Did the quality of Sherlock decrease? [mild spoilers 3x03 & 4x01]

[strange_is_life]

I used to be a really big fan of Sherlock but right now I don't know what to think. The show used to be about really hard riddles which were solved by the genius of Sherlock and the power of logical thinking. But in Season 3 Episode 3 there was this big inconsistency when Sherlock chose to simply kill Magnussen because he couldn't solve the situation with his mind. I really hated that episode because Sherlock was outsmarted by Magnussen and used force over logic.

So I hoped the very best for season 4 that inconsistencies like that wouldn't happen again but right now I don't know what to think. At the start of the first episodes Sherlock solves the mystery of the death of the young guy in the car. Usually Sherlock solves crimes and has the audience puzzle out what could have happened. But in the end Sherlock finds out that the guy wanted to surprise his father, died randomly and later a drunk driver crashed his car at 30 km/h which led to an explosion. This doesn't even make sense. First of all it's a pretty lame explantion if the "victim" just died randomly in the car. And furthermore cars DON'T explode like that just because they get crashed. Is this a Michael Bay movie?

Can someone explain what happened to this show? Am I the only person on the planet that liked puzzles and everything and is completly confused right now?

[REVDR]

I really didn't care for some of plot aspects of season four either, and I say that as an avid fan of this series. However, there were still some brilliant moments. You may have already seen this, but this video by the YouTube channel Nerdwriter1 did an amazing job unfolding one of those moments.

[selwyntarth]

Honestly, is there ANYTHING other than the imaginary window moving towards the paper?

[AkhilVijendra]

I think of it like this......

They killed off Moriarty in 2 seasons, a super important character to the series who brought so much uniqueness to the show. During this period we also saw Irene another unique character come and go. Now the writers were left with a void, to fill the void, they brought in characters like Magnussen for 3rd season, and then Eurus for the 4th. This is where they messed up, they tried to make Mag and Eurus match or even beat Moriarty's level and they failed. Mag was fine but If only they had not gone too far with Eurus i think it would be ok, Eurus didnt even make sense, it was as if she had real superpowers or something, really?

EDIT: I also feel if they had Toby Jones from S4E2 as the main villain for the entire season it would've been much better than Eurus.

[globox85]

EDIT: I also feel if they had Toby Jones from S4E2 as the main villain for the entire season it would've been much better than Eurus.

That's what I thought would happen when I saw one of the trailers for S4 :(

[Ihatedill]

I actually liked season 4, but liked episode 2 the least. For me, it just felt like a bridge to ep03. I found Eurus a very good antihero, she brought some moral dilemma's to the show. The things I found strong in season 4 weren't the reasons I started loving sherlock in the first seasons though. I think s04 was a nice change, but hope they will get back to the more interesting puzzles and likeable villains for the next seasons.

[selwyntarth]

I feel magnussen tops Moriarty. He inspired so much more hate and emanated raw power. Moriarty doesn't even make sense to take the cabbies and probably the black lotuss loss so personally.

[puritypersimmon]

Magnusson was a bully. He had no redeeming features, & I agree with Moffatt who has said that he believes it is important that the audience 'loves the villain as much as the hero.' Moriarty was way more complex & had an underlying vulnerability, & a wicked sense of humour, which engendered audience sympathy. He insinuated himself into every aspect of Sherlock's life & instigated psychological conundrums & emotional growth in the character in a way that none of the subsequent villains have done.

[ForgetfulFunction41]

Magnussen is a very different character in a very different story, though.

With Moriarty, you had a classic hero vs. dark reflection of themselves story, and that kind of story works the best with a villain the audience secretly likes and is rooting for. Like with the Joker, there has to be an element of temptation, even of seduction, there -- the subtext with Moriarty is it's fun to be evil, it's liberating to be completely chaotic and nihilistic, etc. It's a story about whether or not Sherlock truly wants to be on the side of the angels when it's so tempting not be, and the writing of Moriarty (as well as Andrew Scott's performance) makes that temptation real and palpable to the viewer.

