Yup, it's what fucked up the X-Files as well for a long time, i.e. Mulder and his constant dribble about his sister. Exactly the same issue, it got personal instead of the successful formula of interesting monster or alien etc that only Mulder believes in, Mulder saves the world, no evidence, no one believes Mulder. Simple and it worked very well week to week, then they changed it. Dickheads.
to me the whole Mary narrative ruined the show. It was OKAYISH when they revealed she had a double life in the past and blah blah blah but the whole "secret agent" drama from series 4 was EXCRUTIATINGLY BORING AND FAR FETCHED AND UNNECESSARY. it wasn't "sherlock" anymore, it turned into the mary show
I really liked series three (including TAB) and the second episode of series four. But I REALLY didn't enjoy the rest of series four, especially the final problem because I felt the whole Eurus story line was pretty ridiculous and incredibly over the top. It just didn't feel like a Sherlock episode, more like a strange Bond movie.
Amelie Spencer I agree about how it did not feel as a Sherlock episode. Though I did love the episode. It was different. I can always use a little bit of different. I do miss the old Sherlock though. I hope they do another series, but I want it to be more like the old. I still love series 4 though
Exactly my thoughts and my opinion. I loved Sherlock until tfp, found t6t already odd but thought that after tld would come a grande finale. Instead we got some kind of Bond/Horror movie mixture with plot holes and lame background stories.
I completely agree with you! I loved Sherlock before series 4 aired. I felt that the final problem was complete ridiculous and when I finally watched shutter Island it did feel like a bit of a rip of common spy film and horror film tropes. I also thought that the whole storyline (spoilers coming) with the dead childhood friend being replaced as a memory of a dog was ludicrous and if Henry Knights blocked childhood memory of Dr Frankland killing is father was supposed to be foreshadowing fell short. The whole thing in a study in pink where John had a sister instead of a brother as Sherlock believed initially was weak. If that is the pull the rug moment then I think they got it wrong and the ideas were not as good as they could have been and the lack of foreshadowing to make it a "rug pulling" moment spoiled it. I also did not like the characterisation of the characters as they felt off to me; and the lack of concern that Sherlock showed when John was about to drown in the well also felt weird when in the empty hearse he ran across to pull him out of a fire on bonfire night. This is why I'm pretending that series 4 does not exist.
Couldn't agree more, though I like the humour and it's always been part of the show. As someone who was a fan of the original stories long before Sherlock, I really loved the first two series. It was so clever and felt so close to the books. Then it got all action hero and James Bond, which is exactly why I never cared much for Ritchie's films. I love the fact that they introduced Mary to the stories, because so few adaptations ever do. But of course like everyone else, she had to get a bigger and badder and more sensational backstory... I'm surprised Molly didn't end up getting one, too! Personally, I guess I'll just ignore anything that happened after The Reichenbach Fall, and keep on enjoying the fantastic first two series.
I just pretend that everything post season 2 doesn't exist except for the fact that Sherlock will one day come back (albeit not with John punching him, because that was just a tad off.)
@@gremlininblue2601 The use of John's PTSD was just as much a Deus ex machina as Mycroft being the UK government and holding sway over the US CIA. If Sherlock needed some sympathy from the audience, then John's sporadic PTSD would appear. Why didn't John beat up Sherlock when Sherlock drugged him with a hallucinogen (at least Sherlock thought it was HIS drug) then locked him in lab, piping in terrifying sounds? That would have been the point where a true sufferer of PTSD would act out.
As for the show I was a huge fan until The Final Problem made me snap. For me every Sherlock adaptation gave me the comfort of knowing it was grounded in reality. It made me feel like Sherlock was real or even I could practise to become Sherlock. The fourth season especially threw that rule out the window and made it feel like a wierd poorly planned poorly written overemotional over the top fan fiction. With the Holmes family at the centre of the universe. I was mostly just heartbroken that my favourite show could go downhill so spectacularly :(
I personally didn't hate s3 but fully was on board with s4 being utter pandering trash. but your video actually make me see some key plothole in s3 as well . great one !
Awesome analysis. Also, that video of Moffat smugly explaining that "of course Moriarty is dead, he shot himself in the face!" just irks me to no end. He has no problem mocking his fan base for theorizing about bait HE PUT IN THE SHOW. What. A. Dick.
Yes, it was a case of saying: You're idiots for taking our hints that Moriarity is alive. Like having Sherlock obsess over Moriarity after his death, then laugh at people for falling for it.
I couldn’t agree more, you have very good points! I loved series one and two and grew suspicious after series 3 (the whole Magnusen plot + Mary shooting Sherlock and afterwards being best friends again). Series 4 left me completely bewildered. As you said, no real detective work anymore, terrible family drama thrown in (a baby, how cuuute!, A secret sister Sherlock forgot about- really?) and no witty dialogues, just cheap jokes on Sherlock’s expense. For me, also the friendship of Sherlock and John was an integral part of this show, but for me that’s over, too. Sherlock preferred working with Mary, because she was a trained assassin and therefore had better skills than John and after that John had to be stopped by a mass murderer not to kick to death his friend helplessly lying on the floor. No detective work, no clever Sherlock, no friendship - I think it’s better to quit!
I think there are two major problems: anticipation and doctor who. The first seasons were great, and the fans loved it. this was a problem, because the writers felt forced to top the previous episodes with larger and more complicated plots. The other problem was the writers - they were the same as the doctor who writers, so ended up combining the characters - Sherlock's genius and the doctors emotions and passion. The Magnessan arc could have worked, if he'd been emotionally detached from the story without the Mary involvement. Although I do think the sister plot could have gone somewhere, the stupid mind control idea and anticlimax ruined it for me.
I had the same problems, I could overlook it in Season 3, but Season 4 had the same problems AND there was so much bullshit going on, that I seriously hate the 4 Season. I dont know, if I want another Season, while back, I wished, that Scrubs would come back. Season 9 came......
I would love to watch NO MORE new Sherlock Episodes, because on Balance every Fanfiction is more convincing than Season 3 and Season 4 of Sherlock is. The Show got just a Queerbaiting, Horror, Bond Adaptation with a lot of Plot Holes. If Sir Arthur Conan Doyle would´nt be dead, he would have died simply by watching the new episodes after season 2. They´ve done enough damage, especially to the LGBTQ Community and the Fanfiction Authors, who spend hours and hours on writing mostly beautiful Artwork of the Series, and keeping the Faith to its Characters, while their Creators "Moftiss" dump it ignorant into a piece of shit. At the End of Season 4 Episode 3, Sherlock an John are more tourn apart as in the first six episodes.
My parents watch Sherlock but I don't really pay much attention to BBC dramas I don't really like Benedict Cumberbatch either (I know that seems almost illegal of me to say as a teenage girl, but I only watch Poldark to look at Poldark so I'm still normal); however my mum was complaining to me about these new episodes of Sherlock and she's mentioned how the confusing nature of the programme is spoiling her enjoyment of it as well as all the honest mistakes Sherlock keeps making in the programme. I've watched some episodes and what I see is that they've realised how big their Tumblr audience is and they want to play up to them with loads of weird stuff like "Look how quirky and artsy we are!" but it's just kind of disturbing. Anyway, sorry for the essay (could have used that time to do some AS Level art homework but there we go). Really enjoyed the video!
eh...no build-up or hints to the listening device being in John's cane (so the audience can't follow either Sherlock or John), the entire episode being devoid of John and Sherlock's classic banter that made the fans love them together in the first two seasons, corny villain hidden in plain sight tormenting and gaslighting Sherlock through his drug addiction instead of outsmarting him...certainly it's the best episode in that trainwreck that was series 4, but it probably looked like a "great" episode by comparison
Sherlock was solid, and it's okay if you find him attractive but it personally bothered me how rabid fans were about him. it's almost as if they were celebrating someone having a mental illness but since he's a detective and "cool" it's okay.
I liked S3. 4 however was bad through and through. From the first 5 minutes of S4 the tone was COMPLETELY off and Sherlock is an over the top goofball with Mycroft being his older brother going ''Oooh Sherlock. Plz behaaave''.. And then it goes into super human nonsense.. It's exactly what happened to the Pirates of the Caribbean series and the character of Jack Sparrow. The writers and the actors become way too aware of their characters and their quirks and so forth.. Trying too hard to please the fans, and forgetting what made it great from the beginning.
Interesting video and you make some very good points. But I was thinking throughout the video, that 3 years have passed between season 2 and season 3. We don't really know everything that happens in this time frame and so (in context to the story) certain things could've happened that lead to Sherlock behaving differently. I know it seems stupid (and I think so too) but honestly I think that that gap does leave a sense of mystery open to hypothesise about to whether something did or did not happen to cause Sherlock to think differently. That being said, I do agree with many points you made about series 3 and 4, as Sherlock became a more awkward action hero rather than the solving intensive social outcast. But even so I still really enjoyed the two series, despite the hate. Personally I believe the character development and focus on Sherlock and his friends was great, as it forced Sherlock in situations to try and detach himself from his friends in sake of the case or visa versa. I think the series would've been much greater and much more memorable if the writers still did the stories, but still greatly considered the attitude of Sherlock.
I feel like that time gap theory is just dedicated fans trying to excuse plain bad writing, it doesn't matter how clever Moffat was trying to be, the end product was out of character and just bad, even if off screen character development was something deliberate, what a waste! I'd much rather watch Sherlock undergo an actual development arc than a ten minute sequence of special effects and snazzy editing with no actual purpose
I, for one, do understand where you're coming from, and I agree: it is just simply bad writing. But many fans of many things will theorise about it to make up for something that's missing. Take the Mass Effect game series for example: the ending to the trilogy was terrible, and thus many fans of the game came up with theories of why it ended in that way. All I'm saying is that yes, it is bad writing, but a fan should always find a way past that and find a logical conclusion; just like Sherlock Holmes.
Half expected that Cumberpatch would have noticed how his character was keep going from inconsistency to a inconsistency... not one of the greatest actors afterall...
I totally agree with your comment on series 3 onwards being a reaction to the fans' reaction. It's like they lose confidence in just making a good show and every time they think of an idea, they have a voice that goes, "oh no if we do that then the fans will say this". They want Sherlock to appear clever and wow the audiences but they listen too much to the adoring fan voices and forget the general audience. It's like Gatiss and Moffat's own vanity prevents them from just sticking to their original concept - they worry that it's predictable and want to go to the audience "haha we're actually cleverer than you". Shame.
I like learning about this sorta stuff. Wanting to get into the film industry, knowledge of the many aspects spoken about is very helpful. I do agree with most of what was talked about, and although there was so much I enjoyed of season 3 and 4 of Sherlock. It didn't feel like old times. I do hope for another season, and I do hope it goes to old ways. Bringing some good old characters from the book wouldn't sound so bad either. That was the point of this show, what if Sherlock lived in the 21st century, right? Loved this video, mate. Praising it. :D
Dude, that scene at the end of the last series when they were running towards the camera in slow motion like batman and robin was so fucking cringe! What a spectacular fall from grace. The BBC has become shockingly bad in recent years, basically across the entire board.
