A Scandal in Belgravia
The episode depicts Sherlock Holmes' (Benedict Cumberbatch) confrontation with Irene Adler (Lara Pulver), a dominatrix who has compromising photographs taken with a female member of the royal family.
Besides referring to the Doyle short story, the episode title names Belgravia, a district of London adjacent to the grounds of Buckingham Palace.
The episode sparked controversy for showing the character of Irene Adler in the nude; carefully using camera angles to avoid exposing genitalia, pre-watershed.
Suddenly several CIA operatives led by Neilson break into the house and demand that Sherlock open the safe.
Sherlock reveals it to be airline seat numbers and deduces it applies to a flight leaving Heathrow the next day.
Up in their flat, Sherlock asks John for Irene's phone and says that her last text message to him was "Goodbye, Mr. Holmes," suggesting her death.
The episode is based on Arthur Conan Doyle's short story "A Scandal in Bohemia", and also alludes to several other adventures.
Lara Pulver decided to audition for the role of Irene Adler when she read the script shortly after wrapping on the espionage series Spooks, in which she had played Erin Watts.
[5] Pulver told website Digital Spy that Moffat "had written such a multi-dimensional role that I literally immersed myself in his writing.
[9][10] "A Scandal in Belgravia" also saw significant viewings on the catch-up internet television service BBC iPlayer, with more than 800,000 seeing the episode within 24 hours after its original broadcast,[11] eventually becoming the most-watched programme of 2012 in May with over 2.5 million requests.
[12] The episode was later repeated on the digital channel BBC Three on Saturday, 7 January 2012 from 7 pm, which did not censor the nude scenes despite being shown pre-watershed.
[14] The British Board of Film Classification has awarded the episode a 12 certificate for "moderate sex references, violence and threat".
[15] The episode, which is accompanied by an audio commentary by Cumberbatch, Moffat, Gatiss, Pulver and Vertue, was released with the remainder of the second series in the UK on DVD and Blu-ray on 23 January 2012.
[16][17] In the United States, the episode premiered on the Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) on 6 May 2012 as part of Masterpiece Mystery!.
[20] Sarah Crompton, for The Telegraph, asserts that "Cumberbatch is utterly credible as a man who lives entirely in his cerebellum with little regard for the world outside, make Sherlock the perfect depiction of Holmes for our times".
[2] Radio Times writer David Brown agreed, stating that adaptation has the "heartbeat of Conan Doyle's original".
[23] Following the episode's broadcast, the tabloid Daily Mail reported that Irene Adler's nude scene early in the episode had been met with disapproval from some viewers; The Guardian claimed that there was "no mystery about the Mail's reaction", observing that the paper was "so outraged by the scenes" that it illustrated its story "with a big blow-up picture on page 9".
[24] Following the broadcast, a BBC spokesman said: "We're delighted with the critical and audience response to the first episode, which has been extremely positive, and have received no complaints at this stage.
[26] Jane Clare Jones, a doctoral student of feminist ethics writing in her blog on The Guardian's website, criticised episode writer Steven Moffat's representation of Irene Adler, arguing that her sexualisation was a regressive step.
"[27] Jones argues that while Conan Doyle's Adler was a "proto-feminist", Moffat undermined "her acumen and agency ... Not-so-subtly channelling the spirit of the predatory femme fatal [sic], Adler's power became, in Moffat's hands, less a matter of brains, and more a matter of knowing 'what men like' and how to give it to them ...
Her masterminding of a cunning criminal plan was, it was revealed late in the day, not her own doing, but dependent on the advice of Holmes's arch nemesis, James Moriarty.
"[27] However, Laura Pledger of Radio Times listed Adler as a strong female television character, writing, "Not since Scarlett O'Hara has a woman employed quite so many feminine wiles in pursuit of her ultimate goal – and with such chutzpah it feels churlish to criticise.
"[28] Moffat rejected any suggestion that he or Conan Doyle's creation harboured sexist views, labelling the allegation "deeply offensive", and misguided in that the critics had assumed that he was "presenting the characters as the way it is and the way it ought to be".
He's not; the fact is one of the lovely threads of the original Sherlock Holmes is whatever he says, he cannot abide anyone being cruel to women – he actually becomes incensed and full of rage.
