Sherlock: The Abominable Bride

:

Season 1
  • Network: PBS , BBC
  • Series Premiere Date: Jan 1, 2016
User Score
7.4

Generally favorable reviews- based on 86 Ratings

User score distribution:
  1. Positive: 65 out of 86
  2. Mixed: 9 out of 86
  3. Negative: 12 out of 86
Watch Now

Where To Watch

Stream On
Stream On

Review this tv show

  1. Your Score
    0 out of 10
    Rate this:
    • 10
    • 9
    • 8
    • 7
    • 6
    • 5
    • 4
    • 3
    • 2
    • 1
    • 0
    • 0
  1. Submit
  2. Check Spelling

User Reviews

view
per page
  1. iseenthefuture
    Jan 3, 2016
    3
    This franchise has had a season and a bit to falter and fail to retrieve any of the promise of the first two seasons. To answer the question; where can we go with these characters? Gatiss and co have come up with the answer; down the same old avenues but this time in clown shoes. Every character except the title character have become ridiculous caricatures of their former selves. How manyThis franchise has had a season and a bit to falter and fail to retrieve any of the promise of the first two seasons. To answer the question; where can we go with these characters? Gatiss and co have come up with the answer; down the same old avenues but this time in clown shoes. Every character except the title character have become ridiculous caricatures of their former selves. How many times must ubber-earnest Dr. Watson profess his man-love through misty eyes and missed breaths? How often must Mycroft deny his man-love and brotherly concern? How did anyone think giving Mycroft Holmes the Kranks treatment or giving Molly Hooper a bad case of pantomime transvestitism was anything short of a death knell for a show which is very much rudderless in high seas? The best thing that ever happened in this series was the again pantomime baddy Moriarty shutting his own gapping face hole with a bullet. How short on ideas must you be to be forced to resurrect your most gratuitous over-actor to puff out a ver thin and inconsequential mystery. (Bobby Euing in the shower post-mortem.) It is absolutely certain that this initial gush of support for this instalment comes from those who were told to expect clever and don't have the wit or courage to recognise that they didn't get it. This bandwagon support will soon be superseded by laments for the promise that was once apparent, but in the hands of this team was not realisable. "Look he just survived the Reichenbach Fall..deal with it." This is not cute or an inside joke, and has shown nothing but incompetence from the writers. Anyone can write a protagonist onto a ledge, miracling them down again is the price you pay. Cheats!
    Looking at Gatiss's credentials based on cooky spooky comedy, and seeing now that he has nowhere further to go with these characters except up in flames, he should do himself and everybody else a favour and stop. He makes fiction for teens and his ideas are restricted by his life's work. Just as he could not convincingly resurrect Sherlock in series three he has already, with a sad admission coped out of his promise at the end of the same season to resurrect his over-camp version of Moriarty. Very obviously to all that the writers had not the first clue how to do either and whats worse weren't going to try. Don't believe the ratings..blind fan support and watching in disbelief will be shown for what they are when the dust settles or in this case the ash. A good start achieves little that a bad ending won't blot out.    … Expand
  2. Teresk
    Jan 5, 2016
    1
    This episode was a disappointment. With years between seasons of this show entries like this (and the wedding episode of season 3) just feel like pandering fanservice rather than substantial stories. Its a waste of the few hours of Sherlock we get.
  3. NikolayG
    Jan 8, 2016
    1
    This review contains spoilers, click expand to view. I was hoping that, given that this episode of Sherlock takes place in the appropriate time period, it would be an improvement over other episodes. But alas it is not. Sherlock is, essentially, a parody of Arthur Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes stories, styling Holmes as a sociopath, as Holmes says repeatedly throughout the series. When it is not being self consciously cute with silly jokes, it conjures absurd plots (such as a killer who stabs people who inexplicably never notice having been stabbed) or it is busy violating Holmes' character by, for example, showing him committing cold blooded murder. Perhaps my dislike for this show is now apparent.

