The BBC's 16-Year-Old Detective Series Was One Season Away From Masterpiece Status

Published Sep 5, 2026, 1:30 PM EDT

Adrienne Tyler is a movies & TV features writer, with a focus on horror. She has written for Netflix, FanSided, & more. She was a regular guest on the Netfreaks podcast and was a YouTuber at some point. Guillermo del Toro said “hi” to her once.

The BBC is home to one of the best detective TV shows of all time, which, unfortunately, was just one season away from becoming a masterpiece. Among the best TV shows of all time are different crime and detective TV shows, such as Hannibal, The Blacklist, Criminal Minds, and Twin Peaks, all of them with a different approach to the genre. While plenty of them are original works, there are many that are either adaptations of Sherlock Holmes or inspired by the character to some extent.

Psych, The Mentalist, House, and Monk are some examples of TV shows inspired by Sherlock Holmes, while others, like Elementary, are adaptations of the Great Detective. Falling into the latter category is the BBC’s Sherlock, a modern adaptation of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s stories and characters. As such, Sherlock brought Holmes (Benedict Cumberbatch), John Watson (Martin Freeman), and other characters to modern-day London, adapting their cases to current technology, social issues, and more.

Sherlock aired on BBC One from 2010 to 2017 for four seasons (each consisting of three episodes) and one special episode. Sherlock received praise for its performances, writing, and how it modernized the characters and Holmes’ cases, but, unfortunately, the show’s decline began in season 3. Sherlock ended up having one of the worst series finales of all time, which was a massive disappointment after the show was on its way to becoming a true masterpiece.

If Sherlock Season 4 Had Been Better, The Show Could Be Considered A Masterpiece

Credit: BBC via MovieStillsDB

Sherlock peaked with season 2’s finale, “The Reichenbach Fall”, in which Jim Moriarty (Andrew Scott) did everything to destroy Holmes’ public image and push him to kill himself. Holmes found a way out at the last minute, with Moriarty killing himself in front of Holmes to leave him no other choice than to do the same. This resulted in Holmes faking his death, but the show never capitalized on the curiosity and excitement about how he did it and his imminent return in season 3.

Unfortunately, the team behind Sherlock failed to answer how Holmes faked his death and made many questionable decisions in season 3, along with some changes that ended up hurting the show. However, while season 3 definitely wasn’t at the level of the previous seasons, it was still better than season 4.

The final season repeated the same mistakes as season 3, such as lacking a major villain and leaving Holmes and Watson’s dynamics aside, and made even more mistakes. The most notable one was the introduction of the third Holmes sibling, Eurus (Sian Brooke), who turned out to be a criminal mastermind. Sherlock’s final episode, “The Final Problem”, saw Eurus coming up with a nonsensical and too elaborate plan to break her brothers and Watson, only to be outsmarted by Sherlock.

Had Sherlock season 4 learned from the mistakes of season 3, remembered what worked for the first two seasons, and applied all that to make a great final season, the show could be considered a masterpiece. Surely, season 3 would still have been a weak link, but a good final season would have given some balance to the show and saved it.

Sherlock Seasons 1 & 2 Are Untouchable

Image via MovieStillsDB

Even though Sherlock had two bad final seasons, that doesn’t change the fact that the first two seasons were true masterpieces. Seasons 1 and 2 of Sherlock saw the beginning, development, and peak of the friendship and partnership between Holmes and Watson, the clashing of their personalities, and how they ultimately complemented each other. However, the show didn’t forget about their individual struggles, especially Watson’s, as he had just returned from the war.

The cases in the first two seasons of Sherlock were also engaging and believable, as were Holmes’ deduction skills, brilliantly shown on screen for the audience to follow. Seasons 1 and 2 also had Moriarty as the main villain, and even though he didn’t make his official appearance until the finale of season 1, his presence was established in the show’s first episode. Once Moriarty was properly introduced, his dynamic with Holmes became one of the most fascinating elements of the show.

On top of that, Sherlock seasons 1 and 2 had a more cinematic feel, both visually and in narrative, which helped the show stand out from others. As mentioned above, the decline of Sherlock in its final two seasons doesn’t take away from the greatness of the first two seasons, but the show could have been a true masterpiece had the final season been better.

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  John Watson