I watched 2nd episode last night - even though I wasn't planning to.  I think I *might* have liked it just a bit better than the first episode because there was a little more background revealed and JLM does show a touch of vulnerability that, at times, is appealing.  The violin bit was kind of nice. I think the one thing I liked the best in that episode was that Joan Watson was actually allowed to show her competent doctor side in the hospital scene.  We don't see that quite so much with John. His role seems to be more of a detective side kick - even though we see glimpses of him as a doctor here and there - examining a corpse or two and patching up Mrs. Hudson's face.  He hasn't really been 'needed' by Sherlock to be a doctor much in the 6 episodes so far.

Davina wrote:

I thought Joan Watson had been struck off? Or am I missing something here? I suspect John will have an opportunity to show his skills as a medic in the next series.

Not sure what you mean by "struck off".  Do you mean she is no longer practicing medicine?  Yes, that's still true, but she is with Sherlock when they go to see a potential suspect in the hospital.  Joan is able to use her medical skills to assess if the patient is really in a coma or not.  It becomes a valuable piece of the puzzle later.

Did anyone watch the second episode?

I haven't watch either yet but I still like reading y'all's reviews. Thinking about giving them a try still.......

Swanpride wrote:

Am I suppose to believe that the hospital, with all the equipment they have, can't tell if a patient is really in a coma, but Joan Watson can? (That's something which annoyed me about the first episode too, there was so much stuff Sherlock "deduced" which was so painfully obvious that I was wondering why the police didn't see it...making everyone else incompetent in order to let the main characters look good is not the right way to go).

I guess the point was that the docto/ boyfriend was able to put the woman in a 'medically induced coma' with drugs he had access to and the rest of the hospital personnel never questioned if it was medically induced or as the result of something else.  Joan knew how to test the patient's nuerological responses for coma and confirmed that the coma was real.  It wasn't until Sherlock deduced the doctor/patient relationship later in the show that he realized the coma was induced.  But a coma is a coma, whether induced or as a result of an injury or medical condition. You wouldn't be able to tell neurologically - and if the doctor wasn't ordering specific lab tests, no one would know anything.  I'm not trying to defend the show here- just though the writers showed Joan as a compent physician and thought it was an okay move.  Overall, I still give the show a thumbs down in overall appeal.