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YMMV / Sherlock

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  • Accidental Innuendo: Molly tells Sherlock that if he ever needs help, he can "have her", and later on, Sherlock says he "needs" Molly, although he means he needs her help to fake his death.
  • Adorkable: When John arrives at 221B while Sherlock's parents are there, Sherlock's attempts to get them out and his attempt at casualness afterwards are hilariously awkward. Taken up to eleven in "The Sign of Three," both as John's best man and as the de facto wedding planner.
  • Alternative Character Interpretation:
    • When Sherlock first meets Moriarty, he deduces in about two seconds that the latter is gay. Did Moriarty deliberately set this up to test Sherlock, or was it accidental? Given that he's not as smart as he thinks he is, it could be either.
    • Moriarity has snipers targeting John, Inspector Lestrade, and Mrs. Hudson, but not Molly. Is it because he underestimates her, or out of some lingering affection for her from the time that they dated?
    • John eventually deciding to stay with Mary after learning her secret. Does it show his dedication and love, or is he only staying with her because of the baby? Series 4's episode "The Six Thatchers" has believers of the latter feeling this is supported by John starting to show interest in another woman, possibly implying he no longer was in love with Mary after she shot Sherlock.
    • Sherlock seems never to remember Lestrade's first name. Does he really 'delete' it every time, or is he just screwing with Lestrade by pretending to forget? "The Final Problem" seems to imply the latter. note 
    • Was Mycroft really happy to let Magnussen go on his way, and truly didn't want Sherlock to mess with him? Or was he just (correctly, as it turns out) worried that Magnussen would be too much for him?
    • Related to the above, was Mycroft genuinely worried about large-scale government secrets, despite Magnussen's apparent lack of interest in doing much Bond-villain world destroying rather than just keeping his media empire going? Or was he actually afraid Magnussen would discover Sherrinford and its prisoner, and either have absolute control over Mycroft (and Sherlock) or decide that was just too big a secret to keep even for fun?
    • Did Sherlock actually fall off the wagon in Series 3? Or was it a deliberate gambit to make Magnussen underestimate him?
  • Angst? What Angst?:
    • John Watson seems to have PTSD in "A Study in Pink", to the extent he'd developed psychosomatic pain... but gets over it pretty quickly. Somewhat justified as being away from the war is what's causing his issues. Getting back to adventure solves that nicely.
      • Although as the Fridge Brilliance page mentions, there is the implication he didn't get over it; a subtle one, but it's certainly there.
      • And the subtlety goes out the window as of "His Last Vow", where it's revealed that John's PTSD has evolved into a danger addiction that has completely wrecked his ability to live a normal life.
    • Mrs. Hudson casually mentions how she found out her husband was a drug dealer and a murderer, and then rants about how their relationship was mostly physical.
  • Ass Pull:
    • In "A Scandal in Belgravia", Sherlock is tasked via livestreaming to solve a murder case, where a body is found near river and the police is clueless about how he died. Sherlock quickly solves it, but does not provide the answer directly. Later on, when Sherlock poses this subplot to Adler as a riddle, it's revealed the victim failed to catch a returning boomerang and killed himself by accident. However, there's no foreshadowing in the earlier scenes that implied the boomerang's existance and it's never explained how Sherlock found this out just by looking through a laptop camera. It's more egregious for Adler, who wasn't provided that livestream footage yet also deduces the same way as if they were on the scene the whole time.
    • One of the most consistent criticisms of "The Final Problem" is that the very existence of Eurus, Sherlock's secret sister, strains credibility to a truly ridiculous degree. Not to mention that she's even smarter than Mycroft.
    • Another criticism of the finale is hinting at Moriarty's return in The Stinger of its BTS feature, after spending an entire season cementing the fact that he's really dead. Rather than an Ass Pull, some fans see it as just taking the piss.
  • Award Snub:
    • The show received four Emmy nominations for the its first season, none of which were for the top prize or the performances. The one nomination it received above-the-line was for Steven Moffat's writing.
    • The show had better success with Series 2, earning thirteen nominations that included Best Miniseries or Movie and acting nominations for Cumberbatch and Freeman. However, it lost every category, to the chagrin of fans.
  • Awesome Ego:
    • Sherlock has an extremely high opinion of himself, and he may well deserve it. Fans love him for it regardless.
    • It runs in the family, as his older brother Mycroft shows the same high opinion of himself as Sherlock. He often points out how important he is for the British government and when another character says he basically is the British government he does not contradict that. Nonetheless he's well liked by fans of the series.
    • Moriarty, being an Evil Counterpart to Sherlock with all of his ego on full display. Many fans are similarly enamored with him.
    • To a lesser extent, Charles Augustus Magnussen. He's a disgusting sociopath, but if you had a mind capable of storing countless facts in your head and could easily recite them from memory, and could do a Sherlock Scan as well as the great man himself, wouldn't you also find it hard to brag? Deconstructed as his having no backups allows Sherlock to easily shoot him in the head.
  • Base-Breaking Character:
    • Moriarty:
      • Initial reactions to camp Moriarty seem to range from 'obnoxious voice and looks like a twelve-year old' to 'deliciously creepy re-interpretation similar to the newer versions of the Master and the Joker'.
      • Interestingly enough, the Joker comparisons are used by both Moriarty's fans and detractors.
      • Then there's the whole split of Moriarty fans who believe he is delightfully fucked up in contrast to the fans who manage to both leather-pants him and ukefy him while saying "My poor baby!"
    • The fan reactions to Irene Adler are contrasting at best. Either she's a clever, competent woman who managed to best the great Sherlock Holmes, or her character was oversexualised and reduced to a Damsel in Distress at the end, not to mention how the hate for her can reach well into Ron the Death Eater territory.
    • Mary after the reveal that she's actually a secret super spy. Some fans found her new backstory interesting, and liked that Mary was a genuine badass rather than just John's love interest. Others found her backstory over-the-top and unnecessary, and disliked the fact that she was able to outperform both John and Sherlock, with Sherlock outright saying that she was better at helping him than John.
  • Bizarro Episode:
    • "The Blind Banker", a horribly awkward attempt to translate 19th-century Yellow Peril villains to the present day (from a story (The Dancing Men) with no such villains in the first place), with zero connections to the far better-received first and third episodes of Series 1. It stands out so much, in fact, that some fans suspect that Stephen Thompson was left completely in the dark by Moffat and Gatiss except for the basic concept of a modern-day Holmes and Watson.
    • "The Abominable Bride". Otherwise know as "the back in time Christmas Special that turned out to be All a Dream."
  • Broken Base:
    • Although fans of the show had their minor disagreements over various aspects of the show during its course, nothing caused more controversy than Season 4. Aside from (possibly) "The Lying Detective", the first and final episodes of the season were polarizing at best, with critics and fans crying out how the series became less about of a detective series and more action packed and obsessed with the mentality of Darker and Edgier. "The Final Problem" became the biggest polarizing episode however, with more fans and critics debating on whether the series ended on a good note or if it ended in a cop out, especially with the revelations involving Eurus. It also lead to some fans holding Steven Moffat responsible for ruining the show, similar to the other show he ran.
