I'm not sure if I got your point, silverblaze, but to me "Sherlock" is the expensive wine, while most other shows are party wines. After S3 even more so.

Watching Sherlock spoiled me for not-so-brilliant crime shows.

The thing I loved most about series 3 (apart from the things that have already been mentioned here) was the route they took with Mary. Her character is just great IMO. And then especially the fact that Sherlock liked her. So much even that he made a vow to protect her, not just because she's John's wife but because he really likes her as a person and allows her to be one of his closest friends. I didn't expect that and I thought it was a wonderful idea. Although Sherlock had his problems with the fact that John didn't live in Baker Street anymore, all three of them made an effort to get along and it worked most of the time.
In general there was so much about friendship in this series, it was even more in focus than in S1 and S2, and I thought it was wonderful.

Good analysis. There are people who appreciate experiments and others want everything to stay the same. Imagine what would have happened if there had been no character development, no new approach … 

You know what? If you asked me which series was my favourite or least favourite, I don't think I could give you an answer. And it should be simple, because every series only has three episodes, right?

What I mean is that I love each and every series for what it is. Each one has its strong points and weaknesses, and I think every series also has its own flavour and ambiance. I can definitely say that, so far, I've always liked the middle episode least, but I still liked it and would rewatch it at any time.

I will admit that I haven't been able to follow each and every thread here on the forum on series 3, and, yes, there has been a certain amount of criticism posted online, but I didn't have the impression that series 3 was widely lambasted. Quite often the negative tends to be more memorable to us, so we focus more on it. Let's remember that we've also heard lots of squeeing and overall positive opinions about series 3.

I think some of the "problem" is that series 3 had a bit of a different feel, and the human mind is made to be instinctively wary of change. It may just take some "getting used to", although of course this doesn't apply to the casual viewer who will probably not watch an episode more than once.

I also think that a lot of the criticism is what we call "high level whining" in Germany. All things considered, Sherlock is still quality television. But when you're constantly raising the bar as a series creator/writer, the viewers start to expect a constant or even increasing level of quality. When it falls short in one or more aspects or doesn't meet viewer expectation in terms of story resolution, the internet gives everyone who is even just slightly disgruntled the perfect outlet for their outcry. This may be what we're seeing here.

So much for my take on it. I, for one, loved season three, and am looking forward to series 4 like an excited child awaiting Christmas the first week of January.

It was my favourite season, too, I think.   I absolutely loved it. (Although I do have a few issues with some things.)

I loved the mind-palace stuff, I  loved the stag do, I loved the Parliament blowing up, I loved the twists, I loved Sherlock's speech, I loved Mycroft, I loved the Holmes family, ...
 

silverblaze wrote:

What did I love? OMG, what DIDN'T I love! I'm not on the haters/critics team on this. 
 

Oh, can we please please please not use this word 'haters'. It's such a brutal word and doesn't fit into the context at all. I mean, I am sure that nobody here in this forum does actually hate series 3.

It's right there are a lot of discussion going on at the moment especially about the things people don't like. But that has nothing to do with hate or with belonging to a "like/don't like team". It's true people often tend to expose at first the negativ things or do nit-picking at something brilliant ("high level whining" like TeeJay said). Therefore this thread is a very good idea to visualize all the wonderful and brilliant moments we had with series 3.

But still, it must be also ok that people can talk about the things they didn't like or perhaps find confusing. I am sure this forum is for many of us the only way to really communicate and share opinions with other fans. I like the respectful contact we have all with each other. Please let's not disturb this with unnecessary love/hate "team building".

(@silver: I am sure you don't meant it like that. Please don't see this as an accusation. I just had the feeling that it was a necessary thing to say. There was a love/hate-discussion at the Hobbit thread a couple of weeks ago which had made me sad a bit. By the way, I like your metaphor with the wine. I totally agree with that!)

SusiGo wrote:

It is absolutely okay that people write about what they do not like. It was my personal wish to open this thread to counterbalance the IMO one-sided negative criticism. This is not about creating factions but to appreciate what is good about the series. 

Definitively! That's not what I meant. I just wish to avoid the word 'hate' and that people might get the impression that criticism push them into a certain corner. I don't know if I could make my intention clear.

It's fine, stoertebeker. I do not like the word hate either. 

Honestly, I loved it all!  It was far different than what I expected and that made it even better.  I especially loved the interactions between Sherlock and Mycroft.

There was a bit of character development for Mycroft, too. He warns Sherlock not to get involved and says he doesn't need friends (though Sherlock has a different opinion on that). But if you look closely you see Mycroft getting involved with Sherlock's friends more and more. It's not much yet, but he's becoming more human.