10 Ways Sherlock Went From Great To Terrible

For the most part Sherlock managed to balance comedy and drama extremely well, thanks in large part to hiring Cumberbatch and Freeman who can play both with ease, but also due to the well balanced tones of the scripts.

The Sign of Three, however, was the first Sherlock episode that presented itself as a flat out comedy with Sherlock and John getting drunk during the latter's stag do and Sherlock forced to give a best man speech at John's wedding. The episode felt like it was being played entirely for laughs, an attempt at a cutesy Richard Curtis rom-com, compared to the rest of the series. Maybe the writers were attempting to try a different flavour but it only managed to undermine any drama with a cheap shot of comedy.

Series four in particular felt like it was forcing in comedic beats for characters who deserved better. Moriarty in his brief final flashback lacked the menace of his earlier self and in his short three minutes of screen time he suggests he has slept with both his bodyguards and delivers lines as cringey as "I'm a bit down with the kids, you know." As well as feeling inconsistent with the character these exchanges managed to rob the drama of any former prestige it had.