History YMMV / Sherlock

* DelusionConclusion: In the wake of the highly-contentious fourth season, some fans became convinced that the events of of "The Final Problem" were simply too ridiculous to have actually happened, and theorized that everything after Watson [[spoiler: got shot in the head]] was just a massive dream sequence experienced over the course of his coma. Where this [[EpilepticTrees 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 ''Series/AppleTreeYard.''

* ItWasHisSled: Creator/AndrewScott's character is Moriarty. The first episode tried to imply Creator/MarkGatiss' character was Moriarty until he was [[FirstEpisodeTwist revealed at the end]] to be Mycroft, who would then be [[LateArrivalSpoiler 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 (who even has [[Characters/SherlockJimMoriarty a character page]] on TV Tropes). It doesn't help that Moriarty's first name has traditionally been ''James''.

** [[spoiler:[[Characters/SherlockJimMoriarty Jim Moriarty]] is a "consulting criminal" who lends his [[DiabolicalMastermind genius]] to [[PsychoForHire 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. [[TheManBehindTheMan Behind the villains]] of the first two episodes, Moriarty takes center stage in "[[Recap/SherlockS01E03TheGreatGame 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. [[Recap/SherlockS02E03TheReichenbachFall 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 [[SpitefulSuicide 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 Choice}}s, resulting in the death of more innocents, unwilling to let go of his obsessive chase with Sherlock even with his own passing.]]

** The last time Sian Brooke, who plays [[spoiler: Eurus, the third Holmes sibling]], worked alongside Benedict Cumberbatch, she was his love interest in a production of ''Theatre/{{Hamlet}}''.

** Moriarity has snipers targeting John, whatever-his-name-is 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?

** 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? "[[Recap/SherlockS04E03TheFinalProblem The Final Problem]]" seems to imply the latter.

** 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 finds it out, 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.

* CrossesTheLineTwice: 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? Cathartically hilarious. The SmashCut to Lestrade showing up and asking Sherlock ''how many times'' did the man fall out the window? The icing on the cake.

* EvilIsSexy: Moriarty, with a healthy dose of Westwood Suits and EvilIsHammy to come with it.

* NeverLiveItDown: 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 mocked a lot online, with the shows detractors highlighting them as examples of BatDeduction / ConvictionByCounterfactualClue.

* NeverLiveItDown: The infamous "Boomerang" and "Phone charging port scratches = Alcohol" has been mocked a lot online, with the shows detractors highlighting them as examples of BatDeduction / ConvictionByCounterfactualClue.

* NeverLiveItDown: The infamous "Boomerang" and "Phone charging port scratches = Alcohol" has been mocked a lot online, with the shows detractors highlighting them as examples of BatDeduction/ConvictionByCounterfactualClue.

** [[spoiler:[[PsychopathicWomanchild Eurus Holmes]]]] crosses it very early on when it's established that [[spoiler:[[EnfanteTerrible when she and Sherlock were children]], she murdered [[WouldHurtAChild his childhood friend]] Victor (AKA Redbeard) [[DisproportionateRetribution 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 [[spoiler:she previously drove a psychiatrist to commit MurderSuicide and [[RapeIsASpecialKindOfEvil raped and killed a nurse]], forces a man to murder his own family, plays DeadlyGames with her brothers (inflicting horrific MindRape on them in the process), and [[HeadsIWinTailsYouLose nonchalantly executes several hostages even when her games were followed to the letter]], all with sadistic glee and a sickening smile on her face]].

* UnintentionallyUnsympathetic: The reveal that [[spoiler:Eurus Holmes just wanted to be loved by Sherlock]] falls a bit flat considering that [[spoiler: 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 DeadlyGames 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 [[RapeIsASpecialKindOfEvil raped]] and murdered a nurse - leaving the corpse utterly unrecognisable - simply ForTheEvulz.]]

* TheScrappy: Eurus Holmes is consistently disliked by every side of ''Sherlock'' viewers for accumulating criticisms viewers had with the series. She is an UnknownRelative who hijacks the final episode, the plot twists regarding her increasingly creep into fantastic and disbelieving territories (including that she made Sherlock remember his best friend as his dog), her intelligence is another InformedAttribute (her ability is more like CompellingVoice 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".

