8 TV Shows That Were Damaged By Their Own Fans
2. Sherlock Stopped Putting Logical, Concise Storytelling First
When it first started out, BBC's Sherlock was a fascinatingly modern take on Arthur Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes. Yet despite the modern setting, the crux of Holme's remained: intricate cases and enigmatic characters, all culminating in a clever, satisfying conclusion.
Three seasons and a Christmas special in, however, the cracks are beginning to show, bolstered by overzealous fans. Writer Steven Moffat (who is one of Sherlock's co-creators alongside Mark Gatiss) is strongly influenced by passionate fan reactions, so we probably should have seen this coming.
Season three saw a move away from the tight, well-paced storytelling of the first two seasons in favour of more character-centric episodes. This allowed for more humorous interactions between Benedict Cumberbatch and Martin Freeman, who many fans care more about seeing on-screen together than the actual writing as a whole. This extended into the Christmas special which began rolling out a kind of “random” humour previously absent, like Watson's signing of the phrase “I am glad you liked my potato”.
It's no secret that the Sherlock "fandom" has been associated with the website Tumblr, which is basically just a way of saying that a huge percentage of the show's fans are quite young and enjoy digesting the show in a different way. That being said, Moffat's track record of pandering to this demographic on Doctor Who makes it fairly obvious something similar is beginning to happen with Sherlock. That's not to mention the fan obsession with Moriarty, which likely lead to Moffat writing the season three twist that he's seemingly still alive. Once fans reacted accordingly, the entire Christmas special was dedicated to establishing Moriarty was not in fact alive at all.