As a result, the same hubris that led to Sherlock killing Charles Magnussen in season three ends up getting Mary ( Amanda Abbington) killed in season four. Sherlock’s hubris led to him murdering a man in cold blood, but not even this choice resulted in punishment - his friends simply brushed off the idea that Sherlock should have to pay for his crime, just as they accept everything else about him. The act of drugging his best friend - a war veteran - and sending him into a PTSD-triggering hallucinogenic fight zone in season two should have had major repercussions, but it was handwaved away Sherlock then went on to once again drug John and his wife and Sherlock’s own family in season three, again with no consequences. His repeated drug trips never led to any major health complications. Sherlock’s violent actions have never had consequences. Through all of this, Sherlock proceeded with the assumption that he was always right - and he was always, always proven correct. And he repeatedly fell into dangerous spirals of drug addiction, ostensibly in order to help him solve cases. He repeatedly, and sometimes violently, used John (Freeman) as a kind of lab rat for his experiments. He repeatedly insulted and used everyone he loved (and a lot of people he didn’t) whenever it was convenient for him. Throughout the seasons, Sherlock (Cumberbatch) behaved in the same destructive, unlikable ways again and again. 1) Sherlock never learns from his mistakes Here are the five biggest recurring narrative problems Sherlock has developed over four seasons - problems it has to fix if it wants to satisfy fans in any future seasons. Taken together, these two larger issues resulted in myriad problems for the series, which have only become more pronounced over time. But the show always presented these frustrating resets gleefully, as if they were just part of Sherlock’s much-touted, endless “game” instead of the huge narrative shortcomings they actually were. What this meant for Sherlock is that plots never had enduring consequences, and characters’ actions never had any logical impact on their lives. Much has been written about how Moffat, who is also the departing longtime showrunner of Doctor Who, is a huge fan of the “ reset button” - sometimes literally. The second overarching problem: The show fell hard in unearned love with itself and never looked back. That didn’t give the show much room to develop the larger ideas bouncing around in its head. Each season was only a few episodes long, and each episode centered on retelling a different Arthur Conan Doyle detective story. First, given the rise to mega-stardom of its two leads, Benedict Cumberbatch and Martin Freeman, the show never knew whether its current season would be its last - and it still doesn’t. Many of Sherlock’s problems boil down to two factors. But again and again the show floundered, indulging in cockamamie leaps of logic and inexplicable fantasies, with barely any character development to back them up. Since then, Sherlock’s showrunners and writers, Steven Moffat and Mark Gatiss, have spent years promising grand things for the series, which at least had the lofty ideas - along with the stellar acting, rapier wit, and gorgeous production values - to be smug. This is not a new development for the show, which premiered in 2010. The Guardian called it “ an annoying parody of itself,” IndieWire called it “ problematic,” and British media did roundups of “ the most furiously outraged reviews.” Vox had mixed, mostly negative, reactions to each of its precious three episodes. Audiences and critics alike were deeply frustrated with the fourth and possibly final season of Sherlock, which ended with a madcap but anticlimactic finale.

Sherlock series