#moffit

How dare they?

When season 4 Sherlock came out, I thought that it was written with malice.

Fans were frankly beside themselves with the expectation that the show would come out with a canon gay relationship, and instead, the writers pushed heterosexual ships, glorified the anti-gay Thatcher administration, and had one main character beat and kick the other so hard that he had to be hospitalized (a chilling callback to the way gays have often been treated in our society). In the wake of Brexit, the Russian oppression of gays, and the Trump Presidency it seemed just one more attack on those who supported gay and lesbian agendas. A particularly mean attack given that the makers of the show knew how heavily invested the fans were to see this ship come to prominence.

Now, I have enough perspective to see that when the show was written, no one knew what January 2017 would bring. They could not have realized the crushing disappointment of the political environment and how the fragile hope that at least this show had a loving male - male relationship meant to so many people who were hanging on to sanity by a thread.

It may simply have been meant to be, like the writers had warned, a dark point in the overall narrative that was to be continued in a season 5.

With the threat of the show and the BBC losing their funding to make drama, I think they rushed the last few episodes and tried to cram the season 5 reconciliation into that tacked on ten minute epilogue that had everybody smiling as if they were on pot. I don’t think they realized how much of a slam that was to all the long time fans who at least expected them to continue with character arcs and story points that they had been developing throughout the series. I think they dropped all of the other story lines to focus on Sherlock’s development into a good man without realizing how this slapdash patched together replotting would affect the loyal fans.

In truth, it was a disaster of epic proportions. Gloriously imaginative transitions and special effects shots were made largely irrelevant to fans who could not get over the sense of betrayal caused by the narrrative.

The way the production discounted the criticisms of the fans as the pointless fantasies of oversexed young women just added oil to the flames.

So I no longer think of season 4 as an attack. I think of season 4 as a disappointment. Overall, this makes me feel better about it. I encourage you all to look at it again from a position of distance and we can heckle or retcon the bad parts in the manner that fans are meant to.