10 Ways Sherlock Went From Great To Terrible

In Arthur Conan Doyle's book Professor James Moriarty is a rather stuffy yet mysterious presence who only appears in two stories but whose shadow lingers over Sherlock's life. Moffat and Gatiss decided to take a sharp left turn with the character and feature 'Jim Moriarty' in a more prominent capacity as a consulting criminal and borderline psychopath and casting little known Irish actor Andrew Scott to play the part.

As Moriarty became one of the most popular elements of the show, the decision to kill him off at the end of season two, in all his extravagant and scenery chewing brilliance, was a bold move by the writers. After having built up the Napoleon of crime for the first two seasons this did leave them with a problem, there was a Moriarty-shaped hole in the award-winning show.

However, no sooner after killing Moriarty the writers got cold feet immediately as they looked for any reason to bring back the Irish mastermind. This meant that other decent villains such as Toby Jones' chilling Culverton Smith or the sinister Charles Magnussen played by Lars Mikkelsen were not given a proper chance to shine. While there was precedent in the original books of the occasional Moriarty reference and on one occasion a flashback, having him appear in various capacities four times after we have seen him shot in the head became extremely wearing by the end.