The BBC’s Sherlock Holmes made his first appearance in 1887 in the story A Study in Scarlet, but he became widely known after the short story “A Scandal in Bohemia” was published in The Strand Magazine in 1891. In total, the Great Detective appeared in four novels and 56 short stories, which earned him a place as one of the most popular and beloved literary characters, and as such he has been adapted to all types of media for over 100 years.
Among the most recent adaptations of the famous detective and his cases is the BBC’s TV series Sherlock, created by Mark Gatiss and Steven Moffat. The series brought Sherlock Holmes and company to modern-day London, with the title character using technology in his favor but without relying too much on it, and while many changes were made to the characters, it kept the essence of Conan Doyle’s characters and stories. Sherlock made sure to include characters like The Reichenbach Fall”, but returned in season 3’s first episode “The Empty Hearse”, and there were countless theories on what happened to him.
Some of those theories made it to the series through the character Philip Anderson (Jonathan Aris), a former member of the Metropolitan Police’s Forensic Services who lost his job sometime before season 3. Anderson was convinced Sherlock was alive and tried to convince Lestrade (Rupert Graves), but he didn’t succeed. In season 3’s premiere episode, “The Empty Hearse”, Anderson was revealed to have formed a Sherlock fan club named like the episode’s title and in which gathered to discuss theories on how Sherlock faked his death and where he had been after that. It’s through Anderson and his club that the team behind Sherlock included fan theories to explain what happened to Sherlock, thus offering alternate versions on how he survived the Reichenbach Fall.
First, is a theory that suggests Moriarty’s dead body was used as a double for Sherlock’s body, and to achieve that, his face was covered with a hyperrealistic mask of Sherlock’s face, and blue lenses were put on his eyes to better give the illusion that it was Sherlock. The real Sherlock, then, jumped with a bungee cable which allowed him to bounce back and enter the hospital through a window (and once inside he kissed Moriarty and Sherlock then kissed, but it never explained the rest of the events (especially whose body was it).
The final explanation was given by Sherlock himself to Anderson, but it’s still debated whether he was being honest or even if he was really there, as he suddenly disappeared and Anderson had a breakdown, so it’s possible that he was imagining Sherlock was there. This final explanation says Sherlock and his brother Mycroft figured out 13 possible outcomes of the meeting at the rooftop with Moriarty, and each one was given a code, so all Sherlock had to do was text Mycroft the right code. The of his Homeless Network then rolled out an inflatable mattress and posed as shocked bystanders, so all Sherlock had to do was jump and land on the mattress, and with the help of a squash ball under his arm, he stopped his pulse long enough for Watson to check if he was dead. In the end, it's up to viewers to decide if that final version was the real one or if there can be another explanation on how the Great Detective survived the Reichenbach Fall in Sherlock.