4 Reasons Sherlock Should End With Season 4

It's better to go out with a bang at the top than an over-familiar whimper...

The one bad thing about being a Sherlock fan is the incredibly long wait between frustratingly short seasons. Each season has just three episodes (though, to their credit, each episode is 90 minutes long), and have all been divided by two-year gaps thanks to the increasingly busy schedules of the show's dynamic duo, Benedict Cumberbatch and Martin Freeman. We had to wait an excruciating two years between seasons 2 and 3, which had fans rabidly theorizing about how Sherlock faked his own death in The Reichenbach Fall. Now, just a few short weeks after (sort of) finding out how he duped us, we've got another as-yet-unspecified amount of time to wait before finding out how another character seems to have fooled us into thinking he was gone. Alas, season 3, we hardly knew you! It's been getting a bit of a mixed reaction from fans, some claiming that showrunner Steven Moffat is turning the show into Doctor Who and relying too much on fan service and not enough on case-solving, with episode 2, The Sign of Three, being particularly divisive. But luckily the season finale, His Last Vow, succeeded in balancing the humour and mystery, raising the stakes, and reminding us why we love the show so much. Season 4 has been confirmed for some time now, and it was recently revealed that Season 5 has been mapped out by Moffat and Mark Gatiss; though Cumberbatch and Freeman aren't officially signed on (yet). As great as the show has been, and as enjoyable season 3 was, I would argue that we don't actually need a fifth go-around, and that the show might be better off ending with season 4. Trust me, I love Sherlock just as much as the next guy, but sometimes you've got to learn to let a show go, and end on a high note before going out with a whimper. After all, isn't it better for a show to leave you wanting more, than to leave you wishing you'd seen less?
Contributor
Contributor

James is a 24 year old writer and filmmaker living in Portland, OR. He attended college for graphic design and writes for various sources on the web about film, television, and entertainment. You can view all of his work on his website, www.thereeljames.wordpress.com