| “Sherlock” Season 3, Episode 1 – ‘The Empty Hearse’ DVD commentary, part 2
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(Molly arrives at Baker Street)
MARK: She’s got a long scarf on, I’ve just realised.
STEVEN: Oh my God, the truth is out! I suppose it was inevitable!
MARK: We thought that Sherlock would just experiment with having someone else, and obviously assuming that John is very replaceable, he just sort of tries out ... We never got round to doing Sherlock and Mrs Hudson. There was a plan!
SUE: There was going to be, wasn’t there?
MARK: I don’t think Mrs Hudson would say yes, would she? I think she’d just say no.
(As Sherlock interviews Mr and Mrs Harcourt)
MARK: This scene was cut from Scandal, and then it fitted perfectly [in this episode], so we re-shot it.
SUE: Yeah – with the same people.
MARK: It’s great to be paid twice for a job, I always think.
STEVEN: But I actually think it was finessed this time; the punchline was done better.
(As Sherlock interview Mr Windibank’s stepdaughter)
MARK: And this is the first of two little visitations to a wonderful story called A Case of Identity which is a very low-key Sherlock Holmes story about a woman who’s promised to marry someone – well, he’s promised to marry her and then he disappears. It’s terribly sad but you couldn’t really do it because it relies on the fact she’s very short-sighted and it’s actually her stepfather in disguise and he wants to keep her at home so he can keep her wage coming in. And I re-read it and thought there’s some wonderful stuff in it; and then there’s a little bit in Episode 2 when there’s a woman on the pavement and he says, ‘Oscillation on the pavement is always a sign of an affair of the heart.’ It’s really touching, isn’t it?
STEVEN: It’s also an interesting new aspect to his character – because it’s quite an early story – is that he goes absolutely mad at the guy for doing it, and he gets furious; he grabs a riding crop off the wall and is going to beat him up because he thinks it’s so horrible, so moral fervour is entering.
(As Mr Szikora offers John pornographic DVDs and magazines)
STEVEN: Now this is terrific, I think, because you could really believe that was Benedict in disguise.
MARK: And this is how Sherlock appears in The Empty House, as a disguised bookseller.
STEVEN: And this is also ripped off from the scene in The Spider Woman.
MARK: Yes, where Nigel Bruce does the same thing.
STEVEN: He thinks someone is Sherlock in disguise and he isn’t ... [Watching John pulling Mr Szikora’s head forward to check the top of his head] I love the checking of the head! And the way Martin says [to Mary], ‘Yep, yep, fine!’
(Seeing the wallpaper next to the door to the ‘Jack the Ripper’ room as Lestrade tears off the police tape)
UNA: Apparently wallpaper sales have gone up since Sherlock.
MARK: All wallpaper sales?!
UNA: Well, it had gone out of fashion, but now it’s back.
MARK: Well, that’s Paul McGuigan, isn’t it? Paul’s obsession with wallpaper.
SUE: We’re under The Diogenes Club [again]. It is a different room, though.
MARK: We are still talking about the location, not the actual fictional one?!
STEVEN: I still like to think that Mycroft has a number of dungeons in which he tortures people – sometimes to death!
STEVEN: And our various attempts to find cool new things to do with our letters.
SUE: I do like what we do with the lettering.
MARK: This actually was originally the Elephant in the Room. This went through every possible permutation. It was going to be a stuffed elephant, or a real elephant in the room. It was the same sort of set-up, that it was actually Anderson who tried to create an impossible case for Sherlock, and then it eventually became Jack the Ripper; and then the Elephant in the Room became moved to Episode 2.
SUE: Oh, it was gonna be the most ridiculous thing, because it was up north in a zoo. We would have had to have built the room around the elephant ...
MARK: ... in the enclosure, yeah. And there aren’t as many captive elephants as you think.
SUE: No, because there’s none in London now, is there? There’s none in Bristol. And it was gonna cost a fortune for a really quick gag, and in the end we did it with the sound.
STEVEN: I still think on the Special Edition DVD(!)
MARK: But it works tremendously well! They just come through the door, Benedict’s jaw drops and you just hear ‘Phhhhhhrrrrr!’
SUE: There is an optimum price, though, that you will pay for a gag – or in my book, anyway!
STEVEN: Yes, boss. But we would spend any amount of money for a cheap gag.
