You win this time, Benedict-Sherlock! Ahhh, Sesame Street.

For the previous two series of Sherlock, I have written a dedicated post for each episode, celebrating the highs and lows of each series as it progressed. This year, I didn’t feel the need to do that, as my thoughts tend to cover the third series as a whole. That seems like a good place to start, the whole series didn’t seem to generate as much excitement within me as its predecessors.

I finished up my last Sherlock review with a note on the writers trying to force emotions on us, which I don’t necessarily appreciate. However, I thought they handled the logistics of this final episode very well. We all knew what was supposed to happen, so starting the episode with a grieving Watson addressed that straight away. The story was not about the end result, it was about how we got there.

Last weekend, I wrote up my reaction to the second episode of the latest series of Sherlock (got another post coming on the final episode just finding the time/gathering my thoughts), and prompted this reaction. Thank you for the wonderful SPOILER. GOOD JOB. Ever heard of a spoiler warning? Thankfully, I have a pretty prominent spoiler alert at the very top of the post, so I feel like I did my part in trying to avoid this exact situation.

The first series of this adaptation of Sherlock featured something of a sandwich of episodes, where the first and last were epic, and the centre episode was a bit of a letdown. We’re talking letdown in ridiculous terms, of course, where the worst Sherlock is still far better than the best of other TV, but when compared to itself, it was a bit of a dip. As it turns out, I reckon this series is going to take the same shape.

I’m not the first to say it, but it bears repeating. It is not fair to every other TV show on earth that Sherlock is on this early in the year. What a standard to be setting. The series returns for a second run, and whilst I am still not 100% comfortable with the 3x90 minute schedule, it certainly allows for some of the best possible storytelling. We’re thrown right into the action as we left off last time, with Sherlock and Watson in a bit of a tricky situation beside the swimming pool.

They have recommissioned Sherlock! Fabulous news, although I don’t think anyone expected any different. The intriguing part of the announcement is that it is to be another batch of three episodes, and they will each continue the format of a 90 minute sitting. After the second episode of series 1, I felt that 90 minutes was drawing things out a little, but if it helps them to tell the story, then we will have to trust them.

Thus the series comes to an end - three episodes is clearly not enough, but at the same time, I’m not sure I’d want thirteen or so of them either. Suddenly, all that talk about Watson’s blog and Sherlock’s website is actually impacting on the story. It starts to make sense why they actually exist. I was worried that it might be a bit too inclusive, though. I like the additional information but you shouldn’t have to read them to get it.

Ah, the difficult second album. I’ve seen plenty of people slating this episode, and I’ll be honest, I’m almost right there with them. I lost track of the story mid-way through but I wondered whether this was my fault more than anything else. I’ve watched it twice now, and I do think the underlying story was pretty simple but it is very dressed up and quite confusing. I don’t believe it needed to be an hour and a half.

The BBC played a risky game with this short series. Aimed very directly at the people that love Doctor Who, they built it up to be something enormous. Steven Moffatt spent a lot of time raving about it on Twitter, and between him and Mark Gatiss, interviews, blog posts and adverts, it was hard to escape from the glare of the descending Sherlock. When it finally arrived, it turns out, the risk was absolutely worth it.