Okay, but seriously, the Sherlock special…

…can’t be 100% standalone no matter what’s being implied now.

I mean, yes, we have Mark Gatiss saying the special would completely solve the Moriarty’s “return” mystery.

And of course there are the photos from filming that show several of the actors in their modern character costumes.

But beyond that, there’s Sir Edwin.

Sir Edwin was the guy who had a small part near the end of His Last Vow. Here he is talking to Lady Smallwood about the “Miss me?” message:

In that episode, Sir Edwin was played by Simon Kunz (a.k.a. the butler from The Parent Trap).

But now Tim McInnerny is taking over the role for the special:

Which, normally, would be no big deal. Kunz was probably busy with another project, McInnerny looks reasonably similar, and the part was never even that big.

Except that’s exactly it.

The part was never that big.

No one was going to notice or care if Sir Edwin didn’t show up in the Victorian special.



So why would you bother writing Sir Edwin in? And then recasting the role for a completely standalone special? You wouldn’t. You would just invent some other random government-affiliated character to perform the same function and then deal with recasting for Series 4 if necessary when you came back to the main plot.

And Sir Edwin isn’t an ACD canon character. So even if he is somehow only involved in the Victorian side of the story, it has to be for a reason. You’d need a specific parallel to the modern story to even bother with him.

I dunno, just… food for thought next time you’re panicking about the special not advancing the main story at all. Something’s going to happen. It might be small, but it will be something.