The Definitive Ranking of all episodes of Sherlock

Subject to change. Does not reflect the opinion of the rest of the NoDLC team.

I love Sherlock. I love every bone in its brilliant, ridiculous, occasionally frustrating body. It’s offered us a fascinating experiment in modern-day television, not only in its updating of Conan-Doyle’s Sherlock stories to the present day but in its use of direction to convey the inner-workings of Sherlock’s mind. Its lows may be infuriating but its highs are dazzling and it surely ranks as the most popular British drama of the last decade.

Whilst I find a personal satisfaction in ranking episodes or songs or films or what have you, I’m usually hesitant to actually go so far as to write a full blown list (complete with explanations!) that will then go online – mostly because there’s a danger with lists that they run the risk of undermining the value or discussion of certain episodes just because they might not have cracked the top 3. However, after The Final Problem, there’s a chance that Sherlock may very well not be returning to our TVs in the near future if at all. Given this, I couldn’t really resist a ranking of the show and so I’m not going to try to justify this list too much beyond the fact that it gives me a chance to write little mini-reviews for episodes I wouldn’t normally dedicate a full review to. Plus I can add some additional thoughts on The Final Problem. And it might be fun.

Just so we're clear, I won’t be counting the mini-episode ‘Many Happy Returns’ as part of this list.

NOTE: A lot of this was written a few months ago around when The Final Problem aired. I've spruced it up a bit and finished it off before putting it online. Not sure why you'd want to know this but I wanted to put it here anyway.

The game is on etc.

13. The Blind Banker (S1E2)

The weakest episode of Sherlock is still a perfectly watchable piece of television, which probably says a lot for the quality of the show overall. Well, to an extent, at least. Unfortunately, The Blind Banker is something a Sherlock episode should never be: completely forgettable. I have seen this episode what must be about three or four times and I still, even now, struggle to tell people exactly what happens. It is one of the purest instances in Sherlock of a ‘case of the week’ episode and yet it’s utterly boring for it. There’s very little wit or excitement to The Blind Banker and, aside from John’s new girlfriend (who disappears after one more episode), you can skip this one and virtually nothing will have changed. Add to this some really weird decisions (where is Lestrade after only one episode? Who is this irritating replacement who would be an enormous plot-blocker if Sherlock weren’t as bored with him as we are?) and you have one of the few episodes I’ll happily skip on a rewatch. I occasionally feel bad for giving this episode so much stick, but then I watched the episode again and now I feel less bad. Whilst some episodes that came later might have lower ‘lows’ than this one, they at least do us the courtesy of having something resembling a personality.

12. The Hounds of Baskerville (S2E2)

Mark Gatiss takes a pretty admirable stab at the Sherlock Holmes classic in this episode and scores a few plus points along the way. The modern setting is utilised very creatively and there’s some terrific interchanges between John and Sherlock throughout the episode – the standout coming from Sherlock’s breakdown after first seeing the ‘hound’. It’s clearly a labour of love from a writer who adores the source material and is treated with care. It’s also Sherlock’s second instance of a standalone mystery. Unfortunately, whilst The Hounds of Baskerville does show us a Sherlock who is plagued by doubt, it doesn’t investigate this to the same effect that, say, A Scandal in Belgravia explores Sherlock and his relation to love and sentiment. There’s some great stuff in this episode, but it isn’t quite quite scary or interesting enough to justify the more protracted and atmospheric pacing it indulges.