    • Some fans outright detested "The Six Thatchers" for focusing on drama rather than an actual case and for focusing too heavily on Mary. It goes without saying that a lot of fans disliked the fact that John, of all people, was unfaithful, and that he was ultimately pushed to the background by both Sherlock and Mary; the former stating that Mary was far better at helping him. Some viewers also did not like changes to Sherlock’s characterization. On the other hand, some fans thought it was a refreshing episode with a much-needed change of pace. They liked that Mary got some more backstory, and enjoyed that she was made into a badass super spy, rather than just sitting in the background with the baby. They liked that there was more action, as opposed to detective work, and liked seeing the dynamic of Sherlock and Mary working together. Fans also liked the implication that John isn't perfect, and did cheat on his wife, and they also liked seeing the more human side of Sherlock saying it is a good case of Character Development.
    • The finale "The Final Problem" somehow manages to be even more polarizing, with the episode's ratings hitting an all-time low for the series:
      • Some believe that it was an intense, emotional roller-coaster of an episode and served its role as an exhilarating conclusion for the darkest and most tragic season of Sherlock. The ending of the episode is considered to be both a satisfying uplifting wrap up of the series, in case it is indeed the end, and a positive affirmation of the immortal status of Sherlock Holmes’ legend.
      • Some believe that it is by far the worst episode of the whole series. Why? The series makes a drastic genre shift to what may be considered an out of place Saw rip-off with newly arrived Holmes sibling Eurus serving as an improbable antagonist. She shatters viewers' suspension of disbelief regarding what is humanly possible, even by the show’s already borderline-superhuman standards, with her superpowers including instant brainwashing of anyone she meets and predicting terror attacks in an hour based on Twitter patterns. Like most antagonists of the series, she is obsessed with Sherlock and uses her alleged intellect to construct a clichéd slasher maze full of sadistic choices. This whole incredibly complex and well-prepared long-range plan, based on numerous unpredictable variables, was forged by her and Jim Moriarty in five minutes, breaking the suspension of disbelief even further. Unsurprisingly, both Sherlock and Mycroft look severely underpowered and helpless in this episode, for no reason playing by the villain's rules for quite some time. Mycroft specifically turns out to be an imbecile by letting a dangerously-psychotic genius mastermind have an unsupervised conversation with another dangerously-psychotic genius mastermind, who both openly obsessed over and directly threatened his little brother. Ultimately, Sherlock defeats his sister through equally magical abilities and empathy, revealing the horrible truth about what happened to Redbeard in the process and learning about the undercooked motivation of Eurus. Unsurprisingly, lots and lots of blatant plot holes appear. Perhaps it is also not surprising that some people saw it as a bad fanfiction rather than a genuine episode.
      • Not to mention how emotionally oppressive and uncomfortable to watch "The Final Problem" was. Witnessing Molly Hooper being humiliated again by being forced to confess her love to Sherlock by an equally-humiliated and unwilling Sherlock was an especially gruelling experience for quite a lot of fans.
      • Mary's narration at the end is seen as either a touching way to cover the ending montage, while others found it Narm and out of place. A fan edit was made removing the narration, which had many people feeling it made the ending a lot better.
      • Some fans think that despite the episode’s plot being a mess, its emotional moments, especially the ending, as well as completed character arcs for Sherlock and John were more than enough to make up for its other shortcomings.
      • Yet another group liked the episode fine despite its flaws, but disliked the Grand Finale-like ending, feeling it came out of nowhere after the whole Eurus story, thus ruining an episode that could have been fine on its own if not for it being treated as the very last.
      • Other than the argument of whether or not it was a good finale, the fact that John and Sherlock are not explicitly in a relationship did not go over silently. One half of the fandom is enraged that the creators queerbaited them for the entire series only to not go through with it at the end. The other half point out that the creators never said the relationship would happen, and that a few people looked too deeply into John and Sherlock's relationship. The argument of whether the Johnlock ship is more appreciated than the show itself is a whole new war entirely.
  • Complete Monster:
    • Jim Moriarty is a "consulting criminal" who lends his genius to help other crooks commit crimes, in the name of alleviating his own boredom and obsessively trying to capture the attention of Sherlock Holmes, not caring who he hurts while doing so. Behind the villains of the first two episodes, Moriarty takes center stage in "The Great Game", selling out his own clients and challenging Sherlock to solve his puzzles lest bombs he has strapped to innocents—one of whom is a child—detonate, considering the whole spectacle a demented game for himself. When an old woman begins describing the sound of his voice to Sherlock, Moriarty immediately detonates her bomb, killing her and eleven others. Later, threatening the family members of a jury to force them to declare him innocent when arrested, Moriarty goes on to poison two children; murders his own accomplice; frames Sherlock for his own crimes; and tries to force Sherlock to commit suicide, threatening to have his loved ones killed if he does not. When Sherlock attempts to force Moriarty into calling off his killers, Moriarty happily shoots himself dead to "win" his game with Sherlock. Even after his death, Moriarty arranges a plan with Sherlock's sister to continue forcing him through Sadistic Choices, resulting in the death of more innocents, unwilling to let go of his obsessive chase with Sherlock even with his own passing.
    • "The Hounds of Baskerville": Dr. Bob Frankland was once one of the lead scientists in Project H.O.U.N.D., working with the group in testing an awful new hallucinogen on unwitting innocents who were subsequently driven into homicidal or suicidal mania, resulting in countless deaths attributed to the project. Going into hiding after the project was shut down, Frankland continues the experiments in the hopes of creating a new method of chemical warfare he can sell. When one of his co-workers tries to expose Frankland's heinous machinations, Frankland infects the man and his young son Henry with the chemical and beats Henry's father to death, spending years after trying to drive Henry to suicide with the hallucinogen to cement the cover-up.
    • Series 3: Charles Augustus Magnussen is the "Napoleon of blackmail", regarded by Sherlock Holmes as one of the few people who can disgust him. A vile predator who uses gathered information on everyone around him to blackmail them, Magnussen abides by his creed of "knowing is owning" to then dominate, bully, and sexually prey on whoever is under his thumb, using them to satisfy his sadistic ego. Molesting and threatening worse to Lady Smallwood while blackmailing her husband, Magnussen showcases what happens to those who don't cow to his whims by using his media network to demonize and drive Lord Smallwood to suicide with his blackmail material, the Smallwoods both serving as just one example of his many victims. When Sherlock and John Watson interfere in his affairs, Magnussen threatens to expose Mary Watson's past as a gun-for-hire to get her and her loved ones slain, and forces John to withstand his eyeball being flicked repeatedly by Magnussen, who brags all the while that he torments his secretary and entire countries in whatever ways he likes for his own petty enjoyment.
    • "The Lying Detective": Culverton Smith is a seemingly charitable philanthropist who uses his public persona to hide the truth that he is a sadistic Serial Killer whose greatest desire is to kill anyone he can. Having taken part in the construction of a hospital, Culverton secretly outfitted it with a variety of secret passageways and doors, which he uses to enter the rooms of patients and murder them, framing their deaths as accidents or natural causes so as to enable his murder spree to go on for years and claim countless lives. Spending his free time playing with corpses in the hospital's mortuary and drugging people so as to confess his crimes and enjoy their horrified reactions before the drugs wipe their memory of the confession, Culverton taunts Sherlock and Watson with his crimes when they begin investigating him, before ultimately trying to kill Sherlock with obvious sexual glee. Boasting the simple motivation that he just loves to watch people die and make them into "things" for him to toy with, Culverton cheerfully confesses to his immense amount of murders when caught, musing about how famous he's going to be for the killings.
