‘Sherlock’ season 3, episode 1 (PBS): Benedict Cumberbatch is back; rejoice!

While fans in Britain may have already been lucky enough to witness it, “Sherlock” is going to do its part tomorrow night to convince you that “The Empty Hearse” was well worth the wait. This is the start of the much-anticipated third season, and the first time in a very long time that the show has been on the air. The wait for “Sherlock” has been so long, it makes the Matthew Weiner – “Mad Men” wait look like nothing.

The first thing that you really should know if you are a PBS viewer is that you’re going to be up for quite a long time watching this show. The episodes start at 10:00 p.m. following “Downton Abbey,” and in the UK they ran for at least 90 minutes without commercials. This may either be a time to set your DVRs, or call in sick from work if you really love Benedict Cumberbatch more than filing paperwork on Monday morning.

Now, we turn to one of our favorite parts of this little exchange: Sharing what are some of our personal favorite scoops from this episode … we’ll do three of them, since that number makes so much sense.

1. Much of this episode really deals with Holmes finding out that life in Britain is not the same as when he left it; while he may think that most of his friends and family saw their lives stall without him, that was not entirely the case.

2. If you are hoping for the same sort of epic mystery that you had at times in season 2, this is probably not going to be the one for you. We really don’t feel like that department gets going until episode 3.

3. You may find out what Sherlock did to fake his own death at the end of the season … with an emphasis on “may.” If there is one thing that Steven Moffat is brilliant at, it is finding a way to completely trick you by making you think one thing, and then turning around and giving you one tiny reason to doubt it.

Photo: BBC One