Dalwhat

To be honest in the first series he was more autistic, bordering on Aspergers, but I suppose it was more pc just to label him as a sociopath. Autistics are sociopathic after all by their very nature.

I mostly just want to slap Mary. Well, maybe I want to slap John, too - not for forgiving her past, but for putting up with what she did to Sherlock. I understand why Sherlock can forgive her; it's easier when it's one self who's been hurt, but what if Mary had put a bullet in John's chest? Would Sherlock forgive her then? I think not! Sherlock may defend Mary, saying that she tried not to kill him, but simply incapacitate him - this may be logical, clinical, and if carried out to perfection, maybe it should work out perfectly - but the point still is that she did it! She did it to Sherlock. Now, Sherlock can say all he likes about the importance of logic over love, but where is the logic in his own actions towards the end? He killed a man out of love for Mary and John - out of love for someone who had nearly killed him! He can say all he wants about it, but he has proven once and for all that love is a powerful motivator. Who does he love the most? John. Ergo; if Mary had shot at John, regardless her intentions, would he really have just said, "Good shot, nice surgery"? If so, he is a darker person than I care to think of. It actually deeply disturbs me to think of Sherlock that way. All this talk of love and yet we're talking about almost an entire cast of sociopaths.....?

Dalwhat, you're proceeding from a false premise. I never compared the show to the "original". I compared this episode to previous episodes. And that is certainly a valid thing to do. It's called character development?

Hey chums Been an avid watcher of both Sherlock AND Elementary since their respective first episodes. Thought I'd create an account here to spend the downtime between series adding in my two penneth to the various theads that crop up in the meantime :-)

I would prefer the explanation being yes he is dead but that someone recognised it to be a valid excuse to save Sherlock from the "death sentence" in eastern Europe. Orchestrated possibly even by Sherlock himself or Irene Adler?

Bit confused about the whole Moriarty business at the end providing Sherlock with a stay of execution. I wasn't aware that the "government" was aware of Moriarty being such a threat. I thought he was just a Sherlock fixation rather like CAM? Certainly not important enough to overlook Sherlock shooting Rupert Murdoch?

I have to take issue (and create an account to respond). The series is (loosely) based on the stories of Arthur Conan Doyle in the same way the American Series Elementary is. In both instances the settings are altered and the characters only draw upon facets of the originals. Similarly the stories are not verbatim as written. Stop complaining that the show is not true to the spirit of the original. For many I would question what original they are referring to in any case. Previous TV series or films are NOT the original. It is the books that are the original source. As a piece of original drama I find little to criticise in any of the episodes. The show is the creation of Moffat and Gatiss using literary characters as inspiration. That is all. I'm not criticising RadCap specifically here, just using his post as an example of the critics that seem to expect the protagonists to be and act precisely as they were written over a hundred years ago even though they are now presented in the 21st century. While not denying anyone their opinion I would suggest that it is their preconceptions and resulting disappointment that is the issue here rather than taking the writing on its own merits and judging it thus.