Simply because Moffat is a hack writer. He is awful. First 2 series were based on actual Doyle stories then mr arrogant decides he can write his own. Doesnt even come close. Ruined Sherlock. Destroyed DrWho. Not Chibnall. Moffat set the shower of shit in motion on both shows and the rest is misery
Whilst I certainly agree with you on how it was seasons three and four of Sherlock where everything started to really go downhill, I've seen some pretty reasonable points about how the show made it quite clear it was going in that direction from the start in the form of the worse parts of seasons one and two. It's especially prominent if you compare the Sherlock pilot episode to the actual first episode. The pilot makes no reference to Moriarty at the end and Sherlock's brother isn't introduced halfway through in a tense dramatic sequence with no payoff, for example. And these issues arise, as they do in many of Moffat's shows, not only because of his inability to write powerful overarching plot lines, but also what appears to be an ego too large to stop himself from making some 'clever' overarching plot line. Moffat has incredible ideas, and when those ideas are confined to the space of a single isolated episode, his brilliance shines (look at the one-off episodes he wrote for Doctor Who, for instance). But when given full control over a show, he attempts to make the biggest thing since Ben Hurr, insists on including poorly written, unnecessary overarching plot lines (Eg. Moriarty's presence behind every crime in Season 1), as well as dramatic sequences or relationships between characters that ultimately have no pay off (Eg. John meeting Sherlock's brother, or the entirety of Season 4 - people literally thought it couldn't have ended as poorly as it did, and must have been some clever trick). If you really want evidence of Moffat's attempts at geniushood, look at how Sherlock solves some of the cases throughout all four seasons. He makes deductions and uses information that has not been provided to the audience to almost magically find the conclusion to several cases. The beauty of the old Sherlock stories and adaptations was that you had all the information you needed to solve the same cases Sherlock did, most of the time, so it was even more brilliant when Sherlock made his incredible deductions. The 'deductions' Sherlock makes in the BBC adaptation are a dumb person's idea of how a smart person reaches conclusions: essentially akin to magic. And if you want evidence of that, look at how much the show stresses that no matter how hard you tried, even your most reasonable theories could never explain how Sherlock faked his suicide. The show mocks you for even believing for a second that you had enough information to try to piece anything that happens on the show together, it's a travesty. I liked the start of Sherlock for the same reasons I think most people did: it was a clever modern take on Sherlock Holmes with nice stylistic choices that illustrated Sherlock's detective process, and interesting retellings of old mysteries. But Moffat did the same thing he did for Doctor Who, and derailed it by trying too hard to be 'clever'.
i understand what you mean,but i still like the 4th season. i also think sherlock can make misteaks to. And yes, i like the idea of a 5th season where he is more the detective.
AND SHERLOCK DOESN'T KILL!!!!!!!! He kills the only person (before season 4) who outwits him, Charles Augustus Magnussen. How cowardly is that! And he gets away with it. Also, I couldn't help but think, how could Magnussen and Moriarty not know each other? I mean one is the king of blackmail and the other is the king of crime.. they should have maybe shown that in the show..
The hallucinating Mary thing seems like it was plagiarized from Battlestar Galactica when Six and Baltar hallucinated companions that mocked them and forced them to confront inner truths about themselves. But that doesn't work with Sherlock seeing as how they kept using it as a sledgehammer when Battlestar used it as a chisel, at least in the beginning.
Season 3 wasn't as good as the previous, but it's * shrug emoji* still somehow fun. But season four...SEASON FOUR!!! ...it's just make me want to burn all the writers' mind palaces.
As an avid fan of Sherlock Holmes in any form, I was all set to sneer at this video in my snooty "This-is-not-a-true-Holmesian" way. But you do raise some very good points. I too want Sherlock back to his detective routes and the introduction of the mystery sister did not sit well with me. I liked seasons 3 and 4 well enough, but I want to see Sherlock solving crimes that do not revolve around his family, friends or fan-favourite nemesis(es) Yes, Moriarty, Adler, I'm looking at you. Doyle had so many wonderful stories the writers could draw on, and they are being wasted in throw-away lines and references. Writers, go back to Doyle, your inspiration, for Season 5. Show me an updated version of The Man with the Twisted Lip or The Adventure of the Abbey Grange. Please? The only point I must argue with is the giving Sherlock a girlfriend one. This DOES come straight from Doyle. In "The Adventure of Charles Augustus Milverton", Holmes pretends to be a plummer and goes so far as to become engaged to one of Milverton's housemaids so that he can gain nighttime access to Milverton's house.
In the batman arkham games, when you are investigating and reconstructing a crime scene it feels good because details are slowly unraveled and the character Batman will notice and describe things you couldn't as you solve it. Even though it's a video game and therefore limited, you are wowed by the reconstruction and it is important to the relevant plot. Now imagine you spent all that time constructing a scene bit-by-bit and Batman was entirely wrong. Batman would no longer be the world's greatest detective and would just feel like an awkward wannabe, trying to play expert. That's how that sequence feels here and it's just plain stupid.
Totally agree! just finished this series in 4 days and man was I mad at the end of it. Everything is pointed out in this video, but I have to point out I do like the humor and didn't mind it. I absolutely agree that they tried to fill in unnecessary scenes like Holmes being high. Great video! wish you could've pointed out the thing between sherlock and molly, that was very weird and rushed.
These failures and gaping plot holes signal that most or all of S4 takes place in something other than consensus reality. In other worlds, it's not fucking real. I (still) believe in Mofftiss.
I'm sure someone mentioned this, but the Terrorist MP in 3.01 is mentioned to be a longtime agent for North Korea and is being paid a fortune to blow up Parliament on their behalf. Doesn't change the fact that this show went downhill fast when Moffat let his style completely overrun it. He's a hack now and the worst show runner in modern British Television history. Although I agree with hbomberguy in that season 4 just made everyone realize that this show was not nearly as good as we all thought it was.
What a huge whiplash I felt when 3:22 hit and suddenly that REALLY QUALITY instrumental of We Are Number One played. I thought my phone had accidentally started playing music again that sent me for a trip, nice music choice
I think all first 3 seasons including TAB are great and innovative television. Really good. But I hated the last season with passion. Season 4 was a completely different show. Nothing made any sense. I couldn’t believe my eyes when I watched the final episode, it was like a bad parody of the show, like they didn’t even care anymore. I honestly laughed the entire way through at how bad it was! XD I thought it was a joke! Let’s hope they don’t revisit this show. It can sleep forever.
Some people liked the cold calculating machine that Sherlock is in the first two series, which hinted at someone very emotionally blocked. But I more appreciated the unravelling of his layers as he strives, realizing he is not a god, to climb those emotional barriers, and achieve integral growth. What people loved was his facade. There were hints that it was a subconscious facade all along. Especially when he had his panic attack in HoB. That hinted at him almost having a full on mental breakdown, that if he were to continue his behaviours, he'd destroy himself. TFP with it's many plot pitfalls still remains my favourite episode [I would have wanted a two episode arc to more properly unravel the plot and respect Eurus as a character, who I think fits the bill of being a psychopath]. To your analysis of the changes in stylization between the first two series and the second two being for stylization sake alone... in what world, fictional or reality, is using highly dangerous drugs to stimulate performance and evade boredom okay!!?? I don't care if such a habit if his was present in the original short stories set in a time where the public had access to opium cafes. It's a highly irresponsible message to send to many YA who revere Sherlock's character. Having the Sherlock stories adapted in modern day where addiction is still so very prevalent especially among YA was a perfect [and somewhat missed] opportunity for the show-runners to address that. It's not "cool" no matter how smart and useful you are to society and it destroys you. Those stylized sequences where Sherlock is practically losing his mind during his use of them speaks to me and I wish his damages sustained would have been more evident; he is not a god and has human limitations, regardless of the power of his Mind Palace; one bullet through Magneussen's face proved that for him. Also an irresponsible message to send to the audience is that Sherlock is actually a fully-fledged sociopath, or a "high-functioning sociopath.," as he likes to call himself. Which part of the series gave solid evidences of that? That he was cold and calculating and fascinated by mysteries involving corpses - such is Archie's fascination; is he a budding sociopath too? No! He's a little boy with a vibrant imagination and curiosity and helped Sherlock solve the mystery in TSoT when Sherlock was panicked giving the Best Man's speech and became more unnerved when he realized the murderer was in the same place as his most beloved people. He could not duke it out with him one on one as in TSiP. You can say that Molly's fascination is there too. A certain desensitization must exist for people to function in certain capacities as a coronary, ME and surgeon, would they be called sociopath too simply because they need to function in their capacities? For me, sociopathy is a moral defect, an emotional defect, not so much a mental one. A sociopath would not care much about other people's involvement or risk with him winning the game, and would not, like Sherlock, fake his own death to deviate attention of the villain or the empire he built from his loved ones, which might I add, happened at the end of series two. Why didn't people start hating the series from since then? Why weren't people so averse to accepting John as Sherlock's heart? I think Light Yagami from Death Note fits the bill of someone who became a sociopath, not caring whether his own father or sister died, not even batting an eyelid at the realization of their risk, but caring more about keeping his own cover all so he could continue being the 'death god' to rule over people as he saw fit. Put him against Sherlock and Light is like Mangeussen, yes, Magneussen to me is someone who became a sociopath; as sociopaths have severe moral defects - that they act on, without much remorse, and are only seen to be apologetic when their own risk is involved. I wanted more materials the creators purposely put into the show itself to negate the sociopathic theory rather than just giving an interview: saying Sherlock was just being witty when he said that, and that the character was actually portrayed to be on the autistic spectrum, and that's how Ben played it. Look the subtle yet important differences of his social adeptness / ineptness in the unaired verses aired pilot and you will see. I wanted them to explore why Donovan was so dead-set on Sherlock being a sociopath, and I wanted her and Sherlock's background explored more, rather than her and Anderson becoming a convenient plot device in suspecting him as a child abducter just because he saved the children primarily based on evidences of the captor's footprint. Due to this irresponsibility you got a whole bunch of YA self-diagnosing themselves as sociopaths because they relate so much to Sherlock's character when they could very well fall on the autistic spectrum instead, as evidenced by cases and YA admitting they've been to therapy scared that they had serial-killer tendencies, and the therapists saying fitting them to be screened if they fall on an autistic spectrum instead. Psychologists who review Sherlock's character [as one-dimensional as US audiences seems to like their characters served, sorry but not sorry] may not peg him as a fully-fledged sociopath. But what do I know? Have we been trained to be so accepting of what a character says, rather than what he does, to accept him for who he is? [Same ish happened with Dany in GoT, and I'm still not over it.]
Yes!! You deciphered my thoughts!!! I LOVED sherlock before s3, but after watching s3, something felt different and i didnt know what. And then after watching 4x01 I just dropped the show. I felt that Mary's death was stupid, just for shock value, drama and sherlock angst. Sherlock was never a show about the melodramatic, the direction they were taking for the show felt weird. And after knowing what the show turned into, I guess I was right, a secret super intelligent sister? WTF?!?!
I dont understand what the problem is behind Sherlock having a secret sister with super powers that traps everyone in a prison to perform tests to save a girl on a plane that turns out to never exist and was only imagined in the sisters mind as she grieves for the time she murdered Sherlocks 4th super-duper secret sibling that he remembers as Redbeard the family dog. You people are just reaching to hate the show at this point. Pathetic
THE NAIL ON THE HEAD!!!! Just found you man, and 'boy' are you voicing things that have been bouncing around in my head, since series 3 started...3 and 4 utter utter fu**ing Shiiiiiite!!!
two years later and i genuinely think they really should have a series 5, just to recover from the last. even the actors know the writers were playing to the fans and understand the backlash. i get if they don’t want to because it might be difficult to get back in the right track but a GOOD conclusion is something we all want.
actually the girlfriend one was taken almost one by one out of an actual adventure from the original books. Since in the actual book there was a safe with all the information in it and Sherlock proposes to one of the maids to get into the house to eventually face an anticlimax ending to the short story.
"He's just an action hero now, he was more of an actual detective in the first six episodes..." In episode 2 of the first season, he gets into several fights with NINJAS. "He wouldn't make mistakes like that in the first six episodes..." He took an embarrassingly long time to figure out that the taxi driver was the killer in the very first episode. A lot of people saw it coming. He also didn't pick up anything fishy the first time he "met" Moriarty when he was posing as Molly's boyfriend. A lot of the things you claim to dislike about later seasons of the Sherlock were already there from the beginning. I love all the seasons of Sherlock and I don't see why people act like they're so different.
I got the first two seasons on dvd and wasn't too blown away. I mean the stylized elements were in just about every cable show around at the time like Fringe and its cgi captions built into the scenes. And of course the patented JJ Abrams blinding lens flares. The show came along in 2010 and by that time PSYCH another series about a hyper observant modern hip sleuth and his sidekick was already in its fifth season. When I saw it I thought, "Oh, a British Psych, okay." The Shawn character of that series already had cliffhangers where he went head to head with the brilliant insane sister of an arch enemy and their plots were already beginning to wane. My reaction to it was about same as with the medical series "House". The first two seasons were outstanding but by the third it seems someone got a hold of it and because it had become so popular they over amped everything and it seemed the actors were portraying caricatures of their own characters and I lost interest. And the producers of that show dragged the series on for ten seasons.
