle's short story "A Scandal In Bohemia", and also alludes to several other adventures including "The Greek Interpreter", "The Speckled Band", "The Naval Treaty", "The Illustrious Client" and "The Priory School". One of Watson's blogs is titled "Sherlock Holmes Baffled", the same title as a 1900 silent film, the first depiction of Holmes on film. Holmes also uses a deerstalker cap in an attempt to disguise himself from the media, as per the classic image of him created by illustrator Sidney Paget.
Musician Eos Chater worked as Benedict Cumberbatch's violin coach for this episode. Although Chater's playing is on the actual soundtrack, Cumberbatch was required to appear to be an expert violinist. To achieve this, Chater was positioned on set so that she could synchronise her playing with his. She says, "On set I need to see him; to play when he lifts his violin and stop when he stops. And he needs to see me; to copy my bowings, to ghost what I'm doing. In one scene I have to stand outside on two boxes on a scissor lift, watching him while he watches me out of the window."[1]
Critical reaction to the episode was largely positive. The Independent's Neela Debnath observed a "constant stream of comedy that ran alongside the suspense",[2] while The Independent's Tom Sutcliffe commends Moffat's "real poignancy" and "the fact that barely a minute passes without a line that's worth making a note of?" Sutcliffe continues to praise "lovely performances and great writing," and that "the whole thing is filmed with such invention".[3]
Overnight figures (excluding catch-up viewings) showed that the episode attracted an average of 8.8 million viewers and a 30% audience share, the show's highest ratings since the first episode attracted 7 million in July 2010.[4]
Following the episode's broadcast, the Daily Mail reported that Irene Adler's nude scene early in the episode, in which camera angles and body posture hide sensitive body parts, had been met with disapproval from some viewers, citing posts from social media network Twitter.[5] The Guardian, however, claimed that there was "no mystery about the Mail's reaction", observing that the paper was "so outraged by the scenes" that it illustrated its story "with a big blow-up picture on page 9".[6] Following the broadcast, a BBC spokesman said: "We're delighted with the critical and audience response to the first episode, which has been extremely positive, and have received no complaints at this stage."[7] As of 4 January 2012, the BBC had received 102 complaints "relating to inappropriate scenes broadcast before the watershed", although "it could not tell when the complaints had been made, or how many came before and after the Daily Mail story."[8]
Jane Clare Jones, a doctoral student of feminist ethics writing in her blog on the The Guardian's website, argued that the sexualisation of Irene Adler was a regressive step. She writes, "While Conan Doyle's original is hardly an exemplar of gender evolution, you've got to worry when a woman comes off worse in 2012 than in 1891."[9] The episode's writer Steven Moffat refuted any suggestion that he or Conan Doyle’s creation harboured sexist views. WalesOnline quoted him, “I think it’s one thing to criticise a programme and another thing to invent motives out of amateur psychology for the writer and then accuse him of having those feelings. I think that was beyond the pale and strayed from criticism to a defamation act. I’m certainly not a sexist, a misogynist and it was wrong. It’s not true and in terms of the character Sherlock Holmes, it is interesting. He has been referred to as being a bit misogynist. He’s not; the fact is one of the lovely threads of the original Sherlock Holmes is whatever he says, he cannot abide anyone being cruel to women – he actually becomes incensed and full of rage."[10]
The British Board of Film Classification has awarded the episode a 12 certificate for "moderate sex references, violence and threat."[11] The episode will be released with the remainder of the second series in the UK on DVD and Blu-ray on 23 January 2012.