(Warning there are some plot spoilers)
I watch Sherlock for the mystery and the adventure you take as Sherlock and Dr Watson solve cases that have twists and turns that are thrilling. At the start of this episode I was excited that the show had seemed to be getting back to it’s roots of simply solving cases, the last season had a little too much character development that was always placed first instead of the cases thus making them not as relevant. This episode had cases galore from the get go and I was raring to get back into the adventure until midway through the show took a turn back to what it was last season and the case turned out to be not nothing, the mystery of it was gone. A man going around smashing Margret Thatcher heads is the perfect amount of weird and mystery for an episode of Sherlock but then it turned out to be about John’s wife Mary who I had thought they’d dealt with last season but it turns out I was wrong. The first two seasons of the show were exciting and full of mystery but the now the excitement is there at the start and then it dies down and the episodes drag on for what is essentially not enough pay off to justify the hour and a half run time. The show currently has cases that seem mysterious and fun at the start but then end up just being about one of the characters for character development purposes. Instead the show should go back to having cases that didn’t directly affect the characters but affected them over time and their relationships as they became strained from the amount of work they’re doing. This way the show can have both the character development it apparently desires and also have cases that are different from every other show on television. There are glimpses of the old Sherlock reappearing but he never gets to go into the full stride of solving the ridiculous case because we can’t but instead we can’t at the moment because the case is irrelevant and you sit there waiting for the twist to find out which main character it will be related to. Season 4 shows a bit of promise so far and hopefully with the character development in this episode it’ll lead to more fresh new cases that reignite the show’s mystery levels.