I would like to see some of the elements from The Illustrious Client incorporated into the series like Sherlock being physically hurt by the bad guys and a shocked John's readiness to seek vengeance. A Moffatised version of Watson's studying up on Chinese pottery to pass for an expert would be interesting. And there is Kitty Winter too, one of the strong female characters in Canon

Charles Augustus Milverton  and The Noble Bachelor are the other two stories I would include.

Milverton
Blaze
Red Headed League
 

Saturn, it's 'The Man with the Twisted Lip'. Indead a nice story. I would like to see: The Red Circle, The Dying Detective and The Musgrave Ritual.

I'd do The Sign of Four.

I know I'd love to see a story based on 'The Engineer's Thumb' or 'Charles Augustus Milverton' :D

Arwel Wyn Jones posted on twitter a picture with a new set. 
This made me think of something that I would like to see sometime in the future or if I had control over Series 3.
I enjoyed the scene in ASiP in 221b with Lestrade, Sherlock, John and many police personal. Just talking and deductions and people interacting without action scenes at all. The suspence was there but it was developed just by talking. Similar to the pill-scene with the cabby.

If I had control over Series 3 I would do just that and develope it to extremes: A full episode just in a flat, three rooms with some people, a  murder victim  and several suspects. Lestrade and Anderson, John with his medical expertise and nobody is allowed to leave untill the mystery is solved.

No action scenes, except the murder of course and the suspence that comes with the question who did it. Sherlock would be forced to interact with people. John sitting between metaphorical chairs wanting to help everybody. Emotional scenes because of a mourning wife or husband.

We have seen this kind of plot device of course, but it would be fun to have this situation with Sherlock and his faculties solving the crime in real time.
 

Sherlock Holmes wrote:

Milverton
Blaze
Red Headed League
 

*Nods ferociously*

(Mary would be the last name on this list for me. I want to see what Moffat and Gatiss have done with this character, what they have made of the docile wife of the canon stories. But this is actually giving control back to the writers, and we will get to see it anyway. I personally would give it a little dark twist and in the end let people find out something truly unexpected about her, let her be more than meets the eye.)

And I would certainly bring in some Holmes family history, not resolve everything of course, there is nothing as boring as having everything laid open before you, alI I would offer is a series of tiny glimpses behind the curtain, a bit of light shedding on the history of the difficult relationship of the Holmes brothers in a "to be continued" sort of way.

the_dancing_woman wrote:

Swanpride wrote:

I would like Mary to be exactly the supportive wife she is in canon. She gets way too much hate as it is. I rather want her to be the perfect match for John, so when she eventually dies, I want to weep with him from the bottom of my heart.

Oh, don't get me wrong I've stated many times how much I am looking forward to seeing Mary! The hating thing is something I will never understand anyway. She should be supportive of John, but canon Mary isn't supportive, she is mostly simply boring and docile, lets face it, she has her one true appearance in "the sign of four" and that's about it, otherwise she is there for two sentences in a story just to tell Watson to go and see Holmes. This would be a bit not enough for a modern Mary. Everyone here agrees so far that most likely she will have to go at the end of series 3, so I think it would be good to make this into a great story, which doesn't and shouldn't mean that she is basically evil and not honest about John, but maybe there is something about her past and then Milverton/Magnussen could come in.

But apart from SIGN,  in the story The Man with the Twisted Lip we get to see a a unique characteristic of her:

Folk who were in grief came to my wife like birds to a light-house.
“It was very sweet of you to come. Now, you must have some wine and water, and sit here comfortably and tell us all about it. Or should you rather that I sent James off to bed?

Then a little later Watson says,' We soothed and comforted her by such words as we could find.'

And think of Mycroft's character. Apart from the fact that he is SH's brother, and he is the cleverer, and THE British Government, is there really much about him in the story? But Moftiss gave us a wonderfull character using these key facts about him
and adding the sibling rivelry theme. So we can surely hope of a Mary, fleshed out but true to canon .

I completely agree with you about the Magnussen point. In the story, it is also about her past, I mean something related to the past of her late father. Here in the she might have something more personal to deal with.
 

holmes23 wrote:

But apart from SIGN, in the story The Man with the Twisted Lip we get to see a a unique characteristic of her:

Folk who were in grief came to my wife like birds to a light-house.
“It was very sweet of you to come. Now, you must have some wine and water, and sit here comfortably and tell us all about it. Or should you rather that I sent James off to bed?

Then a little later Watson says,' We soothed and comforted her by such words as we could find.'

Yes, you are absolutely right, she is mentioned there, and she seems to be a very compassionate person, but the mentioning is more or less en passant, again. We don't get to read much more about her.
I have complete trust in the writers as to how they will flesh out her character. Just like with most of the Sherlock Holmes stories, if they only stuck to canon Mary it would amount to maybe 20 minutes of screen time for her. As it has been pointed out correctly, they have done a beautiful job in enlargening Mycroft's character.
I just want her to be a bit more than a saint, and I think we will get more.

What truly intrigues me is Charles Augustus Magnussen's character, couldn't have come up with a better villain, very happy with the writer's decision there.