MARK: We tried this, didn’t we, with and without John’s voice. It was a difficult decision, ’cause it was like, we need to know he hasn’t forgotten him, and clearly Molly is not the same. That was the difficult thing. She’s obviously very clever but there’s something not right about it.
STEVEN: I remember you and me sitting chatting about that section of the script, thinking, ‘The trouble is, we’re not seeing Sherlock and John together. We need that bit of plot, but we’re not seeing them together,’ so the intercutting moments are to sort-of put the boys together even though they’re not together.
MARK: And to show the vacuum in between, as it were. Which is why Doyle, I think, got [Watson] to forgive him straightaway, ’cause otherwise there is a gap, isn’t there?
MARK: Do you think Mrs Hudson forgave him straightaway?
UNA: Of course! He’s her boy.
STEVEN: Well, there’s a back story!
MARK: Series five!
(As we see the outside of the building where Howard lives)
SUE: Yes, ignore the snow!
MARK: Real snow, that was.
(Seeing Howard standing in his room with many metal round shapes on the wall behind him)
MARK: He’s been to Gallifrey, as we can see.
SUE: When you see that snow you realise how long you shoot this series. Between that and that really sunny hot day at Christmas.
MARK: This part is sort of based on a Conan Doyle story which isn’t a Sherlock Holmes story, called The Lost Special.
STEVEN: Well, it’s sort of a Sherlock Holmes story.
MARK: He refers to him, doesn’t he – that a well-known detective has failed to solve it.
MARK: This whole thing is born of my life-long obsession with the Tube – which I suppose comes from Doctor Who. Even as a child, the idea that there were lost stations just thrilled me, still thrills me; that there are these ghostly places that were never quite occupied or closed down.
SUE: It was fascinating, wasn’t it, shooting at the disused station, Aldwych.
MARK: You just, you know, leap down onto the rails and you think, ‘Oh my God!’
SUE: Once they’ve checked them out!
MARK: Several times!
UNA: D’you know there are six men every morning who go on the different stations to gather up the hair?
MARK: Their toupees!
UNA: They have to collect [hair]; because when people lean forward to watch the train coming up, strands of hair get sucked up. It’s really dangerous fire-wise.
MARK: That was a Public Information film!
UNA: A little gem for the morning!
(As John is drugged outside 221B)
SUE: You wouldn’t know there’s a thousand people on the other side of the road!
STEVEN: Yes, that’s one of the oddities of shooting Sherlock now is those crash barriers, and huge numbers of people standing there.
MARK: It’s sort of like, [in an American accent] ‘Sherlock is filmed before a live studio audience.’ People are fantastic and so gracious but it’s lucky, really, in a way that those Baker Street scenes tend to be getting into cabs, couple of lines, as opposed to big stuff.
STEVEN: What, you mean like shooting How He Survived?! That wouldn’t do, would it, if anyone turned up to watch that(!)
MARK: In the end, though, what was amazing about that was, because we had so many red herrings, nobody knew what was real; and there were crash mats for the actual stunt, and there was a crash mat for the explanation; but also the papers played fair, rather incredibly.
SUE: I did love the one that said, ‘A stunt so dangerous, they’ve had to use a dummy’!
STEVEN: ‘Special use of science to make it look like Benedict Cumberbatch’ – stapled a photograph to the front of it!
SUE: And there was that great bit of you and Andrew Scott. Did we film that?
MARK: Oh yes!
SUE: We should use that!
MARK: We shot a fake scene where Mycroft and Moriarty come out of Bart’s Hospital, shake hands and then part.
STEVEN: With Moriarty wearing the Coat.
MARK: I said, ‘Put Sherlock’s Coat on,’ and it had the desired effect.
STEVEN: I was there that day and Jeremy looked up, slightly exasperated, and said, ‘Could we shoot some of the actual show now?’!
MARK: And then he tried to put it in the episode!
STEVEN: I remember reading this for the first time and realised [John] was waking up inside a bonfire. It was the creepiest idea.
MARK: I remember the day I had that idea and I thought, ‘Ooh, that’s good. I hope it hasn’t been done before.’
STEVEN: That’s immediately what I thought: ‘Please say this is a first.’
SUE: Didn’t it turn out that Jeremy had actually hidden inside a bonfire when he was a kid?
