SDCC '13: Sherlock

Sophia Ritchie ’16 / Emertainment Monthly Writer
At it’s first-ever San Diego Comic Con panel, Sherlock and it’s season-three material was welcomed with open arms and the shrill screams of nearly 5,000 detective-loving fans.
Series producers, writers, and creators Steven Moffat and Mark Gatiss, along with producer Sue Vertue, were there to answer some long-asked questions about the shocking Season 2 finale, as well as treat us to some special Season 3 intel.
The panel started once the fans had calmed down, and aired two quick videos from Sherlock stars Martin Freeman (busy filming The Hobbit at the moment) and Benedict Cumberbatch with the actors apologizing for being unable to attend.  Cumberbatch, who apparently wanted to make up for his absence, began explaining how the Season 2 finale (and the infamous Fall) worked, a long-suffering mystery for fans.  Miming out the actions with stuffed dolls, we only managed to catch a glimpse of the reveal as the video went fuzzy and the audio cut out repeatedly.
Fans know Moffat and Gatiss to be horrible teases, so this wasn’t much of a surprise.
“There really are only a few ways you can fall off and survive,” Moffat hinted with a small smirk.  “It’s not black magic.”
Three clues were given to elaborate upon each of the episodes earlier in the year: rat, wedding, and bow.  Rat, corresponding with the first episode (called “The Empty Hearse”) was explained to correlate with the Sherlock Holmes story “The Empty House.”  The episode will primarily explore John Watson’s reaction to Sherlock’s survival, and was explained to be “rather emotional” by Gatiss.
While keeping tight-lipped on “wedding” and “bow,” the three did casually tease that wedding would correlate with John Watson’s inevitable marriage to Sherlock Holmes character, Mary.
In answer to the question of longstanding character Moriarty’s demise, all three were quick to reassure us that actor Andrew Scott’s psychopathic villain was, most definitely, dead.
And what would a SDCC panel be without some preview footage?  A small clip from one of the episodes was shown, but the room was politely (but firmly) sworn to secrecy about it.  I can tell you that the room gave the clip a standing ovation and had to be frequently shushed so as not to scream wildly over the dialogue.
Sherlock’s first SDCC panel was, without a doubt, a rousing success, and hopefully, this spells equally great things for Season 3.