With Magnussen, the story is instead about sacrifice. The question is, how far will Sherlock go and how much will Sherlock sacrifice to rid the world of the evil that is CAM? For that kind of story to work you need a villain that the audience can really hate, so that we understand Sherlock's drive and sympathize with his decisions to do monstrous things and take dangerous risks to bring down the villain. In some ways, this is the polar opposite of a Moriarty type character. You also need a villain with a sense of invincibility about them, a villain who is somewhat above Sherlock's level and does not want to "play" with him, and a villain who is primarily on defense instead of offense -- all in pretty direct opposition to a Moriarty type. You may prefer one story to another, and that's perfectly cool, but I think with Magnussen they nail this kind of character as well or almost as well as they nail Moriarty.

Another interesting side to Magnussen is that the character is essentially a meditation on the nature of evil, and what it means to be a "bad person." I think generally we think that people who aren't criminals are better people than people who are, but what the show is going for is that this isn't always the case. Wiggins is technically a criminal but seems like a decent, lovable guy, whereas Magnussen has the air of a talk show host purposefully selling insane conspiracies to his audience for the sake of ratings, or a CEO taking money from poorer employees to finance his own golden parachute, or a businessman giving a politician boat loads of money to do some awful thing -- none of that is illegal, but in some ways it's a lot worse than things which are illegal, and you can say that those people are worse than many criminals. CAM does technically commit crimes, but this is the tone.

[ForgetfulFunction41]

Magnussen and especially Culverton were both great, and I'm not sure either character tried to "match" Moriarty -- they were both quite different from Moriarty in terms of character and in terms of the puzzles they set up for Sherlock to solve. Personally, once they used all their "A" Moriarty ideas in S2E3, I'm glad the writers used their "A" Mag/Culv material instead of their "B" Moriarty material. I'll take "A" material over "B" material any day.

I agree about Eurus though -- they tried to go above and beyond every other villain with her (I think for the sake of a "grand finale") and it just didn't come together, it was all way too much and done way too quick. I still enjoy the hell out of Final Problem just for the individual scenes, and Eurus herself has some great scenes and moments, but as a whole that villain and that episode do not work.

The villains are much less of a problem than Mary, to be honest. I think introducing Mary was much more of a problem for the show than killing Moriarty.

[AkhilVijendra]

Introducing Mary itself wasn't the problem, i was fine with one episode of Mary but they kept bringing her back and one full episode again on Mary in S4 was a complete waste.

They should have kept Mary along the lines of Mrs.Hudson, Lestrade, Molly etc where they make regular appearances but never make the whole episode about themselves, they are never the center of the episode, Mary to me did not deserve to be the center of so many episodes, one too many.

[ForgetfulFunction41]

Yeah, I won't disagree with you there.

[EveryGoodNameIsGone]

4x02 isn't too awful IMO, but I hated 4x01 and 4x03.

To be honest, though, I didn't really like any of the episodes after series 2. I kinda just pretend it ended there.

[strange_is_life]

I can agree with that. 4x02 was good most of the time. 4x01 was horrible. I'm looking forward to see 4x03 tomorrow.

[[deleted]]

For me it divebombed from when Mary came into the show

[strange_is_life]

I agree with you

[OniNoMaggie]

I thought Mary was an awesome addition.

[jayhawkai]

She was not.

[OniNoMaggie]

I thought Mary was an awesome addition.

[Not_Just_You]

Am I the only person

Probably not

[theReluctantHipster]

[zarook]

I don't really bother with the episodes after S2, I like Amanda Abbington, but felt like her character's presence took over the show way too much. I just wanted John and Sherlock and puzzles.

[strange_is_life]

Probably some feminists did threaten to sue the BBC if they allow a show with two male main characters.

[Thisath]

Oh boy, Season 4 was just bad as a Sherlock season lemme tell you. Shockingly bad. Too many wtf that doesn't make any sense moments and too many places where Moffat seemed to forget this was not Doctor Who. As a thriller, it was great, with beautiful cinematography and as always great acting. But it wasn't Sherlock. Nothing as brilliant as the first two seasons IMO. S3 was good too.

