I am honestly trying very hard to accept that S4 is real, trust me, but I just can’t. Each time I am like: okay, this is it, it was real after all. I remember all the inconsistences, plot holes and horribly bad writting, all the things they said before it aired and I can’t! I simply can’t! Where is the rug pull? where is everything? Why didn’t they care about their final episode, the most secret of secrets (remember they wouldn’t even give us the name) being leaked twice?
Do I have to believe that the same people who wrote TAB wrote this shit? Pleople don’t change their writing like that, don’t go from taking care of every little detail to this, the same way any other artist wouldn’t screw their creations when they know they can do better and claim it’s their best. It just makes no sense at all.
I wish I could just accept it.
But I just CAN’T. I can’t logically believe or accept or fathom that everyone involved would do this. I’ll never ever ever take series 4, especially TFP, at face value.
Same. I’m not going to be acquiesced into believing s4 at face value. I can’t even do “it is what it is” as my coping mechanism. At this point, I would’ve been happier with an ordinary series full of cases that get solved within a day, as long it makes sense. We were led on sooooo much with all sorts of hype as they prepped our anticipation to the peak … and now we’re sort of like that girl in the plane. How the hell are we going to land? Why is everyone involved with the show silent and evasive? How long can we even stay in the air? What the hell is the final problem? Why are we still here????????
I sincerely have read the posts that treat s4 as real, and entertained these theories and tried to get into the headspace of taking it all at face value. It seems as though doing that gives people some kind of sense of peace and acceptance and maybe a basis for moving forward? And some of the explanations are even kind of sort of beautiful, or at least workable from a fic writer’s pov, like, okay, here’s what it is, here’s the clay, this is what we have to work with, this is what we can reshape into something better. And then I think about this
Okay I was going through old posts and cleaning out my blog and came across this post I made the week after TST.
It’s a summary of all our meta and theories from that hiatus. And just reading it I just …. we are sooo much smarter than them. And our ideas were so great. Honestly. Don’t you guys ever doubt that you are capable of great things and have great ideas. You are all so intelligent.
I mean. Just read this and think. We did all that in one week. We took something that made no sense at all (and turned out to actually be shitty, lazy writing) and made something clever and brilliant out of it. And even though we didn’t get what we wanted, our ideas were still SOO much better than theirs. Read this and tell me that season 4 wouldn’t have been so much more interesting if we ended up being right.
I think s4 didn’t work because they abruptly shifted the morality of their fictional universe right at the climax. We are repeatedly shown how disturbing and distressing Sherlock finds the death of innocents.
Then all through s4, the show keeps telling us that both Sherlock and John have been formed by the influence of these murderesses. Apparently John is a good man because he strives to rise to Mary’s standards? I mean he’s only known her two years and she shot his best friend in the chest but okay. And Sherlock was formed by the influence of a five year old girl whom he has no conscious memory of. Of course the audience rejects that! It isn’t in keeping with what the show has already shown us! John was a good man before he ever laid eyes on Mary Morstan or Sherlock Holmes for that matter. And Eurus. Well. Just. No. They confessed that they didn’t even have the idea for her until after they’d written s3, so uh. Her influence was not apparent, even after her existence was revealed.
But what’s more important than plot holes is character holes! John and Sherlock accept and acknowledge the supposed influence of these cold blooded murderers? They aren’t repelled and disgusted by disregard for human life? Since when? Is it just because these people are women? How insulting!
You can’t just move your moral goalposts at the last second because you’ve written yourself into a corner! That’s cheating! It’s cheap and pathetic, and it doesn’t work.
Very true. Just look at Soo Lin’s and Franklin’s death in THoB. They did care a lot for their lives, as did the audience, because their death was shown as a tragic event, supported by the cinematography and music.
ok so I’ve realised that when it comes to the Sherlock fandom there are two types of blogs:
1) The Sherlocks – the ones who come up with the theories and write the metas and find all the links between episodes and analyse everything and find the symbolism and metaphors and mirrors
2) The John Watsons – the ones who look on in amazement and make comments like “brilliant” and praise the others deductions and reblog everything.
my phone did in fact die but hey I just realized that not only is reichenbach as a whole foreshadowing, but the fake story about bach leaping from his deathbed to complete the unfinished melody is too. cheers!
So like, It occurs to me that the appearance of tjlc directly corresponds with season 3 hiatus. Before that, I think, most people didn’t think they would make johnlock canon even if they did see all the romantic tropes quite plainly.
