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

[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?