S4E1 in a nutshell
110 comments · 76% upvoted · source · other discussions
comments
theamazinggiraffe
VesperalLight
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I actually really liked it. Bit too much focus on Mary, but since she dies in it I think that's fair enough. Aside from that, John and Sherlock were great and the story was actually pretty interesting (if messy).
SoyBeanExplosion
"if messy" is an understatement. The fact that the plot was sloppily written, confusing, full of see-through plot devices, terrible dialogue, and unimaginable coincidences isn't just some minor point.
KermitTheFish
On the bright side, we got a bonus 10 minutes of an Indiana Holmes film in the middle of the episode.
Sparrowhawk398
agreed
sunscreenonface
The budget for this episode looked like it was doubled, but the writing quality seemed like it was fucking halved.
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gonewildlover111
So true, reddit needs to lower it's standards. You all probably look like shit irl
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[deleted]
The last season before this didn't even have world famous detective Sherlock Holmes solve a single fucking case. This was far better in quality than season 3.
TheDrySkinOnYourKnee
What about the case of the murderous photographer from the second episode?
Verve_94
Well, I liked it.
Wasn't anywhere near the best episode but a typical Sherlock 'average' bracket episode. Far preferred it to S3 E1.
sherlock_alderson
Oh yeah of course. I don't understand why Reddit is throwing a fit about this. It was pretty good in my opinion. They are probably gonna kill us all with S4 E3.
[deleted]
Imagine trying to get someone into Sherlock and showing them that....
Sequoia3
Pretty dumb showing them that when you could show them the first episode of the series instead
[deleted]
I was merely making a point about the quality of the episode.
If that was the pilot, would you have got into Sherlock?
TheJoshider10
Probably, because Benedict Cumberbatch's portrayal is excellent and I liked the moral ambiguity of John Watson in the episode. The main leads would have carried me through however i'd worry Mary would be the biggest focus on the show.
[deleted]
I enjoyed it. It was funny, and the ending was moving but perhaps not as well done as it could have been. But the story was pretty unremarkable and not as clever as we have come to expect.
It was very Mark Gatiss really. I imagine what was good about it was from Steven Moffat. He is the boss here. For that reason I expect next week's will be better.
23107
Every line seems to be a internet meme.
kayelar
God you people are whiny.
menwithrobots
Why should we kiss the show's ass blindly if the writers can't deliver anymore?
Conkoon
The show has a good track record, we're expecting something great, this was dull and nothing like previous seasons.
Isn't this sub here for discussion? Throwing insults isn't discussion.
[deleted]
How the hell is it not a good episode? I came off iPlayer thinking it was one of the best eps, now everyone is trashing it? Because it's about Mary? The writing was amazing, who cares?
DeercWerdna
Amazing's not the word I would use, no.
But I'm glad you liked the episode. However, it seems, that most of us here did not.
alpha-k
Yeah I went in expecting something really amazing, and while there was something important that happened in the episode, the rest of it felt like low hanging fruit material.. Sherlock will whip up some of his trademark fast talking crime solving quotes, something something plot line hinting the "miss me" arc but ends up being a diversion every single time, and now we get sherlock and watson estranged again. Didn't we already have that whole drama when sherlock pretended to die and came back to life? Man I think i'll just go watch the first two seasons again..
[deleted]
The writing was amazing
Well, that's more then a little debatable.
Ihavetheinternets
I agree with you but I found it ironic how we're talking about writing and you use the wrong "than".
odoisawesome
Personally, i didn't think the episode itself was terrible. I would have liked it as a "middle episode", but i thought it was a terrible season opener as we learned absolutely nothing about Moriarty, which is what the entire cliffhanger was about. Not only did we learn nothing about him, but they constantly teased him to get the viewer's hopes up. Personally, I felt super disappointed.
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oleandersun
And yet, the entire last season wasn't even remotely related to that. So what is the concern here about this being "different from previous seasons"?
A lot of you guys are acting as if you haven't watched the show in years and are projecting what you think Sherlock is.
The complaints about the culprit could be applied to S1E1
[deleted]
The writing was amazing? What the fuck planet are you living on? I don't care if you 'enjoyed' the episode or not, but OBJECTIVELY the writing was fucking terrible.
[deleted]
Well kindly enlighten me, because I thought that (minus a few things like the whole "E" thing) it was very well written, I especially liked the whole merchant story coming in to it, things like that.
[deleted]
Off the top of my head - Mary jumping in front of a bullet (after it had been shot) (pistol bullet intial velocity is around 380 m/s avg human reaction time is 250 ms, even if Mary has 100 ms thats 0.1 x 380 = 38 meters the bullet travels before it's possible for her to react to it)
The case at the beginning that was just "he died for no particular reason" - the car exploding ?? - It just looks like literally no thought went into that case at all. If they'd thought about it for more than 5 minutes they could have written something good along the lines of the camera setting off an epileptic fit (just an example)
Most of the dialogue was terrible and cringe worthy. "What now?" "we die." "Who are you" "the man who will kill your friend" (paraphrasing cause I'm not looking up the exact lines)
The entire Mary death scene is cliche as fuck and had no originality to it.
