(CBS)

Firstly, Sherlock Holmes (Jonny Lee Miller) is a hyper-intelligent detective with legendary skills of deduction and an encyclopedic memory base. As such, the investigations presented on the show must be challenging enough to turn his mind upside down at least once. This often requires expert consultants to ensure factual information flows from Miller’s mouth. In the case of “Corpse de Ballet” he informs the audience that ballet dancers use box cutters frequently when fixing their shoes. 

Second, due to the vast number of episodes per season—24 in the first season—and the procedural aspects of the show, most of the investigations conclude within the 42-minute timeframe. Combining these two elements is a highly difficult task and, if done incorrectly, can result in mediocre or even subpar episodes. 

The investigative segments of “Corpse de Ballet” fail to reach the stratospheric bar set by Holmes’ abilities, but the alterations made to a typical story keep the episode engaging. 

As the title suggests, a murder occurs at the ballet. Immediately, your mind travels to “Black Swan,” with suspicion cast directly onto the diva, Iris. When Sherlock dismisses her as a suspect after a brief fanboy moment, your mind moves to the second ballet stereotype: the pretentious, narcissistic artistic director whose sexual advances had been spurned by the deceased. Again, you’d be wrong—the director is not even relevant.

Sherlock, Watson (Lucy Liu) and Detective Bell (Jon Michael Hall)—who has been released from desk duty—begin their inquiries. After a disgruntled ex-boyfriend’s alibi is verified, the team returns to Iris whose alibi falls apart as she informs them of her plans to leave for Montreal. 

In a callback to the opening of the episode, which featured Watson finding a sign on a door saying “Coitus in progress or recently concluded,” Sherlock beds Iris. There he confirms his suspicions of a rotator cuff tear, thus proving Iris could not have maneuvered the dead body. 

READ MORE: 'Elementary' Season 2, Episode 14 Recap: 'Dead Clade Walking'

From there, the team moves slowly through a stalker/paparazzi-style creep who had planted cameras in Iris’ apartment to film a pseudo-porno unbeknownst to her. In the process, however, they discover a voicemail left by Iris for the deceased that revealed the two were having a lesbian affair. While the message centered on the end of the relationship, Iris actually cared for her lover, pushing her innocence further into the spotlight. 

Sherlock continues tinkering with the audio of the message and his acute hearing recognizes the sound of an automatic door closing system, the same one used by Iris’ lawyer. It takes Holmes’ a few tries before finding the proper evidence, but eventually, and predictably, he gets his man. The lawyer, whose abilities Sherlock had characterized as middling at best, had cast suspicion upon Iris in order to win a career-defining case and prove her innocence. Any way to get ahead, right?

In essence, Doherty took the standard ballerina competition storyline and made the situation more complex to fit the Sherlock Holmes style. When laid out piece by piece as it is here, the story seems rather dull, but in practice with the brilliant, subtle help of Miller, it works. 

The extraneous, but more poignant aspect of the episode focuses on a case taken by Watson. A homeless veteran with PTSD goes missing. She decides to help and finds that a woman posing as the man’s sister had trapped him in her basement—along with two other homeless men—in order to collect his benefits. 

The story actually deals with mental illness and a heinous injustice, but gets glossed over in the midst of Watson’s admission. She tells Sherlock that she volunteers at homeless shelters in hopes of seeing her biological father, a homeless schizophrenic. 

Since her relationship with her father had been buried until now, the confession seems spontaneous, but it does shed some light on the reasoning behind the choices she made upon leaving the medical field. Who knows what other secrets are bound to come up?

Read more by Michael at MHMovieReviews.com.

Reach Staff Reporter Michael Huard here.