The one hundred nineteenth TV show: #860 Sherlock
I covered this show by watching the fourth season, the one I hadn't seen yet. I think it's partially the way the stories developed. Early on, the show feels like it's adapting Sherlock Holmes stories, or at least stories based on it, and in the first two season the through storyline is fairly constrained. Then the season finale of the second season hit, with the death of Sherlock. He survives - there are more seasons after all - but it never gets resolved how he did it.
Partially, that doesn't matter - I get that it's just to heighten stakes. It feels arrogant and off-putting though. First because the show actively invites you to work it out, and not getting an answer becomes a problem. The other side is that the show doesn't shut up about it through the episode. It dangles solutions in front of you and keeps telling you off about it and it feels incredibly smug. It's frustrating and signals a change in the series where, perhaps, the character interactions matter a bit more, but it also really gets full of itself, with riddles turning into showing off how clever they are and a lot of patting Sherlock on the back. It doesn't work and feels too obnoxious to stay entertaining. I watched season 4 now, but I can't say I got much out of it, it just doesn't have enough.