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Lttp: Sherlock - This show is great, but the finale of season 3 is where it got bad

The girlfriend and I started watching Sherlock not too long ago. I was hooked from the first episode. Both Cumberbatch and Freeman are fantastic, and the chemistry between them is palpable. This is one of the strong feature of the show: the friendship between Sherlock and Watson. It feels real. Watching them banter while solving mysteries is just a delight.

However, the finale of season 3 just felt... wrong. It felt like it had been produced by a completely different team that tried to make a Sherlock episode but weren't competent enough to do so.

The twist that Mary is some secret super agent is just so fucking dumb. It's a twist for the sake of having a twist. Not earned in any way. On top of that, it feels like an artificial way to enlarge (for lack of a better word) the mythology of the show. As if having Sherlock and John solving crimes with the help of Lestrade, Molly and Mycroft (who, no less, is himself a powerful shadowy government figure) just wasn't big enough of a playground for the writers. There was no need to have John's wife turn out to be this super-agent-whose-past-is-almost-certainly-going-to-be-used-as-a-plot-device-at-some-point. It just feels... cheap and overindulgent, I guess. I'm not sure how else to communicate it. I'm getting vibes similar to Dexter's last season with the doctor character who is revealed to have created "The Code™" with Dexter's father. It's this cheap and unnecessary twist that sorta-kinda-but-not-really-but-kinda changes the dynamic of the show. I don't know. I just don't like it.

And then there is the matter of the execution of that last episode. At some point, there is some cross editing of two scenes taking place at different times, one being at Christmas. I was watching and thinking to myself "what the fuck is going on? Why?"

I was also disappointed that they killed off the antagonist so soon. I thought for sure he would get at least two seasons, just like Moriarty (though I haven't finished the fourth season yet so who knows if this one comes back or not). But no, they killed him. They could have kept him around instead of creating this new storyline around Mary.

I watched half of the first episode of season 4 and stopped. I needed a break. I got to the point where Mary left on a plane to who knows where, only to be found by Sherlock and John who tell her "hey let's go back to London". Then some shootout happens. It just didn't feel like I was watching the same show anymore. It had a different vibe to it.

Anyways. I'll finish the season for sure. Who knows, maybe my opinion of the new direction will change by the end of it all.

That's a lot of words to basically shit on the show, but I want to specify that I basically love everything outside of what I wrote about. This show, when it's good, is really fucking good. I like the mysteries. I adore just watching Sherlock solve them while showing off. It's always impressive. The corny romantic in me also wishes he would just hook up with poor Molly, but I very much doubt that will ever happen.
 

KingSnake

The Birthday Skeleton
I think the show turned into a different shit way before that. The end of season 2 has been already a different type of show than it started and the focus on how to make everything more shocking rather than the genius work of a detective slowly made me turn away from it. Then it came the first episode of season 3 with John's almost dying in a fire that made me stop watching the show all together. I just don't like plots created just to be plots no matter how wise they are explained or not later on. Not every series has to be GoT, some series manage to survive on their own appeal, not on trying to shock every damn time.
 

siddx

Magnificent Eager Mighty Brilliantly Erect Registereduser
The last season was really really stupid, but I still enjoyed it for it's style and presentation.
 

Grizzlyjin

Supersonic, idiotic, disconnecting, not respecting, who would really ever wanna go and top that
Oh, my sweet summer child. You ain't seen nothing yet.

The show became a little too self aware. The Season 3 premiere is where I think the shift occurred. I just want to see Holmes and Watson solve a halfway clever mystery. But the show is too up its own ass to do that anymore.

Like you said, when it's good, it's really good. But brace yourself for Season 4.
 

Htown

STOP SHITTING ON MY MOTHER'S HEADSTONE
Season 4 gets a lot of well-deserved hate, but the middle episode is incredible.
 
Seasons 1 and 2 are great (though the dumb Hound of the Baskervilles sequence is extremely bad).

Season 3 is mediocre, and Season 4 seems a little better so far?
 

BTA

Member
I actually liked some of season 3 but I'm really not a fan of how much the show's constantly up its own ass overall.

I know I'll watch the special + season 4 at some point since a friend's wanted me to but I'd rather catch up on Doctor Who (which is at least entertaining when it's bad) before the new Doctor or Elementary (which is actually consistently good, or at least was when I suddenly stopped watching a few years ago).
 

Wiped89

Member
Oh, my sweet summer child. You ain't seen nothing yet.

The show became a little too self aware. The Season 3 premiere is where I think the shift occurred. I just want to see Holmes and Watson solve a halfway clever mystery. But the show is too up its own ass to do that anymore.

Like you said, when it's good, it's really good. But brace yourself for Season 4.

This is 100 per cent right.