  • Consolation Award: A more cynical interpretation for Sherlock's surprise 2014 Emmy sweep.
  • Crazy Is Cool:
    • He's Sherlock Holmes, and crazier than most portrayals. He keeps eyeballs in the microwave and a severed head in the fridge, and gets rid of his boredom by spray-painting a smiley face on the wall and shooting at it. And the thumbs in the refrigerator. Poor Mrs. Hudson. Bonus points for shooting the wall being canon to the source material - in "The Musgrave Ritual", he is mentioned to have shot the Queen's initials into his wall as target practice.
    • Also Mycroft in his own way. His use of phones and CCTV cameras is quite impressive, and just being so stoic makes it better.
    • Moriarty, although he definitely goes into Creepy Awesome.
  • Crosses the Line Twice: Mrs. Hudson being attacked and visibly bruised by the American? Horrifying. Sherlock avenging her by tying the man up and throwing him out the window right on her bins, all the while reporting it to the police? Heartwarmingly badass and funny. The Smash Cut to Lestrade showing up and asking Sherlock how many times did the man fall out the window? Absolutely hilarious.
  • Creepy Awesome:
    • Sherlock does this too many times to count, but particularly this interaction in "A Study in Pink", immediately after foot-in-mouth moment:
      Sherlock: If you were dying, if you'd been murdered, in your very last seconds, what would you say?
      John: Please, God, let me live.
      Sherlock: Oh, use your imagination!
      John: I don't have to.
    • Magnussen, owing to his cunning moments coupled with him being an absolute creep.
    • Considering the big surprises of Series 4, Eurus. This fits considering she's Sherlock's sister.
  • Delusion Conclusion: In the wake of the highly-contentious fourth season, some fans became convinced that the events of "The Final Problem" were simply too ridiculous to have actually happened, and theorized that everything after Watson got shot in the head was just a massive dream sequence experienced over the course of his coma. Where this theory went a little bit weird was the point when these fans began insisting there had to be a hidden fourth episode in which Watson would wake up and get a happy ending with Sherlock, and for some reason came to believe that it was actually disguised as the first episode of the BBC thriller Apple Tree Yard.
  • Die for Our Ship: Many fans were annoyed that Mary would show up and hoped for her eventual demise. After His Last Vow many fans lost their sympathy towards her, but mostly because of things other than shipping. Although a lot of them forgave her in The Six Thatchers and were devastated when she DID die at the end of it.
  • Draco in Leather Pants:
    • Moriarty. Despite being irredeemable in the show, he gets this treatment in fandom for being attractive and funny. His Irish accent is enough to give non-fangirls of him instant nosebleeds (but only if they're listening on earphones or headphones).
    • Eurus gets a mix of this or downright Base-Breaking Character due to her big Moral Event Horizon moments but with her tragic backstory.
  • Ensemble Dark Horse:
    • Mycroft. That's what you get when you utilize the character's full potential and cast Mark Gatiss in the role.
    • Not to mention his assistant, "Anthea". Five lines, two scenes, one episode, and no real name revealed for her... and the fandom absolutely adores her. Needless to say, her return, however brief, in The Empty Hearse, was met with much rejoicing.
    • Molly Hooper was originally intended to be a one-off character, but she quickly became a favourite among the creators and the fans.
    • Anderson, after being Rescued from the Scrappy Heap in the mini-episode "Many Happy Returns", became even more popular in Season 3, where he's a stand-in for the show's fandom.
    • Archie from "The Sign of Three".
    • Donovan was close to becoming one after the first episode because of her no-nonsense attitude towards Sherlock; however, she instead became a downright Jerkass towards him in subsequent episodes, and after "The Reichenbach Fall", she instead became The Scrappy who is near-universally hated by the fanbase.
    • DI Stella Hopkins from "The Six Thatchers" mainly for being the first Conan Doyle inspector besides Lestrade to show up, plus being a Gender Flip of her book counterpart.
  • Epileptic Trees: The Johnlock Conspiracy alleges that, contrary to the usual interpretation of the Ho Yay between Sherlock and Watson as no more than Bait-and-Switch Lesbians, in spite of statements from the creators that Johnlock would not happen, that they were just Lying Creators and that there were various hints sprinkled throughout the show indicating that Johnlock would become an Official Couple in earnest. After Season 4 released and concluded on a hugely controversial final episode without making the pairing official, The Johnlock Conspiracy fans alleged that it was a coverup for an unaired "lost episode" in which the couple did become canon, although no concrete evidence of the supposed lost episode has surfaced.
  • Evil Is Cool: Jim Moriarty easily falls into this being The Chessmaster and having a charming portrayal by Andrew Scott.
  • Fandom Rivalry:
    • For one, there's the 2009 and 2011 Guy Ritchie films.
    • Brief kerfuffles occurred in early 2012 with the fandom of the K-Pop band SHINee, for overtaking the #Sherlock tag on Tumblr for the band's new album.
    • Fights with Elementary fandom have naturally gotten ugly, mainly for Watson's Gender Flip and Race Lift. And, ironically, Sherlock fans flooding the Elementary tag on Tumblr. The big irony here is that Cumberbatch and Elementary Sherlock Jonny Lee Miller have been good friends since before either took the role.
    • More generally, there are fights with fans of other versions of Sherlock Holmes, including the original Conan Doyle stories, who are upset that the show's Sherlock is such an extreme Insufferable Genius and that Pop-Cultural Osmosis causes some people to believe that all versions of Holmes are that unpleasant.
    • The 2013 National Television Awards have made enemies of Downton Abbey fans for winning over Sherlock. Cue more tag-flooding on Tumblr... of the wrong tag.
    • Fights got nasty with Teen Wolf fandom on Tumblr, in March 2013. Teen Wolf's Season 3 airdate was posted by a fan, but only mentioned the show in the tags. Fandom outrage, once again, as confused Sherlockians thought they were being deliberately misled.
  • Fanfic Fuel: The two years Sherlock spent between seasons two and three dismantling Moriarty's criminal empire while everyone assumes he's dead.
  • Fanon:
    • As of this writing, it hasn't even been officially confirmed that Sebastian Moran will appear in this show at all, though browsing the insane amounts of modern Moran fan art on DeviantArt might give you a different impression.
      • A Lord Moran appears in "The Empty Hearse", though that seems to be where the similarities end. The true Sebastian Moran is seemingly Mary Morstan of all people, who is something of a Composite Character.
    • When Sherrinford was mentioned in Series 4, fans assumed he would make an appearance, being the fandom equivalent to a smarter Holmes brother. This was thrown out the window when not only was Sherrinford a location, but the Holmes sibling was a demented psychotic woman named Eurus.
