I don't think anyone is saying there shouldn't be any action or fights, people just want to see Sherlock and Watson solve some mysteries again without stupid sideplots and emotional dramas
As for the former: Gatiss's poem was a direct response to a specific Guardian review that complained about the show having too much action and Sherlock getting involved in that action (even though he also did in the books). As for the latter:
Personally, I enjoy the character development. What it seems most people here want is a really well filmed procedural? Which would suck to wait three years for three episodes.
If said characters were interesting and/or well written, I'd be inclined to agree. As is ...yeah I take the procedural, please.
I think many people are forgetting the deep, dark secret of the original Sherlock Holmes stories: the mysteries were never really that good. Fun and memorable? Sure. But they hung together by pure coincidence, needed impossible leaps of logic by Sherlock, and were more based on illogical guesswork rather than actual logic. The mysteries themselves were never the strong point (other works, even ones contemporary to Doyle's works, were far better at logically unfolding puzzle boxes), it was always about the characters. It was always about seeing Sherlock and Watson bounce off each other (and off the almost comic book-like villains and side characters), and about the weird butterfly effect-like elaborate plans and schemes of the villains. There was a lot of comedy in the over the top plans of both Sherlock and the bad guys, and the weird, coincidental deductions between the two.
I know this may sound blasphemous to some people, but really, go back and read the original stories. For some reason the Sherlock Holmes stories have this reputation of being about these genius-level mysteries were the reader is slowly given hints in order to solve the mysteries themselves, even though the actual stories (with a few rare exceptions) aren't structured that way at all. It was always way more pulpy than that. Fun, exciting, well-written (even, surprisingly, after all these years) and historically important pulp. but pulp nonetheless.
Of course, the style of storytelling in the relationship between Holmes and Watson is very different in those old books compared to a modern tv show, but that was always the core. I'll admit, I was never really a fan of Mary's spy background, but it's exactly the kind of ridiculous secret an original book character might have had, and the focus on how this affects SH and Watson is exactly what it needs to be. The modern version is more emotional, sure, but this is prestige television, and it has always been the core of the show since day one. Given how many Sherlock adaptions there are that do the procedural thing, I don't think it's a bad thing at all that this adaption puts its focus elsewhere, especially because it's a factor of the books that's often overlooked by people making adaptions. Switching to a more House/Elementary-like procedural adaption would be the wrong call here. Those shows already exist. Hundreds of them.
I don't like every episode of Sherlock, but I do think, for example, that especially episodes 2 and 3 of season 3 are modern TV classics, and often overlooked by the fans. This is still a very high quality show, and people wanting more of a standard procedural want something the show has never really been. Why create something that already exists, in excess even?
These are two of the most historically famous literary characters ever. Why not create a show about a Moore-like deep dive into what makes these larger-than-life characters tick and work in relation to each other? That always seemed the point of putting it in modern times to me - not just because you can do a joke about Watson writing on a blog instead of for the Strand, but because you can apply this post-modern approach to characters in this context. That's also the point on the overly stylistic direction of these episodes, and the sporadic release schedule. It's more nerdy/literary than many people may be interested in, but it's a unique authorial voice that's too often missing on tv. This should be celebrated more.
That's what I think at least. Not that people aren't free to dislike the show, but people are, I think, judging it for not being what it never even aimed for. They're simply watching the wrong Sherlock Holmes adaption I think. Judging the show for what it
is trying to do leaves you walking away far more impressed.