It was just a fun show that toyed with homoeroticism and had no intention of canonizing the ship.
But then when season three happened suddenly it seemed like maybe they were building towards something. It seemed like the cases didn’t matter like we thought they did. It seemed like they were more interested in the disastrous effect Sherlock’s death had on John’s life; it seemed like they were more interested in Sherlock’s heartfelt and heartbreaking best man’s speech at John’s wedding; more interested in Watching Sherlock and john collapse on themselves after spending a month apart…
And in retrospect I see now that what was really happening is that the writers were losing control of their story.
So much of what we thought was a shift in focus from the mysteries onto the romance turned out to be a combination of lazily written puzzles, queer-baiting, and convoluted plots with ever unresolved story threads.
This reminds me of when I was in college and my neighbor, who was getting his masters in philosophy, was telling me a bit about some of the concepts he was writing about – he told us he was fascinated by the human brain’s ability to create meaning out of nonsense. “I could say to you ‘pink, wire, chicken’ which doesn’t mean anything, but your brain is already filling in the blanks to instinctively create sense out of that.”
I think this is what began to happened in season 3, and why it, and tab, created such ample fodder for meta and interpretation.
They said “queerbait, meat dagger, gun surgery” and we built worlds out of steven moffat and Mark Gatiss’ lazy, badly written trash.
It wasn’t our fault. It was just the worst possible, most unfortunate combination of terrible writing and queerbaiting I could possibly imagine – we couldn’t help trying to fill in the gaps in the input
So true! Parts of this fandom made gold out of shit. And when Moffat, Gatiss and Vertue eventually saw what they had provoked by their conspirational secrecey in connection with everything Sherlock – it was too late to backpaddle. They had unleashed a monster.
They had already lied so much that nothing they said was taken serious anymore. Them denying johnlock was seen as proof for it by some (many?) fans, because TPTB had so often lied about stuff or kept secrets (even from their cast), told one thing and then did the opposite… like, for example:
The other one is unimportant / just a red herring Gatiss wrote in
Redbeard is just a dog
TAB is a stand alone, wholy set in 1895
Moriarty is dead (well, he was, but kept reappearing anyway)
the whole Fall Scenario with encouraging fan theories, then never explaining, even retconning what happened
Why all this secrecy in the first place? Why all the lies? Would it really have spoiled anything if we’d known that parts of TAB were (presumably) set in the present day? Or that Rebeard was connected to something that happened in Sherlock’s childhood? Or that there was another Holmes sibling? Why lead your audience on by filming fake scenes? Why encourage speculations, only to criticise the direction some of those were heading, based on your own writing?
A sibling / TAB being a dream of Sherlock on the plane / a childhood trauma etc. were speculated about anyway. A bit more honesty from the writers / producers, respect and trust in their audience could have dried up the quagmire of lies, red herrings and surprising plot twists that encouraged conspiracy theories to blossom. The smoke would have lifted and fans might have seen the story for what it was – a story about a detective, his blogger, and, from S3 onwards, that bloggers wife. That was apparently the story they wanted to tell – why hide it behind a smokescreen of homoeroticism, lies, insinuations, games and jokes?
If your show can only attract an audience because of encouraging false assumptions, you are running headlong into harm (aka backlash). If the writers had abandoned the ‘will they, won’t they?’ between John and Sherlock after S2, why not openly (and on the show itself) say so? Why keep up the gay ‘jokes’ in S3 (they actually bookend that series, with Mrs Hudson’s ‘live and let live’ in TEH up to the aborted love confession trope applied on the tarmac)? Why not tell your audience ‘We love Mary Watson, they will now be a trio, solving crimes, until all goes to hell, but then Sherlock finds out what happened during his childhood, what made him, so he can heal.’? Why not show this in your show, like, film a real wedding, show John and Mary kissing, show Sherlock coping well, accepting Mary as a friend, put the cases more centre stage, don’t have Mary kill Sherlock etc.?
Then I could have stepped away or at least tuned down my expectations.
But they loved the hype too much. They loved their show being the centre of intense speculation and attention. But, at least within me after having watched S4, all the hype and built-up just left a feeling of disappointment. I feel betrayed. Why show me stuff like Mycroft’s notebook – that meant nothing in the end? Why show me evil Mary – only to make her the hero of the narrative? Why write in all the homoeroticism – and then never resolve the built up tension, not even by Sherlock stating that he’s gay and John saying that he’s not interested? I could go on and on about all those loose threads, all the disappointment – but I’m tired and shut up now.