Watsons weird fucking groans ?
The plot just being about Mary who's a terrible character in the first place and never should have been close to a main character. They could have done something clever and original but as soon as I saw it was Marys usb shit again you just know it's the writers jerking themselves off to her shit character like the last 2 episodes.
the person behind it all being some fucking character we've never seen before and don't give a fuck about it. How is that not just lazy writing?
it isnt really a mystery when the culprit is introduced in the last 5 minutes and theres literally nothing to tie any of it together thats logical
tracks her to whatever country with a tracker in the USB yet he arrives at the house before her
london aquarium is right next to a hospital (sherlock earlier says he knows london thats why he wants to go back there with mary) no one tries taking her to a hospital or calling an ambulance
Really the biggest issue is Mary being the center of the episode when she is a terrible character that no one cares about because she is so badly written. Can anyone take her seriously as an ex-spy like character? I mean really?
There's hints of potential in the episode that's the sad thing, I liked the first 20 minutes or so then it just fell flat and I almost just left the room to stop watching I got so bored.
Writing like this is exactly whats wrong with the latest Doctor Who and why I stopped watching it. I enjoyed the first 2 seasons of this show and its a shame I'll probably stop watching this as well
homerghost
Only about a third of the things you're criticising are actually "writing" issues. You can't blame the script because you disliked the way Watson cried
[deleted]
Well I actually agree with a lot of this that I never actually thought of, but to "it isnt really a mystery when the culprit is introduced in the last 5 minutes and theres literally nothing to tie any of it together thats logical" she was hinted to in the very beginning as being the culprit. Not saying she's a good character, but that's just plain wrong.
kayelar
london aquarium is right next to a hospital (sherlock earlier says he knows london thats why he wants to go back there with mary) no one tries taking her to a hospital or calling an ambulance
John's a doctor. He probably knew that there was no way she would survive that. He was holding in her fucking guts. I'm sure someone called 911 but I think John of all people would know it wasn't worth trying and try to spend his wife's last moments with her.
sheephunt2000
Did no one hear Sherlock tell Mycroft to get an ambulance immediately after Mary was shot?
ohrightthatswhy
999 in Britain boyo
paulibobo
It was absolutely terrible. I'm going to sound arrogant, but if you believe that was good television, then you just don't know what you're talking about.
kayelar
then you just don't know what you're talking about.
And you do? Sorry you're angry, but your opinion is an opinion. The show was in no way undeniably objectively bad.
paulibobo
It kind of is though. There are so many plot holes and flaws in logic, it seems like a kid wrote the plot, and while it did have some nice moments, predictability and a stupid plot make this episode bad. You can't argue that the logic behind pretty much everything in this episode was flawed.
Then I can also argue that Mary's character is boring and that a show called Sherlock should be about, you know, Sherlock solving impossible mysteries, but that is, indeed, opinion.
[deleted]
I feel like I have decent taste but who knows, people really seem to hate this episode.
ohrightthatswhy
Well it's the same audience who like Dr Who, Supernatural, and likely those Mavel TV programmes such as Flash etc. The quality of these shows just aren't as good as what other people are accustomed to, Hannibal, House of Cards (the first two seasons anyway) Breaking Bad etc. All of which masterfully handle cinematography, dialogue, exposition and character development. And Sherlock was up there in the cannon of TV shows that were of stellar quality. Until this episode.
VesperalLight
ohrightthatswhy
Well there's something called an opinion.
kayelar
I thought it was a good episode. It wasn't as snappy and flashy with the writing as previous episodes but the character development was great.
Conkoon
I'm not saying everything was bad, my main concern was the plot. I enjoyed it up to the part where Mary started travelling about randomly for literally no reason and the plot became so convoluted. The main 'mystery' I stopped caring about, so someone said 'ammo' on the phone, who cares?
They develop Mary a bit more, but her spy background has always been, in my opinion, the worst part of the series. At least now she's dead the next episodes can focus on Sherlock.
homerghost
A video clip of someone saying "Well that was fucking dreadful" is hardly discussion either.
Conkoon
It's a joke?
homerghost
Clearly it's a joke, but that doesn't excuse it from being low-effort. The "whiny" response was totally appropriate.
Isn't this sub here for discussion? Throwing insults isn't discussion.
Applicable only to things you disagree with?
Conkoon
Why does the joke need to require effort? If it's funny, that's all that matters, obviously it's exaggeration for effect, we don't think it was terrible, but of a lower quality than previous episodes.