MARK: Jeremy said, ‘Have I told you that?’ Jeremy Lovering, the Director, when he was a child, crept inside a bonfire like a hedgehog and was rescued at the last minute! It’s quite spooky, actually!
STEVEN: So someone had done it before, but for real!
(As Mrs Hudson tries to intercept Mary and then Mary tells her who she is)
MARK: I love that. I love the fact that it’s, ‘What’s going on? ... Oh, how lovely!’
SUE (as Mary says ‘skip-code’): Another hint that she’s not who she says she is.
STEVEN: And it does register [with Sherlock] for a second and then he gets distracted by the fact that John’s in trouble. ... Action! just at the moment when the chips fell on the floor.
MARK: I think it’s called Chipfall, like Skyfall.
UNA: I saw somebody in Piccadilly dressed like Sherlock with the Coat. He’d obviously had it copied, and the hair was obviously dyed black.
MARK: It was Benedict.
STEVEN (as Benedict): Do you recognise me now? It’s me, it’s me! I could probably do a deduction in a minute, if you ask me.
MARK: This [bonfire scene] was filmed in Bristol. And all the interiors of the bonfire were filmed in the studio. ... There was a bit of a debate about throwing petrol on the fire. It’s not encouraged!
(Seeing Zoe frowning at the bonfire when she hears what she thinks is the Guy Fawkes guy groaning)
MARK: I love her face.
UNA: I do too.
MARK: Very serious, yeah.
UNA: Sort of Scandinavian.
STEVEN: A little nod to the Scandies.
MARK: There’s more of that to come!
STEVEN: A considerable Scandi nod coming!
(As Zoe’s father splashes petrol onto the bonfire)
MARK: He’s an idiot. That’s what Zoe’s trying to tell him.
STEVEN (as Zoe): Dad, that’s water! You’re puttin’ water on the fire! That doesn’t work!
STEVEN: I’m suddenly wondering if that’s the same square where we shot Doctor Who, The Snowmen. Could be.
MARK: Was that Bristol?
STEVEN: Yeah, I think we went to Bristol for that, and that’s where the Doctor parked his TARDIS.
(At the end of the bonfire scene)
STEVEN: I know I shouldn’t say this, but it is terribly good, this, isn’t it?! I apologise, but it’s awfully good!
MARK: This is our first real departure from canon – the heretical notion of actually showing Mr and Mrs Holmes.
STEVEN: And by happy chance, the exact genetic combination that resulted in Benedict Cumberbatch is sitting on the sofa right now!
MARK: Also, mysteriously, the genetic combination that resulted in me!
SUE: We wanted to keep his parents secret, so we didn’t actually give them a credit on this show.
MARK: Luckily, people probably just assumed they were visiting, but it was great to keep [the secret].
STEVEN: A lovely bit of plot housekeeping there, by the way. ‘So that’s why they weren’t at the funeral.’
MARK: These questions do beg themselves.
STEVEN: It’s terrible, though, when you realise, ‘How do you create a moment for someone to say that out loud?’ and that’s such a good one. I imagine you spent a good week thinking about it!
MARK: Una, when you first became Mrs Hudson, what were your thoughts about taking on this role?
UNA: Well, I just felt so lucky, really really lucky. And I remember the first day that I was involved in any of the shooting, I thought, ‘Oh my goodness. Can I keep my end up here?’ They’re so brilliant. I just feel very fortunate.
SUE: I remember when you did the pilot, you kept thinking, ‘Oh, they’ll probably re-cast me anyway,’ she said!
STEVEN: I mean, we tried(!) But you just kept turning up on the day! What could we do?!
MARK: But obviously you were aware of Mrs Hudson from Sherlock Holmes but did you come to it with any pre-conceived ideas?
UNA: I’ve obviously seen her played many times before in other productions and I just thought, for a modern angle, be like a mum. And they’re very easy to love, both of them.
MARK: We did talk, didn’t we, that usually she’s such a Mrs Pepperpot kind of figure, with a grey bun, and they’re usually so much older that it’s not that sort of relationship, but as soon as they become young men again, it’s a natural progression.
STEVEN: Because normally Mrs Hudson is about the same age as Sherlock Holmes, which is quite different.
UNA: I always hope that when they shoot in the kitchen – my kitchen – Mrs Hudson’s kitchen ...
STEVEN (as Una): My kitchen! Mine!
UNA: ... that they’ll have a row of his beautifully laundered shirts that I’ve done.
