YMMV / Sherlock S1 E3 "The Great Game"

• Growing the Beard: Where the first two episodes were comedic and lighthearted, with a single serious climax per episode, this was thrilling and tantalizing. It ended with the introduction of Holmes' most well known adversary, James Moriarty, and a cliffhanger that left viewers on tenterhooks for the entire next year.
• Harsher in Hindsight: Sherlock's sarcastic "Dear Jim" jibe to Moriarty is horrifying to watch these days. He's quoting Jim'll Fix It, an immensely popular BBC show that ran between the 70s and the 90s, where eccentric host Jimmy Savile would make the wishes of children who wrote in come true. The letters took the format, "Dear Jim, please will you fix it ...". It wasn't until well after the episode was broadcast that it was revealed that Savile had spent his life committing rape and sexual abuse on an unprecedented scale. He abused several of the children who wrote in and appeared on the show on BBC premises during filming.
  Sherlock: 'Dear Jim, please will you fix it for me to get rid of my lover's nasty sister?', 'Dear Jim, please will you fix it for me to disappear to South America?'
  Jim Moriarty: Just so.
• Hilarious in Hindsight:
  • At one point in this episode, Sherlock Holmes says that "Heroes don't exist, and if they did, I wouldn't be one of them". Fast forward to 2016, where Benedict Cumberbatch has been cast in Doctor Strange (2016) as the titular superhero.
  • Sherlock goes "I am on fire!". A couple of years later, he becomes fire.
  • Sherlock suspects Jim of being gay, way before Andrew Scott himself came out as gay.
• Moral Event Horizon: Moriarty strapping one of his bombs onto a little boy and forcing him to count down to his own demise. Everything he did was horrifying, but that moment reveals just how sick a bastard our heroes are dealing with.

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