Holmes actually did convince a girl to become engaged to marry him to get into an office in the original story "The Adventure of Charles Augustus Milverton" by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle published in 1904. That was an integral part of the story they were adapting in that episode so there really isn't anything to complain about there.
I feel that your point regarding Sherlock's humour and personality was unfair. I appreciated that they were trying to do new things with his character instead of keeping as the blunt witty dickhead he was in the first two seasons, shows need character progression.
I think the problem is that series 3 and 4 turned the show into a character drama. Instead of being about mysteries, the show was now about Sherlock and his personal life. It's not bad, but it's not what people wanted to watch.
I get that. And I am genuinely interested in Sherlock Holmes as a person. That's why I over all enjoyed series 4, because it contained some amazing character stuff for Sherlock and John. Heck, as much as it's hated, I kind of stand by The Final Problem as a good last episode, as it wraps up Sherlock's character arc. The problem is the plot's. The mysteries. At it's heart, Sherlock Holmes needs to be about Holmes and Watson solving mysteries. Without that, the show became aimless. It lost it's core.
Completely agree. The thing I loved from the first season is that Sherlock was someone that could exist in our world but after all the stuff with Mary being a mercenary, Moriarty being everywhere and the crazy super intelligent sister made the show very (or even more) unrealistic so I just couldn't take it seriously.
That pretty much sums up his legacy in Doctor Who for me. He wrote my two favorite Episodes (Midnight and Blink) and came up with some other great stuff like The Empty Child, but now he just doesn't seem to know what he's doing.
Sorry to be pedantic, it was RTD who wrote 'Midnight'. But you're right, he can only write decent material when he's not put in charge of a whole show.
***** Oh, you're correct. Now that you mention it, the episode does include a lot of the typical Davies tropes. Still, it's my favorite episode of the rebooted series.
+JJ H As if, Heaven Sent, Study in Pink, A Good Man goes to War, Vincent and the Doctor, Listen, Time of the Angels, Big Bang, etc, etc, aren't all fantastic.
This is so spot on. It covers the points I already knew and the ones I've been really struggling to place. In terms of another season? It would be such a shame to leave it on such rubbish episodes so maybe just one more to leave it on a high.
I really enjoyed season 4 episode 2, maybe because I liked the villain. Season 4 episode 3 made me want to pull my hair out. LIKE SERIOUSLY A HIDDEN SISTER WTF THAT IS RIDICULOUS WHAT IS THIS A CHILDREN'S CARTOON ... sorry I should calm down
Apple Smith the worst part is that they had to make her all over-powered like a terrible deviantart oc. They've been foreshadowing a secret sibling throughout the show so I actually kinda guessed that they'd confirm a secret sibling. And when I heard the word "Sherrinford" I freaked thought they'd reveal a secret brother(which is what I thought they'd confirm). I wish they'd just...not have a secret sibling at all though...
You think that's bad? At around season one (I think) Moffat said publicly that they should not invest in Sherlock's backstory, because that is a bad thing to do. Similar to the doctor, the less we know the better. And then in season four, he really explored Sherlock's backstory.
The mysteries stopped mattering. The cases that would be more in the spirit of classic Sherlock Holmes are reduced to montages. The clues are not something that the audience would look back on and say "how could I have missed that" because there's no grounded logic behind them (aside from the initial Eurus reveal in episode 2, which was subtle and really got me). The whole redbeard debacle being the worst culprit...
I had to stop Dexter 3 episodes into season 7, I do know what happens at the very end though. Dexter becomes a lumberjack and stops killing people? nope. Honestly, the show should've ended at season four - maybe with Sherlock too, they should've ended at S3, though i did like season four, some of it was a bit ehh.
coopseee i actually liked s1 >>> s6 of Dexter. S7 i couldn't get through - i didn't like hannah at all. S3 was boring, too - in my opinion, we should've had: s1, s2, s6 (replace that whole season with 3rd) and s4 and make Dexter end of there with Rita dead.
The ending was supposed to represent the end of Dexter's character arc, Trough out his whole life he believed he was something he wasn't Harry taught him to keep thinking that hes a monster that can't be repaired, The love interest is representing his human side, It shows he still has human emotions and is capable of becoming "human", The end fully compliments this by giving him solitude and a job, The whole reason he is alone is because he wants to be alone with his thoughts.
I agree wholeheartedly with your video with one exception, which is really quite minor. You complained about Sherlock getting a girlfriend to break into Milverton's building, but that is actually what Sherlock does in the Conan Doyle story that the episode was based off of. I hated that episode more than any other episode, because John is right--you can't prove anything without physical evidence--but Sherlock really does go to that length to get into the building. Otherwise, spot on video.
It's worth a mention that A.C.Doyle's later stories (the ones after the waterfall!) were written upon pressure of the fans, and probably for profit alone and became a bit ridiculous. My favourite S.H story doesn't include him much, that's the Valley of Fear of course. For those who haven't read it, certain things are hinted about an almost blatently named secret fraternity.
Sherlock just became really emotional, ridiculous and... giggly. It's fine that he cares about John and would do a lot for him, but that doesn't mean he has to change his entire personality. I feel like their trying to normalize him in some ways. And, while he relies on John, he's not entirely dependant on him either, like they seem to depict him sometimes. They just made all of them extremely overdramatic.
We are told Sherlock cares about John and relies on him but we never see him actually relying on John for a case. Sherlock does everything on his own and he doesn't even have the decency to respect John,the man he supposedly cares about. This is why I hate their dynamic in the show.
Gee willickers, Mean Meme! Not only are you rilly rilly *mean*, but you're also cool, and also a little dangerous too, I bet! Do you also smoke cigarettes and carry a comb that looks like a flick-knife?
one of the things that still bugs me is the plot line where john cheats on mary…it’s so incredibly out of character and for all intents and purposes: utterly pointless
Sherlock made the mistake that most TV adaptations make - it went off book. For the first couple of series the episodes were updated, expanded and stylised but they kept true to the essence of the original stories they were drawn from. It still felt very much like the ACD Holmes and Watson that the creators of the show claim to love so much. Then we hit series 3 and for whatever reason (TPTB drunk on their own success and determined to put their stamp on the endless parade of Holmes adaptations probably) they stopped re-imagining and started telling their own stories. And that doesn't work. That NEVER works. What no TV writer ever seems to realise is that yes, they've found a winning formula, but that formula is so completely grounded in the source material and if you take that away your robbing your work of the foundation that it was built on. Surprise surprise, once that's done everything soon crumbles (and no, over-stylising your stories to the point where the basic plot is lost amid symbolism and metaphor and flashy cinematography won't actually help with that *coughMOFFATcough*). That being said, even when a show has lost it's way completely you can usually still see the vision that the creators had, it's obvious what their aim was, even if they fell miles short... but here? I would actually pay anyone to give me a plausible theory as to what on Earth Moffat and Gatiss were trying to do with series 4.
The problem with going off book is that these hack writers couldn't write a story of Sherlock Holmes' original books caliber to save their hides. Also still pretty pissed off they destroyed Irene's character and just turned her into a needy Sherlock fangirl instead of the intelligent, independent woman that she was in the original books. That a book published in 1891 has a better female character than a series from the 2010s is fucking insulting.
When you start a story from scratch you do a hell of a lot of behind the scenes work to give the world you're writing depth and realism - things like character backstory, character motivations, world building, how established relationships got started, etc.etc. (90% will never make it into the text but the fact that the author knows it will influence all their narrative choices and make the story all the more fleshed out). Now when you come to adapt a pre-existing story all this work has already been done for you by the source material, all you have to do is twist bits and add bits and put you're own spin on it. The background you put in is so much shallower but that's alright because you're building on top of the original author's foundations. If writers were prepared to stick it out like this then there wouldn't be a problem but inevitably people like Moffat and Gatiss get ahead of themselves and decide they don't need to play by the original's rules any more: they move away from the script they've been working off and only take THEIR interpretations with them. And that's when it all collapses. Because they haven't done any of the hard work, they haven't built a solid foundation for their work to stand on, all they have are their surface changes so suddenly the world they're writing is two-dimensional and topples under scrutiny. (It's kind like building a house. You move into something that's already been built and you redecorate and hey, this is actually better than it was before! So you think, hey, what if the house was actually half a mile down the road and buoyed by your previous success you uproot and move the house. But you've never built foundations before, you don't know how, all you know is cosmetic changes. Surprise surprise, your house falls down.)
I remember watching an interview with the Sherlock team a few years back and Moffat said that he'd always been confused by SiB because "[Irene] just runs away! That's not a feminist victory!" showing very succinctly that he has zero understanding of feminism (shocker) or indeed that story. People always leap to that episode's defence with "yes but she still won, it was an EMOTIONAL victory" as if that isn't the single most worn out and heteronormative male-female relationship cliche in cinema history.
Mate, your video just redpilled me on how many problems the later series had that I just overlooked. (This comment might end up being really long but this video was really good man, great job) The fan service, the obsession with keeping Moriarty involved... despite not really being involved? I remember when Sherlock shot Magneson I thought "What on earth did he just do? This is so out of place!" Magneson could have made a brilliant ongoing villain to replace Moriarty, would have been well happy with that. I don't think I entirely agree about your point of misdirection of drama. The show was still thoroughly entertaining to me, (with the exception of season 4's opening, my god if I could hate a sherlock episode, it would be that one) but perhaps that was why I was able to just ignore all these problems you've presented. You made a very convincing argument about over-stylization, the bit with Sherlock's revival is very fan-baity, I mean why would they kill off the titular character? It's too likely he'll survive, it's like it shouldn't have happened and they could have had a stand off of some kind. Nah, let's just shoot him to make this whole thing awkward. And he forgives her pretty quickly too mind you! To answer your question, I'm happy where it ended, no need for season 5. Nobody else could write it as well as the pair did and it's not like Moffat has Doctor who to write as well. That man needs a long long break, get some inspiration and go back to being a guest writer on who again.
Harry's Moving Castle Hey thanks so much for commenting, love your videos and always wanted to hear your opinion on this. Follow me on twitter, would be great to talk!
i remember watching the Magneson episode, and before SH took out the gun, i knew Magneson was a dead guy. He was playing chess and he backed up SH into a corner. the only way out seemed obvious for me, and i knew Watson had his trusty revolver, and lets not forget SH is a high functioning sociopath that has seen every murder possible.
I don't know what kind of idiocy led the creators to think their direction in series 4 was a good idea but up until then, I really liked the show because to me at least, it felt like it had a purpose - a longer narrative arc they already hinted at in the very first episode. Sherlock to me has always been a story about a detective and not a detective story. The cases were always secondary to me because most of the time, it wasn't the cases that truly mattered. It was how Sherlock was affected by them. Up until through series 1-3 + TAB the story was always about Sherlock figuring out how to not only be a great man, but also a good one. I felt like that arc reached its climax in HLV where Sherlock sacrifices everything - his work, his reputation, his life, his legacy, everything - in order to ensure that John gets happy future. While he did something similar in TRF, he always had a backup plan. He didn't in HLV. He made the ultimate self-sacrifice for the person he loved the most (his words not mine) and that to me was a truly satisfying arc. In addition to that, TAB felt like a man finally learning that he needs to be saved and in order to do that, he needs to let his loved ones help. Sherlock dreams of being rescued by John in the waterfall sequence and that is very telling. He has learnt to be a good man, and now he has learnt what it takes to save himself - he needs to finally let John in. He didn't let John in when formulating a plan in TRF, he didn't inform John that he was going to shoot CAM but in TAB he finally realises that in order to defeat his multitude of inner demons (all personified by Moriarty) he needs John's help. To me, this felt like such a satisfying arc and I thought they'd continue with it in S4. But then when S4 actually came, we get more focus on Mary (a character I really couldn't give a damn about) and a John who physically abuses a highly vulnerable Sherlock. The creators took a beautiful friendship and made it toxic. Does John save Sherlock from his inner demons? I don't know. Has John been the making of Sherlock or has he made Sherlock worse than ever? Again I'm uncertain. I also hate S4 for making Sherlock a victim of abuse. Sherlock gets shot in HLV and instead of Mary having to face the consequences for her actions, she is welcomed into the gang again as if nothing happened. (And no, that self-sacrifice of hers doesn't make things even - none of them would even be in that position if it wasn't for her atrocious past anyway). Sherlock is beaten to pulp by John but John is forgiven by everybody including Sherlock who dismisses it all as merely a flawed but human reaction. The whole Eurus thing happens and Sherlock just forgives her despite the fact that she is worse than most of the criminals he spent so much time catching. But I think the worst of all is that no action had a consequence. They were all there for the sheer shock factor. Sherlock kills CAM - it's brushed aside. Mary nearly murders Sherlock - it's surgery and apparently she has had a complete personality change now and is somehow more useful than John at crime solving. John beats up Sherlock - is forgiven and the whole incident is swept aside. John gets shot by his therapist in a scene that cuts to a blood red backdrop - whoops no that was just a tranquilizer shot. Sherlock and John need to jump out of a building because 221b is exploding - are completely safe without a scratch despite the fact that there was no big inflatable mattress or something to ensure their safety as they fell. Eurus...does whatever the hell she did in TFP - she's in pretty much the same condition as before but now she's mute. Mary keeps sending dvds from the dead - uh who even knows at this point what they intended to do with that? There are so many things that went wrong in S4 but I think the reason I hate it the most is because it alters my perception of the rest of the show. I used to think the show was superb but if this was their plan along - to create a toxic relationship between Holmes and Watson, to give Sherlock a crazy mind-controlling psycho genius sister, to have an assassin whose role was to basically cause a few rug pull moments and then die so the plot can move forward, to give said assassin the last say in the legacy of Holmes and Watson by having her claim that who they are as people doesn't matter and that she knows them best (despite her opinion of them constantly being proven wrong at every point in S4), to reduce a beloved and important villain into a crazy guy who will apparently make reaction GIFs for you if you do a weird dance with him (seriously wtf was that random head bobbing thing between Eurus and Moriarty???) - if this was their intention all along then damn this show really did lose its way.