  • Fan Nickname:
    • "Mocklock" has been used in a few comment threads for those that believe that the ambassador's children were kidnapped by someone disguised as Sherlock Holmes, which caused the little girl to freak out when she saw the real Sherlock. Also used to refer to the theory that the dead Sherlock at the end of the episode was a body double, possibly the same body that kidnapped the children.
    • Since the two producers work so closely together on this, their names have slowly condensed from "Steven Moffat and Mark Gatiss" to "Moffat and Gatiss" to "Moffat-Gatiss" to finally colliding into "Mofftiss." When speaking only of Mark Gatiss, fans usually switch his surname to God-tiss.
    • In the Chinese fandom, Sherlock and John are nicknamed "Curly Fu" and "Peanut". "Curly" refers to Sherlock's hair and "Fu" is short for Fuermosi (福尔摩斯), the Chinese rendering of "Holmes". "Peanut" refers to the Chinese rendering of "Watson", Huasheng (华生), being a homophone of the word for peanut, huasheng (花生).
    • "Jawn", for John.
  • Fan-Preferred Couple:
    • Holmes/Watson, also known as Johnlock. Although Watson's love interest in Mary Morstan and Sherlock has some sexual tension with Irene Adler, who is attracted to him, Johnlock is by far the most popular pairing for the show, and the second most popular pairing on all of AO3.
    • Although Mycroft Holmes is implied to be having an affair with Lady Smallwood, his most popular pairing is with Lestrade.
  • Fourth Wall Myopia: Donovan suffers from the effects of this. We know that Sherlock isn't going to turn evil, but she doesn't. Her suspicion of Sherlock makes her The Scrappy.
  • Friendly Fandoms:
  • Genius Bonus: The Standard Snippet to which Moriarty commits the heist of the century in "The Reichenbach Fall"? The Overture to Rossini's La Gazza Ladra, or The Thieving Magpie. Doubles as a Shout-Out to A Clockwork Orange.
  • Germans Love David Hasselhoff: The show is popular in many countries across the globe from America to India but none of them are as obsessed with it as China is. There is even a Sherlock-themed cafe in Shanghai, and the nickname of the entire UK is affected by this single series (see Memetic Mutation below)
    • Johnlock fanfiction is becoming increasingly popular in China, and even non-shippers agree that they have a epic bromance. Tie-in editions also tend to sell out faster than other editions of the canon there, and many fans also enjoy the Casebook.
  • Harsher in Hindsight:
    • From "A Study in Pink":
      John: Do people usually assume you're the murderer?
      Sherlock: Now and then, yes.
      • There are actually dozens of these if you actually look close enough, especially references to "The Reichenbach Fall". It seriously adds to the rewatch value.
    • This line from John's blog, regarding an incident between Sherlock and himself in "The Hounds of Baskerville" — He'd used me as an experiment. One day I will kill him.
    • When John wanders past a dummy hanging by the neck from the ceiling of 221B, he jokes, "So... did you just talk to him for a very long time?" Incredibly harsh when you consider that, after Jim Moriarty talked to him for a very long time, Sherlock apparently committed suicide before the end of the episode. Ouch.
    • Again with Reality Subtext: During "The Six Thatchers", John jokingly tells Mary "Can I divorce you?" after she jokingly compares him to a dog that Sherlock got to help with a case. This becomes painful when before said episode airing, Martin Freeman and his partner Amanda Abbington (who plays Mary) separated, although on amicable terms.
    • In "The Lying Detective", Mrs. Hudson abducting Sherlock and stuffing him in the trunk of her car is hilarious. However, the scene can be harder to watch knowing that in 2005, Benedict Cumberbatch and some friends were abducted in real life and put in the cars of criminals in South Africa, to which Cumberbatch at one point was put in the trunk. One can only wonder if filming that part gave him flashbacks.
    • "A Study in Pink". Sgt. Sally Donovan says: "One day we'll be standing around a body and Sherlock Holmes will be the one who put it there." Fast forward to "The Reichenbach Fall" and ouch.note 
      • And then there's the climax of "His Last Vow", where Sherlock shoots Magnussen in front of three police helicopters and Mycroft.
    • In "The Great Game" Sherlock sarcastically compares Jim Moriarty's gig as a consulting criminal to the famous British TV show "Jim'll Fix It", where children around the UK wrote to the host Jimmy Saville with a wish they had and Saville arranging it to be fulfilled. Just over a year later, Jimmy Saville would die...and then be posthumously ousted as perhaps the most prolific pedophile and sexual predator in British history.
    • One of John's last lines to Sherlock in "The Reichenbach Fall" becomes this when you puzzle out who, exactly, is protecting whom.
      Sherlock: Alone protects me.
      John: No. Friends protect people.
    • Also, Mrs. Hudson's comment in "A Scandal in Belgravia", considering how Moriarty finds out Sherlock's life story:
      Mrs. Hudson: Family is all we have in the end, Mycroft Holmes.
    • John's quote "The press will turn, Sherlock. They always turn, and they'll turn on you" from "The Reichenbach Fall" echoed eerily in the minds of some fans when they read some articles written about Benedict Cumberbatch, which used quotes that were no doubt taken completely out of context and twisted around. They media is definitely taking advantage of this self-proclaimed "PR disaster".
    • The cab driver's words to Sherlock: "I'm not gonna kill you, Mr. Holmes. I'm gonna talk to you, and then you're gonna kill yourself."
    • The allusion to Jimmy Savile when discussing Moriarty's modus operandi as a criminal Jim'll Fix It, in light of the 2012 allegations about the late entertainer. It doesn't help when we learn in "The Reichenbach Fall" that Moriarty moonlights as an award-winning children's storyteller.
    • The words "love is a far more vicious motivator" from "A Study in Pink" hurt much more since Sherlock commited suicide to save the people he loves, his only friends.
    • All of these lines from "A Scandal in Belgravia" sound like wicked foreshadowing after watching "The Reichenbach Fall":
      Sentiment is a chemical defect found in the losing side.
      I've often thought that love was a dangerous disadvantage. Thank you for the final proof.
      This is your heart, and you should never let it rule your head.
      • They're just as painful in relation to "His Last Vow", knowing that Sherlock kills Magnussen to protect John, and is almost sent on a suicide mission to Eastern Europe as punishment.
    • Doubling as Reality Subtext, in "The Sign of Three", Major Reed's suspicion of John's motives for investigating the case, coupled with Sherlock breaking into the barracks and the (attempted) murder of Pvt. Bainbridge shortly after, leads him to immediately assume that they were responsible. After the 2013 murder of Pvt. Lee Rigby, his paranoia about security come across as very justified.
    • Regarding "The Six Thatchers", Sherlock tells Mary that he will protect her (which is a reference to "The Sign of Three") and even vows to do so. The episode ends with Mary dying and John becoming a broken man who berates Sherlock for not keeping his promise.
    • Mycroft told Sherlock that their parents attempts to encourage them to play with other children did not go very well. It takes on a whole new horrifying meaning in "The Final Problem" when we learn the truth about Victor and Redbeard.
