By now I know better than to imagine anyone is going to read this, let alone agree with me, so I’m just going to go ahead and get it off my chest.

Many Sherlock fans (those who have not read Doyle’s original Canon) are under the impression that Sherlock Holmes was “not a nice guy” and even a borderline sociopath.

Nothing could be further from the truth, and I am frankly devastated that the writers of Sherlock and other modern adaptations are misleading fans who have not read Canon into believing Holmes was a childish, arrogant prick. He was anything but.

The original Sherlock Holmes was a sensitive, introspective man who lived for what he considered to be his art. He was a scholarly, hermetic champion of science, a forensic pioneer, a Renaissance man and – in my opinion - an extremely nice guy.

For example:

On numerous occasions, Holmes let the miscreants he caught go, if he felt that turning them in would do them more harm than good. This was true in The Blue Carbuncle, The Beryl Coronet, the Abbey Grange and many others.

“I suppose” (Holmes said in The Blue Carbuncle) “that I am commuting a felony. But I might just be saving a soul.”

As an independent agent, he was in the enviable position of being able to draw his own conclusions and as long as no one else was arrested for the crime, was indeed willing to fall on the side of the angels.

Holmes was NEVER in the history of the Canon, rude to a client. I don’t ever remember a story where he told a client he or she was “boring.” In The Solitary Cyclist he was extremely busy with another case, but agreed to listen to the story of Miss Violet Smith with courtesy – and later was glad he did.

In The Devil’s Foot, Watson agreed to take part in a dangerous experiment WITH Holmes. When Holmes realized how close they both had come to losing their minds, he apologized profusely to Watson for subjecting him to it, wherein the faithful Watson replied, “I have a right to SHARE your dangers.”

That’s a far cry from subjecting his friend Watson to such a cruel experiment as poisoning him or locking him in a room and subjecting him to a poison gas alone.

I equally find it hard to believe that the great Sherlock Holmes would be unable to find a pack of cigarettes in his own flat, that he wouldn’t know Lestrade’s first name, or that a 35-year-old man would run around saying “Laterz” as if he were 14.

Poor Sherlock was even robbed, in Fall, of the satisfaction of destroying his own arch nemesis.

In the original story, Moriarty turned on Holmes at last because by then Holmes had all but completely destroyed him and his organization. In the end, these two titans of crime and vengeance went over the falls in a death grip, each destroying the other.

In Fall, Moriarty commits suicide, robbing the great detective even of the small satisfaction of being the agent of his demise.

After the complete character assassination perpetrated on Sherlock Holmes in Season 2, I can well understand many fans’ confusion.  If I weren’t very familiar with the character of the real Sherlock Holmes, I too would be left wondering why I should consider him a hero at all.

Rather than being portrayed as the destroyer of Moriarty, the wisest and greatest man that Watson ever knew was sadly replaced by a rude, bumbling idiot savant who didn’t seem to have a clue what Moriarty was doing to him, or why.

I was hoping that the two major threads begun at the end of Season One – ie., the deepening of Sherlock and John’s friendship and Sherlock’s pursuit and destruction of the man who had almost blown up his only friend – would be further developed in Season Two, as they should have been.

Instead, Sherlock was even more dismissive of John than he’d been in Season One and instead of pursuing Moriarty – as the real Holmes certainly would have done – he’s jumping around on the furniture yelling “I need a case!”

After what happened at the end of The Great Game, it would have been obvious to the REAL Sherlock Holmes what his case was.

Instead for some reason, the brilliant drama of Season One was turned into a parody and a farce.

Parody and farce seem to be all modern pastiche writers are capable of.

It’s so much easier, apparently, to go for the shock value and cheap laughs instead of the hard work required by real plot and character development.  It’s a pity and is a great disservice to one of the greatest fictional heroes in history.

I just want my Sherlock from Season One back! I only hope in Season Three, he will be allowed to redeem his true character.