JellyLovesFaith agreed Basically, season 4 wasn't just bad, it made the entire show so far feel meaningless. I hope I can rewatch the first two seasons some day, but at the moment that would still feel terrible because of s4
You got to the heart of the matter and I completely agree. "The reason I hate it the most is because it alters my perception of the rest of the show." When they made the Holmes/Watson friendship toxic, they ruined one of the most beloved elements in the ACD stories. And the whole 'Mary' thing marginalized Watson in a way that threw everything off.
I think Moffat got too carried away with "Doctor who" evil secret sister and hallucinations of a passed wife os something that would totally work there, but not in "Sherlock"
I had never been so mad over a show I loved. I can´t even rewatch the thing because it feels like a huge slap in the face. i was rooting for you, we were all rooting for you!
Honestly I think Moffatt is a lazy writer. He just reuses old tropes over and over, and even uses his same stories many times over. He ruined Doctor Who for me by continuously forgetting and dropping plot points, and using cheap cliff hangers. I know Doctor Who is meant to be cheesy, but he reaaaally took it to the extreme. I think they should just give it up, but they'll probably run Sherlock into the ground.
Rei Moffatt a lazy writer?r u flipping kidding me??!!seriously r u kidding me,honestly?Dr Who is 4 another time,but seriously ur having a go at the past few episodes of English Sherlock!Rei hve u read the books or watched the American version where Dr Watson is a woman?writers hve had 2 take Sherlock in2 our generation&i think they hve done really great😘British Benedict&Martin r amazing BUT also American Robbery Downy jr&(Brit)Jude Law were AMAZING.send me a friend reqst xxxx
Yep, Moffat is a lazy writer, he copy himself his own plots and ideas! There are several ideas, plots, dialogues, resources and scenes which are practically identical between Sherlock and Dr Who... and this is very frustraing when you watch a tv programme. This shows a lack of originality... Sherlock was brilliant in Series 1 and 2... but Series 4 bothers me a lot. Thanks for this video, it is reassuring that there are fans that love the beginning Sherlock but hates specially series 4.
Zaira Gómez yeah, like in doctor who, the episode where the doctor goes to France - girl in the fireplace I think its called. Exactly the same as "the girl who waits", with Amy pond. he cannot write women for shit, which is weird cause how is it that different? All his female characters are the same. Spunky "independant" women who, in the end, always need saving.
Yea its not coming back. Freeman and Cumberbatch are too big now that this show launched them into stardom and after the disaster that was series 4, I doubt anyone would want to be involved again. Incredibly unfortunate since this has got to be one of the greatest shows of all time disregarding series 4.
Why are there so many dislikes? I honestly believe this is the most reasonable, objective analysis of what exactly caused Sherlock's downfall over the last two seasons.
I believe hbomberguy's analysis "Sherlock Is Garbage, And Here's Why" is even better, but it's also much much longer so I'm glad NitPix made a video short enough to watch for more people and reasonable enough to convince them.
It's called belief perseverance (or persistence). Some people exhibit an irrational clinging to their initial believes when new evidence contradicts their initial belief. Have you read the 10/10 reviews on this season? The 4th series is "the best television of all time!", the "best episode of Sherlock of all time", they were constantly on the edge of their seats (as if the show would kill off Sherlock). Of course some are just committed Cumber-bunnies.
I agree with all your comments. I was in love with the show the first two seasons and was unbelievable disappointed and confused in the last one. They made the show a parody and for some reason also just made Sherlock into a druggie. I always know it's a death of a show when they introduce a baby, so after John and Mary's wedding I knew the end was near. I'm quite disappointed. I would be fine if they didn't bring it back because they ruined it.
Excellent video, been trying to understand exactly what felt wrong with s3&4 and you have summarized it pretty well, made excellent points and analysis.
British Bambi I was discussing this with my family and couldn't point out what bothered me about the last 2 season so much. I can now show them this video...:)
Wow I was going to make a video on this topic but you meet me to it! Completely agree, I think Moffat's problem is that he wants to see these fan pleasing set pieces designed to impress play out but hasn't thought about how to work them organically into the story, they don't add anything other than fan service. That's why a lot of his writing feels aimless, structureless and lacking in focus. Plus I hate how there are no consequences for any of the characters, they go through these trials and tribulations but at the end it's happy go lucky, everyone gets a happy ending. Tone is probably his biggest issue as you rightly pointed out. Nice video, well thought out!
On the subject of no consequences, how about Moffat's comments about how Molly dealt with her treatment in TFP. "She probably went out and shagged someone and got over it." I mean, putting aside how unsatisfying it is for the viewer to not see any kind of fallout from such an emotional scene, that attitude he has is fucking disgusting.
This has always been a problem since the first season. I think, or they do not want to waste time with 'explanations' (after all, it's only 3 episodes and every two years !!) or it's the English thing, I've heard that the English are not very 'sentimental'. I can not deny that I was relieved that there is no Sherlolly, but even I thought she deserved better.
My gripe with the show is it seems to hate mysteries and just wants to be an action show revolving around Sherlock who just knows everything without using any deductive reasoning with Dr. Moriarty as a recurring borderline Saturday cartoon villain.
Sherlock was never a good show, it was obsessed with the title chacacter and the mysteries were never good. It's the flashy direction, witty dialogue and quircly charcacters distracted form this for a while.
Moffat's "how would we even bring Moriarty back" comments frustrate the hell out of me since like,,, they never explained how sherlock actually survived so,,, why not just bring him back and not fully explain? how Sherlock did it seemed o matter so little
No Season 5, please. Let it die. It took a strange and mean-spirited turn after the original, one-hour pilot and quickly became a cult vehicle for the two central actors. Just sad, all the way round when it could have been good with different writers who respected Doyle's creation and wanted to honour it. Jonny Lee Miller's Holmes in 'Elementary' may not have Cumberbatch's charisma (so called) but the stories are superior, smart and 21-st century based. Miller's Holmes is eccentric, brilliant and doesn't suffer fools but he's not vicious as we see the BBC version be. We see Miller's Holmes thinking, working it out and sometimes getting it wrong. Over the arc of 'Elementary's' six seasons there has been subtle and believable character growth as well as well-written and delivered deductions and plausible mysteries. If you like Holmes and not just Cumberbatch-as-Holmes, give yourself the treat of seeing the true 21-st century version of Doyle's genius.
Ho, but now you hit my heart because what kills Elementary for me is just the main duo !!! All right Miller, but Lucy Liu? Nothing against it, Liu is cool, but what can I do if I like more of a Dr. Watson who is a man, blond and small? Hell, I wish Sherlock had the number of episodes and seasons Elementary has.
Yes, Season 4 sucked. I think what made the show start heading downhill was #1 KILLING OFF MORIARTY! Biggest mistake on Moffat's behalf. Everyone loved his character so much. And 2) bringing Mary Watson into the picture. I wouldn't have minded her being John's wife but the entirety of S3 and mostly S4 she was the main focus. Her past, her being an ex-mercenary, etc. And it was getting very annoying. Especially her post-mortem videos for Sherlock or John. This completely shifted the focus away from Sherlock.
You don't know shit about Sherlock. Your content is garbage, mine is much better.
﴾͡๏̯͡๏﴿ O'RLY?
(;´༎ຶД༎ຶ`) Muh Feeliins.....
DikPix i see what you did there...and fuck you
I wonder how many people don't realize that this is his second channel
Strangerpanic21 I know right it’s fucked up
That sister is the worst ever plothole written for TV.
Its like Moffat had a really bad fever dream and thought: Might as well go with that, fuck it.
Yup, it's what fucked up the X-Files as well for a long time, i.e. Mulder and his constant dribble about his sister.
Exactly the same issue, it got personal instead of the successful formula of interesting monster or alien etc that only Mulder believes in, Mulder saves the world, no evidence, no one believes Mulder. Simple and it worked very well week to week, then they changed it. Dickheads.
I don't know anything about this supposed sister, because this show is boring, and there are interesting shows to watch and books to read
what do you thiink - just watch on youtube - All Evidence that S4 is Mind Palace || SUPERCUT
The super secret old best friend who Sherlock remembers as a fucking dog is worse.
to me the whole Mary narrative ruined the show. It was OKAYISH when they revealed she had a double life in the past and blah blah blah but the whole "secret agent" drama from series 4 was EXCRUTIATINGLY BORING AND FAR FETCHED AND UNNECESSARY. it wasn't "sherlock" anymore, it turned into the mary show
"It turned into the Mary show" THANK YOU
WELL SAID
what do you thiink - just watch on youtube - All Evidence that S4 is Mind Palace || SUPERCUT
I really liked series three (including TAB) and the second episode of series four. But I REALLY didn't enjoy the rest of series four, especially the final problem because I felt the whole Eurus story line was pretty ridiculous and incredibly over the top. It just didn't feel like a Sherlock episode, more like a strange Bond movie.
Amelie Spencer I agree about how it did not feel as a Sherlock episode. Though I did love the episode. It was different. I can always use a little bit of different. I do miss the old Sherlock though. I hope they do another series, but I want it to be more like the old. I still love series 4 though
Exactly my thoughts and my opinion. I loved Sherlock until tfp, found t6t already odd but thought that after tld would come a grande finale. Instead we got some kind of Bond/Horror movie mixture with plot holes and lame background stories.
I completely agree with you! I loved Sherlock before series 4 aired. I felt that the final problem was complete ridiculous and when I finally watched shutter Island it did feel like a bit of a rip of common spy film and horror film tropes. I also thought that the whole storyline (spoilers coming) with the dead childhood friend being replaced as a memory of a dog was ludicrous and if Henry Knights blocked childhood memory of Dr Frankland killing is father was supposed to be foreshadowing fell short. The whole thing in a study in pink where John had a sister instead of a brother as Sherlock believed initially was weak. If that is the pull the rug moment then I think they got it wrong and the ideas were not as good as they could have been and the lack of foreshadowing to make it a "rug pulling" moment spoiled it. I also did not like the characterisation of the characters as they felt off to me; and the lack of concern that Sherlock showed when John was about to drown in the well also felt weird when in the empty hearse he ran across to pull him out of a fire on bonfire night. This is why I'm pretending that series 4 does not exist.
Amelie Spencer SAME
Amelie Spencer amen, brotherman. Season four sucked.