11. The Six Thatchers (S4E1)

Right, so I had a bit of trouble figuring out where to put this one. The Six Thatchers is, above all else, Mary’s episode. That’s pretty hard to escape once you reach about the halfway mark and Mary heads off into hiding. If you are super on board with Mary, then I guess this episode gets moved up the list. I, unfortunately, was never quite one hundred percent sold on her for various reasons. I think Amanda Abbington does a pretty decent job in the role even though I can’t shake the feeling that she seemed miscast. The show never quite endeared Mary to us as much as it did to John or Sherlock and so it’s hard to fully hop on board when the episode starts to re-center around her. Compacting this problem further is Ajay – a character who seems to have been given some of the hackiest lines in the entire show – and a slightly out of left field character turn from John which isn’t implausible but probably would work better if there’d been a bit more build up or really emphasised the reasons for it. So, for me at least, that’s about half the episode down the drain. The other half, however, is actually pretty cool. The opening half an hour is as propulsive and entertaining as Gatiss’ best on the show and the final chunk of the episode works well. These bits keep the episode afloat, but as a whole The Six Thatchers is just too clunky to work properly, and is one of the rare cases where the show feels like it’s struggling to fill its hour and a half slot.

10. The Empty Hearse (S3E1)

Probably known more broadly as ‘the one where they explain how Sherlock survived except they didn’t quite do that maybe and I still don’t know how to feel about it’, The Empty Hearse is a remarkably solid episode – way more so than I initially remembered. It’s an episode that’s less about the ‘case of the week’ and more about the emotional fallout of the characters – an approach which I think kicked off the whole ‘remember when Sherlock just solved a case?’ criticism that people had/have. The Empty Hearse’s biggest sin is the introduction of the titular fan club that not-so-subtly parodies the real life fan clubs and theories on the internet. It’s a meta-approach that works well to a degree (that pre-title sequence is a masterpiece of fake-out trolling) but gets spoilt when the subtly wears off. Other than that, this is a solidly entertaining episode and also contains the best exploration up to that point of Sherlock and Mycroft’s relationship through their game of ‘deductions’, which I could only find in parts on YouTube so here's the first:

9. The Final Problem (S4E3)

Ah The Final Problem. Never has a Sherlock episode been as frustrating as thee. Many people have already written extensively on the various ways The Final Problem falls flat – I feel that ‘contrived’ is the best way to describe a lot of people’s difficulty with the episode.

Yet hidden amongst the brow-furrowing, there are gems to be found. Get past the issue that the finale of possibly the whole show is also the least Sherlock-y episode and there’s actually quite a bit to like. Gatiss turns in arguably his best performance as Mycroft whilst Sherlock’s arc is, on a dramatic level, quite powerfully executed. The scene with Molly Hooper, whilst never satisfyingly wrapped up, is one of the series’ best and tensest moments. There’s a strange feeling that accompanies the episode, as though the whole episode is some sort of dream – a feeling reinforced by the amount of illusions scattered throughout the episode. It’s a magic box of a finale, with an abundance of ‘hidden in plain sight’ trickery (the controversial ‘missing glass’ scene, for instance), as well as stacks upon stacks of twists and reversals. As each illusion is revealed and peeled away, we gain a better understanding of who these characters – particularly Sherlock – really are.

Don’t get me wrong – The Final Problem is littered with some real facepalming moments. Sherlock dicing up a coffin is good emotional payoff but also looks pretty silly and I can’t help but feel like there was a more interesting way to achieve this kind of storyline without the episode’s narrative mechanic having Sherlock and co. just go through different test rooms (I’m really trying not to make the Saw comparison. Oh. Oops.). But it’s also flipping entertaining while it lasts. That ending monologue makes me cringe though.

8. The Great Game (S1E3)

I feel like it might be a bit controversial to put this one relatively low down the list. To be clear, The Great Game is a really good episode, delivering a riveting gauntlet of mini-cases that caps off with one of the shows all-time classic scenes. That showdown at the pool alone makes me feel bad for not sticking this episode higher. Despite coming three episodes in, Sherlock seems remarkably colder than he has done before – prime example being the scene at the beginning of the episode in Belarus. We see that though Sherlock may have closed off human emotions, his moral code is still icy and rigid. As he says to John “…don’t know what’s got into the criminal classes – glad I’m not one of them”. For the rest of the episode we’ll see Sherlock ride the line between pursuing a case out of boredom and pursuing it out of what is right, which makes for an interesting look at where his character is at this point in the show. Honestly I think my biggest problem with The Great Game is that it can’t quite hold your attention on re-watches as well as it does on a first viewing. Still, that pool scene, though…

