AuthenticM
Member
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.
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.