Maybe I was a little hasty with The Final Solution. Is it too late to change the script so I don’t actually die?

Sorry, but Andrew Scott let it out at the television conference that Moriarty is indeed dead (well, I could have told everyone that) much to the wails of a segment of Sherlock fans. It also came out that the reason Moriarty was included to begin with was that a bit of research by Mofftiss discovered that the one character all of the fans wanted to see in a Sherlock Holmes series was Moriarty. All of this was a surprised to Moffat who pointed out that Moriarty was on only in one story. But look at how many times he appears in the movies and pastiche pieces, Mr. Moffat!

It also came out that the entire bit at the end was added to the revised script because they came up with it for the audition since the only thing planned at that point was the “Gay Jim” bit. After Scott finished chewing the scenery, spitting it out, and flossing his teeth with Semtex, Mofftiss ordered some changes to The Great Game — and then had to work their way out of it.

Frankly, I feel Andrew Scott was the Best Moriarty Ever — and I grew up with all of the classic ones. The problem with the other Moriarties (is that the plural for Moriarty?) is that they were always so stuffy and pompous, which did fit in with the Victorian/Edwardian Canon, but the part missed is that he was a total psychopath. Andrew Scott’s rendition is a fabulous bat-sh** crazy psychopath (sort of the very bizarre offspring of Johnny Depp’s Hunter S. Thomson and Anthony Hopkin’s Hannibal Lecter).

And the amazing thing is that Mr. Scott seems like such a nice guy in the interviews.