Sherlock 2x2: The Hounds of Baskerville

It was always going to be difficult to follow up on A Scandal In Belgravia. That story was so packed full of incident and emotion that anything after it would feel like a comedown. The subject matter of The Hounds of Baskerville lends itself to a slower paced, horror story, but there were other reasons I felt that this episode was disappointing.

The problem with updating The Hound of the Baskervilles is that so many of its memorable moments don't work in the context of modern society. It's difficult to create a story about supersticion and isolation in a world of mobile phones and digital technology. Old country houses are now just tourist attractions and ghosts are no longer scary. Writer Mark Gatiss has attempted to fix this by replacing the fear of the wild country with a secret military installation. However, the secret military installation is as much of a tired old trope of fiction as the old country house it replaced. Spy stories of the last three decades have been full of these kind of scenarios. As a result, I guessed the solution to the "hound" mystery long before Sherlock expained it all.  The fact that characters were talking loads about the idea of a genetically altered "super-hound" made it obvious that the resolution would be nothing of the sort. Mark Gatiss proves himself less successful at laying the clues of a mystery compared to his fellow writer Steven Moffat.

On the plus side, it was nice to see development of Sherlock and John's relationship, after John was sidelined last week.  Sherlock finally gets to admit, in his own cold manner, that he likes having John around. I loved the fact that Sherlock used John in the Hound test without caring.

Russell Tovey was okay as Henry Knight, but I've never found him that brilliant.  Gatiss thankfully avoided the temptation of writing the country folk as stereotypical yokels. I particularly liked the gay couple, and the hilarious resolution to the "strange flashing light on the moors" mystery.

All in all this was not a bad tale, but not brilliant. Like The Blind Banker of Series One, this felt like an average kind of a story, and like its predecessor, the ending hints at more interesting things to come.