Sherlock S03E03: His Last Vow

A garbled mess that has no idea where it’s going or why, His Last Vow is the last nail in Sherlock’s coffin; a fall from grace so precipitous and a crying shame so heartrending that the very idea of reviewing it is almost unbearable to me. Her Ladyship has, however, done appalling things for the…

Sherlock S03E02: The Sign of Three

Any wedding episode that manages to be totally lacking in corniness without having The Rains of Castamere on its playlist is a jewel, and while The Sign of Three is without doubt the most atypical of all Sherlock episodes in terms of just about everything, it has the distinction not only of being a jewel,…

Sherlock S03E01: The Empty Hearse (Review)

Her Ladyship takes time off from her wanderings in the dark corridors of fan fiction to watch the premier episode of Sherlock season 3 and to reason from what she sees. A singularly-strange and enjoyable little episode that feels a lot more like the product of the hugely-hyperactive and oft OTT pen of Steven Moffat…

Fear: Silent Witness S15E11+12 (Review)

While Fear does address a controversial and provocative issue with Silent Witness’ usual intelligence and brutal realism, it is rather wibbly-wobbly in terms of structure and writing; and at the episode’s close, leaves you wondering precisely what you’ve just experienced in a way that has nothing to do with the deliberate engagement of an audience’s…

Redhill: Silent Witness S15E9+10

This week’s Silent Witness gives us a good old fashioned prison conspiracy headily infused with multiple narrative levels, emotional blackmail and vicious brutality, as well as a brilliant rendering of a classic mystery-story attribute that is harder and harder to achieve convincingly nowadays: a culprit that you never suspect for one second. When a semi-intoxicated…

Paradise Lost: Silent Witness S15E5+6 – Review

This week’s Silent Witness is a merciful return to brilliance after last week’s yawn-fest and fits neatly into the great crime tradition of serial killers inspired by literature with great originality, replacing the usual culprit (Dante’s Inferno) with a new, but infinitely appropriate one – Paradise Lost. In this episode, an annoyed Nikki’s chance encounter…

And Then I Fell In Love…Silent Witness S15E3+4 – Review

It is perhaps understandable that after last week’s labyrinthine plot, the producers of Silent Witness thought going for something a lot simpler in this week’s episode would help give the audience a bit of a rest before things get really dark again: the TV equivalent of the gatekeeper scene in Macbeth. They have, to a…

Death Has No Dominion: Silent Witness S15E1+2* – Review

The dominant theme pervading each aspect of last season’s premier was depression: this time, it’s death, as Nikki, Harry and Leo navigate a grey mist of suicide, serial murder and loss in this complex opener of Silent Witness season 15. The many tiny, silken and vitally important threads of the episode’s spider web plot are…