Couldn't agree more, though I like the humour and it's always been part of the show. As someone who was a fan of the original stories long before Sherlock, I really loved the first two series. It was so clever and felt so close to the books. Then it got all action hero and James Bond, which is exactly why I never cared much for Ritchie's films. I love the fact that they introduced Mary to the stories, because so few adaptations ever do. But of course like everyone else, she had to get a bigger and badder and more sensational backstory... I'm surprised Molly didn't end up getting one, too! Personally, I guess I'll just ignore anything that happened after The Reichenbach Fall, and keep on enjoying the fantastic first two series.
I just pretend that everything post season 2 doesn't exist except for the fact that Sherlock will one day come back (albeit not with John punching him, because that was just a tad off.)
@@gremlininblue2601 The use of John's PTSD was just as much a Deus ex machina as Mycroft being the UK government and holding sway over the US CIA. If Sherlock needed some sympathy from the audience, then John's sporadic PTSD would appear. Why didn't John beat up Sherlock when Sherlock drugged him with a hallucinogen (at least Sherlock thought it was HIS drug) then locked him in lab, piping in terrifying sounds? That would have been the point where a true sufferer of PTSD would act out.
As for the show I was a huge fan until The Final Problem made me snap. For me every Sherlock adaptation gave me the comfort of knowing it was grounded in reality. It made me feel like Sherlock was real or even I could practise to become Sherlock. The fourth season especially threw that rule out the window and made it feel like a wierd poorly planned poorly written overemotional over the top fan fiction. With the Holmes family at the centre of the universe. I was mostly just heartbroken that my favourite show could go downhill so spectacularly :(
Doctor Shlock and the Curse of the Vanishing Detective Show.
Sounds British
I personally didn't hate s3 but fully was on board with s4 being utter pandering trash. but your video actually make me see some key plothole in s3 as well . great one !
Awesome analysis. Also, that video of Moffat smugly explaining that "of course Moriarty is dead, he shot himself in the face!" just irks me to no end. He has no problem mocking his fan base for theorizing about bait HE PUT IN THE SHOW. What. A. Dick.
Yes, it was a case of saying: You're idiots for taking our hints that Moriarity is alive. Like having Sherlock obsess over Moriarity after his death, then laugh at people for falling for it.
I couldn’t agree more, you have very good points!
I loved series one and two and grew suspicious after series 3 (the whole Magnusen plot + Mary shooting Sherlock and afterwards being best friends again). Series 4 left me completely bewildered.
As you said, no real detective work anymore, terrible family drama thrown in (a baby, how cuuute!, A secret sister Sherlock forgot about- really?) and no witty dialogues, just cheap
jokes on Sherlock’s expense. For me, also the friendship of Sherlock and John
was an integral part of this show, but for me that’s over, too. Sherlock preferred
working with Mary, because she was a trained assassin and therefore had better
skills than John and after that John had to be stopped by a mass murderer not
to kick to death his friend helplessly lying on the floor. No detective work, no clever
Sherlock, no friendship - I think it’s better to quit!
I think there are two major problems: anticipation and doctor who. The first seasons were great, and the fans loved it. this was a problem, because the writers felt forced to top the previous episodes with larger and more complicated plots. The other problem was the writers - they were the same as the doctor who writers, so ended up combining the characters - Sherlock's genius and the doctors emotions and passion. The Magnessan arc could have worked, if he'd been emotionally detached from the story without the Mary involvement. Although I do think the sister plot could have gone somewhere, the stupid mind control idea and anticlimax ruined it for me.
I liked the him as a villain as well he was smart but not like morarity(i may have spleed that wrong but its late)
Sherlock's mystery evil sister was a trainwreck idea. I'm sick just thinking about the writers coming up with this idea.
I had the same problems, I could overlook it in Season 3, but Season 4 had the same problems AND there was so much bullshit going on, that I seriously hate the 4 Season.
I dont know, if I want another Season, while back, I wished, that Scrubs would come back.
Season 9 came......
I would love to watch NO MORE new Sherlock Episodes, because on Balance every Fanfiction is more convincing than Season 3 and Season 4 of Sherlock is. The Show got just a Queerbaiting, Horror, Bond Adaptation with a lot of Plot Holes. If Sir Arthur Conan Doyle would´nt be dead, he would have died simply by watching the new episodes after season 2. They´ve done enough damage, especially to the LGBTQ Community and the Fanfiction Authors, who spend hours and hours on writing mostly beautiful Artwork of the Series, and keeping the Faith to its Characters, while their Creators "Moftiss" dump it ignorant into a piece of shit. At the End of Season 4 Episode 3, Sherlock an John are more tourn apart as in the first six episodes.
Russian Sherlock homes is best Sherlock Homes.
Sherlok Homes i Doktor Watson.
*communist anthem plays*
My parents watch Sherlock but I don't really pay much attention to BBC dramas I don't really like Benedict Cumberbatch either (I know that seems almost illegal of me to say as a teenage girl, but I only watch Poldark to look at Poldark so I'm still normal); however my mum was complaining to me about these new episodes of Sherlock and she's mentioned how the confusing nature of the programme is spoiling her enjoyment of it as well as all the honest mistakes Sherlock keeps making in the programme.
I've watched some episodes and what I see is that they've realised how big their Tumblr audience is and they want to play up to them with loads of weird stuff like "Look how quirky and artsy we are!" but it's just kind of disturbing.
Anyway, sorry for the essay (could have used that time to do some AS Level art homework but there we go). Really enjoyed the video!
But the lying detective was a fucking great episode.
Chaz Hinkley I think the best episode the show has ever produced.
Agree!!
The episode where Watson believing some dude who barely knows and blames Sherlock for killing his wife for no freaking reason?
No.
It really was
eh...no build-up or hints to the listening device being in John's cane (so the audience can't follow either Sherlock or John), the entire episode being devoid of John and Sherlock's classic banter that made the fans love them together in the first two seasons, corny villain hidden in plain sight tormenting and gaslighting Sherlock through his drug addiction instead of outsmarting him...certainly it's the best episode in that trainwreck that was series 4, but it probably looked like a "great" episode by comparison
Sherlock was solid, and it's okay if you find him attractive but it personally bothered me how rabid fans were about him. it's almost as if they were celebrating someone having a mental illness but since he's a detective and "cool" it's okay.
I liked S3. 4 however was bad through and through.
From the first 5 minutes of S4 the tone was COMPLETELY off and Sherlock is an over the top goofball with Mycroft being his older brother going ''Oooh Sherlock. Plz behaaave''.. And then it goes into super human nonsense..
It's exactly what happened to the Pirates of the Caribbean series and the character of Jack Sparrow. The writers and the actors become way too aware of their characters and their quirks and so forth.. Trying too hard to please the fans, and forgetting what made it great from the beginning.
Interesting video and you make some very good points. But I was thinking throughout the video, that 3 years have passed between season 2 and season 3. We don't really know everything that happens in this time frame and so (in context to the story) certain things could've happened that lead to Sherlock behaving differently.
I know it seems stupid (and I think so too) but honestly I think that that gap does leave a sense of mystery open to hypothesise about to whether something did or did not happen to cause Sherlock to think differently.
That being said, I do agree with many points you made about series 3 and 4, as Sherlock became a more awkward action hero rather than the solving intensive social outcast. But even so I still really enjoyed the two series, despite the hate.
Personally I believe the character development and focus on Sherlock and his friends was great, as it forced Sherlock in situations to try and detach himself from his friends in sake of the case or visa versa. I think the series would've been much greater and much more memorable if the writers still did the stories, but still greatly considered the attitude of Sherlock.
CaptainRy I'm surprised this comment doesn't have more likes
I feel like that time gap theory is just dedicated fans trying to excuse plain bad writing, it doesn't matter how clever Moffat was trying to be, the end product was out of character and just bad, even if off screen character development was something deliberate, what a waste! I'd much rather watch Sherlock undergo an actual development arc than a ten minute sequence of special effects and snazzy editing with no actual purpose
I, for one, do understand where you're coming from, and I agree: it is just simply bad writing. But many fans of many things will theorise about it to make up for something that's missing. Take the Mass Effect game series for example: the ending to the trilogy was terrible, and thus many fans of the game came up with theories of why it ended in that way.
All I'm saying is that yes, it is bad writing, but a fan should always find a way past that and find a logical conclusion; just like Sherlock Holmes.
Half expected that Cumberpatch would have noticed how his character was keep going from inconsistency to a inconsistency... not one of the greatest actors afterall...
I totally agree with your comment on series 3 onwards being a reaction to the fans' reaction. It's like they lose confidence in just making a good show and every time they think of an idea, they have a voice that goes, "oh no if we do that then the fans will say this". They want Sherlock to appear clever and wow the audiences but they listen too much to the adoring fan voices and forget the general audience. It's like Gatiss and Moffat's own vanity prevents them from just sticking to their original concept - they worry that it's predictable and want to go to the audience "haha we're actually cleverer than you". Shame.
I like learning about this sorta stuff. Wanting to get into the film industry, knowledge of the many aspects spoken about is very helpful. I do agree with most of what was talked about, and although there was so much I enjoyed of season 3 and 4 of Sherlock. It didn't feel like old times. I do hope for another season, and I do hope it goes to old ways. Bringing some good old characters from the book wouldn't sound so bad either. That was the point of this show, what if Sherlock lived in the 21st century, right? Loved this video, mate. Praising it. :D
I was on my way to the US in a plane when I saw the episode that Mary turned out to be Sam Fisher from Splinter Cell....and I still walked out.
Dude, that scene at the end of the last series when they were running towards the camera in slow motion like batman and robin was so fucking cringe! What a spectacular fall from grace. The BBC has become shockingly bad in recent years, basically across the entire board.
Simply because Moffat is a hack writer. He is awful. First 2 series were based on actual Doyle stories then mr arrogant decides he can write his own. Doesnt even come close. Ruined Sherlock. Destroyed DrWho. Not Chibnall. Moffat set the shower of shit in motion on both shows and the rest is misery
great points, great video. People thought I was crazy for hating season 3 and 4. But I'm not alone!
I couldn't believe the way that the terrorist bomb problem was solved..."there's an off switch!"
Whilst I certainly agree with you on how it was seasons three and four of Sherlock where everything started to really go downhill, I've seen some pretty reasonable points about how the show made it quite clear it was going in that direction from the start in the form of the worse parts of seasons one and two.
It's especially prominent if you compare the Sherlock pilot episode to the actual first episode. The pilot makes no reference to Moriarty at the end and Sherlock's brother isn't introduced halfway through in a tense dramatic sequence with no payoff, for example. And these issues arise, as they do in many of Moffat's shows, not only because of his inability to write powerful overarching plot lines, but also what appears to be an ego too large to stop himself from making some 'clever' overarching plot line. Moffat has incredible ideas, and when those ideas are confined to the space of a single isolated episode, his brilliance shines (look at the one-off episodes he wrote for Doctor Who, for instance). But when given full control over a show, he attempts to make the biggest thing since Ben Hurr, insists on including poorly written, unnecessary overarching plot lines (Eg. Moriarty's presence behind every crime in Season 1), as well as dramatic sequences or relationships between characters that ultimately have no pay off (Eg. John meeting Sherlock's brother, or the entirety of Season 4 - people literally thought it couldn't have ended as poorly as it did, and must have been some clever trick).
If you really want evidence of Moffat's attempts at geniushood, look at how Sherlock solves some of the cases throughout all four seasons. He makes deductions and uses information that has not been provided to the audience to almost magically find the conclusion to several cases. The beauty of the old Sherlock stories and adaptations was that you had all the information you needed to solve the same cases Sherlock did, most of the time, so it was even more brilliant when Sherlock made his incredible deductions. The 'deductions' Sherlock makes in the BBC adaptation are a dumb person's idea of how a smart person reaches conclusions: essentially akin to magic. And if you want evidence of that, look at how much the show stresses that no matter how hard you tried, even your most reasonable theories could never explain how Sherlock faked his suicide. The show mocks you for even believing for a second that you had enough information to try to piece anything that happens on the show together, it's a travesty.
I liked the start of Sherlock for the same reasons I think most people did: it was a clever modern take on Sherlock Holmes with nice stylistic choices that illustrated Sherlock's detective process, and interesting retellings of old mysteries. But Moffat did the same thing he did for Doctor Who, and derailed it by trying too hard to be 'clever'.
i understand what you mean,but i still like the 4th season. i also think sherlock can make misteaks to. And yes, i like the idea of a 5th season where he is more the detective.
