Sherlock Season 3 Episode 3- Late August Shooting

It’s been a couple of weeks since we’ve written about Setlock, hasn’t it?  Sorry for the break.  Another fandom had my attention for a week (Misha’s GISHWHES, if you’re curious) and then I moved cross country and, well, it’s been a bit hard to track the tag.  But enough about me, on with Setlock!  And this is a super long one, folks, because we’ve had quite a bit happen whilst we were away!

Lestrade, Watson, and an Ambulance

A couple of weeks ago they filmed a brief night scene involving John, Lestrade, and an ambulance speeding away from the scene.  There were only about a dozen setlockers on hand that night and Geny (dudeufugly on Tumblr) has a wonderful write up of the evening, including some fabulous shots of Louise Brealy (photo credit to Chantokita).  There was also a photo of Jamie Jarvis, who plays a surgeon, up in the make up trailer.  With Louise and the surgeon on set, but not involved in the outside scene, I feel like there was a fair bit shot inside that our intrepid setlockers didn’t get to see.  This is the second scene involving an ambulance that was shot in a period of two weeks (more on the other one later), which is concerning to say the least, but who knows.  The interior shoot apparently had a bunch of people in scrubs so it could just be a hospital, which isn’t too out of the ordinary on this show.

Sherlock Under Cover

Geny also had a wonderful breakdown of the next day of shooting (wow, you are a setlock powerhouse, girl, four for you).  Looks like we get some grimy, gritty Sherlock including a rather gross looking beard.  As smelly as he looks in those shots, I’m looking forward to seeing Sherlock playing with costumes again.  The scene they filmed seemed to be a rather intense one, with John and Sherlock climbing over trashcans and knocking down a door and doing all sorts of crazy stuff.

The setlockers also overheard this bit of dialogue while grimy stinky Sherlock was running up and down the stairs.

S: “For God’s sake John. … I was on a case.”
J: “For a month?”
S: “I was under cover”
J: “Well….”
S: “WELL NOT NOW!”

A month? So Sherlock disappears again?  My heart.  It cannot take this.  This isn’t the only scene involving him in the sweats, though.  He is shot in those sweats in front of 221b and we also saw it a few weeks ago when Mikkelsen was on set, though at the time we just assumed the sweats were there to cover up a more spoilery costume underneath.  Looks like we were wrong.  The sweats were the costume.  He was “under cover.”  FOR A MONTH.

The scene ends with them running back down the stairs and hopping in a car driven by Mary.  Actor Tom Brooke (it is unclear what character he is playing, but I’ve seen the name “Wiggins” thrown about) also climbs into the back of the car, leaving smelly looking Sherlock sandwiched between two guys in the backseat.  That couldn’t have been a very comfortable car ride at all.

This was one of the most exciting scenes I’ve seen come out of setlock in a while and I’m glad we had some people on hand to capture it.  It’s definitely not just Benedict and Martin standing on the steps to 221b like we usually get.  While I do appreciate the people who go to North Gower Street (and I am quite jealous), it’s rare for us to get real insight into an episode from those shots.  Usually they come out, hail a cab, and then leave.  With this scene we learned that Sherlock goes under cover, Tom Brooke is playing a somewhat integral part in the episode, and John and Sherlock are back to their old ways of running about causing trouble in the name of solving crimes together.  Fabulous.

North Gower Street

Speaking of North Gower Street, Geny has a write up from her experience there as well.  Go read it.  Nothing I write here can do her write up justice because it’s such a personal experience.  Seeing filming at 221b is on my bucket list.  It looks like loads of fun.

This day was also the day where Benedict held up the now infamous four page political statement for the crowd.  If you haven’t seen it yet, where have you been?  As I mentioned before, North Glower Street is like a huge party and Benedict decided to take advantage of the crowd to get a message out to the world.  He held up several pages to the crowd that stated the following.