STEVEN: D’you know what I always forget – now that we’ve done the series for a while – I sort of think Mrs Hudson, in my head, is a big part of the original stories. She’s barely mentioned, and she only speaks in one story.
MARK: And then he gets her name wrong in another one.
SUE: I loved it in Scandal when he just goes to the fridge and helps himself to food.
UNA: I told [Ben] that when my sons visit me, before a hug they go straight to the fridge.
STEVEN: The two details I loved in Scandal – it’s not scripted at all – is that he does his feet, he wipes his feet on the mat – ’cause he’s been told to, clearly – he doesn’t even know he’s doing it; he’s trying to be dramatic [but] he nonetheless goes straight to the fridge and nicks a cake!
UNA: And I make no comment.
MARK: Now, annoyingly, there is a Sumatra Road [station] but it’s in West Hampstead. There isn’t one in Westminster but it was just too perfect. And the rest of it also is made up!
STEVEN: Between you and me, I’m not even sure that’s Baker Street!
UNA: Yes, you always hear knowing taxi drivers say, ‘Course, it’s not Baker Street they use, is it?’
STEVEN: It’s like we made a mistake. ‘Oh, no, look, I’ve just noticed! It’s North Gower Street!’
SUE: I don’t think taxi drivers would be very pleased if we did use Baker Street, to be honest!
MARK: This came about because, in my endless fascination with lost Tube stations, there is one called Bull and Bush in Hampstead which was never actually finished, never opened. They built the platforms and everything but then no surface buildings, so that’s what inspired this one, the reason that [Howard] makes the mistake and thinks there isn’t anything there, but there is but it was never officially a station.
UNA: It could be a documentary, couldn’t it, about all the Underground stations.
STEVEN: Let’s do that!
MARK: Let’s give that to America!
STEVEN: Now, Mark Gatiss and I met outside [Westminster] Tube station once when Mark was on his way to address the Sherlock Holmes Society in the House of Commons, and I was his date, and Mark’s subject was ...
MARK: Essentially the bulk of the speech was our pitch, really, what we’d come up with in the past few train journeys about the idea of bringing Sherlock Holmes up to date – with a few gags in – and we were very very pleased at the response. It wasn’t actually a thing where we went away thinking, ‘Right, we’ve got to do that,’ but it was very instructive, ’cause you’d imagine that the Sherlock Holmes Society would be incredibly conservative about it all, but they loved the idea. And then about four years later we finally got round to doing it!
STEVEN: And then we went back and I did the speech and that was the night before Reichenbach. And you would, as you say, assume this is the die-harders, the fundamentalists, but anything but. They were really into the idea of an update, seriously behind it.
MARK: I think particularly with Sherlock Holmes fans, there have been so many versions that they actually always embrace a new thing. I think they’re just very keen that it stays alive. It shocked us all how amazingly popular it’s been but it’s about keeping that whole flame alive.
MARK: I remember watching this over and over.
STEVEN: Oh, me too!
MARK: It’s just the most exciting thing, to blow up the Houses of Parliament! Oh, blimey, that’s good!
STEVEN: I went in to watch some Doctor Who special effects at Milk and they said, ‘D’you wanna see this? This is what we’re doing for Sherlock,’ and I saw it on a big screen.
(As Sherlock and John start to walk down the tunnel)
MARK: So this was a very odd day. For me, I was in heaven, going to an old Tube station, but to actually walk down there towards the Tube, it was so spooky, and you could hear distantly live Tubes on neighbouring tunnels.
SUE: If you keep going down [to] the end, you can see the live ...
MARK: Holborn or something? But yeah, it was quite creepy.
SUE: It was quite difficult for Jeremy, the Director, ’cause he’d had a cruciate ligament separation, so he had braces and all kinds of things on his knee and, of course, there’s no lift down there and he had to walk down.
STEVEN: Skiing – never a good idea.
MARK: So this [exterior] is a real train which they plonked there for us, and once we get inside, this is Arwel’s set, which of course will never win any awards because people just assume it’s real. It’s absolutely amazing, that.
(Outside the train, Sherlock opens the cab door while John shines a torch behind him.)
STEVEN: There’s John helpfully illuminating Sherlock’s back, just in case he needed that!
MARK: He said, ‘I’ve got your back’!
STEVEN: [Arwel]’s got a future making trains, that boy.