    • The whole reveal in "The Hounds of Baskerville" that the hound was not a dog but a man is incredibly similar to the situation regarding Victor and Redbeard in "The Final Problem". Henry couldn't cope with the trauma, so he rationalised it into a dog killing his father, in the same way as Sherlock imagining it was his beloved dog that had died, not his best friend, as he had always wanted a dog but due to his father being allergic to them, was never allowed one.
  • Heartwarming in Hindsight: A lot of Sherlock's behavior towards John in "A Study in Pink" seems like just common courtesy (thanking him for the phone, trying to turn him down gently when he thinks John is into him, waiting for him at the top of the stairs) until we reach later episodes, and we realize that Sherlock normally couldn't care less about common courtesy. The whole of Season 3 also doubles as Tear Jerker in Hindsight.
  • He's Just Hiding:
    • Sherlock was this in-universe, although in this case the speculators were correct.
    • Moriarty for some, who expected Joker Immunity to be in play. The apparent confirmation of this is a major plot point in Season 4, which while revealed is dead, his presence pretty much continues.
  • Hilarious in Hindsight:
    • Sherlock is being investigated by a reporter from The Sun and finds a recording device planted in 221B at a point in the show's timeline (June 2012) that is four months after five Sun reporters and editors were arrested on hacking and bribery charges. Considering that particular episode was written and filmed several months before the News of the World scandal broke, it becomes either Harsher in Hindsight and/or doubly hilarious.
    • There's also the fact that The Sun was giving Benedict Cumberbatch A LOT of attention around the time Series 2 aired in America. According to the polls, brainy has indeed become the new sexy!
    • The scandal regarding Prince Harry's strip-poker shenanigans with female entertainers just practically screams the premise of "A Scandal in Belgravia". Seeing a similar situation befall the Duchess of Cambridge after a few months makes it either worse… or this.
    • Sherlock's line "Oh I may be on the side of angels, but don't think for one second that I'm one of them." Benedict Cumberbatch went on to play the Angel Islington on the BBC radio drama of Neil Gaiman's Neverwhere.
    • In the 2012 episode "The Hounds of Baskerville", after Sherlock complains about experiencing emotions, Watson sarcastically calls him "Spock". In the 2013 film Star Trek Into Darkness, Benedict Cumberbatch plays Khan Noonien Singh, who has several showdowns with Spock.
    • John's "Holy Mary!" reaction to Molly's dress in "A Scandal in Belgravia", when his wife as of series 3 is named "Mary".
    • In "The Great Game" Sherlock goes "I am on fire!". A couple of years later, he becomes fire.
    • In "A Scandal in Belgravia", Sherlock expresses distaste for burglars.
    • The whole "Moriarty is an actor" scheme in "The Reichenbach Fall", since the release of Iron Man 3 and the backlash over Ben Kingsley's Mandarin being an actor. Note the title role in the Iron Man series is Robert Downey Jr., who also played Holmes in another adaptation.
    • In "The Geek Interpreter", Melas mentions that he's talking to some of his mates in the comic book industry to set up a graphic novel series of their cases. Guess what happened later?
    • In "A Scandal in Belgravia", Sherlock mentions the Allies breaking the German code but not wanting to let the Germans know that they broke it. Benedict Cumberbatch would later play the man who made that decision, Alan Turing, in The Imitation Game.
    • Oona Chaplin, who plays John's girlfriend in "A Scandal in Belgravia", would go on to play Talisa Stark in Game of Thrones. In "His Last Vow", Tom Brooke joins Sherlock as Bill Wiggins. Brooke played a Frey in Game of Thrones, specifically the Frey who stabs Talisa repeatedly in the Red Wedding. This puts John attacking Wiggins in "His Last Vow" in a different light.
    • With this series, both the character of Sherlock Holmes and John Watson have been portrayed by actors called "Britain's Sexiest Man" at different times (Benedict Cumberbatch and Jude Law from the Guy Ritchie films.)
    • Moriarty's scheme in "The Reichenbach Fall" involves stealing the crown jewels of England and posing with them for the police, and he later mockingly calls himself a King in a conversation with Sherlock ("In a world of locked rooms, a man with a key is King. And honey, you should see me in a crown…"). Andrew Scott and Benedict Cumberbatch are now both set to play historical Kings in Season 2 of The Hollow Crown: Louis XI of France and Richard III of England, respectively.
    • The Fandom Rivalry between fans of this show and the Robert Downey, Jr. films got a lot funnier when it was announced that Benedict Cumberbatch and Robert Downey, Jr. would both be playing superheroes in the Marvel Cinematic Universe: Doctor Strange and Iron Man, respectively. Making it funnier is the fact that both characters are complete opposites in every way (one is a hedonistic, wise-cracking Science Hero, the other a stoic, ascetic sorcerer), and they end up sharing the screen in Avengers: Infinity War.
    • The last time Siân Brooke, who plays Eurus, the third Holmes sibling, worked alongside Benedict Cumberbatch, she was his love interest in a production of Hamlet.
    • Lars Mikkelsen's role as an opponent of Sherlock Holmes becomes this after his casting as Grand Admiral Thrawn, considered by many Star Wars fans to be that franchise's equivalent of Holmes (albeit evil, and an alien). The same year Thrawn debuted on that show, Mads Mikkelsen appeared in both Doctor Strange (2016) and Rogue One, so now both brothers have battled Benedict Cumberbatch, and both have appeared in Star Wars.
    • The courtroom drama movie Denial is about a real-life trial and features both Andrew Scott and Mark Gatiss... on the same side (respectively as a lawyer and an expert called to testify). Seems Holocaust Denial is serious business enough to make Mycroft team up with Moriarty!
    • Andrew Scott and Benedict Cumberbatch both appear in 1917, on the same side (they both play a British officer). Sadly, they have no scenes together. The same movie also includes Mark Strong as another British officer (Strong played the Big Bad of Sherlock Holmes (2009)).
  • Ho Yay: Has its own page.
  • Hype Backlash: The show's massive popularity eventually created this with those finding it way overrated, derailing most of the characters from their original book counterparts, creating "sexist" and/or "racist" character arcs and plotlines, the disappointing final season and relying far too much on "Tell" rather than "Show" (i.e. mysteries often being served with little to no clues to the viewers with Sherlock coming up with the solution off-screen or out of thin air in order to "tell" you how smart he is rather than "showing" it) - possibly the biggest criticism of the show.
    • The show itself even became a huge victim of criticism in recent years with Youtube "essay-ers" when they (most infamously Sarah Z and H.Bomberguy) pointed out many flaws of the show and even at times being problematic for them (notably with Sarah Z's retrospective of the series over the alleged "queer baiting" the series had).
  • I Knew It!: On this very wiki's Wild Mass Guessing page, tropers correctly deduced that "Jim" was Moriarty.
    • It probably helps that ads for Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows had Watson listing off the man's full name: Professor James Moriarty.
    • Also, any fans of The Goon Show already knew that thanks to their character "Count Jim Knees [Amusing Noise]... Moriarty...
    • The way Sherlock faked his death incorporated his homeless network, the man on the bike, Mocklock, the truck, a giant cushion, and a ball under the armpit. All were components of fan theories, and it's likely someone out there got everything right.