At the start of Season 3 they just tried to make Sherlock a dicky version of 11th Doctor.
AND SHERLOCK DOESN'T KILL!!!!!!!!
He kills the only person (before season 4) who outwits him, Charles Augustus Magnussen. How cowardly is that! And he gets away with it.
Also, I couldn't help but think, how could Magnussen and Moriarty not know each other? I mean one is the king of blackmail and the other is the king of crime.. they should have maybe shown that in the show..
Sherlock: it’s never twins!!!
Also Sherlock: *has a secret evil sister*
Sister not his twin
The hallucinating Mary thing seems like it was plagiarized from Battlestar Galactica when Six and Baltar hallucinated companions that mocked them and forced them to confront inner truths about themselves. But that doesn't work with Sherlock seeing as how they kept using it as a sledgehammer when Battlestar used it as a chisel, at least in the beginning.
So are you saying Sherlock became ........ Strange?
I'll see myself out.
Season 3 wasn't as good as the previous, but it's * shrug emoji* still somehow fun.
But season four...SEASON FOUR!!!
...it's just make me want to burn all the writers' mind palaces.
As an avid fan of Sherlock Holmes in any form, I was all set to sneer at this video in my snooty "This-is-not-a-true-Holmesian" way. But you do raise some very good points. I too want Sherlock back to his detective routes and the introduction of the mystery sister did not sit well with me. I liked seasons 3 and 4 well enough, but I want to see Sherlock solving crimes that do not revolve around his family, friends or fan-favourite nemesis(es) Yes, Moriarty, Adler, I'm looking at you. Doyle had so many wonderful stories the writers could draw on, and they are being wasted in throw-away lines and references. Writers, go back to Doyle, your inspiration, for Season 5. Show me an updated version of The Man with the Twisted Lip or The Adventure of the Abbey Grange. Please? The only point I must argue with is the giving Sherlock a girlfriend one. This DOES come straight from Doyle. In "The Adventure of Charles Augustus Milverton", Holmes pretends to be a plummer and goes so far as to become engaged to one of Milverton's housemaids so that he can gain nighttime access to Milverton's house.
I love how you put Mitchell and Web in the intro for adaptations
In the batman arkham games, when you are investigating and reconstructing a crime scene it feels good because details are slowly unraveled and the character Batman will notice and describe things you couldn't as you solve it. Even though it's a video game and therefore limited, you are wowed by the reconstruction and it is important to the relevant plot. Now imagine you spent all that time constructing a scene bit-by-bit and Batman was entirely wrong. Batman would no longer be the world's greatest detective and would just feel like an awkward wannabe, trying to play expert. That's how that sequence feels here and it's just plain stupid.
Totally agree! just finished this series in 4 days and man was I mad at the end of it. Everything is pointed out in this video, but I have to point out I do like the humor and didn't mind it. I absolutely agree that they tried to fill in unnecessary scenes like Holmes being high.
Great video! wish you could've pointed out the thing between sherlock and molly, that was very weird and rushed.
Saw the title. Liked it before watching.
(sigh)
These failures and gaping plot holes signal that most or all of S4 takes place in something other than consensus reality.
In other worlds, it's not fucking real. I (still) believe in Mofftiss.
And what about the ending with John and Sherlock running in slowmotion and then freezing in mid jump? I rolled my eyes at that. It was cheesy as hell.
I'm sure someone mentioned this, but the Terrorist MP in 3.01 is mentioned to be a longtime agent for North Korea and is being paid a fortune to blow up Parliament on their behalf.
Doesn't change the fact that this show went downhill fast when Moffat let his style completely overrun it. He's a hack now and the worst show runner in modern British Television history. Although I agree with hbomberguy in that season 4 just made everyone realize that this show was not nearly as good as we all thought it was.
Spot on mate, i couldn't agree more about everything you've said in this video. You've got yourself a new subscriber...
I completely agree. This is a great vid essay, you've talked about things most don't rather than going over what we already know.
What a huge whiplash I felt when 3:22 hit and suddenly that REALLY QUALITY instrumental of We Are Number One played. I thought my phone had accidentally started playing music again that sent me for a trip, nice music choice
I think all first 3 seasons including TAB are great and innovative television. Really good. But I hated the last season with passion. Season 4 was a completely different show. Nothing made any sense. I couldn’t believe my eyes when I watched the final episode, it was like a bad parody of the show, like they didn’t even care anymore. I honestly laughed the entire way through at how bad it was! XD I thought it was a joke! Let’s hope they don’t revisit this show. It can sleep forever.
Some people liked the cold calculating machine that Sherlock is in the first two series, which hinted at someone very emotionally blocked. But I more appreciated the unravelling of his layers as he strives, realizing he is not a god, to climb those emotional barriers, and achieve integral growth. What people loved was his facade. There were hints that it was a subconscious facade all along. Especially when he had his panic attack in HoB. That hinted at him almost having a full on mental breakdown, that if he were to continue his behaviours, he'd destroy himself. TFP with it's many plot pitfalls still remains my favourite episode [I would have wanted a two episode arc to more properly unravel the plot and respect Eurus as a character, who I think fits the bill of being a psychopath].
To your analysis of the changes in stylization between the first two series and the second two being for stylization sake alone... in what world, fictional or reality, is using highly dangerous drugs to stimulate performance and evade boredom okay!!?? I don't care if such a habit if his was present in the original short stories set in a time where the public had access to opium cafes. It's a highly irresponsible message to send to many YA who revere Sherlock's character. Having the Sherlock stories adapted in modern day where addiction is still so very prevalent especially among YA was a perfect [and somewhat missed] opportunity for the show-runners to address that. It's not "cool" no matter how smart and useful you are to society and it destroys you. Those stylized sequences where Sherlock is practically losing his mind during his use of them speaks to me and I wish his damages sustained would have been more evident; he is not a god and has human limitations, regardless of the power of his Mind Palace; one bullet through Magneussen's face proved that for him.
Also an irresponsible message to send to the audience is that Sherlock is actually a fully-fledged sociopath, or a "high-functioning sociopath.," as he likes to call himself. Which part of the series gave solid evidences of that? That he was cold and calculating and fascinated by mysteries involving corpses - such is Archie's fascination; is he a budding sociopath too? No! He's a little boy with a vibrant imagination and curiosity and helped Sherlock solve the mystery in TSoT when Sherlock was panicked giving the Best Man's speech and became more unnerved when he realized the murderer was in the same place as his most beloved people. He could not duke it out with him one on one as in TSiP. You can say that Molly's fascination is there too. A certain desensitization must exist for people to function in certain capacities as a coronary, ME and surgeon, would they be called sociopath too simply because they need to function in their capacities? For me, sociopathy is a moral defect, an emotional defect, not so much a mental one.
A sociopath would not care much about other people's involvement or risk with him winning the game, and would not, like Sherlock, fake his own death to deviate attention of the villain or the empire he built from his loved ones, which might I add, happened at the end of series two. Why didn't people start hating the series from since then? Why weren't people so averse to accepting John as Sherlock's heart? I think Light Yagami from Death Note fits the bill of someone who became a sociopath, not caring whether his own father or sister died, not even batting an eyelid at the realization of their risk, but caring more about keeping his own cover all so he could continue being the 'death god' to rule over people as he saw fit. Put him against Sherlock and Light is like Mangeussen, yes, Magneussen to me is someone who became a sociopath; as sociopaths have severe moral defects - that they act on, without much remorse, and are only seen to be apologetic when their own risk is involved.
I wanted more materials the creators purposely put into the show itself to negate the sociopathic theory rather than just giving an interview: saying Sherlock was just being witty when he said that, and that the character was actually portrayed to be on the autistic spectrum, and that's how Ben played it. Look the subtle yet important differences of his social adeptness / ineptness in the unaired verses aired pilot and you will see. I wanted them to explore why Donovan was so dead-set on Sherlock being a sociopath, and I wanted her and Sherlock's background explored more, rather than her and Anderson becoming a convenient plot device in suspecting him as a child abducter just because he saved the children primarily based on evidences of the captor's footprint.
Due to this irresponsibility you got a whole bunch of YA self-diagnosing themselves as sociopaths because they relate so much to Sherlock's character when they could very well fall on the autistic spectrum instead, as evidenced by cases and YA admitting they've been to therapy scared that they had serial-killer tendencies, and the therapists saying fitting them to be screened if they fall on an autistic spectrum instead. Psychologists who review Sherlock's character [as one-dimensional as US audiences seems to like their characters served, sorry but not sorry] may not peg him as a fully-fledged sociopath. But what do I know? Have we been trained to be so accepting of what a character says, rather than what he does, to accept him for who he is? [Same ish happened with Dany in GoT, and I'm still not over it.]
Yes!! You deciphered my thoughts!!! I LOVED sherlock before s3, but after watching s3, something felt different and i didnt know what. And then after watching 4x01 I just dropped the show. I felt that Mary's death was stupid, just for shock value, drama and sherlock angst. Sherlock was never a show about the melodramatic, the direction they were taking for the show felt weird. And after knowing what the show turned into, I guess I was right, a secret super intelligent sister? WTF?!?!
I dont understand what the problem is behind Sherlock having a secret sister with super powers that traps everyone in a prison to perform tests to save a girl on a plane that turns out to never exist and was only imagined in the sisters mind as she grieves for the time she murdered Sherlocks 4th super-duper secret sibling that he remembers as Redbeard the family dog.
You people are just reaching to hate the show at this point. Pathetic
THE NAIL ON THE HEAD!!!! Just found you man, and 'boy' are you voicing things that have been bouncing around in my head, since series 3 started...3 and 4 utter utter fu**ing Shiiiiiite!!!
YES!!! Just YES!! It's like 'my thoughts exactly' except i didn't even know how to properly phrase these thoughts until I saw this! Thank you!
two years later and i genuinely think they really should have a series 5, just to recover from the last. even the actors know the writers were playing to the fans and understand the backlash. i get if they don’t want to because it might be difficult to get back in the right track but a GOOD conclusion is something we all want.
actually the girlfriend one was taken almost one by one out of an actual adventure from the original books. Since in the actual book there was a safe with all the information in it and Sherlock proposes to one of the maids to get into the house to eventually face an anticlimax ending to the short story.
"He's just an action hero now, he was more of an actual detective in the first six episodes..." In episode 2 of the first season, he gets into several fights with NINJAS.
"He wouldn't make mistakes like that in the first six episodes..." He took an embarrassingly long time to figure out that the taxi driver was the killer in the very first episode. A lot of people saw it coming. He also didn't pick up anything fishy the first time he "met" Moriarty when he was posing as Molly's boyfriend.
A lot of the things you claim to dislike about later seasons of the Sherlock were already there from the beginning. I love all the seasons of Sherlock and I don't see why people act like they're so different.
I got the first two seasons on dvd and wasn't too blown away. I mean the stylized elements were in just about every cable show around at the time like Fringe and its cgi captions built into the scenes. And of course the patented JJ Abrams blinding lens flares. The show came along in 2010 and by that time PSYCH another series about a hyper observant modern hip sleuth and his sidekick was already in its fifth season. When I saw it I thought, "Oh, a British Psych, okay." The Shawn character of that series already had cliffhangers where he went head to head with the brilliant insane sister of an arch enemy and their plots were already beginning to wane.
My reaction to it was about same as with the medical series "House". The first two seasons were outstanding but by the third it seems someone got a hold of it and because it had become so popular they over amped everything and it seemed the actors were portraying caricatures of their own characters and I lost interest. And the producers of that show dragged the series on for ten seasons.
Holmes actually did convince a girl to become engaged to marry him to get into an office in the original story "The Adventure of Charles Augustus Milverton" by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle published in 1904. That was an integral part of the story they were adapting in that episode so there really isn't anything to complain about there.
whats the name of the animated show in the beginning?
Sherlock Holmes and The Sign of Four 1983
Dude you just said exactly what I’ve been thinking ever since I watched these seasons. Hats off to you my friend.
Great video man! Turned on post notifications ;)
Season 4 was utter tripe.
I want S5, if Moffat and Gatiss aren't writing it.
