Masterpiece Mystery's Sherlock: "A Scandal in Belgravia"

As the time for airing neared, we earnestly attempted to dial-down our expectations for the first episode of the second series (of three new episodes) of PBS's Sherlock, "A Scandal in Belgravia", but by airtime we found all our earnest efforts to no avail: we were totally and helplessly pumped.

We needn't have been concerned. This brilliant, inventive, intricate, and twist-laden episode easily exceeded all our expectations. It is, in short, the very best of all the already-aired (in the U.S.) episodes (four now, including the present one), all of them first-rate; a veritable tour de force by writer and series co-creator Steven Moffat laced with myriad (we counted over a dozen) Canon-insider puns, allusions, and references by way of Canon tale titles, incidents, and verbatim snatches of dialogue. Both Benedict Cumberbatch and Martin Freeman were as Doyle-perfect a Holmes and Watson as one could wish for — as per usual. Almost as much could be said for all the portrayals of the characters in this episode, most particularly the Mycroft Holmes of Mark Gatiss (the series's other co-creator), and the Irene Adler of Lara Pulver.

There were, however, two glaring lapses in this episode:

1: Based on, um, certain criteria (you'll have to see the episode to discover what they were), Holmes misidentifies a corpse as being none other than Irene Adler; a misidentification it would have been absolutely impossible for Holmes to make in the context of this episode.
2: The final plot twist which marked the end of the episode was, shall we say, a bit over the top — of Mt. Everest!

But judge for yourselves. A Scandal in Belgravia can be seen in full here.

This episode of Sherlock is, in every way, not-to-be-missed television.