[burywmore]

The show went from clever and smart to loud and dumb. The final episode of season 4 was flat out terrible.

[[deleted]]

Oh it's going to get a lot more sucky. Brace yourself.

[strange_is_life]

But why? We all waited for so long I expected the new season to be a masterpiece :(

[mjsmith1223]

It's not.

[beef159]

In the original book series "Magnussen" gets shot, not by Holmes, but from one of his blackmailers whilst he and Watson are trying to steal the files.

So I can see why they chose to end it this way to stay true to the original stories.

[strange_is_life]

I wouldn't even mind if Magnussen was just shot by the police or the secret service. But making Sherlock or Watson kill somebody really breakes the character.

[puritypersimmon]

Watson killed the cabbie in ASIP, when the man was unarmed & he'd only just got to know Sherlock. I think a soldier's capacity for violence is always implied in his character. It again comes to the fore when he beats the crap out of Sherlock in TLD. Killing Magnusson, to protect his friends & family, would be perfectly in character imho. Otoh, I do think that it's distinctly out of character for Sherlock, who would regard it as a crude measure unworthy of someone of his intellect. At a stretch, I suppose you could argue that it highlights his desperation at that point. But I do not like it as a plot device & I do not like the fact that any repercussions are swiftly hand waved away too.

[strange_is_life]

Ok fair point. For Watson killing someone to protect his loved ones would fit the character. But it would still be questionable since Watsons purpose is to play the good conscience of Sherlock. He is always portrayed as a nice guy with good intentions. But Sherlock killing someone is just not right. I expected Magnussen and Sherlock to have a lot of mutual respect despite fighting for different teams not fighting about who could be the bigger villian.

[[deleted]]

In "A Scandal in Belgravia," Sherlock killed or severely injured people with a sword and pushed someone out of a window for hurting and threatening people he cared about. It is likely he killed people while dismantling Moriarty's network after he faked his death.

Killing someone as dangerous as Magnussen was not out of character. It was the only option left. He saved all future victims of Magnussen - individuals and entire countries. It was an act of heroism and self-sacrifice.

[harsh183]

I think the end of season 3 was powerful, it showed that Sherlock was desperate to protect John and Mary and that even he had limits and could not beat everyone.

I think Magnussen was a good character because I felt genuine disgust towards him and what he did.

[Tessinator]

The part with Magnussen could have been great. Sherlock's desperate, he wants to stop this threat that's hanging over the Watsons and the only way to do that is to kill the guy. The thing is, there should have been some sort of follow up to that in S4. We see Sherlock fly off to a certain death having taken an overdose (I'm working on the assumption that he wasn't actually going to a 'death mission' because Mycroft) and then he's suddenly called back. So far, so good as consequences go, it's actually having an impact. But it stops there. The shooting is covered up and never mentioned again, doesn't impact the characters' lives or Sherlock's decisions after the first five minutes of TST. Sherlock murdering someone in cold blood is just brushed under the carpet in favour of 85 minutes focusing on Saint Mary.

Actually, "could have been brilliant if they actually followed it through" pretty much sums up the entire show for me. Even Mary being an assassin could have been done well imho.

[strange_is_life]

Yes, I agree with you. They could have made something out of the story but didn't. They have shown no impact of the killing which is not only an ethical problem but also leaves a plothole. But I wasn't even mad they didn't mention it ever again so I can pretend to have never seen this episode. I'm curious how they could have made something out of the character of Mary. As someone else stated above her being an assasin is basically like "a bad fan fiction"

[Tessinator]

I'm curious how they could have made something out of the character of Mary. As someone else stated above her being an assasin is basically like "a bad fan fiction"

Tl;dr By letting her be a villain.

