Hmm...yes, this series was in ways a different beast than what you are describing from the earlier seasons.  It's different from what we got before, even if there's always been something to solve in every episode.  It was tied more to the characters than before, but that's where the writers wanted to take it, and I think there's more than one way to write something well, and of course it's not always going to appeal to everyone.  The show has always had mystery elements, but it's a drama as well.  The writers said that there would be consequences in series 4, darkness, things catching up to them, and that's what they delivered.  Even if the way things were presented was different in ways, I think it's clear that they are invested in the characters, as we are.  I remember Steven mentioning that fans of the original stories often enjoyed Holmes and Watson as characters outside of the cases, when they were interacting in 221B.  We didn't get fireside chats in series 4, but we do get more about the characters, which I think people crave as well (heck, there's loads of fanfiction of people imagining more about the characters without a case being involved in that).

I don't think we completely lost the explanations of "How you did it," but perhaps they are less in our faces about it.  Perhaps there are fewer explanations, but I think the audience has been led to see the conclusions ourselves.  We see how Sherlock uses his being in tune with emotions as well as intellect to solve Eurus' "game." We don't need him to say "and the answer is love," or whatever the right word would be.  Mycroft doesn't explain the reason for saying what he did when Sherlock was faced with choosing who to shoot - viewers drew those conclusions themselves.  Perhaps we don't always need to be told outright, with every detail spelled out.  Like John, maybe we can figure things out a bit more on our own, after being with Sherlock for some time - even though we're still led to those conclusions with what we're presented.

I don't think the show, in earlier seasons, told us too much without leaving enough for us to fill in ourselves.  I'm not saying that.  I really enjoy the earlier episodes, too.  I think in a lot of ways they were just as great as the new ones, if not better.  But I'm fine with the new developments, too.  I still think we were taken on an adventure, and there's always been adventures.  I think the show has alwasy been interesting and I think this series was interesting but in different ways.

It's OK if you don't agree with me, if you are still disappointed.  I don't think there's only one right way to write something, even if to you this seemed like it wasn't the right way.  That's how we get a variety of television programmes - different minds create different things to different sensibilities.  And I think shows can change over time - some people will like those changes, some people won't.

Last edited by Yitzock (January 16, 2017 2:52 am)

YES, Stayin Alive, well put. And Yitzok, also excellent observations of which I am mulling over.

Further to your thoughts Stayin Alive, this went from a show that ONLY those writers could write, to a drama (dare I say soap opera) that feels liek anyone could write.  It isn't just tonally different, the entire character is different. It tried too hard to reinvent itself, and in my opinion, critically failed. 

Here's a review by the lovely folks at The Nerdist, who have been HUGE Sherlock fans since the pilot.

http://nerdist.com/sherlocks-the-final-problem-series-4-review/

They did not like it. Noteables:

"The third problem is really that the entirety of the “mystery” and resolution hinged on things that neither we nor Sherlock knew, and couldn’t be figured out using his usual deductive methods. Scant few times in the episode did he actually use his powers of observation–the violin Eurus is holding, determining which of those three MacGuffin brothers actually committed the murder, that almost needless deciphering of song lyrics–leaving the rest to be either told to Sherlock flatly by Eurus herself, or to having the outcome hinge on emotional resonance rather than actual detective work."

"This leads inextricably to the fourth problem with “The Final Problem,” which is that the episode cheats more often than it doesn’t. Sherlock is always a show full of red herrings and double bluffs, but in this case, it’s almost all bluff and the red herring is us for trying to figure out what the red herring is."

"Which truly brings me to the final problem with “The Final Problem”; in the end, after 12 previous episodes–which essentially are 12 feature films of sleuthing adventures–the writers of the show didn’t trust in what Sherlock truly is: a detective series with amazing characters. There was nothing to figure out here, no grand and final Riddler-esque series of clues to track down and decipher, and no triumphant end for the world’s greatest and only consulting detective. I almost feel like “The Lying Detective” would have made a better finale, because it was an actual episode of Sherlock but with our hero having to pull himself up by his bootstraps and win. All he did here was figure out what his crazy sister was doing."

"This episode hardly felt like Sherlock at all, instead becoming a less gory Saw movie or something, where the big shocking reveal was only shocking in how unsatisfying it is. It was going to be very difficult to properly finish up such a beloved series; hell, the gap between series 2 and series 3 ensured that fans had become rabidly particular about what they liked in the show. But I can’t imagine anyone is truly happy with this final bow, save the nice montage at the very, very end."

Well, they've always said that "It's not a detective show, but a show about a detective". I love the fact that the show - at least in the two latest seasons - deals more with Sherlock's (and John's) character development than the cases. That makes the show more interesting to me.

I felt the point was that the solution required emotion, although Sherlock still needed his deductive powers to get to that point.   But if he wouldn't have been able to save John if he'd approached Eurus as he did Norbury, for instance.   I felt this was about integrating his emotional side with his rational genius side, and being able to use it to solve a case in a way that he maybe couldn't have done back in S1. 
 

WhoIWantToBe wrote:

Feel free to delete or move, if this criticism is not appropriate here.

This season we heard this a few times:

"I don't care HOW you did it" followed by "I want to know why" "I want to know how could you" etc from a variety of characters. Most recently Mommy Holmes. 

That to me, is the season in a nutshell. Gone are the days of walking us through the deductions, understanding that what Sherlock sees as a mortal man is made up of simple observations and logic and not a superhuman power. We had almost none of that in S4, and ironically the closest to it was in 221B when Sherlock was high. And now in TFP, the explanations to reason and observation is gone, replaced with what appears to only be superhuman powers. 

This feels like a slap in the face, the writers are no longer interested in the mental gymnastics it took them to create and show the reason, the deductions, and even the shows own characters say this. "I don't care how you did it." To be honest, it started in S3, with TEH when John interrupts Sherlock's explanation of faking his suicide. And it just got worse, to the point were frankly, it is flat out mocking us as an audience. 

Excellent observation. What became of "brainy is the new sexy" as one of the show's defining qualities?

I honestly don't think it was all meant to be terribly realistic.

We'll just have to disagree.
 I thought it was both.

diva wrote:

Well for me there is still a difference between "not terribly realistic" and completely unrealistic. Sherlock is fiction and hence I never expected it to be 100% realistic, after all it's not a documentary. I always accepted that the Sherlock universe created its own, slightly hightened reality. But pulling a secret sibling out of the hat after roughly 2/3 of the entire storyline and giving this character the ability to gain total control of (almost) anyone's mind just after 5 minutes talking to them is taking the entire show into the realm of the supernatural. They had so many possibilities where they could have taken the story and decided to go with one of the least convincing options. Again, what happened to "brainy is the new sexy" ? The storyline in TFP is neither brainy nor sexy.

I couldn't have said it any better. The show has never been absolutely realistic - and I guess nobody expects that from a tv show. But TFP felt like James Bond and Marvel superhero stuff mixed together and then some more. It was over the top on so many levels and yes, the HOW didn't matter after the fall and it doesn't really matter in TFP, either.