MARK: All he’s ever wanted to do!
SUE: Which, when we’d finished it, we torched it with the explosion thing we’ve just seen. We actually sent a fireball through it.
UNA: Was this in Cardiff?
SUE: It was in the studio.
UNA: Shows you how big the studio is.
MARK: I remember in the first draft it was going to be an old atomic bomb, a Soviet era bomb that had been smuggled down there a long time ago. And then it was, well, what if the carriage itself was the bomb, because it’d be quite hard to smuggle in these days.
STEVEN: It was a great line and a great moment but we couldn’t make it make any sense!
MARK: He’s very good, that guy – Moran. I shot those bits, incidentally, on the bed with the suitcase.
UNA: I remember having to do some ADR before Sherlock had ever opened and the editor said to me, ‘Do you want to see a bit?’ I said, ‘Oh, yes please,’ and he said, ‘Just a minute. You’re going to see television like you’ve never seen before.’
MARK, STEVEN and SUE: Awww!
STEVEN: At this moment, mysteriously, Sherlock Holmes managed to get forgiven for being a jerk by being an even bigger jerk!
MARK: It’s a lesson in: if you’re gonna tell a lie, tell a whopper. It’s actually the best way out of it.
STEVEN: In a way, it’s more or less saying, ‘Look, I am a jerk. How was that news to you?’
MARK: But this is even nastier than what he’s just done. As a piece of behaviour, it’s inexcusable.
STEVEN: But I think the logic of it, in a way, or the emotional logic is, ‘I’m like this. Why do you expect me to be different?’ and true to the original Sherlock Holmes who simply would do that kind of thing, wouldn’t he ...
MARK: ... for effect.
STEVEN: ... for the drama.
MARK: It’s not commented on enough, the amount of people who say ... well, Lestrade is always saying, ‘You’d have made an actor and a rare one,’ and all those things, but he just loves the dramatic. He’ll do anything for the dramatic flourish at the end of the case.
STEVEN: Quite unnecessarily. He will lie, he’ll withhold information just so he looks good.
STEVEN: I remember when I first read this – ’cause you didn’t tell me what you were gonna do with the actual reveal, where you were gonna place it. And I remember thinking that is the perfect place, just when you’re so totally involved in the main plot, you’ve actually forgotten we haven’t done the explanation.
MARK: It’s one of those moments you just go ... Well, what we hoped from the beginning was that people will get so involved, they actually forget that no-one had told them the truth, and then suddenly, out of the white-out here, you go, ‘Oh. Oh, it doesn’t matter any more.’ I hope! But I remember thinking, ‘Now. Now it comes.’
UNA: It’s wonderful how people accept the long gaps in between episodes, isn’t it?
[You might be in the minority there, Una!]
STEVEN: Grumpily! We try and make it shorter; it never seems to happen.
MARK: I think, having stumbled upon the format, people accept it’s gonna come along ...
STEVEN: I think people also know that, had we gone the conventional route, the show would be over by now, because there’s absolutely no way the boys would commit to doing longer runs of an ordinary TV series, would they? Something that is always an event and happens every two years or whatever for three months is conceivable when you happen to have – by accident, by mis-chance – a couple of international movie stars in the roles!
MARK: I do think it is almost the perfect job because Martin and Ben can both come back to the thing that people love them the most for, and do all sorts of other stuff in between. Just keep telling them that!
STEVEN: There is a nice thing that every time it shows up is an event. It doesn’t really wear out.
(The flashback of Mrs Hudson giving the workman a mug of tea in the hall)
SUE: That’s a dreadful cup of tea!
STEVEN: I know! It’s so thin!
SUE: I’d be ashamed of that.
MARK: He’s not gonna react well to it.
STEVEN: She knows! She’s on to him! ‘Damned if I’m gonna give him a good cup of tea! That’ll show him.’
STEVEN: How many times do you have to kill Andrew Scott to keep him out of a show?!
UNA: He’s another film star.
STEVEN: For the amount of fame he has for this, and the joy he takes in it, when you look, actually he’s not been on screen that much.
MARK: It’s the perfect example. It’s like, Anthony Hopkins is on screen in The Silence of the Lambs for sixteen minutes.
STEVEN: I didn’t believe you when you told me that and I looked it up. Amazing.
MARK: But what an impact, and Andrew did the same thing with those couple of scenes.