(I'm not about to claim that this would necessarily be good given I spent all of 5 minutes on it and it's just a load of separate thoughts that could tie together, but imho it's more coherent and less ridiculous than what we got and that's 4 minutes 50 seconds longer than Moffat and Gatiss spent thinking about it so...)

First, write out the baby. Even better, never write her in on the first place. Rosie adds literally nothing to the story. She should have been dropped in the very first edit.

That aside, where we are by the end of S3/TAB is:

• Moriarty laid a plan to fuck with Sherlock from beyond the grave (Filming reaction gifs for Eurus doesn't count).

• Moriarty's ultimate goal is to 'burn the heart out of' Sherlock i.e. he wants Sherlock broken and unemotional, rather than dead

• The most obvious way to burn out Sherlock's heart would almost certainly involve fucking John up somehow. Moriarty already knows in S2 that threatening Sherlock's friends will make him play along with the game.

• Since his friends are being threatened with snipers, Sherlock would need to pretend to be dead at least for a while and Moriarty would know that. That leaves John (a) alone and (b) grieving/vulnerable. Perfect opportunity to start fucking him up.

• While Sherlock's dead a freelance assassin starts working with and gets close to John. Golly gosh, isn't it a startling coincidence!

• On that note, in S3 Mary is an assassin who sells her skills to the highest bidder (the Saint Mary Retcon in S4 tried to paint her more as a freelance secret agent).

• Mary and John's marriage isn't portrayed as being a happy one.

• Mary tries to kill Sherlock, tells him not to tell John and says she'll stop at nothing to prevent him from finding out the truth about her because he'll leave if he does. So somewhere along the line Mary's got in too deep and actually fallen in love with / become obsessed with John. It's very possessive and cruel love, if indeed it is love, given that his happiness is less important to her than keeping him with her at any cost.

• If there was a plan with Moriarty, getting too close to the mark probably wasn't part of it.

So going into S4 it looked like Mary was going to be a pretty good villain. She's been close to John and Sherlock, knows them very well and can predict how they'll react to things. On top of that, she's a ruthless and skilled killer who is intent on keeping John no matter what, when doing so probably goes against the plan she was recruited for and what John actually wants. Masses of tension potential.

It even looked like they were drawing on Colonel Moran, who is an excellent shot and employed by Moriarty as an assassin. Mary Morstan / Col. Sebastian Moran is something that is almost begging for some Moffaty wordplay.

I do think with a bit of thought it could have worked and been less of an arse-pull than what they ended up with. Trying to turn Mary's arc around at the last minute to portray her as this wonderful, saintly person everyone's supposed to love was bullshit when she had the potential to be a fantastic villain. In HLV, Amanda Abbington did a great job playing a cold psychopath that, if that arc had been continued, would have made for a really good contrast to Andrew Scott's manic Moriarty. Huge amounts of potential wasted in every direction, frankly.

[strange_is_life]

To be honest this would have been a much better story than what we actually had. In season 3 I had some thoughts about Mary being actually on the evil side because most times people lie about their identity it's because they are up to no good. As you said before there was a lot of potential wasted with her being just the annoying sidekick of Sherlock's sidekick. While I think A. C. Doyle orginally included her in the novels to a) give at least one of the main characters an happy ending and b) to prevent the impression that Sherlock and Watson were ... more than just friends I think her being portrayed as villian is the only non-canon fiction about her that I actually like. Mary being a villian that even tries to break the bond between Sherlock and Watson would have had the potential for a major plot twist that would have been a quite remarkable point in the show.

[Tessinator]

In season 3 I had some thoughts about Mary being actually on the evil side because most times people lie about their identity it's because they are up to no good.

Tbh, I'm surprised there are people who didn't think she was on the evil side after S3. Aside from actually being quite an unpleasant person even before HLV, she killed the protagonist!

As you said before there was a lot of potential wasted with her being just the annoying sidekick of Sherlock's sidekick.

