dan's character assassination

one of my biggest problems with the finale was just how absolutely butchered dan's character became. he's been established as an activist for most of his time on screen, and it's obvious that he cares about women and other marginalized groups and wants to help support causes that would help them. the finale basically throws this out the window by not only making him kind of creepy towards amelia at points but also just seeming to not care at all that going to war would end up repeating the same kind of colonizing attitudes that he's so against. the show's insistence on him being Evil killed his character before it had a chance to survive

the sherlock/amelia blood relation

having sherlock and amelia be blood related is kind of strange in a writing sense but also really removes a lot of the charm from their dynamic. the entirety of the show up to this point has been building on the fact that amelia Is Not biologically related to sherlock (hell, one of the very first scenes they share together is sherlock adamantly stating that they cant possibly be blood related) just to reveal that the big twist of a show called sherlock and daughter is that amelia is sherlock's daughter.

it also kind of messes up their dynamic! a big thing, for me at least, is that despite not being blood related amelia is so similar to holmes in her way of thinking and her personality that she takes on the role of his mentee so well. and over time he grows a fatherly kind of fondness for her. but having them just be blood related removes any kind of charm that the found family aspect had

watson on the backburner

this one is less so something specific to the show and moreso a comment on general holmes media practices. but sherlock and daughter is not immune to this!!!!!

the crux of the show is that sherlock is searching depserately to find watson and mrs hudson. after finally finding them in episode 7 they become basically set dressing for the rest of the show: mrs hudson doesnt even show up again until the end of the finale, and watson does NOTHING in episode 8.

to some extent this is understandable: they were a conflict for one of the show's plots, when that plot resolved they would become less relevant as the rest of the plot threads got wrapped. but doing it to this extent is a little ridiculous ESPECIALLY to watson. after the rescue scene in episode 7 we arent given a ton of time with watson but the writers clearly knew what they were doing, they gave his character a lot of charm and defined the holmes/watson dynamic as clearly as they could with the time given.

in episode 8 though, they dont let him do anything. he shows up once in a flashback, and then once in the present for like two minutes before leaving the room. i could be overthinking this but it felt genuinely a little insulting to treat him like this considering that they already laid the groundwork for him to be able to be an active character.

i dont know, a lot a holmes adaptations have this issue where they never treat their watsons as full formed people. he's very often just there In Addition to holmes, and the narratives treat him as an appetizer to holmes and his work. and this is really upsetting because holmes wouldn't really be who he is without his biographer. john watson is such an interesting character to work with but a lot of people dont really see him as such and it sucks

historical inaccuracies

massive thank you to @el-on-mars for this part of the post because i am hopeless with historical dives LOL

a lot of the setting and costuming choices were accurate for the most part, but a MAJORITY of the laws/legislation/big plot details tended to skew more towards fiction that reality. the british home children act as represented in the show has a bunch of smaller inaccuracies: dan would have been sent to canada rather than australia based on the timeline, and instead of being sent over by the government they were moved by corrupt philanthropic organizations/chairities.

the show is also just kind of weird with the ethics of it all. there's the implication that the BHC are something of the past (shulking off responsibility despite the stuff in question still having a direct effect in the show), and also how the show chooses specifically to vilianize dan. delinquient children were sent off in the first place because the english middle class saw them as evil threats to society and they really often recieved the same treatment in canada. so it is a little strange to have That be your big villian

weirdly enough, misogyny

for a majority of the show the female characters have agency and its really great you love to see it! but the finale, in its rush to wrap things up quickly, kind of pushed that all to the side. the most egregious instance of this imo is with amelia's mom. she's characterized really well until this point, and despite her limited screentime the audience gets the idea that she is an incredibly smart woman with her own passions and desires n all. but when it's revealed that sherlock is amelia's dad theres a scene where her mom leaves to protect sherlock's reputation which. he would be fine lol. but in essence it turns her from a character into a plot device and it just feels Bad

the rushed nature of the finale also leads to amelia's character being simplified, esp during her confrontation with dan. its hard to explain but amelia has more nuance than the show gives her this episode, and they essentially just turned her into girlboss character #205 and it SUCKS

no political backbone

imo the root cause of a lot of the issues i had with the finale is just that the cw doesn't want to take risks with its politics. so many of the story beats ESPECIALLY WHEN IT COMES TO DAN surround the idea of revolting against opressive forces but the cw never really goes that deep into it. yeah it's adressed that dan starting a war is Bad and Colonizing but they dont do anything with that. they dont even touch on how sherlock's social standing would make it so his reputation is fine. it really seems as if they want to cover these complex themes and ideas but they dont want to risk losing viewership.

conclusion