Page 1:
“Questions we have a right to ask in a democracy – Cameron, Theresa May, GCHQ, teachers, parents, each other …..”
Page 2:
“Hard drives smashed, journalists detained at airports…… Democracy?”
Page 3:
“Schedule 7 Prior restraint – is this erosion of civil liberties winning the war on terror…..?”
Page 4:
“What do they not want you to know? And how did they get to know it? Does the exposure of their techniques cause a threat to our security or does it just cause them embarrassment…?”

There’s also a lovely video that’ll give you a glimpse of what it’s like to be on North Glower Street during filming.  It’s all rather intense.  The video also shows us Benedict holding up the signs again and we can hear the audiences reaction to it.  I think it’s an interesting move on Benedict’s part to use the setlock crowd to spread a message.  He knows there are dozens (hundreds?) of people lined up with cameras ready to take it to the Internet in seconds, so why not?  It’s faster than mainstream journalism these days.  Whether it’s appropriate to mix entertainment and politics is up to us each to form an opinion on by ourselves, but I think it was a pretty clever way to use his audience to speak about something he obviously cares a great deal about.

Speaking of the great day of filming at North Gower Street, here’s a video that gives all of us that live too far away a  glimpse at what these set days are like.  One word: JEALOUS.

It reminds me of the excitement and commitment I put into Comic Con.  I love you, Setlockers.  You are fabulous people.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=56_8ThQ9KhM&w=420&h=315]

Mary and the Bluetooth Headset

Another scene the intrepid Setlockers captured was a very intense scene involving Mary and (possibly) Wiggins.  Mary gives some change to a homeless man (played by Tom Brooke), who gives her a bluetooth headset.  She puts it in and begins to walk away talking to someone on the other end of the line, but when she spots a projection of herself in her wedding attire on a building she freaks out and runs into the building.  I’m not entirely sure where we are getting the information from that he plays Wiggins, but in the original Sherlock stories Wiggins was a “street urchin” who is basically in charge of the Baker Street Irregulars (the original name for Sherlock’s Homeless Network).  To me this implies that he is on Sherlock’s side, which leads me to believe that it’s Sherlock in Mary’s earpiece.  The fact that he also rides with them in car at another point in time lends some credibility to that theory.

The Pizza Place Scene

There’s also a scene involving John, Sherlock, and a pizza place that many have speculated may be another “mind palace” scene.  It’s kind of a strange scene because John is inside, Sherlock is outside, and there is a suspicious lack of a wedding ring on John’s hand.  Some shots do involve Sherlock inside as well, but they are never actually sitting together.  The whole thing is a little off, but it could just be a normal dinner scene and everyone is jumping the gun with their speculation.  Hard to say.  We do have a tendency to get a little excited about things.

The Office Buildings

Last week they filmed at Heron Tower.  Most of the filming was done inside, but we did get some tweets from Claire Pritchard, a hair and make up artist, and some tweets from  new cast member Yasmine Akram (who appears at John and Mary’s wedding the episode before).  Claire was high enough in the building to get this lovely shot of the Gherkin.  There is also the stairwell shot from Arwel Jones which sort of goes to show just how high up in the building they were (oh my, I got a bit of vertigo looking at that shot),

At one point they were filming close enough to the bottom of the building that our valiant Setlockers managed to snap a few shots, but not much could be gleaned from it other than the fact that Sherlock runs up some stairs and Martin Freeman is on set.

This could be somehow related to the 12 hour night shoot (the boys were exhausted at the end) done the same week where they redressed some glass doors on the bottom floor with “CAM” logos (standing for Charles Augustus Magnussen perhaps?).  It’s important to note that Benedict’s double was on set during the latter night shoot, which is always a worrying sign.   Martin’s double was on hand at the previously mentioned night shoot as well, so if these two scenes are tied together there’s a high chance of some stunts being involved.  The fact that there was an ambulance on set that night a few blocks over doesn’t ease these worries at all.

To conclude this post, here are some links to them driving around London in taxis.  Good times.

Author: Angel Wilson

Angel is the admin of The Geekiary and a geek culture commentator. They earned a BA in Film & Digital Media from UC Santa Cruz. They have contributed to various podcasts and webcasts including An Englishman in San Diego, Free to Be Radio, and Genre TV for All. They identify as queer.

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