'Sherlock' review: Best TV since 'Breaking Bad' returns for season 3

Unless you don't care to read a not-too-long kvell, then don't bother with Newsday's review of "Sherlock," which returns Sunday for season three.

But seriously, Steven Moffat and Mark Gatiss have created something of unusual brilliance ... The best hour and a half of television so far this year (and certainly since Sept. 29, when "Breaking Bad" ended) is coming.

Get excited. Excitement is justified. (And here's season one review, so don't say you weren't already primed.)   

Of course you wouldn't. As all (of us) know, Holmes faked his own death at the conclusion of the second season ("The Reichenbach Fall," when Holmes apparently fell off of a hospital roof to his death.)

What we don't know is how he did this, and why poor bereft Doctor John Watson (Martin Freeman) had to witness the whole bloody thing. Answers, or some, are forthcoming Sunday. (And why is Holmes rambling on about cesspools anyway? Watch...)

The episode title, "The Empty Hearse," refers to a blog created by one Philip Anderson (Jonathan Aris), a New Scotland Yard forensics specialist (from season one), who has gone somewhat barmy as he pursues various theories about how Sherlock not only survived his fall but faked his fall. Few believe Anderson -- including Watson, who's just trying to move on from the "tragedy" -- but his obsession forms the puckish conceit that threads the entire episode. How did Holmes "kill" Holmes? Well...?

Written by Gatiss, "Hearse" is a brilliant flight of farcical lunacy -- a hall of mirrors designed to confound not only befuddled Watson and Anderson -- but you. Nothing is meant to be as it seems, and when it does, then better take another look.

Most unexpectedly, "The Empty Hearse" is funny, occasionally hilarious. (Gatiss is a charter member of the British comedy group, "The League of Gentlemen.") Everything Sunday night is primed to make viewers laugh, then think, then do a double-take -- and do it all over again.

With a pair of world-class actors as your guides, you most assuredly will.