7. The Sign of Three (S3E2)

Up until The Final Problem, this was probably the most divisive episode the show had to offer – a statement which seems pretty quaint now. At the time of airing, The Sign of Three was really the last episode everyone was asking for. Having waited two years for more Sherlock and having only three episodes to dig into, ‘Sherlock makes a wedding speech’ probably wasn’t at the top of most people’s wishlist. Since then, five more episodes have aired and more than two years have passed. If there’s an episode of Sherlock that time has been kind to, it’s this one. The Sign of Three ends up being one of the only times we get a decent look at Sherlock and Watson’s life when the focus isn’t on crime, which ends up making it one of the funniest episodes of the show. Beyond that, the non-linear path Sherlock takes to the case’ solution does a great job at balancing the case with the wedding storyline, weaving the two together so that it’s not quite obvious until near the end exactly how all the pieces fit together. There is, however, a bit too much twee in the episode for me, or rather too much unearned twee. Like the fan club in The Empty Hearse, it’s enough to be an annoyance, but the episode rises above that and is one of the most unique installments of the show.

6. The Abominable Bride (Special Episode)

By the time The Abominable Bride rolled around, the third series of the show had seemed to have ignited a common feeling amongst some of its viewers that the show had, for lack of a better term, disappeared up its own bumhole. Such people were probably livid when the promise of a standalone episode set inexplicably in Victorian London turned out to be an extended mind experiment conducted by Sherlock in the present. Fortunately, for the rest of us, The Abominable Bride proves that disappearing up Sherlock’s bumhole might not be as bad as you’d think (a sentence I don’t think I ever thought I’d write). The titular case is well-constructed enough to be watchable in its own right, even though it is ultimately shown to be somewhat irrelevant. The meat of the episode comes from Sherlock working out a lot of his lingering obsessions with Moriarty by having imaginary Watson push imaginary Moriarty over a waterfall (I may have simplified this a bit). Though, to be honest, the real joy of the episode comes just from its sheer concept alone. Daftness reigns supreme for much of the episode’s first half (the Diogenes Club introduction, “I’m barely in the dog one”), interlaced with some chilling scenes of the Bride. On a fairly superficial level, it’s just really fun to see the show’s aesthetic and characters switch over to the Victorian setting. Even those who loathe the episode’s central reality-jumping mechanic must admit that the episode is one of the most purely entertaining installments in the show since Season 2. For some that might make the bumhole spelunking all the more grating. For the rest of us, it’s a thrilling whirlwind of an episode.

5. His Last Vow (S3E3)

Sherlock’s relatively lighter third Series caps off in grand and weightier style as Mary is revealed to be an assassin. As I said earlier, I’m not entirely sold on Mary, but her twist at around the episode’s midpoint is at least handled with commitment and brings enough emotional heft to hold the episode steady. It also doesn’t utterly swamp the episode which means we get plenty of Lars Dittmann Mikkelsen’s turn as Magnussen. Magnussen is a very different villain to Moriarty – less of a man with a master takeover plan and more a man in total control who wants to keep it that way. His interest in Sherlock might just be an extension of that control and the way the episode gradually reveals the extent of Magnussen’s abilities is terrific. It doesn’t quite have the wallop of the show’s very best episodes, but it’s a sprawling, yet tightly contained affair with a mind palace sequence that features amongst the show’s very best.

4. A Study in Pink (S1E1)

I have seen A Study in Pink probably about 4 or 5 times now and I can remember it pretty well. I thought I’d let it run in the background whilst finishing up some of this ranking, knowing that I knew the episode well enough to multitask over it.

I did not multitask over it. I didn’t get any of this entry done because it turns out A Study in Pink is so good that even after having watched it about 4 times, it’s incredibly difficult not be sucked in by it. It’s an episode where the joy is in the anticipation. How did Sherlock know so much about John so quickly? Who is Sherlock’s ‘arch nemesis’? What is so important about ‘Pink’?! More than that, it’s an episode that pays off these questions in ways that are just as great as we’d hoped they’d be. Nothing can quite compare to the first time you watch it, but this is an episode of Sherlock that’s built to sink its hooks into you – turns out its incredibly difficult to wriggle out of them.