  • It Was His Sled: Andrew Scott's character is Moriarty. The first episode tried to imply Mark Gatiss' character was Moriarty until he was revealed at the end to be Mycroft, who would then be promoted to part of the main cast from the second season onwards. Adding to the intention of Moriarty's identity being a big twist was that Scott's character first appeared as a minor character known simply as Jim before disappearing then returning at the end of the same episode upon revealing his true identity as Jim Moriarty. It doesn't help that Moriarty's first name has traditionally been James.
  • Jerkass Woobie:
  • Just Here for Godzilla: Several fans of the series bought the tie-in editions of The Hound of the Baskervilles and The Sign of the Four for Benedict Cumberbatch/Martin Freeman's introduction.
  • Like You Would Really Do It: Sherlock is quickly revealed at the end of the second season to not have died, but to have somehow faked his suicide.
  • Love to Hate: Moriarty, whose deliciously evil personality has him competing with The Joker and Johan for the title of: "Most Magnificent of all Monsters"
  • Magnificent Bastard:
    • Mary Morstan, later Watson—real name Rosamund Mary—is introduced as John Watson's clever, witty Love Interest, but is soon revealed to be far more than she appears. In truth a former hired gun for the team A.G.R.A., Mary pulled off countless assassinations and other forms of illegal work for the highest bidders, but was forced to go into hiding when her team was compromised. The only A.G.R.A. member skilled enough to escape capture and create an entirely new identity, Mary plays her new role as a regular bystander so well that even Sherlock fails to see through her lies, and when Charles Augustus Magnussen attempts to blackmail her with her past, Mary effortlessly ingratiates herself into his inner circle and puts Magnussen at her mercy. Eventually becoming a proper, accepted partner by John and Sherlock, Mary faces down enemies from her past before sacrificing her own life to save Sherlock's, making John promise her as she dies that he'll look after their daughter, all while assuring John that her life with him was the best she ever had.
    • "A Study In Pink": Jeff Hope is an unassuming cabbie who uses his genius mind for manipulation to trick people into playing a lethal "game" with him. Jeff's game involves making his victim choose one of two identical pills, one which is lethal poison, the other safe to consume, and whichever his victim picks, Jeff takes the other pill. Having claimed four victims with this method—using his talent for reading people to ensure he manipulates them into choosing the lethal pill—Jeff further coerces Sherlock himself into playing Jeff's game by appealing to the consulting detective's ego. "Sponsored" by James Moriarty with money for every person he murders that Jeff hopes to leave to his kids once a brain aneurysm kills him, Jeff nearly finishes his game with Sherlock until Watson interferes, leaving it ambiguous as to whether the cabbie was gracefully accepting his death by taking the poison, or had actually outwitted Sherlock into taking it himself.
  • Memetic Badass:
    • Both Mycroft and his Umbrella.
    • Molly Hooper dated the most dangerous man in Britain. Then dumped his ass.
      • After turning him into a Gleek.
    • According to the Internet, John "Three Continents" Watson is a tiny assassin in a cuddly jumper.
  • Memetic Mutation:
  • Moe: The fandom accepts Molly Hooper and John Watson as some of the cutest characters in the show, the latter for his cuddly jumper.
  • Moral Event Horizon:
    • Moriarty strapping one of his bombs onto a little boy and forcing him to count down to his own demise. Everything he did in that episode was horrifying, but that moment reveals just how sick a bastard our heroes are dealing with.
    • In "The Hounds Of Baskerville", Bob Frankland crossed it by beating Henry's father to death, right in front of Henry (leaving him an orphan in the process), because Henry's father found Frankland testing the abandoned Project Hound drug. Henry was left emotionally and mentally traumatised and unstable and had to attend therapy as an adult.
    • In "His Last Vow", Magnussen crosses it by threatening Mary Morstan with blackmail, that would doubtless be catastrophic for the Watsons. How bad is this? It's so bad that Sherlock outright murders him, something that he didn't even come close to doing with Moriarty. This is assuming he didn't cross it by driving a man to suicide or trying to burn John Watson alive.
    • Culverton Smith pretty much on everything he does considering he wants to kill just for the sake of wanting to murder "anybody" all while using his wealth and power to avoid getting caught.
    • Eurus Holmes crosses it very early on when it's established that when she and Sherlock were children, she murdered his childhood friend Victor (AKA Redbeard) out of petty jealousy at their friendship by drowning him in a well, and then tried to murder Sherlock as well by burning down their house. And this is many, many years before the events of The Final Problem, during which it's established that she previously drove a psychiatrist to commit Murder-Suicide and raped and killed a nurse, forces a man to murder his own family, plays Deadly Games with her brothers (inflicting horrific Mind Rape on them in the process), and nonchalantly executes several hostages even when her games were followed to the letter, all with sadistic glee and a sickening smile on her face.
  • Narm:
    • During the climactic confrontation with the cabbie in "A Study in Pink", he uses the phrase “didn’t see that comin, didja?” twice within the same monologue.
    • For some, virtually every word out of Moriarty's mouth in "The Great Game" and the start of "A Scandal in Belgravia" (he seems to have graduated from Cesar Romero to Heath Ledger since.)
    • The case concerning the mysteriously killed man in "A Scandal in Belgravia" who turns out to have been killed by a boomerang has some calling it the most ridiculous side-mystery of the show as it presents absolutely no clues to the viewers, Sherlock sees the scene of death through his computer and then off-screen comes up with the solution that's bizarrely a boomerang. Some of the show's detractors will use this scene as the "best example" of a major critique of Sherlock: its tendency to "Tell" rather than "Show".
    • "The Hounds Of Baskerville":
      • The opening scene. The way it's shot, the cheesy pounding music, and especially the young Henry's scream. "AAAAAAAAAAAAAH!"
      • The entire "mind palace" bit, which consists of Sherlock making funny faces and waving his hands dramatically through incredibly fast-paced editing and rapid cuts while conjuring random words, images, and sounds (including a dog barking, an Elvis Presley lyric, and a bit of music that most people recognize as the Monty Python theme) in an attempt to show Sherlock's train of thought. It's even funnier if you imagine what it looks like to an outside observer. Quite a number of people to stumble across it years later are baffled to discover that it's not a funny edit or a parody; that's just how the scene looks.
    • Two glorious examples in "His Last Vow": First is Sherlock dramatically crawling up the stairs back to his mind palace complete with infinitely swelling music, second is Magnussen enjoying himself just a little too much while going through the files in his own mind palace.
    • The sounds John makes with his mouth in "The Six Thatchers" after Mary dies in his arms.
    • The way John and Sherlock burst out the windows of 221B Baker Street in "The Final Problem", John especially with his goofy expression.
  • Narrowed It Down To The Guy I Recognise: Some viewers saw the identity of Moriarty coming due to this trope.
  • Never Live It Down: Sherlock deducing that a man got killed by a boomerang and that the owner of a phone was an alcoholic for having scratches in his charging jack has been infamous online, having many people mock them, with the shows detractors highlighting them as examples of Bat Deduction / Conviction by Counterfactual Clue.