The show peaked with Series 2 episode 3 - the most Moriaty heavy episode. I love Moriaty. From then it went sharply downhill and S3 was not as good. Series 4 was awful.
 

Davide

Member
The biggest problem with S3 is the actress for Mary, she just could not sell the character.

The quality of the S3 finale is nothing compared to the awfulness of S4's though. The first two series remain fantastic.
 

JCHandsom

Member
Check out hbomberguy's video if you want to see someone argue it was bad from the start WARNING: I like the video, but hbomb has a bad habit of going off on long tangents. The video is more of a takedown of Steven Moffatt as a showrunner, with a focus on Sherlock.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LkoGBOs5ecM

Personally, in retrospect, the only episodes I still like are S1:1, S1:3, S2:1, S2:3, and The Abominable Bride special. "A Scandal in Belgravia" is where the show got "bad" for me, what with the ruining of Irene Adler's character.
 

ahoyhoy

Unconfirmed Member
Season 1 and 2 are amazing.

Season 3 is garbage with some cute moments.

Season 4s first episode is absolute shit but the last two were great. The finale was kind of dumb but had some intense moments.
 

ibyea

Banned
Oh man are you going to hate the last episode. The show goes off the rails in ways I never could have imagined.
 
Season 4 gets a lot of well-deserved hate, but the middle episode is incredible.

It just looks incredible because the other episodes were so bad.

I'm erasing all memories of Sherlock from my head except A Scandal in Belgravia, which was fucking great.
 

BorkBork

The Legend of BorkBork: BorkBorkity Borking
At least 1/3 of both Season 1 and 2 (both second episodes) are terribad. Not sure why people seem to forget that. Maybe because the show still felt fresh?
 

Sliver

Member
Everything about Moriarty just sucked, one-off investigations were where it was most interesting. Still have to watch the Jeremy Brett Sherlock series.
 

JCHandsom

Member
It just looks incredible because the other episodes were so bad.

I'm erasing all memories of Sherlock from my head except A Scandal in Belgravia, which was fucking great.

giphy.gif
 

Aexact

Member
Insert that 2 hour Sherlock review here. lol
I've seen that!

While I didn't understand some of hbomberguy's historical and directional commentary as my understanding of Sherlock Holmes is very pop culture, the argument that a serial mystery show where it is almost impossible to suss out the conditions of the mystery rings true but high production values and snappy asocial quippery mask it.

Also I got a satisfying feeling of closure in not following season 4 with confirmation that people weren't keen on it because the solution to season 3 already added brow furrowing wrinkles. Guy who uses ingenuity resorts to brute force. Intensely souring.
 

JCHandsom

Member
It's on your list of the only episodes you enjoyed. You can trash it but you'll have to throw the rest of the show in there too.

My bad, I confused it for S3:1, The Empty Hearse (which I enjoy for more meta reasons than anything else). "Scandal" was the standout "bad" episode for me because of how badly its portrayal of Adler was.
 

Farmboy

Member
It's weird how S1 and 2 are good except for the middle episodes, and then S3 are 4 are bad except for the middle episodes (S3:2 starts off exactly as overwritten self indulgent as the rest of the latter seasons, but I feel they managed to pull it together in the end).

Scandal In Belgravia is still brilliant though. I also, to my own surprise, quite liked The Abominable Bride.
 

Fantastapotamus

Wrong about commas, wrong about everything
I found the show super cheesy tbh. Sherlock just felt like an arrogant dick the entire time. I stopped watching after episode three.
 

Dysun

Member
I think its great overall, even though each season had a low point. Seasons 3 and 4 were notably worse than 1 and 2 though
 

Big Nikus

Member
I still like the show, I really enjoyed the christmas episode and I like the first two of season 4. The last one though, that smelt like a Moffat fart the likes I had not smelt since Doctor Who season 6.
I also wish they hadn't gone this way with Mary
because I liked the actress, and this storyline really went off the rails.
 

emag

Member
The finale of Series 3 wasn't all that bad in perspective.

The horrible H.O.U.N.D. episode from Series 2, coupled with the show's casual racism throughout, was almost enough to make me drop Sherlock. Oh, and every scene with Moriarty was terrible in every Series.
 
I stopped after season two, at the end I was just forcing myself to watch it, hoping it was going to become the great show so many people talked about.

Considering all the praise, this show is without a single doubt my biggest disappointment in a lot of years.
 

Ratrat

Member
I stopped after season two, at the end I was just forcing myself to watch it, hoping it was going to become the great show so many people talked about.

Considering all the praise, this show is without a single doubt my biggest disappointment in a lot of years.
A lot of the praise is from horny fangirls.
 

Random Human

They were trying to grab your prize. They work for the mercenary. The masked man.
You can tell the writers became aware of the show's success before season three and that completely influenced that season in a negative way.
 
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