Whining is complaining in a feeble way, people voicing their opinion is not feeble, but calling people whiny just because they have a different opinion is unnecessary and not appropriate, as it creates arguments, not discussion.
homerghost
I'm not saying jokes require effort, but it's a massive stretch to defend the original post of a man saying that was fucking dreadful as "voicing an opinion" but criticising a comment calling them whiny because you don't think it's good discussion.
Joke or not, it was whining, and I don't think it's the kind of post that invites detailed replies defending the episode.
23107
90 minutes to kill Mary. Next.
homerghost
Do you not feel that the plot did anything to advance Sherlock and Watson as characters?
gogetaashame
Not in a very believable or suitable way. I don't think Watson is the type of person who would consider cheating and I certainly don't think Sherlock is the type that would behave the childish way he did in the first parts of the episode. The character development ways sort of backwards to me.
homerghost
Watson is unstable and emotionally charged, and he was married to someone who he sensed was continuing to lie and hide things about herself from him until the end. Couple that with the stress of a newborn baby and being shown attention by an attractive stranger.
I struggle to see how anyone could find this unbelievable, I know a lot of superficially good people who have cheated almost out of sheer boredom/self-esteem alone. Watson cooly murdered people in previous episodes and he's been on the verge of total meltdown many times. Sherlock has always been "above" protocol and manners.
Sempere
It's not unbelievable, it's just we didn't really get to see much of their actual unhappiness. No arguments, there's just that lingering mistrust. It could have been handled better - at the same time it really did feel like it shit on his character to do something like that. I think the episode would have worked better if he threw out the paper after seriously considering it, resolving to work on his marriage only to have Mary die. The whole "you cheated and she died thinking you were perfect" is a bit...idk. Part of me wants to say "you cheated so you acted like your wife wasn't around and now you got the most fucked up version of freedom you wanted."
homerghost
I get what you're saying, but infidelity isn't an uncommon problem at all and the character had more than enough reason to feel dissonant from their relationship. She hadn't even told him her real name.
Watson isn't supposed to be exceptionally virtuous, but ultimately he acknowledged that he was doing wrong so I feel the character was sufficiently redeemed despite being majorly scarred. Keeping the actual extent of their affair ambiguous was brilliant writing too.
I applaud the plot thread for being unpredictable, as unsavoury as it was to see Watson be a dick, it added more depth to Mary's death and frankly it was one of the most human and realistic depictions of cheating I think I've ever seen.
23107
Not really. Sherlock should maybe have picked up the Norbury lesson - of being arrogant around people pointing guns- last episode . Remember when he got shot saying * you won't shoot me..* As for John - yet again they eye wandering towards apparent normality - no doubt next week we discover bus lady is very dangerous and has a super criminal or super spy background too!
TheMag1ician
It wasn't that bad. It was certainly streets ahead of, imo, anything in S3. That shit was self-indulgent as fuck.
aliceinwonderfulland
Did you actually not like it?
stalde [OP]
I feel like it fell flat after half an hour or so - I lost interest in it, whereas usually I'm already thinking backwards about the episode as to what I might have missed and how much I can't wait to watch it again.
aliceinwonderfulland
I thought it was too messy. Too many twists and side story's and the focus was on Mary way too much. But I enjoyed it all the same. Everyone's complaining about it but I think it'll all come together by January 15th!
HopelessAlex
Sempere
it probably would have been better for this to be a standard episode without the super-spy bullshit. It would have been better for it to be relatively grounded, almost boring in terms of the main issue (financial crime, with maybe Sherlock asking Mary for help in the smallest of fashions) and still culminating in that same ending of Mary getting shot because Sherlock couldn't fucking help himself.
I'd have been perfectly fine never knowing more about Mary's background and it would actually help ground the series more: you have someone skilled and capable of taking care of themselves, but they've died because someone else wanted to feel powerful. Instead of Norbury targeting Sherlock, she should have retaliated and shot Mary directly. No cliche push away, just "live with this."
kayelar
I thought the first half hour was the worst.
teenytinybaklava
Agreed. I actually really preferred the ending to the beginning. The beginning was just a choppy set up.
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Shekket
Accurate.
kinkosmyers
Didn't expect to see Inbetweeners in this subreddit. Always welcome though haha.
j_sunrise
From beginning to end it made no fucking sense. I hope TLD and TFP will shed some light onto it. Everyone was completely out of character - something has to be going on - or Mofftiss went nuts.
Perri0010
not true
pupprince
After recently rewatching s1 -3 to catch up before s4, I concur. All this build up for what? a plot that made no sense, a cliched (and unbelievable) ending, and no mention of moriarty ? like come on.
hughheff
i just watched it and really liked it. then i am shocked when i pop on reddit and see the hate!
i didn't think it was that bad. it's definitely close to my top 10...
EDIT: hope the edit clears up any confusion.. lol
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