(As the crew unfold the airbag)
SUE: This is the right size for falling from the height.
MARK: We had to work it out.
STEVEN: For those of you who’ve been worrying, of course this [version] is the right explanation. It’s the only one it really could be. The other two – they’re not true!
MARK: This is a perfectly sound explanation for it.
STEVEN: I’ve always felt people are being a tiny bit slow. The one thing that is very clear from The Reichenbach Fall is John cannot see the point of impact because of that station in the middle. So, given that, what do you think? Something got in the way – a great big blue cushion! Why didn’t people get it?!
MARK: Also, for anyone wondering, ‘Lazarus is go,’ the code word, is of course because Lazarus rose from the dead, but obviously it’s because I was Professor Lazarus in Doctor Who! It’s a double whammy.
MARK: Benedict, as well as doing that original Reichenbach fall, he loved doing this!
SUE: Yes, he did!
UNA: What fall, did you say?
MARK: Well, he did the one from the end of The Reichenbach Fall on the wire.
(As Molly and a couple of men throw the body out of the window)
SUE: He didn’t do that bit.
(As the body hits the ground)
SUE: He didn’t do that bit!
STEVEN: It would have been terribly embarrassing if John had stumbled upon the giant whoopee cushion and said, ‘Sherlock, what are you doing?’ [As Sherlock] ‘Well, I was trying to trick you with a giant blue cushion’!
MARK: There was another plan, wasn’t there, where he just gets shot in the back of the head to shut him up!
SUE: I love this music as well.
MARK: I remember reading on the reviews which said we’d obviously been combing the internet for theories. We’d even put in the popular squash ball theory. I thought, ‘That’s ours! That’s how he did it! It’s in the end of The Reichenbach Fall! That’s how it happens!’
STEVEN: One of the theories that I read that I loved was that he does just fall. It is actually technically possible to fall, to survive a fall like that. He just does it ... and spends two years getting put back together again!
(At Anderson’s house)
STEVEN: So this is the point where essentially we put in what the reaction is going to be!
MARK: The version in your head is always going to be better.
STEVEN: Also, just before a mystery is solved is the most exciting moment of the mystery, isn’t it? The moment after it’s been solved is the least exciting moment of the mystery.
SUE: It’s like magic tricks, isn’t it? You don’t want to be told how a magic trick works.
STEVEN: Because the answer is disappointing.
STEVEN: Ah – our favourite scene.
(Sue cracks up laughing.)
MARK: This scene was floated around ... it sort of works for everything. [Mycroft saying into his phone] ‘Is it done?’
STEVEN: Including – for a while – for a whole day, I think, it was done immediately after John had shaved off his moustache!
MARK: We should just put it everywhere!
SUE: I’m sure we can use it in the next series.
STEVEN: ... of Doctor Who, in fact!
MARK: [The third version of the fall] is still a very plausible explanation.
STEVEN: And really, one has to say, in the real world the only way he could survive the fall is not to hit the pavement. That’s it. There isn’t anything else he can do.
UNA: But children have fallen [from] huge heights, haven’t they, and survived. And maybe somebody like him, Sherlock, could train themselves.
STEVEN: An insight into one of your hobbies there – it’s children-hurling!
MARK: I think with very young children it’s to do with that they don’t know it’s happened. I know that the famous fall in The Exorcist down the stairs at the end, which was a real stunt, the guy had trained himself to totally relax. So if you’re not expecting the impact, you will be far less damaged. However ...
STEVEN: Theory four!
(As Anderson gets suspicious about Sherlock’s explanation)
MARK: You have to think now, what next for Anderson in his madness?
STEVEN: In his madness he could be claiming that Sherlock Holmes isn’t Sherlock Holmes! It’s a substitute! Finding differences in photographs!
(As Anderson starts ripping the paperwork off the walls)
MARK: Jonny really cut his hand badly, got paper cuts.
STEVEN: I like that we end up liking Anderson, though.
MARK: I think that we should maybe see him next [season] just standing outside Baker Street with The Empty Hearse people, just staring at the windows, stalking him around London! ‘For God’s sake, Anderson, get a job!’
(Back in the Tube train)
MARK: It’s interesting, though, that compared to the restaurant, John is essentially justified in having the same reaction but now he kind of thinks, ‘Well, that’s the way it has to be. You! D’oh!’ ... He stabs him later.