I feel that your point regarding Sherlock's humour and personality was unfair. I appreciated that they were trying to do new things with his character instead of keeping as the blunt witty dickhead he was in the first two seasons, shows need character progression.
You know what? This video may make some good points, but my view of the series will always stay the same.
#Idon'tshaveforSherlock
A Golden Bow Couldn't agree more. I'll hashtag too. #SherlockLives
I think the problem is that series 3 and 4 turned the show into a character drama. Instead of being about mysteries, the show was now about Sherlock and his personal life. It's not bad, but it's not what people wanted to watch.
Spot on
kind of like what happened to chuck
Mad Hatter "This isn't a detective show, this is a show about a detective."
I wanted to watch it...
I get that. And I am genuinely interested in Sherlock Holmes as a person. That's why I over all enjoyed series 4, because it contained some amazing character stuff for Sherlock and John. Heck, as much as it's hated, I kind of stand by The Final Problem as a good last episode, as it wraps up Sherlock's character arc. The problem is the plot's. The mysteries. At it's heart, Sherlock Holmes needs to be about Holmes and Watson solving mysteries. Without that, the show became aimless. It lost it's core.
Completely agree. The thing I loved from the first season is that Sherlock was someone that could exist in our world but after all the stuff with Mary being a mercenary, Moriarty being everywhere and the crazy super intelligent sister made the show very (or even more) unrealistic so I just couldn't take it seriously.
what do you thiink - just watch on youtube - All Evidence that S4 is Mind Palace || SUPERCUT
This. The show kept my interest up until the point it no longer took place in the real world.
It's Moffat, he starts out good and runs out of ideas.
That pretty much sums up his legacy in Doctor Who for me. He wrote my two favorite Episodes (Midnight and Blink) and came up with some other great stuff like The Empty Child, but now he just doesn't seem to know what he's doing.
Sorry to be pedantic, it was RTD who wrote 'Midnight'. But you're right, he can only write decent material when he's not put in charge of a whole show.
***** Oh, you're correct. Now that you mention it, the episode does include a lot of the typical Davies tropes. Still, it's my favorite episode of the rebooted series.
+JJ H As if, Heaven Sent, Study in Pink, A Good Man goes to War, Vincent and the Doctor, Listen, Time of the Angels, Big Bang, etc, etc, aren't all fantastic.
He can write a good one off episode or two, but he's bad at writing an entire plot for a series.
This is so spot on. It covers the points I already knew and the ones I've been really struggling to place. In terms of another season? It would be such a shame to leave it on such rubbish episodes so maybe just one more to leave it on a high.
I really enjoyed season 4 episode 2, maybe because I liked the villain. Season 4 episode 3 made me want to pull my hair out. LIKE SERIOUSLY A HIDDEN SISTER WTF THAT IS RIDICULOUS WHAT IS THIS A CHILDREN'S CARTOON
...
sorry I should calm down
SH had a brother called Sherinford, same name as the prison. also they left clues for us, so no reason to be surprised :-/
Apple Smith the worst part is that they had to make her all over-powered like a terrible deviantart oc.
They've been foreshadowing a secret sibling throughout the show so I actually kinda guessed that they'd confirm a secret sibling. And when I heard the word "Sherrinford" I freaked thought they'd reveal a secret brother(which is what I thought they'd confirm).
I wish they'd just...not have a secret sibling at all though...
@@assaqwwq actually sherrinford was going to be sherlock's name, this brother thing became a theory because of that
You think that's bad? At around season one (I think) Moffat said publicly that they should not invest in Sherlock's backstory, because that is a bad thing to do. Similar to the doctor, the less we know the better. And then in season four, he really explored Sherlock's backstory.
The mysteries stopped mattering. The cases that would be more in the spirit of classic Sherlock Holmes are reduced to montages. The clues are not something that the audience would look back on and say "how could I have missed that" because there's no grounded logic behind them (aside from the initial Eurus reveal in episode 2, which was subtle and really got me). The whole redbeard debacle being the worst culprit...
They pulled a Dexter and tried to make Sherlock more human for apparently no reason.
I had to stop Dexter 3 episodes into season 7, I do know what happens at the very end though. Dexter becomes a lumberjack and stops killing people? nope. Honestly, the show should've ended at season four - maybe with Sherlock too, they should've ended at S3, though i did like season four, some of it was a bit ehh.
Dexter should've ended at season two. Well, with a different finale, of course.
coopseee i actually liked s1 >>> s6 of Dexter. S7 i couldn't get through - i didn't like hannah at all. S3 was boring, too - in my opinion, we should've had: s1, s2, s6 (replace that whole season with 3rd) and s4 and make Dexter end of there with Rita dead.
Such a good show that had a great potential. Sad that they ruined it with love interests and changing the whole plot of who Dexter actually is
The ending was supposed to represent the end of Dexter's character arc, Trough out his whole life he believed he was something he wasn't Harry taught him to keep thinking that hes a monster that can't be repaired, The love interest is representing his human side, It shows he still has human emotions and is capable of becoming "human", The end fully compliments this by giving him solitude and a job, The whole reason he is alone is because he wants to be alone with his thoughts.
I agree wholeheartedly with your video with one exception, which is really quite minor. You complained about Sherlock getting a girlfriend to break into Milverton's building, but that is actually what Sherlock does in the Conan Doyle story that the episode was based off of. I hated that episode more than any other episode, because John is right--you can't prove anything without physical evidence--but Sherlock really does go to that length to get into the building. Otherwise, spot on video.
Very much agree, other than that statement the video is pinpoint accurate and managed to express the doubts I couldn't put to words.
Since when did they stick to the source material? Just look at Irene Adler!
It's worth a mention that A.C.Doyle's later stories (the ones after the waterfall!) were written upon pressure of the fans, and probably for profit alone and became a bit ridiculous. My favourite S.H story doesn't include him much, that's the Valley of Fear of course. For those who haven't read it, certain things are hinted about an almost blatently named secret fraternity.
But Sherlock had some regret/misgivings about it. It's treated as a joke here.
Sherlock just became really emotional, ridiculous and... giggly. It's fine that he cares about John and would do a lot for him, but that doesn't mean he has to change his entire personality. I feel like their trying to normalize him in some ways. And, while he relies on John, he's not entirely dependant on him either, like they seem to depict him sometimes. They just made all of them extremely overdramatic.
You're right, they became overblown caricatures of themselves.
We are told Sherlock cares about John and relies on him but we never see him actually relying on John for a case. Sherlock does everything on his own and he doesn't even have the decency to respect John,the man he supposedly cares about. This is why I hate their dynamic in the show.
what do you thiink - just watch on youtube - All Evidence that S4 is Mind Palace || SUPERCUT
*They're
anon3075 Thanks
Sherlock season 4 is worse than fanfiction on Wattpad
Also, i don't want another season, 100% the will fuck this up
Barbara Krasowicz just like your life
Gee willickers, Mean Meme! Not only are you rilly rilly *mean*, but you're also cool, and also a little dangerous too, I bet! Do you also smoke cigarettes and carry a comb that looks like a flick-knife?
@@oldmanofoy4286
I bet he wears a leather jacket too!
what do you thiink - just watch on youtube - All Evidence that S4 is Mind Palace || SUPERCUT
one of the things that still bugs me is the plot line where john cheats on mary…it’s so incredibly out of character and for all intents and purposes: utterly pointless
Sherlock made the mistake that most TV adaptations make - it went off book. For the first couple of series the episodes were updated, expanded and stylised but they kept true to the essence of the original stories they were drawn from. It still felt very much like the ACD Holmes and Watson that the creators of the show claim to love so much. Then we hit series 3 and for whatever reason (TPTB drunk on their own success and determined to put their stamp on the endless parade of Holmes adaptations probably) they stopped re-imagining and started telling their own stories. And that doesn't work. That NEVER works. What no TV writer ever seems to realise is that yes, they've found a winning formula, but that formula is so completely grounded in the source material and if you take that away your robbing your work of the foundation that it was built on. Surprise surprise, once that's done everything soon crumbles (and no, over-stylising your stories to the point where the basic plot is lost amid symbolism and metaphor and flashy cinematography won't actually help with that *coughMOFFATcough*).
That being said, even when a show has lost it's way completely you can usually still see the vision that the creators had, it's obvious what their aim was, even if they fell miles short... but here? I would actually pay anyone to give me a plausible theory as to what on Earth Moffat and Gatiss were trying to do with series 4.
What's wrong with going off book?
The problem with going off book is that these hack writers couldn't write a story of Sherlock Holmes' original books caliber to save their hides. Also still pretty pissed off they destroyed Irene's character and just turned her into a needy Sherlock fangirl instead of the intelligent, independent woman that she was in the original books. That a book published in 1891 has a better female character than a series from the 2010s is fucking insulting.
Dark Guardian
The hounds of Baskerville?
When you start a story from scratch you do a hell of a lot of behind the scenes work to give the world you're writing depth and realism - things like character backstory, character motivations, world building, how established relationships got started, etc.etc. (90% will never make it into the text but the fact that the author knows it will influence all their narrative choices and make the story all the more fleshed out). Now when you come to adapt a pre-existing story all this work has already been done for you by the source material, all you have to do is twist bits and add bits and put you're own spin on it. The background you put in is so much shallower but that's alright because you're building on top of the original author's foundations. If writers were prepared to stick it out like this then there wouldn't be a problem but inevitably people like Moffat and Gatiss get ahead of themselves and decide they don't need to play by the original's rules any more: they move away from the script they've been working off and only take THEIR interpretations with them. And that's when it all collapses. Because they haven't done any of the hard work, they haven't built a solid foundation for their work to stand on, all they have are their surface changes so suddenly the world they're writing is two-dimensional and topples under scrutiny.
(It's kind like building a house. You move into something that's already been built and you redecorate and hey, this is actually better than it was before! So you think, hey, what if the house was actually half a mile down the road and buoyed by your previous success you uproot and move the house. But you've never built foundations before, you don't know how, all you know is cosmetic changes. Surprise surprise, your house falls down.)
I remember watching an interview with the Sherlock team a few years back and Moffat said that he'd always been confused by SiB because "[Irene] just runs away! That's not a feminist victory!" showing very succinctly that he has zero understanding of feminism (shocker) or indeed that story. People always leap to that episode's defence with "yes but she still won, it was an EMOTIONAL victory" as if that isn't the single most worn out and heteronormative male-female relationship cliche in cinema history.
Thank you.
I disliked the last two series and had some idea why, but you just pointed many more things out that I had overlooked before.
Mate, your video just redpilled me on how many problems the later series had that I just overlooked. (This comment might end up being really long but this video was really good man, great job) The fan service, the obsession with keeping Moriarty involved... despite not really being involved? I remember when Sherlock shot Magneson I thought "What on earth did he just do? This is so out of place!" Magneson could have made a brilliant ongoing villain to replace Moriarty, would have been well happy with that. I don't think I entirely agree about your point of misdirection of drama. The show was still thoroughly entertaining to me, (with the exception of season 4's opening, my god if I could hate a sherlock episode, it would be that one) but perhaps that was why I was able to just ignore all these problems you've presented.
You made a very convincing argument about over-stylization, the bit with Sherlock's revival is very fan-baity, I mean why would they kill off the titular character? It's too likely he'll survive, it's like it shouldn't have happened and they could have had a stand off of some kind. Nah, let's just shoot him to make this whole thing awkward. And he forgives her pretty quickly too mind you!
To answer your question, I'm happy where it ended, no need for season 5. Nobody else could write it as well as the pair did and it's not like Moffat has Doctor who to write as well. That man needs a long long break, get some inspiration and go back to being a guest writer on who again.
Harry's Moving Castle
Hey thanks so much for commenting, love your videos and always wanted to hear your opinion on this. Follow me on twitter, would be great to talk!
i remember watching the Magneson episode, and before SH took out the gun, i knew Magneson was a dead guy. He was playing chess and he backed up SH into a corner. the only way out seemed obvious for me, and i knew Watson had his trusty revolver, and lets not forget SH is a high functioning sociopath that has seen every murder possible.
Nitpix Ha! I can't even remember how S4 E1 opened. I guess that says a lot about it.
Harry's Moving Castle thanks for writing just what I was thinking. I love the show this redpill was hard to take but it was true.
That Magneson episode was the episode I showed to my dad right after saying how good the show was. I was actually embarrassed.