  • Offending the Creator's Own: Despite co-creator Mark Gatiss being gay, a faction of the fanbase is convinced that the show is homophobic, due to the constant in-universe and out-of-universe teasing and hinting about the possibility of John/Sherlock never being fulfilled with a canon sexual relationship, Irene Adler identifying initially as a lesbian (although with interpretations of the context the truth of this statement can go different ways) but then falling for Sherlock, and major villains Jim Moriarty and Eurus Holmes both being hinted to be Depraved Bisexuals.
  • Older Than They Think:
    • When the series was first announced, there was some minor purist outrage at the very idea of taking Sherlock Holmes out of his Victorian milieu and into the modern day. Both Moffat and Gatiss pointed out that the Basil Rathbone movies, among others, had adapted Holmes' stories to a contemporary setting as well.
    • The Mind Palace wasn't an invention of the writers, but a real of aiding memory that dates back to Ancient Rome called the "Method of Loci".
    • Sherlock having a sister actually first occurred in the Enola Holmes books.
  • Paranoia Fuel: Have you ever taken conventional wisdom as a given, because you heard it in the news or read it in a history book?
  • Recurring Fanon Character: After the first season aired, the fandom speculated about who Jim Moriarty's associates might be, and came up with a modernized version of Sebastian Moran, Moriarty's second-in-command in the original Sherlock Holmes stories who appeared in numerous Sherlock fanfics. A minor villain named "Moran" eventually appeared in "The Empty Hearse", but has nothing in common with the Conan Doyle character, and the show's version of Mary Morstan ends up being a Composite Character of Moran, her Conan Doyle original, and the unnamed woman who killed Charles Augustus Milverton.
    • Alex Moran-Moriarty is a popular Fan-Created Offspring of Moran and Moriarty. Hamish Holmes-Watson is another example, the hypothetical child of John and Sherlock. The two are often shipped together.
  • Rescued from the Scrappy Heap:
    • Anderson is now very much liked by most fans after "Many Happy Returns".
    • Most surprisingly, though, Kitty Riley of all people is getting this, as more fans are slowly becoming sympathetic to her after they learned how Moriarty had used her.
  • Ron the Death Eater: Donovan and Anderson have been hit HARD by this in the aftermath of Reichenbach. It frequently gets uncomfortably sexist in Donovan's case (witness the Edit War over her page on the fan-wiki). Though Anderson seems to have redeemed himself with his Atoner personality in Season 3.
  • The Scrappy: Eurus Holmes is consistently disliked by every side of Sherlock viewers for accumulating criticisms people had with the series. She is an Unknown Relative who hijacks the final episode, the plot twists regarding her increasingly creep into fantastic and unbelievable territories (including that she made Sherlock remember his best friend as his childhood dog), her intelligence is another Informed Attribute (her ability is more like Compelling Voice power), and she ultimately gets away with murders as Sherlock forgives her because she just wanted to be loved. Tellingly, she's commonly cited as the reason reviewers disliked Season 4 and lambasted "The Final Problem".
  • Seasonal Rot:
    • Season 3 had received some complaints from fans who felt it leaned too heavily on meta humour and interpersonal drama (to the point where the mysteries almost seemed like afterthoughts). Overall, though, the third season remained popular with fans and critics, and suffered mostly from coming after the extremely well-received season 2.
    • Season 4 has the weakest reception of the entire show among critics and audiences alike. Some enjoyed the season for what it is, such as exploring the characters like Sherlock's vulnerable personality, but it was heavily criticized for weak plotlines and writing: the overeliance on Bait-and-Switch fakeouts, increasingly unbelievable one-upping plot twists, the absurdity of Eurus (Sherlock's previously unmentioned sister who is even smarter than him), and a controversial potential final episode made it fail to live up to its beloved predecessors, which even some supporters of the season admit. Whereas the first three seasons easily racked up scores in the 90s (with the first season getting a perfect 100) on Rotten Tomatoes, Season 4 couldn't even clear 70, and is the only season to get a "rotten" audience score with a dismal 36%.
  • Ships That Pass in the Night:
    • Mycroft/Lestrade is surprisingly popular considering they have almost never been in a scene together.
      • Although considering Mycroft is Big Brother (both literally and figuratively), since Lestrade is on the police force, and both are closely tied to Sherlock Holmes, it's not a far reach to assume they do know each other. Besides, when has something like that slowed down fans? After "Baskerville", when it's implied that Mycroft sent Lestrade to Dartmoor to check up on John and Sherlock, the ship has gained even more steam.
      • Barring that, they might have simply paired them together because they don't share any screen time, as a way to create something new without interfering with the show's already delicate and convoluted web of shipping. Basically a long-term Fanfic Magnet.
      • As of "The Final Problem," Mofftiss actually made an oblique reference to Mystrade.
    • Sherlock/Molly and Sherlock/Moriarty gained massive popularity in the fandom after the Season 3 premiere.
  • Ship-to-Ship Combat: Involving a straight man, a gay woman and a potentially asexual virgin Married to the Job. Now that is talent.
    • As Sherlock/Molly has become more popular after Series Two, it has had its own run-ins with Sherlock/John fans. Surprisingly, Sherlock/Molly shippers get along fairly well with Sherlock/Irene shippers.
    • The Johnlock shippers have their own wars with the John/Mary and the John/Mary/Sherlock shippers after season 3.
    • Hell, this happens in-universe: Anderson ships Sherlock/Molly, while one of the members of his 'Sherlock Lives' conspiracy groups ships Sherlock/Moriarty. Naturally, this devolves into arguing.
  • Shocking Moments:
    • The ending to "A Scandal in Belgravia." Irene's dead. No, she's alive. Irene's escaped. She's in love with Sherlock. She's dead without that information. Mycroft confims she's dead… and Sherlock's saved her. HSQ indeed.
    • The ending to "The Reichenbach Fall". Even when you know it's coming. Especially when you know it's coming. John saw Sherlock fall. He touched his body. How on earth do they come back from that? Possible answer: It helps attempting to fake a death when you have a forensic pathologist who does nearly anything for you.
    • Season 3's finale is probably the greatest one yet. Sherlock leaves by plane after murdering Charles Magnussen, the villain of the season. Cue a fake-out cut to the "credits". But wait! A threatening message spreads through the country! Who could it be for? Who's it from? It's from Moriarty.
    • How does the first episode of Series 4 end? Mary being killed off, with it even (possibly) leading to the end of John and Sherlock's friendship, as by the end of the episode he wants nothing to do with him.
    • And then the next episode tops it with the reveal that the Big Bad in Season 4 is Eurus, the previously-unmentioned sister of Sherlock and Mycroft, who reveals herself as an ingenious Master of Disguise and ends the episode by apparently shooting John in the head.
    • All of "The Final Problem", from Eurus's Mind Rape of her own brothers (and John) to the reveal of Redbeard.
  • So Okay, It's Average: The unaired Pilot. Definitely a great crime drama with the same quality of acting and direction, but probably didn't have the epic, high-budget treatment the final product deserved, and might not have satisfied the incredibly high expectations some might have for such a famous property. Also, no Mycroft.
  • Sophomore Slump: Applied to episodes rather than seasons. "The Blind Banker", the second episode of the series, is almost universally considered to be the weakest note  due to its plot holes, Sherlock's less-than-clever approach to the mystery, and its stereotypical Yellow Peril villains.
