What are the key messages of the Sherlock Holmes drama “The Last Vow” that warn of the dangers of media play?

The Sherlock Holmes drama “The Last Vow” centers around the problem of media play and warns of the dangers of the media distorting facts and manipulating public opinion. Through the behavior of the main character, Magnussen, the show critically addresses real-life media issues.

 

When asked to name the most famous mystery novel protagonist in the world, there’s one character that never fails to come up. This is Sherlock Holmes, the protagonist of Arthur Conan Doyle’s “Sherlock Holmes” series. As one of the most famous detectives in the world of detective fiction, Sherlock Holmes has been reinvented and reinterpreted in various works. In particular, the British drama “SHERLOCK”, which began airing in 2010, became a huge hit worldwide, gaining immense popularity among Sherlock Holmes fans at home and abroad, and was renewed for a third season in 2014 due to its popularity. In 2017, Season 4 aired from January 1 to January 15, but no new seasons have aired since then. However, lead actors Benedict Cumberbatch and Martin Freeman are open to the idea of a Season 5. Cumberbatch said, “I would be willing to come back if the circumstances are right,” and Freeman said, “If there’s a good script, I would come back.”
I, too, have fallen in love with the show and have been binge-watching seasons one through four since this year. Every episode from season 1 to 4 has its own case and its own way of solving the case, which made the whole season interesting to watch without getting bored. I’m going to talk about the last episode of season 3, “His Last Vow” and its message. The reason I want to talk about this episode is because it’s one of the most entertaining and memorable episodes of the series, not only because of the twists and turns and Sherlock Holmes’ struggles, but also because it touches on a topic that’s worthy of serious consideration in the real world: media play.
The episode begins with a newspaper owner named Charles Augustus Magnussen being interrogated. He is questioned about his regular meetings with the British Prime Minister and whether he is trying to influence the Prime Minister to favor his policies. Magnussen denies it, of course, but it’s clear from this first scene that Magnussen, the journalist, and the Prime Minister are intertwined by government interests, and that he’s the final black sheep of the episode. As if to support that idea, in the very next scene, Magnussen finds the records of one of his interrogators in his “appledoor,” his personal library of knowledge. He uses the letter as a weapon against the interrogator, and when the interrogator tells him that it’s blackmail, his response is priceless.

“Of course, it isn’t blackmail. This is……. ownership.”

This line reveals the kind of person he is: a man who uses his information as a weapon to accumulate people as if they were assets he could control. The interrogator is torn apart by this, but soon composes himself and refers the case to Sherlock Holmes, the only man in England who can handle Magnussen.
After that, the story goes into a full-blown brain battle with events big and small, and I watched the rest of the story with anticipation to see how Sherlock Holmes would win against the newspaper giant. In the story, Sherlock Holmes devises a plan to capture the “Apple Door”. The owner of a newspaper is not allowed to tamper with the country’s top secrets, and any evidence of tampering will result in his warehouse being searched by British intelligence and the Apple Door being discovered. Sherlock Holmes then proposes to Magnussen that he trade “Appledore’s” data for a laptop containing state secrets that he obtained from his brother, Mycroft Holmes. Magnussen takes the laptop without hesitation. Up until this point, we’ve been waiting for the moment when Magnussen’s “Apple Door” is revealed, thinking that this is indeed Sherlock Holmes, and we’re about to find out what information is in it.
In the next scene, however, Magnussen reveals that he has known all along about Sherlock Holmes’s plan, and is so nonchalant about it, even in the face of an imminent search of the mansion, that he believes Sherlock Holmes has made a huge mistake. And what is it… In the first place, he didn’t have any evidence, he was just remembering everything. The newspaper owner didn’t need physical evidence; he could just print it in a big way in the next day’s paper if he needed to. In this scene, both Sherlock Holmes and I were shocked at the same time. The first shock was the unbelievable outcome of Sherlock Holmes’ complete defeat in a battle of wits, and the second shock was the reminder of the so-called media games that are often played in the real world, where the media often publish highly unreliable, unsubstantiated, but sensationalized stories, so-called sensationalist stories, to mislead the public into believing whatever they want. After the curtain fell, I couldn’t get out of the deep anguish about the real world media that this episode expressed.
Magnussen threatens people with unsubstantiated facts, and the way he does this is very similar to the way the media plays with trashy stories. Of course, there is an inherent difference between Magnussen’s blackmail and a trumped-up story. Magnussen’s threats are based on actual facts that have no material basis, whereas trash stories are based on sensationalized and plausible rhetoric that has no basis at all. But in both cases, the goal is the same: to mislead people and sway public opinion in their favor. Magnussen may have facts in his head, but there’s no way to prove them once they’re published. But the people in the drama are terrified of the fact that Magnussen can just make things up as he goes along. That’s because, just like in the real world, when a story is published, even if it can’t be proven, it can be very damaging to them. As many celebrities and politicians have attested, it’s hard to undo the damage done by the media. Even if the media issues a correction and the person is exonerated, once the image is ruined, their entertainment and political careers take a major hit. Even then, few media outlets will issue corrections. As a result, people are forced to look at the media the way Magnussen looked at them. This is a huge problem for the media, which is supposed to be an unbiased source of information about what’s going on in the world. As I watched the episode, I realized that the episode goes beyond just retelling the Sherlock Holmes story, but also points out the problems with the current state of media play through Magnussen’s behavior.
Of course, the media doesn’t always use media play to sway public opinion. Not every article in every media outlet is a fluff piece, and many are factual and fair. Even if a story is directly attacking someone, it’s right for the media to publish the facts as long as they’re clear and verifiable, but it’s clearly wrong to unfairly intimidate people to gain an advantage or project a desired image. Currently, there is no way to stop such abusive media play, which is why so many of these stories continue to thrive. I think this type of abnormal media play should be sanctioned in some way. This is a rather extreme and simplistic example, but I can think of ways to do so, such as establishing legal penalties for unfounded and malicious stories, or requiring a minimum level of evidence to be published.