I don't know what kind of idiocy led the creators to think their direction in series 4 was a good idea but up until then, I really liked the show because to me at least, it felt like it had a purpose - a longer narrative arc they already hinted at in the very first episode. Sherlock to me has always been a story about a detective and not a detective story. The cases were always secondary to me because most of the time, it wasn't the cases that truly mattered. It was how Sherlock was affected by them. Up until through series 1-3 + TAB the story was always about Sherlock figuring out how to not only be a great man, but also a good one. I felt like that arc reached its climax in HLV where Sherlock sacrifices everything - his work, his reputation, his life, his legacy, everything - in order to ensure that John gets happy future. While he did something similar in TRF, he always had a backup plan. He didn't in HLV. He made the ultimate self-sacrifice for the person he loved the most (his words not mine) and that to me was a truly satisfying arc. In addition to that, TAB felt like a man finally learning that he needs to be saved and in order to do that, he needs to let his loved ones help. Sherlock dreams of being rescued by John in the waterfall sequence and that is very telling. He has learnt to be a good man, and now he has learnt what it takes to save himself - he needs to finally let John in. He didn't let John in when formulating a plan in TRF, he didn't inform John that he was going to shoot CAM but in TAB he finally realises that in order to defeat his multitude of inner demons (all personified by Moriarty) he needs John's help. To me, this felt like such a satisfying arc and I thought they'd continue with it in S4.
But then when S4 actually came, we get more focus on Mary (a character I really couldn't give a damn about) and a John who physically abuses a highly vulnerable Sherlock. The creators took a beautiful friendship and made it toxic. Does John save Sherlock from his inner demons? I don't know. Has John been the making of Sherlock or has he made Sherlock worse than ever? Again I'm uncertain. I also hate S4 for making Sherlock a victim of abuse. Sherlock gets shot in HLV and instead of Mary having to face the consequences for her actions, she is welcomed into the gang again as if nothing happened. (And no, that self-sacrifice of hers doesn't make things even - none of them would even be in that position if it wasn't for her atrocious past anyway). Sherlock is beaten to pulp by John but John is forgiven by everybody including Sherlock who dismisses it all as merely a flawed but human reaction. The whole Eurus thing happens and Sherlock just forgives her despite the fact that she is worse than most of the criminals he spent so much time catching.
But I think the worst of all is that no action had a consequence. They were all there for the sheer shock factor. Sherlock kills CAM - it's brushed aside. Mary nearly murders Sherlock - it's surgery and apparently she has had a complete personality change now and is somehow more useful than John at crime solving. John beats up Sherlock - is forgiven and the whole incident is swept aside. John gets shot by his therapist in a scene that cuts to a blood red backdrop - whoops no that was just a tranquilizer shot. Sherlock and John need to jump out of a building because 221b is exploding - are completely safe without a scratch despite the fact that there was no big inflatable mattress or something to ensure their safety as they fell. Eurus...does whatever the hell she did in TFP - she's in pretty much the same condition as before but now she's mute. Mary keeps sending dvds from the dead - uh who even knows at this point what they intended to do with that?
There are so many things that went wrong in S4 but I think the reason I hate it the most is because it alters my perception of the rest of the show. I used to think the show was superb but if this was their plan along - to create a toxic relationship between Holmes and Watson, to give Sherlock a crazy mind-controlling psycho genius sister, to have an assassin whose role was to basically cause a few rug pull moments and then die so the plot can move forward, to give said assassin the last say in the legacy of Holmes and Watson by having her claim that who they are as people doesn't matter and that she knows them best (despite her opinion of them constantly being proven wrong at every point in S4), to reduce a beloved and important villain into a crazy guy who will apparently make reaction GIFs for you if you do a weird dance with him (seriously wtf was that random head bobbing thing between Eurus and Moriarty???) - if this was their intention all along then damn this show really did lose its way.
JellyLovesFaith agreed
Basically, season 4 wasn't just bad, it made the entire show so far feel meaningless. I hope I can rewatch the first two seasons some day, but at the moment that would still feel terrible because of s4
You got to the heart of the matter and I completely agree. "The reason I hate it the most is because it alters my perception of the rest of the show." When they made the Holmes/Watson friendship toxic, they ruined one of the most beloved elements in the ACD stories. And the whole 'Mary' thing marginalized Watson in a way that threw everything off.
Spot on, my friend. My feelings exactly
I think Moffat got too carried away with "Doctor who"
evil secret sister and hallucinations of a passed wife os something that would totally work there, but not in "Sherlock"
I had never been so mad over a show I loved. I can´t even rewatch the thing because it feels like a huge slap in the face. i was rooting for you, we were all rooting for you!
I just rewatch season 1 and 2 and pretend the rest don't exist
@@gremlininblue2601 same 😂😂😂
Honestly I think Moffatt is a lazy writer. He just reuses old tropes over and over, and even uses his same stories many times over. He ruined Doctor Who for me by continuously forgetting and dropping plot points, and using cheap cliff hangers. I know Doctor Who is meant to be cheesy, but he reaaaally took it to the extreme.
I think they should just give it up, but they'll probably run Sherlock into the ground.
Rei good news, Moffats leaving Doctor Who! He only has one season left then he's retiring.
Rei what plots points did he drop or forget? I guarentee none. he knows how to write a story arc
Rei
Moffatt a lazy writer?r u flipping kidding me??!!seriously r u kidding me,honestly?Dr Who is 4 another time,but seriously ur having a go at the past few episodes of English Sherlock!Rei hve u read the books or watched the American version where Dr Watson is a woman?writers hve had 2 take Sherlock in2 our generation&i think they hve done really great😘British Benedict&Martin r amazing BUT also American Robbery Downy jr&(Brit)Jude Law were AMAZING.send me a friend reqst xxxx
Yep, Moffat is a lazy writer, he copy himself his own plots and ideas! There are several ideas, plots, dialogues, resources and scenes which are practically identical between Sherlock and Dr Who... and this is very frustraing when you watch a tv programme. This shows a lack of originality...
Sherlock was brilliant in Series 1 and 2... but Series 4 bothers me a lot. Thanks for this video, it is reassuring that there are fans that love the beginning Sherlock but hates specially series 4.
Zaira Gómez yeah, like in doctor who, the episode where the doctor goes to France - girl in the fireplace I think its called. Exactly the same as "the girl who waits", with Amy pond. he cannot write women for shit, which is weird cause how is it that different? All his female characters are the same. Spunky "independant" women who, in the end, always need saving.
S1 brilliant
S2 brillianter
S3 huh?
S4 wTF???
Yea its not coming back. Freeman and Cumberbatch are too big now that this show launched them into stardom and after the disaster that was series 4, I doubt anyone would want to be involved again. Incredibly unfortunate since this has got to be one of the greatest shows of all time disregarding series 4.
Why are there so many dislikes? I honestly believe this is the most reasonable, objective analysis of what exactly caused Sherlock's downfall over the last two seasons.
HKC Because Sherlock fans are very protective of their show
Cellisperfect Because deep down, they know their show sucks and are in denial.
I believe hbomberguy's analysis "Sherlock Is Garbage, And Here's Why" is even better, but it's also much much longer so I'm glad NitPix made a video short enough to watch for more people and reasonable enough to convince them.
salty sherlock fangirls
It's called belief perseverance (or persistence). Some people exhibit an irrational clinging to their initial believes when new evidence contradicts their initial belief. Have you read the 10/10 reviews on this season? The 4th series is "the best television of all time!", the "best episode of Sherlock of all time", they were constantly on the edge of their seats (as if the show would kill off Sherlock). Of course some are just committed Cumber-bunnies.
I agree with all your comments. I was in love with the show the first two seasons and was unbelievable disappointed and confused in the last one. They made the show a parody and for some reason also just made Sherlock into a druggie. I always know it's a death of a show when they introduce a baby, so after John and Mary's wedding I knew the end was near. I'm quite disappointed. I would be fine if they didn't bring it back because they ruined it.
Series 3 wasn't too bad but I hated series 4.
It didn't hold characters down and was just horrific in overall episode plots
So true. Almost half a year later and I'm still not over the disappointment that was season 4 :-(
sourri1234 I didn't even watch/look at anything Sherlock related after TFP because of the disappointment. Well, until now, about a year later.
Excellent video, been trying to understand exactly what felt wrong with s3&4 and you have summarized it pretty well, made excellent points and analysis.
British Bambi I was discussing this with my family and couldn't point out what bothered me about the last 2 season so much. I can now show them this video...:)
Why do season 3 and 4 suck?
One word
Mary
This needs a million thumbs up
Yes yes and yes!! Abington can not act and the fact that she and Freeman were splitting up made the acting worse
True I honestly hated her
I hate Mary so much, she just seems so thrown in and under developed.
*y E S*
Wow I was going to make a video on this topic but you meet me to it! Completely agree, I think Moffat's problem is that he wants to see these fan pleasing set pieces designed to impress play out but hasn't thought about how to work them organically into the story, they don't add anything other than fan service. That's why a lot of his writing feels aimless, structureless and lacking in focus. Plus I hate how there are no consequences for any of the characters, they go through these trials and tribulations but at the end it's happy go lucky, everyone gets a happy ending. Tone is probably his biggest issue as you rightly pointed out. Nice video, well thought out!
On the subject of no consequences, how about Moffat's comments about how Molly dealt with her treatment in TFP. "She probably went out and shagged someone and got over it." I mean, putting aside how unsatisfying it is for the viewer to not see any kind of fallout from such an emotional scene, that attitude he has is fucking disgusting.
This has always been a problem since the first season. I think, or they do not want to waste time with 'explanations' (after all, it's only 3 episodes and every two years !!) or it's the English thing, I've heard that the English are not very 'sentimental'. I can not deny that I was relieved that there is no Sherlolly, but even I thought she deserved better.
Great comment. It's what I've felt but haven't had the words to express. Thanks.
My gripe with the show is it seems to hate mysteries and just wants to be an action show revolving around Sherlock who just knows everything without using any deductive reasoning with Dr. Moriarty as a recurring borderline Saturday cartoon villain.
I really don't like Sherlock's character development either, to be honest. I liked him better in season 1 and 2.
".... and Darren Brown" 😂
Sherlock was never a good show, it was obsessed with the title chacacter and the mysteries were never good. It's the flashy direction, witty dialogue and quircly charcacters distracted form this for a while.
You should watch Jeremy Brett as Sherlock Holmes👍
Moffat's "how would we even bring Moriarty back" comments frustrate the hell out of me since like,,, they never explained how sherlock actually survived so,,, why not just bring him back and not fully explain? how Sherlock did it seemed o matter so little
No Season 5, please. Let it die. It took a strange and mean-spirited turn after the original, one-hour pilot and quickly became a cult vehicle for the two central actors. Just sad, all the way round when it could have been good with different writers who respected Doyle's creation and wanted to honour it.
Jonny Lee Miller's Holmes in 'Elementary' may not have Cumberbatch's charisma (so called) but the stories are superior, smart and 21-st century based. Miller's Holmes is eccentric, brilliant and doesn't suffer fools but he's not vicious as we see the BBC version be. We see Miller's Holmes thinking, working it out and sometimes getting it wrong. Over the arc of 'Elementary's' six seasons there has been subtle and believable character growth as well as well-written and delivered deductions and plausible mysteries.
If you like Holmes and not just Cumberbatch-as-Holmes, give yourself the treat of seeing the true 21-st century version of Doyle's genius.
Amen!
Ho, but now you hit my heart because what kills Elementary for me is just the main duo !!! All right Miller, but Lucy Liu? Nothing against it, Liu is cool, but what can I do if I like more of a Dr. Watson who is a man, blond and small? Hell, I wish Sherlock had the number of episodes and seasons Elementary has.
Yes, Season 4 sucked. I think what made the show start heading downhill was #1 KILLING OFF MORIARTY! Biggest mistake on Moffat's behalf. Everyone loved his character so much. And 2) bringing Mary Watson into the picture. I wouldn't have minded her being John's wife but the entirety of S3 and mostly S4 she was the main focus. Her past, her being an ex-mercenary, etc. And it was getting very annoying. Especially her post-mortem videos for Sherlock or John. This completely shifted the focus away from Sherlock.