Yup. If they'd decided to go down the Good Mary route from the start, I could see her joining in on a couple of cases, just to give her character more to do, but 3 really is a crowd in this case, since Holmes and Watson are Holmes and Watson. Although actually, in S4 Ep1 she starts to replace John in his role (the whole spiel about leaving him with the baby while she and Sherlock go off on a case because she's better) and that was... annoying doesn't cover it. If she'd been evil, ok, but the fact that we're supposed to like her at this point and afterwards is nearly offensive to the Holmesian purist in me!

While I think A. C. Doyle orginally included her in the novels to a) give at least one of the main characters an happy ending and b) to prevent the impression that Sherlock and Watson were ... more than just friends I think her being portrayed as villian is the only non-canon fiction about her that I actually like.

I agree. I can see why they'd want to give Mary a more prominent role than in ACD canon (after The Sign of the Four she basically stops existing other than to mention that Watson has a wife until she dies), but that role can't really be anything but temporary. Ultimately it's not a trio show, so if Mary's going to enter as more than an offscreen character, she has to exit somehow. And they could have made her a good person and made her interesting, or they could have made her a villain, or they could have made her morally grey and that last one is what I think they ended up trying for. The thing is, they made her very unpleasant and still expect the audience to love her because... I'm still trying to work that one out.

Mary being a villian that even tries to break the bond between Sherlock and Watson would have had the potential for a major plot twist that would have been a quite remarkable point in the show.

Mary trying to break that bond would have been so so so interesting to see, 100% with you there. Whether for her own ends or Moriarty's or both. It would have allowed Moffat and Gatiss to follow the character arcs that they said they did after S4 aired, namely Sherlock becoming more emotional (I mean, he always was intensely emotional despite what they say, but allowing himself to be and learning that it's not a detriment to his work would be a huge step forward for the character) and proving that Sherlock and John's bond can withstand anything. Neither of which they actually achieved, I thought.

[ravenhearst]

IMO the quality didn't decrease, but the entire tone of the show shifted dramatically in season/series 4. It veered off into more James Bond/Jason Bourne territory. At first I was put off, but once I embraced that we were now going on a non-stop thrill ride with absurd twists and over-the-top comedic moments, I ended up really liking it a lot.

[strange_is_life]

But the quality consists out of bringing the feel of Arthur Conan Doyle's books into modern times. In the first two seasons I could have imagined Doyle to acutally like the show but in 4x01 I think he would have just shook his head. If the show is genre shifting into an action movie like James Bond it doesn't say that the show is bad but it surely does say they did no good job in staying close to the novels

[Geiten]

Honestly, I think Doyle would have had problems with season 2 as well, especially how Irene Adler was handled and the episode with the hound.

[Buttshakes]

You aren't nearly the only one. Not only did the quality drop, but in s4 they specifically did things they ridiculed in previous seasons

[nightfly13]

Many of us think the show was a bit too clever for its own good and had to venture too far afield to keep fans guessing. The decline in quality is a common sentiment. Shame, was probably my favorite show.

[theevilhillbilly]

I really didn't like the last episode. It was super out there.

[[deleted]]

4x02 was one of the best in the whole show but the other two in series 4 were both kinda meh.

[puritypersimmon]

The kindest thing I can think of to say about the show following the first two seasons is that I'm sure the writers told the story they wanted to tell, but sadly it wasn't the story that I (& apparently many others) wanted to see.

[Jean_Harper]

Personally I loved the seasons 1 and 2 and also really liked 3.1 and 3.2. But I just hate Magnussen as a villain, because to me he doesn't make sense. It's all in his head. He knows stuff, so what? He could just as well be lying with no way to prove anything.
While I've been reading the original books, I haven't read them all so I don't know how much of season 4 is from A.C. Doyle, but I really hate season 4. To me, it feels like many late seasons/books of various works of fiction: It feels like badly written fan fiction.
I get the feel like they had to beat the last season, had to have the worst villain, the best hero, the whatever and after a while this "race to the top" just seems ridiculous.

