Sherlock fans taught me how to care about a television show beyond watching episodes as they originally air. I learned how each part of the set can have meaning, how pieces of dialogue can ultimately have a double meaning, how this thing called “subtext” is at play beneath the text. I also learned that a chasm can form between creators and fans, that not everything is well thought out, that convention does not easily yield to ingenuity.
The fourth season of Sherlock was devastating. Not because Mary was killed, but because it maintained the downward trend of the show going from something revolutionary to merely good. Just another franchise that captivated fans (including me) but couldn’t live up to our expectations. This isn’t simply because my ship sunk, but because in the final act of the show, I realized I hadn’t been watching what I thought I had. What I saw as an epic mystery love story ended up as a glorified buddy dramedy.
I knew about the ship of John Watson and Sherlock Holmes before I began watching the BBC show over four years ago. One could say I was biased from the start, predisposed to care about the pairing’s conclusion. Regardless, if two characters in a show weather a series of ordeals together, I can’t help but think they should be together. All of the following relationships (ships) involve solving mysteries and are at least strongly set up, if not made canon: Monk and Natalie from Monk (not canon), Ichabod and Abbie from Sleepy Hollow (not canon), Bones and Booth from Bones, Castle and Beckett from Castle, Mulder and Scully from The X-Files, Jonathan and Nancy from Stranger Things (not canon), Jake and Amy from Brooklyn Nine-Nine, and Ned and Charlotte from Pushing Daisies.
Each ship (and there’s more I haven’t listed) is united by an intersection of life and work, by brushes with death and helping people. It’s easier to fall for someone when they’ve saved your life, easier to bridge differences when you can work together to make the world a better place. Some of those shows listed use the Sherlock and Watson model, where one main character is (too) intelligent and the other main character grounds them with their humanity. Most of the shows had a will-they-won’t-they backdrop. All of the shows’ ships are between a male and female character, though the “Sherlock” and the “Watson” roles aren’t restricted to a particular gender. Sherlock set itself apart because it’s not a standard procedural crime show and it closely references the original Arthur Conan Doyle stories. This works for and against the idea of Sherlock and John getting together. On one hand, there’s less room for romance amongst all of the action and suspense, and the show is confined by its goal to create a modern version of ACD canon — thus, no “Johnlock.” On the other hand, the show is not at all removed from the idea of romance, from the question of sexual orientation, and the role of love in characters’ lives.
There are years of analysis among thousands of fans to look back on. I recommend watching at least the first episode of the “TJLC Explained” series to understand the context of John x Sherlock, then watching episodes 18 and 22. With 48 episodes and counting, creator Rebekah has unpacked just about everything you might want to know about what fans have been on about over the years. Unfortunately, given the ending of the fourth season, the videos have an ironic ring, a reminder of the layers of potential wasted by choices made in the last three episodes. So much of the set design, costuming, shot composition, and dialogue that fans expected to be important to the plot ended up coincidences or dead ends.
Shows increasingly have trouble knowing when to call it quits. Too often there is no definitive plan for future seasons, so after one or two seasons, showrunners have to invent and dazzle with plot and twists that weren’t meticulously configured into the beginning. You thought the Big Bad of season two gave our heroes a hard time? Just wait until you meet the new Biggest Bad of season four, who is omniscient and can control minds. Shows run the risk of becoming caricatures of what was originally intended, which is what I would argue has happened with Doctor Who, The 100, Once Upon a Time, and, as of its fourth season, Sherlock. The latest season was disjointed, tonally scattered, and addressed very few arcs of previous seasons.
Sherlock tangled a web too intricate and expansive to account for everything caught in it. Sherlock’s sister Eurus was not thought through enough, despite how pivotal she apparently was to Moriarty’s actions. When the main character can deduce a person’s life story just by looking at them, how can you know what is a continuity error, a plot hole, a coincidence, or bad writing? What could a vase that mysteriously moves when Sherlock is shot mean? What happened to the chains holding John down in the well? What does Moriarty’s phrase “IOU” mean? Why show a knee grab and “I don’t mind?” How did Sherlock and John survive, unharmed, from the grenade explosion? In the end, it seems like the viewers are not supposed to have as keen an eye as Sherlock has in the show.
I will always value the depth of thought and love that fans created with their art, analysis, and conversations. We’ve had the beginnings of a web series (seen above) and raised awareness for the value of (good) LGBTQ representation in media. Most of all, many people figured out what they want from their entertainment in the future, to invest in media that represents them and makes the world a better place. In the end, Steven Moffat and Mark Gatiss are only two people and have been occupied with other projects. It would take a bigger team of creative, committed, diverse millennials who were deeply dissatisfied with the show to make something better. And I’ll watch it when they do.
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