  • Special Effect Failure: A number of examples:
    • In "A Study in Pink", the nail marks spelling out 'Rache' next to the body of the woman in pink are only visible in the couple of shots where they're relevant to Sherlock's deductions.
    • In "The Blind Banker", the villain fires a gun repeatedly in a museum. There's no sound of bullet impacts, and nothing at all gets hit, even when he's firing directly towards Sherlock while he's surrounded by glass cases. While it's not beyond the realm of possibility the bullets missed -everything- that would have broken visibly, it does strain belief and indicate they were probably running around in the real museum just after hours and couldn't move anything around to set up prop cases.
      • Actually, in the draft of the script, there was a line indicating that the bullets were in fact blanks. The line was removed in the final version, but the possibility remains.
    • In "The Reichenbach Fall", in a scene while Sherlock is in the foreground in the police station, the room around him goes dark to increase the contrast of the graphic effects playing out showing Sherlock's thought processes while dissecting a clue. When he's finished (twice!), the graphics go away and the room lights up again. But rather than having darkened the scene in post-production, they had literally turned the lights off in the room, so when they come on again, a dozen ceiling florescent bulbs flicker madly to life.
    • In "His Last Vow", after being shot, Sherlock falls backwards in stylistic slow motion as the room tilts along with him. While otherwise being very well done, in the background, a large flower vase begins to slide across the floor as the room tilts out from under it.
    • At the beginning of "The Six Thatchers", John is seen writing a new blog post, but is actually just typing while staring at a screenshot◊ of his blog, with the Windows 10 Photos app's toolbar fully visible. Apparently, nobody bothered fixing it in post or just… displaying the image in fullscreen mode.
    • The absolutely awful CGI flames in "The Final Problem" when Sherlock and John jump out of the windows of 221B as a grenade explodes.
  • Spoiled by the Format: The Season 4 trailers all made Culverton Smith out to be the Big Bad, but as soon as adverts revealed that he was to be taking centre stage of the second episode (by tradition a self contained story with its own villain), it became apparent that that was not going to be the case.
  • Squick:
    • The entire sequence between Magnussen and Elizabeth Smallwood. He touches her hand, fights her attempts to break away and describes the underage girl her husband exchanged elicit letters with as "delicious," "yummy" and "yum yum." He even licks her face.
    • There's something uncomfortable about Eurus asking Sherlock, her brother, if he's had sex, before describing her own sexual escapades.
  • Stoic Woobie: Major Sholto, granted even if it was featured in "The Sign of Three" but still: Living with guilt for the death of a team you lead and having burns all over your body will do that for a man. Sholto was so broken he was willing to let himself die at John's wedding!
  • Take That, Scrappy!: In the faux-news report of Sherlock's return released shortly after Season 3, Kitty not only admits she was wrong, but then apologizes and talks at length about how stupid she was. This actually made many fans forgive her.
  • Theme Pairing: Both Martin Crieff (from Cabin Pressure) and Molly Hooper are rather unfortunate in many aspects of their lives and overdue for something nice to happen to them. There's also the fact that Molly pines after Sherlock, who's played by Benedict Cumberbatch, the same guy who played Martin Crieff.
  • They Changed It, Now It Sucks!: Some die-hard fans of the original novels dislike the characterizations which have been given to Sherlock, Mycroft, and/or John.
  • They Wasted a Perfectly Good Character: More than a few viewers would have liked to see more of Sarah Sawyer, John's good-humoured and smart girlfriend from the first series. Sadly, she and John break up offscreen by the time of the second series.
  • They Wasted a Perfectly Good Plot: In "The Lying Detective", we learn that Eurus has been posing as John's therapist; she was also the woman he'd been having a text-based affair with, and they met face to face then at least once. The following episode reveals that, unless you're a supergenius like Mycroft and Sherlock, she can implant orders into your mind just by talking to you. You'd think this would be set-up for her having some control over John. Nope!
  • Unintentionally Unsympathetic: The reveal that Eurus Holmes just wanted to be loved by Sherlock falls a bit flat considering that she killed his best friend when they were all children because she wanted Sherlock to play with her, has been acting like a psychopath for most of the episode, played Deadly Games with her brothers, forced a guy to kill his family and executed numerous hostages. Her redemption basically amounts to saving Watson from a trap that she herself put him into. Not to mention the fact that one of the first things we learn about her is how she raped and murdered a nurse - leaving the corpse utterly unrecognisable - simply For the Evulz.
  • Visual Effects of Awesome: This show uses some very creative and flashy transitions (like superimposing a character from one scene over the scene they are transitioning to, as if the character is pulling away their own scene to bring us to the next one). It also does things like place the thoughts of Sherlock or the text messages a character is reading onscreen as if they were being shown in an alternate reality display, giving the series an interesting high-tech feel.
  • The Woobie:
    • Molly. Part of the reason why Watson, Lestrade and Mrs Hudson are so kind to her because they clearly recognise that absolutely nothing ever works out for her. Nothing.
      • Let's focus on "Scandal" in the morgue. When Sherlock tells her she didn't have to come in, she says "It's all right, everyone else was busy with Christmas." Apparently, the girl is completely alone as well, which just makes her clinging to Sherlock all the more gut-wrenching.
      • Plus, her blog, in which she documents her falling in love with Sherlock to falling in love with Jim to finding out that Jim is Moriarty. Unlike the other characters' blogs, this one ranges into Tear Jerker territory. A fan asked Moffat if anything was going to go right in her life. All he got was a vague "Well…", implying that her Woobie status isn't going anywhere for a while.
      • Molly falls into this so hard that even Sherlock feels bad for her, after he humiliates her over a present he deduced she meant to give to a boyfriend, only to find out that it was her present for him. She tells Sherlock, in the most heartbreaking way possible, that he only ever says nasty things to her. Sherlock just looks horrified, before apologizing and kissing her on the cheek. This is from a guy who describes himself as a "high-functioning sociopath".
      • We're reminded once more of her Woobie status in "The Final Problem" when Eurus apparently has her house rigged to explode with a bomb in three minutesnote  unless Sherlock got Molly to say "I love you" to him over the phone. Molly is reduced to tears as Sherlock forces her to admit her love for him out loud, pretty much humiliating her (and himself, as he had to say the words to her twice in order to get her to say them to him). The worst part is, Sherlock certainly didn't want to do it and clearly felt terrible, and when he found out that the threat was fake and Molly was never really in danger, he goes into a Heroic BSoD. That's right, even Sherlock recognized how much of a Woobie she was.
    • Henry. His mother died when he was very young, then he watched his father DIE by the hands of Dr. Frankland, but he was manipulated into thinking it was a monsterous Hound, becoming an orphan from the age of seven, which left HUGE mental scars on him, so much so that everybody takes him as mentally disturbed. And he apparently doesn't have much of a lovelife or any nearby relatives. And what's worse is Dr. Frankland is STILL DOING IT TO HIM until Sherlock and Watson solve the case, and Henry almost commits suicide over it. No wonder, when he finally learned the truth, he tried to attack Frankland. It's amazing he even survived the episode.

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