* DieForOurShip:
** {{Averted|Trope}} with Molly. Despite the HUGE slash fandom that this show has, Molly doesn't have much of a {{Hatedom}} mainly because she's just so damned ''adorable'' and, to a lesser extent (as Moffat's personal ChewToy) so damned pathetic, that no one really has the heart to hate her.
** Irene also survived the shippers relatively unscathed, mainly because, despite the enormous amounts of tension, she's also a ShipperOnDeck.
** Both averted and played straight with Mary. Many fans were annoyed that Mary would show up and hoped for her eventual demise, but after she was shown on screen she ended up being liked by a lot of them.
*** 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'' [[spoiler: and were devastated when she DID die at the end of it.]]

** Averted with fanfics about Kitty Reilly getting a new chance, as most writers enjoy letting her feel colossal amounts of guilt in the beginning.

** Irene gets this too.

* CondemnedByHistory: See Hype Backlash below

* AssPull: One of the most consistent criticisms of "[[Recap/SherlockS04E03TheFinalProblem The Final Problem]]" is that [[spoiler: the very existence of Eurus, Sherlock's secret sister,]] strains credibility to a truly ridiculous degree. [[spoiler:Not to mention that she's even smarter than Mycroft.]]

** Series 3:
*** It aired too late to qualify for the 2014 National Television Awards, but somehow, reruns qualified, and Benedict Cumberbatch won the new Best TV Detective category. The trope was averted this time despite no new episodes airing!
*** Averted for the 2014 Emmy Awards. The show received twelve nominations for Series 3, but, given its lack of success the previous years and the other nominees that season, it was largely expected to be overshadowed by Creator/RyanMurphy's ''Film/TheNormalHeart'' and the first season of ''Series/{{Fargo}}''. It ended up completely surpassing expectations at the Emmys' Creative Arts ceremony, winning four awards for Cinematography, Music, Picture Editing, and Sound Editing. The following week, during the main ceremony, it again did exceedingly well, pulling off upset wins for Outstanding Lead Actor (Cumberbatch, winning over Creator/BillyBobThornton in ''Fargo'' and Creator/MarkRuffalo in ''The Normal Heart''), Outstanding Supporting Actor (Freeman, winning over Creator/MattBomer in ''Film/TheNormalHeart''), and Outstanding Writing (Moffat).
** Averted by "The Abominable Bride", which finally won the series a top prize Emmy for Best Television Movie.

* NarrowedItDownToTheGuyIRecognise[=/=]NotSoSmallRole: Some viewers saw the identity of Moriarty coming due to this trope.

* HypeBacklash: 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, 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.

* CondemnedByHistory: See [[HypeBacklash]] below

** Though Season 4 [[BrokenBase isn't universally disliked]], it has the weakest reception of the entire show among critics and audiences alike. Whereas the first three seasons easily racked up scores in the 90s (with the first season getting a perfect 100) on Website/RottenTomatoes, Season 4 couldn't even clear 70, and is the only season to get a "rotten" audience score with a dismal 36%. Weaker plotlines and writing, the introduction of the ''extremely'' divisive [[spoiler:Eurus]], increasingly unbelievable one-upping plot twists and a controversial potential final episode made it fail to live up to its beloved predecessors, which even some supporters of the season admit.

** In "[[Recap/SherlockS04E02TheLyingDetective 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 got abducted in real life and put in the cars of criminals in South Africa, to which Cumberbatch at one point got put in the trunk. One can only wonder if filming that part gave him flashbacks.

*** Initial reactions to the 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 [[Series/DoctorWho the Master]] and [[Film/TheDarkKnight the Joker]]'.

** 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'' thr British government he does not contradict that. Nonetheless he's well liked by fans of the series.

* EpilepticTrees: [[https://screenrant.com/sherlock-holmes-watson-johnlock-ship-conspiracy-theory-explained/ The Johnlock Conspiracy]] [[https://www.vox.com/2016/8/7/11950648/fandom-shipping-social-justice-ideological-warfare alleges]] that, contrary to the usual interpretation of the HoYay between Sherlock and Watson as no more than BaitAndSwitchLesbians, in spite of statements from the creators that [[ShipSinking Johnlock]] would not happen, that they were just {{Lying Creator}}s and that there were various hints sprinkled throughout the show indicating that Johnlock would become an OfficialCouple 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.

** 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 or decide that was just too big a secret to keep even for fun?

** Sherlock is being investigated by a reporter from ''The Sun'' and [[spoiler: 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 a FunnyAneurysmMoment and/or doubly hilarious.