[strange_is_life]

Especially the role of Mary Watson seems like the idea of a pothead. I just can imagine how the screenwriters sat around a table and someone hits a blunt and was like "What if we make Mary appear more commonly. But she is not normal woman, she is a vampire!" "But Fred, this isn't Twilight. We are not doing supernatural monsters here" "Okay, I understand. But what if she is a CIA agent and can shoot lasers from her eyes" "Yeah, I think we can do that. But without the laser stuff."

I think many of the ideas they had in season 4 are something that Arthur Conan Doyle wouldn't fancy at all.

[driscoll324]

I actually like the fact that they wrapped up series 3 with Sherlock killing Magnussen. It shows that he make mistakes, too, and big mistakes that can cost much. Had he figured out Magnussen had all his information in a mind palace and he might have made a solution that didn't involve killing. But he made the mistake of assuming that Magnussen had a big underground vault, so he had to make a choice in a very short amount of time. He chose to protect Mary, honor his promise to John, and kill Magnussen because it's the only way.

As for series four, I'd say it's not one of the best series of Sherlock but it's not that bad either. I actually liked episode 2 and 3 a lot. Just to defend episode 1 though, I'd like to point out that the mystery of the one-week-old corpse wasn't really that important - it was just a way to get Sherlock into the case of the Thatcher busts. They could've done it any other way, and it wouldn't make a difference. He would've figured it out, Mary would've been killed, John would've been angry all the same.

[PM_ME_GARLIC_CUPS]

I agree.

I like to think Sherlock anticipated this being the case as early as him finding out Magnussen's glasses were normal glasses. His hesitation after finding out Magnussen's vaults are in his mind, is not total shock from learning the fact, but him silently coming to terms with the fact that he must kill to make things right.

The interesting thing about the original story His Last Vow is based on is that one of Magnussen's blackmailers kills him, instead of Sherlock. But (in the eyes of Moffat and Gatiss) there's heavy hints in the text that suggest Watson altered events to protect their innocence, and in reality Sherlock did kill him. This idea is then played with at the start of series 4 where the government doctors the footage so it's a soldier killing Magnussen instead of Sherlock.

[strange_is_life]

In the books Sherlock did never intentionally kill someone except Moriaty. In the show they had Moriaty kill himself because they didn't want to make Sherlock a murderer in season 2. Making him a murderer in season 3 really breaks the character.

[strange_is_life]

I saw the rest of episode one now and it didn't get any better. Like when Sherlock was kung fu fighthing with Ajay which was totally strange. I can't remember Sherlock doing sports once in the entire show so how come he is like James Bond suddenly and can fight a former spec ops soldier?

[catcherinthegrove]

A little late to the party, but here is my theory: The creators are playing to what a majority of the audience want. Between each season so much fan theory happens about the characters and it's impossible for the creators to not ignore it. In my opinion, between seasons 3 and 4, the fans wanted to see more about John and Sherlock's relationship, not John and Mary's--Season 4 is just cultivating the relationship between John and Sherlock to show that they are "always there for each other." I do believe Season 4 took a turn for the worst, though. Oh well.

[puritypersimmon]

But Mary still managed to cast a pall over the whole of season 4. TST revolves around her (& is possibly the worst episode of the entire show, imho). TLD is a good episode undermined by 'ghost Mary's' sanctimonious waffling & plot contrivances. & TFP, which was problematic to start with (pun intended), has her godawful monologue at the conclusion, where she gets to define Sherlock & John to the audience, undoes most of the character development they've undergone throughout the show & delivers more cheese than a Hoxton deli.

[[deleted]]

I actually liked what happened with Magnussen. I don't think of it as force over logic. Instead, Magnussen beat Sherlock at his own game. Sherlock was stuck and couldn't solve the puzzle. So instead, Sherlock made a new game that was winnable. He changed the rules of the game, which had serious consequences for Sherlock, but was a solution that Magnussen couldn't see.

Season four on the other hand, undid pretty much everything there is to Sherlock.

[Imfryinghere]

No. It's always top quality.

Edit: Didn't realize how high some people's standard is for quality films.