There are so many great points in this addition, but I just want to bold and italicize this point, because I’ve literally been screaming about this for a couple months:
“film a real wedding, show John and Mary kissing, show Sherlock coping well, accepting Mary as a friend, put the cases more centre stage, don’t have Mary kill Sherlock etc.?”
Show the wedding, show us that John and Mary LIKE each other, don’t have John chomping at the bit to get away from Mary and his wedding planning, don’t have him sitting there looking devastated the night he’s planning to propose to her,
Hell, don’t let Sherlock ruin that night for him if she’s so much more important to John than Sherlock is! Don’t show John pacing around his living room like a caged animal because he hasn’t seen Sherlock for a month. Don’t don’t don’t show sherlock being a miserable sad sack because his friend is getting married!!!!!! It just makes him look like a spoiled man-baby without Johnlock!
Don’t write stupid and implausible mysteries that make no sense and call it a day! Jesus Christ???? Don’t give us a missing train car that just can’t be in a secret tunnel but then actually is; don’t give us a murderer who just can’t be working his way up a specific employers pecking order but then actually is; Don’t give us delay action stabbings, and secretaries that give people conflicting information. Focus on writing good mysteries if you want people to take them seriously, for god’s sake.
And, perhaps most importantly, Don’t have Mary kill Sherlock! What the hell was Moffat thinking we would think after including something like that???
Johnlock and villian mary are all part of a much better story that they didn’t seem to realize they were writing. We did not weave this narrative out of whole cloth, and it’s frankly unreasonable and insulting that anyone would think we had.
I, for the life of me, can’t understand why they wrote S3 the way they did. I really can’t.
After watching S2 I thought there was somethin’ between John and Sherlock but honestly, I wasn’t expecting Johnlock to become canon anytime soon. But jeez.. I vividly remember jumping on my seat while watching TSOT and HLV. Like, what the hell? John willing to get drunk on his stag night,
the way Sherlock and John looked at each other when he told him and Mary
that they were gonna have a real baby and they didn’t need him around, Sherlock leaving the wedding early.. I mean,what? I understand that they wanted to show a bittersweet episode, to make everyone realize that was the end of an era, but c’mon. At least show us that Mary and John at least LIKE each other. Show us that they’re in love. Show us WHY they’re in love. They skipped it all, they were like: he’s a man, she’s a woman, they’re getting married. End of the story. Whatever. They didn’t want to us to get invested in their story. Why?
Not only that, but they made us see how unhappy John was at the beginning of HLV and how miserable Sherlock was without him. For what purpose? And for the love of God, why make Mary a villain if they didn’t have any interest in making her an antagonist in the first place? She could have been the sweet innocent Mary they showed us in TEH and no one would have questioned a damn thing about her. And she could have died anyway in S4; in fact John’s reaction to her death would have been way more believable and heartbreaking if Mary were a lovely wife and mother instead of..you know.. an assassin who also shot the main character in the chest. And TAB? I really would like to know from Moftiss what was the meaning behind TAB. Like, they ended it at the waterfall, with John saving Sherlock from Moriarty, then Sherlock woke up saying that he knew what Moriarty was gonna do next but… in S4 he had NO FREAKING IDEA of what Moriarty was gonna do? I mean, what purpose did TAB have? To make him realize that he needed John by his side, maybe? Well, in S4 Sherlock and John were more apart than ever and when John was drowning in TFP, Sherlock was too busy with Sister Edgelord to even care, so…? What? I’m tired.
I’m not trying to hijack this post, but it somehow got me thinking. What went wrong with S3 and the introduction of Mary. Here’s one possible solution to make you care about John and Mary’s relationship and put an end to Johnlock. First of all and this goes for all episodes: no gay jokes, no ambiguity concerning John and Sherlock’s feelings, no sad pining!
TEH My first problem with Mary? Even though we’re meant to like her in the beginning, I was annoyed by her (and that before I shipped Johnlock) because of her “I agree. I’m the best thing that could have happened to you.” Instead, make her at least a bit humble while John struggles to propose to her. It’s fine to let Sherlock interrupt this moment, delay this emotional scene. Cut at least one of the fake theories, give us one plausible solution after all, and save some time to let Sherlock and John resolve the issues concerning the fall. When John is kidnapped, let Sherlock figure out where he is, but let Mary dive headfirst into the fire to save John. In the end of the episode give us a proper proposal. The set up was perfect, all their friends were around, let John fall to his knees, let Mary cry, and let Sherlock smile in the background, because he knew all along that John would propose in this exact moment.
