Two 'Sherlock' Season 4 Episode Titles Revealed!
Finally - we've got a bit more information about Sherlock Season 4!
(And of course by " a bit", I mean, "the tiniest scrap imaginable", but hey it's something!)
At the recent Sherlocked UK fan convention in London, the Sherlock powers that be officially revealed the titles of the first two episodes in Season 4!
They are: The Six Thatchers and The Lying Detective.
In case you missed it, here's the titles of the first two episodes of #Sherlock series 4. Intriguing... pic.twitter.com/YSugq8Gj7C
— Sherlock (@Sherlock221B) September 25, 2016
So what does that mean?
Well, the closest counterpart to The Six Thatchers in Sir Arthur Conan Doyle canon is probably The Six Napoleons, a Lestrade-heavy story that involves a bunch of tiny busts of the diminuative French leader and the search for a missing pearl. The Lying Detective seems like a pretty obvious update of The Dying Detective, a story that features Holmes faking a terminal illness. It is also the story in which Culverton Smith appears, who is already widely assumed to be the villain of Season 4, thanks to Toby Jones' casting and some interesting set reports.
Unfortunately, the title for Season 4's third and final episode is still a mystery, because Moffat and Gatiss love to torture us. Perhaps the title is some sort of spoiler, and would reveal the ending plans of the season too early? Or the title is being held back so that the show gets two new cycle's worth of publicity out of it? Who can say? Your guess is as good as mine.
It's also possible that the title ties back to the three keywords previously announced as associated with this season: Thatcher, Smith and Sherrinford. The first two episodes clearly cover the first two keywords, so that just leaves "Sherrinford". For those of you who don't know "Sherrinford" was originally considered as a name for Conan Doyle's famous detective before he settled on Sherlock. The name Sherrinford was latter taken up by author and noted Holmes scholar William Baring-Gould as the name for a third Holmes brother in his fictional biography Sherlock Holmes of Baker Street.
The speculation goes that since "Sherrinford" is a Season 4 keyword, it means that we might meet this elusive and heretofore unseen third brother on the show this season. Seems more likely that "Sherrinford" is a red herring if you ask me - I think that ultimately "Sherrinfod" will be teased as though it's really about a third Holmes brother, but in reality will end up being something inocuous like the name of a plant or something. But, I've been plenty wrong about the twists in Moffat shows a lot in the past, so we'll have to wait and see. (Just wanted to get my prediction in early.)
Sherlock looks set to return in early 2017, but an exact airdate is as yet unknown.
What do you think of these episode titles? What do you think the third one will be about? How much are you looking forward to Sherlock Season 4? Let us know!
