Zatoichi wrote:

We´ll have to wait and see how the show turns out.. but that they intend to "increase their family" is a direct quote of Mark Gatiss. As is that Mary can´t live for seven months without danger/excitement. It doesn´t necessarily mean that Mary will be part of the crime-solving team, but that she´ll be around and will take part in the story. Then we possibly get the baby, and Wiggins.. not much use to speculate right now, but for me it sounds as if there will be a lot of exceptional characters around.

Edit: Cross-posted with you, mrshouse, I see you already made the same points.. 

 
Right, zatoichi. And every fan has to decide for himself if he would like this enough to keep following. For myself I rather have the feeling I would quit.

nakahara wrote:

Steven: “Everyone’s cleverer than Sherlock!”

That´s the problem, right there..

And that´s the only thing that will ultimately make me quit the show if it continues in S4. I guess I could live with Mary being a good girl or with Johnlock becoming canon, but I can´t live with watching Sherlock descend into that role. 

P.S.: Thanks for shedding some positivity, Susi!! 

Thanks, Zatoichi. There has been so much negativity in the fandom and also in here. And then I remember a little quote I read some time ago: "About 99.9 percent of the things we worry about never happen." 

Vhanja wrote:

I saw that "Everyone's cleverer than Sherlock" as a joke.

It maybe was but in light of what we actually saw in the show (and what Zatoichi pointed out brilliantly in one of her previous posts, enumerating moments when Sherlock was ridiculed and laughed at), it feels too true to home.
 

Hm, I've never viewed it like that. I think what you guys are saying is taking it way too far. Sherlock solved the case in TEH and TSoT. In the latter he needed a push or two, but he solved them both alone. He was outsmarted by Magnussen, yes, just like he was (kind of) outsmarted by Moriarty. Which I think is good - there is no suspense if your hero is omnipotent. And TLV ends with Sherlock returning, because everybody knows he is the only one who can deal with Moriarty. 

What I saw in S3 was a more nuanced picture. Sherlock not always running the show and being the arrogant sod that he was in S1 + S2, caring little for no one but himself and the case. I see S3 as an emotional development for Sherlock and John particularly. They can't just repeat the "Oh, you're deductions are so awesome"-thing from S1 and (partly) S2. 

But to not make the show too mushy, as TSoT threathened to do, they made Sherlock more cold and calculating in HLV, again changing the dynamics and challenging the viewers (and the in-show characters). I love what they are doing, always keeping us on our toes.

But, yeah, there is certainly an amount of penance in S3. Long overdue, in my mind. Sherlock has had it coming for two seasons now. It's the only way he can grow as a character, and become more than just an arrogant "shut up" sod.

Last edited by Vhanja (January 7, 2015 12:53 pm)

And Janine was hardly an innocent wronged party as this meta indicates:

http://milarvela.tumblr.com/post/103763973523/janine-at-the-hospital

 

Sherlock is a sad eyed lonely puppy that must be protected at all costs!

*crawls back to corner*

I think it´s interesting how two people can watch the same show, and one thinks "wow what an arrogant sod, he definitely has some penance coming " and one goes "waah he is the best, what an irresistibly sexy bastard, please never change !!"..

What would we all do now without this show? 

I might be wrong, but I think the discussion was less about him being always brilliant or omnipotent, but that his powers and his mental wellbeing was belittled and diminished at the costs of the Watsons being together and happy and Mary showing to be more adept in a couple of scenes.