TSOT We should be happy about the marriage right? You still want to make the episode bitter sweet? Fine. Spend the first third with Sherlock sulking, talking with Hudders about losing close friends, show him being not interested in the planning and instead being miserable/delving into cases. Now give us a proper wedding ceremony, vows, tears and kisses. Show us exactly (!) how Mary improved John’s life and the other way around. Cut to best man speech, this is the turning point for Sherlock, while he talks about their friendship and stag night something switches. He realizes that John will always be his best friend and that he found a new friend in Mary. Everyone’s happy, Sherlock and John share a hug, John and Mary a passionate kiss, and off they go to save a life. Now to the final, Sherlock deduces that Mary’s pregnant and this should be the happiest moment of the episode, give it some comedic relief with Mary panicking and let them all dance for the rest of the night in perfect bliss.
HLV We won’t strip Mary of her past entirely, let’s try to make her into a flawed character, not a psychopathic villain. First of all, show us how happy John and Mary are, let them be affectionate. Now, Mary tries to reveal her past to John (she did some shady jobs for the government, no freelance killing for fun and money) but eventually she chickens out and tries to resolve it on her own, because (and this should be made clear) she wants to save her beloved husband and her dear friend Sherlock. Good intentions, that’s important. Of course her plan backfires, Sherlock walks in on her and Magnussen, offers his help and just as she is about to to accept his help, Magnussen grabs her from behind, they struggle, she shoots. It’s a tragic accident, Sherlock collapses. She knocks Magnussen out. The reason Sherlock survives is that she actually saves his life by performing first aid. She reveals her secrets to John, it puts a strain on their relationship, John blames her for Sherlock’s state, but after all she saved Sherlock’s life, this time for real. She shows remorse, apologizes over and over, no lies, no threats. In the end they come up with a plan to bring down Magnussen, it all goes to hell, Sherlock has to shoot him. On the Tarmac we have a long and intimate talk between John and Sherlock, no innuendos, just an honest depiction of an outstanding friendship, we end with Mary coming up to Sherlock, hugging him, holding him for just a bit too long and hear her whisper a quiet ‘thank you’ to his ear.
Wasn’t too hard, right? That way I would have actually cared about her death in TST.
If the intentions of the show were this clean, this clearly drawn, s4 would have still been WTF City, but at least some of the plot points wouldn’t have seemed so mystifying.
Reblogging because this post with additions is a master class in plot doctoring.
Remember when the BBC sent out their first replies to our complaints and said “[…]
and we hope viewers enjoyed the overall journey over the last 4 series.” [x]
And actually, you know what? For me personally the answer is NO, it wasn’t.
Ever since S2 it’s been a rollercoaster of emotions for me. Admittedly I wasn’t in a good place in RL when S2 aired but one way or another TRF hurt like a bitch and influenced certain parts of my health as well.
Then S3 aired and I expected a logical explanation for the fall, but nada. Disappointing to no end. But that wasn’t the worst. After HLV I was so confused? I can’t remember a time when a show left me with so many conflicting feelings. I saw that Sherlock was in love with John, but he pushed John back to Mary and John went? And Mary just got a free pass? If it weren’t for post S3 fandom I probably wouldn’t have stayed around or been active in fannish activities. Fandom kept me sane with the explanations of theories of what was supposedly really going on between the three of them.
But as it turned out, nothing of all that was actually the case in S4. And tbh, NEVER have I been SO HURT by something I’ve loved so much media-wise. Yeah, TFP was complete garbage and TST was characterisation hell but TLD? I have not cried this much about anything like I did over that episode probably ever. Yeah, some triggers might have been involved too. But the way the character ~development went thanks to the shitty plot arc? It was terrible to see that happen to my favourite characters.
So no, overall the journey was NOT ENJOYABLE. What kept me holding on over the years was my love for Sherlock and John and the fandom. The show itself? A clusterfuck of emotionally shocking moments that were never dealt with in a serious way, something that I usually expect from a good TV show.
Right, our expectations might have been sky-high and we hoped for something good, something logical, something coherent. And then we received none of that. But I refuse to blame our high expectations for the level of disappointment we’re now dealing with. This is not our fault.
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