3. The Lying Detective (S4E2)

Sherlock often got pretty weird during the second half of its run (Victorian London mind palace, anyone?) but it was often a bedazzling kind of weird – the sort that made you gawk at the screen. The Lying Detective takes this weirdness and makes it truly disarming, doing a great job of placing us inside the minds of Sherlock as he spirals out of control into a crack addled abyss where up is down and reality is questionable.

This might be one of the best episodes to showcase Sherlock’s unique, almost experimental use of direction. Sherlock is often credited as having some of the best (and earliest) uses of onscreen text to convey information quickly…

…but its direction often went to places beyond simply that. The show would often try and find the most interesting and immediate ways of demonstrating how Sherlock’s mind works, with some truly strange results. Some of these worked better than others (Sherlock falling onto a bed in A Scandal in Belgravia) but is was at the very least interesting to see the show continually try new things. The Lying Detective is this experimentation at its finest. As mentioned earlier, Sherlock is on cocaine for a good chunk of the episode and so the direction and cinematography reflects that as the world skews, shifts and splinters around him. Nerdwriter1 did a really good video take on this, breaking down one of the episode’s pivotal sequences bit by bit:

It’s all great stuff and it’s swirling around what is probably the most Hitchockian story of the entire show. Sherlock attempts to investigate Culverton Smith – a media figure who Sherlock suspects to be a serial killer. The case might have been straightforward if not for the aforementioned drug-addled state that Sherlock finds himself in, intertwined with the recent parting of the ways between Sherlock and John following Mary’s death. It’s tense, strange and packed with an emotional wallop to tie it altogether. Easily one Sherlock’s most fascinating episodes.

2. The Reichenbach Fall (S2E3)

What more is there to be said about The Reichenbach Fall that hasn’t been said or written already? This is the episode that cliffhangered its audience for two years with the surprise survival of Sherlock and left its best villain – Jim Moriarty – with a hole in the back of his head that he put there himself. That's where most of the focus goes anyway, which I think does the rest of the episode a disservice. This is Moriarty’s best appearance and his ultimate story. He doesn’t so much step out of the shadows, rather he brings the shadows with him, warping reality to convince even Scotland Yard that Sherlock is a fake and Moriarty is a fabrication. It’s pretty balls to wall for the most part and as Moriarty’s plan continues to gain traction, the stakes rise and the world of Sherlock and John becomes increasingly small. Great stuff.

1. A Scandal in Belgravia (S2E1)

This is Sherlock at its most deliriously entertaining and exciting - each time I watch it I find it remarkable just how much endless, dizzying invention and wit goes into every scene. Between this and The Reichenbach Fall we have the Sherlock equivalent of Fleetwood Mac’s Rumours – a slice of the whole that somehow feels like a greatest hits collection. Take your pick of scene within the episode and the odds are you’ll stumble upon something great. Sherlock’s visit to the palace, Irene Adler’s deduction of the boomerang case, “I lost count.” The episode itself is a look at Sherlock and how he views love and attraction. To that end, it’s endlessly fascinating with plenty of moments that upend both the audience’s view of Sherlock as well as Sherlock’s view of himself (see the scene where he apologises to Molly Hooper for an example). We also get Lara Pulver’s appearance as Irene Adler who ranks as one of the best guest stars on the show alongside to Andrew Scott’s Moriarty and Toby Jones’ Culverton Smith. That Irene Adler never properly returned on the show is something I occasionally think of as a shame, though the episode does a good job of wrapping things up in a satisfying way. The episode also features one of my favourite endings for any episode of Sherlock (or anything, really) and still can get my hairs to stand on end, even though I must have seen it about ten times at least by now:

Add to that the amount of material that the episode gives to the supporting cast and you have the fullest, most exciting episode of Sherlock that the show ever produced.

#sherlock #stevenmoffat #markgatiss