STEVEN: Because he’s been through the emotional rollercoaster where he’s now terribly pleased to be alive, he forgets slightly that he should be decking him again. But it’s also that thing of, you know, remembering why he likes him. He likes him because he’s outrageous and he’s funny.
MARK: He’s an adrenaline junkie; and it actually throws forward a bit to [Episode] three and about the person that he is.
(As Moran leaves his hotel room)
STEVEN: He’s a bit shifty, that bloke. I wouldn’t entirely trust him. He even pressed that [lift] button suspiciously!
MARK: Now here’s a lost scene. It’s a tragedy, this. It went through every possible thing to get me and Wanda and Tim to watch ‘Les Mis.’
SUE: And they really wanted us to come, as well. ‘Les Mis’ were being brilliant about it; we just could not get the schedule working at all.
MARK: So it became a phone call. It still works on the phone.
STEVEN: Inconsistency coming up, with the dates of the wedding.
MARK: They changed their mind. Bride’s prerogative.
SUE: In fact, they saw the sample of the printing of the invite and then they actually changed it after.
MARK: This is lovely Ed [Birch]. He came in to audition when – at some point – the waiter in the restaurant was meant to look a bit like Sherlock and then Sherlock took his place. So he actually was cast because he looked a bit like Benedict and then he got this much bigger, better part, and we liked him so much we carried him into Episode two as well.
UNA: I’ve just worked with him again. I played his mum.
STEVEN: Martin did so many funny takes on looking at this guy, I didn’t know how we were going to choose, and I still don’t know if we got the right one, because I just sat and watched and he was different every time. Every take was just a masterclass.
MARK: In the middle of writing this, a wonderful and not-much-seen Sherlock Holmes film called A Study in Terror was on – John Neville and Donald Houston – and I texted you and said, ‘It’s on, it’s on!’ It’s a terrific film – Jack the Ripper and Sherlock Holmes – terrific film. And then there’s this amazing bit at the end where Adrienne Corri is in this burning room with John Neville and the beams are falling about and there’s absolutely no way that he can get out of there. And then there’s a hard cut to Baker Street and Watson says, ‘How did you get out of there?’ and he says, ‘You know my methods, Watson. I am well known to be indestructible.’ And I said to you, ‘That’s brilliant!’ So that’s when John actually says, ‘How did you do it?’ and he just says exactly that. And why not?! And I also love the little possibility here ...
STEVEN: ... that he just came back ...
MARK: ... he just came back from the dead. Slightly spooky. ‘I was there and I heard you.’ ... But no ghost would put this hat on!
STEVEN: I think our Sherlock, in the future, should actually start – now and then – just going out in the deerstalker because he does actually like it.
MARK: He protests too much. Of course he loves the attention. He loves it.
STEVEN: As does Sherlock! [He and the others crack up laughing.] Oh, it’s never gonna get old, that one!
(The epilogue)
STEVEN: ‘How do we get more time into this, Mark?’!
MARK: ‘I know: let’s go into someone’s Mind Palace.’ I remember having a long discussion with Arwel about these little things. There was like a bonsai tree covered with little surgical gloves. He said, ‘Does it have to be that?’ and I said, ‘No! It’s whatever you can find that’s strange!’
MARK: We shot something before Lars was cast. The only thing we had was the spectacles, which I went round the corner with Sarah Arthur, the Costume Designer, round the corner of Gower Street, ’cause Charles August Milverton had, famously, these round glasses and we found these beautiful rimless glasses and they were on the set!
SUE: Didn’t we shoot something with a bit of a cheek and ...
MARK: We shot over his shoulder.
(As the end credits roll)
STEVEN: I thought that was great ...
MARK: I did too.
STEVEN: ... I’m afraid!
A full list of episode transcripts, DVD commentary summaries/transcripts, and transcripts of the DVD special features can be found here.
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"“The two details I loved in ‘Scandal’ – it’s not scripted at all – is that he does his feet, he wipes his feet on the mat – ’cause he’s been told to, clearly – he doesn’t even know he’s doing it; he’s trying to be dramatic [but] he nonetheless goes straight to the fridge and nicks a cake!”"
That was lovely moment, and they talked about the food from Mrs Hudson's fridge before - but I didn't hear the comment about wiping feet. So once again, this has proved immensely useful and I'm sure there are other parts I've missed, which I shall pick up on.
Thank you, thank you.