Sherlock: 10 Most Hated Episodes
4. The Empty Hearse
The Reichenbach Fall is considered by many to be the best Sherlock episode, so of course, the one following it was highly anticipated, with many fans eager to know how Sherlock was able to survive the fall. Expectations were high and unfortunately, they weren't met. The explanation for how Sherlock survived the fall requires some serious suspension of disbelief in order to make it work — plenty of things could have gone wrong with his plan, and the idea of Sherlock never being in any real danger robs The Reichenbach Fall of the thrill and suspense of its ending.
Even that aside, The Empty Hearse is a slog, with much of its runtime seemingly being devoted to making forced jokes instead of actually having a plot. It's hard to even remember what the mystery was because the entire thing seems ridiculously focused on Sherlock's return and keeping how he survived the fall a secret until the very end. Too focused, actually — we really didn't need an entire 90 minutes about the previous episode's cliffhanger.
The worst part of The Empty Hearse is how it would start a serious decline in quality for Sherlock. No episode after this would reach the highs of the ones that came before this, with all of them sharing the same problems as The Empty Hearse — convoluted, overstuffed, too pleased with itself, and filled with forced comedy.