    Amongst all the cuteness, there is a plot in The Abominable Bride. It has something to do with the original story, The Five Orange Pips, but not having read the story in decades I can't say how much. A woman who committed suicide comes back to life, freaking out a man so much by declaring to him that he will soon be dead, that his wife seeks Sherlock's help in solving the mystery her return and her premonition.

    Mind you, the plot of an earlier episode that revealed the killer to be a man who stabbed people hours in advance (without their feeling it, no explanation for their numbness to the deadly stab given; an slight oversight), left me without much hope that the solution to The Abominable Bride would be satisfying. And my lack of hope was fulfilled; instead of a decent plot it turned out to have something to do with a secret society of women dedicated to vindicating wronged women by killing abusive men, and generally to committing acts in the name of women's rights, or some such thing. Just about as high a jump of the shark as there can possibly be.

    The story that takes place in the past is wrapped around a story in the present day - Holmes is dreaming the story that takes place in the past you see, a drug induced dream or something. The present day story has to do with discovering if Moriarty is back from the dead and, if so, how.

    All in all a goofy atrocious mess.

    I pine for Jeremy Brett's Sherlock Holmes. It was written so much better and acted to perfection. For anyone who really wants to see true to the source material Sherlock Holmes, please do watch the Granada Series starring Jeremy Brett. The best of them are only on DVD. Those for sale are the two-hour movies, and they aren't as good as the hour long shows.    … Expand
  4. shoulderoforion
    Jan 11, 2016
    1
    Unwatchable, from the first two seasons of near brilliance, this show has fallen off a cliff, Season 3 was nothing but one big settup for Season 4 and this special I turned off with 20 minutes left disgusted at how lazy & un-entertaining Sherlock now is. They ruined it, blech.
  5. YorkMan
    Jan 1, 2016
    3
    Oh dear.... The Abominable Bride was a massive disappointment, especially after the previous 9 'episodes' had so wonderfully recreated the 'classic' Holmes narrative into a modern, digitally interconnected London.

    In TAB Holmes is back in late Victorian London, facing a conundrum that is completely underwhelming. A 90 minute piece of predictability in which every cliche in the book is    Oh dear.... The Abominable Bride was a massive disappointment, especially after the previous 9 'episodes' had so wonderfully recreated the 'classic' Holmes narrative into a modern, digitally interconnected London.

    In TAB Holmes is back in late Victorian London, facing a conundrum that is completely underwhelming. A 90 minute piece of predictability in which every cliche in the book is thrown at the audience, resulting in no less than three conclusions to a somewhat jumbled story.

    It's frustrating to watch something so hackneyed, as the writers try to invent ways of tying events in this 'episode' into those of earlier ones, whilst also bringing together modern tropes established before into the Victorian timeframe.

    It's watchable, but it's definitely not very good. Of course it will become a must have DVD when the BBC put it on sale at Easter time, but I can't see anyone choosing to re-watch in preference to any of the other 'episodes' in the series.    … Expand

Critic Reviews

All reviews »
Metascore
tbd

No score yet - based on 3 Critic Reviews

Critic score distribution:
  1. Positive: 1 out of 3
  2. Mixed: 1 out of 3
  3. Negative: 1 out of 3
  1. The A.V. Club
    Reviewed by: Allison Shoemaker
    Jan 2, 2016
    58
    "The Abominable Bride" poises itself to become one of the best episodes the series has offered thus far. And then it doesn’t stop. And it still doesn’t stop. And it keeps on not stopping.
    Read full review
  2. IndieWire
    Reviewed by: Kaite Welsh
    Jan 2, 2016
    100
    If it takes talent to make a good cliché work, making a bad one brilliant is Holmes-level genius.
    Read full review
  3. Vox.com
    Reviewed by: Emily VanDerWerff
    Jan 2, 2016
    30
    The special ... didn't just irritate me; it made me actively angry at how it wasted a great idea in the name of pointless complications and fan service.
    Read full review