His Last Vow

Fans complained about the first two episodes of Season 3 emphasizing comedy over mystery, but this episode brings the drama back with a vengeance. The centerpiece of the episode - Sherlock's near-death experience within his mind palace - is one of the best sequences of the entire show. The ending fake-out and cliffhanger was cool, too.

The 3rd season was a bit of a letdown, but this episode raises it back up to par with a few good twists, a fun mystery and a great ending to go along with the usual strong characterizations.

Lars Mikkelsen was awesome as the villain. But there is no mystery in this episode and the resolution in the end seems way too simple. All in all this is a very disappointing season finale despite the nice little cliffhanger.

Definitely the best of the season, but again just off compared to the previous two seasons. The villain while interesting, wasn't developed as much (really should have introduced him in episode 2, maybe even 1). The last bit of it, you really don't know what is going to happen and gives way to an awesome ending. It's already over?!

Now that's more like it.

Manages to build solid tension and cohesive narrative thrust that were both sorely missing from the season. Doesn't reach the high points of the previous seasons though and the villain was pretty weak. (irrelevant side note: I am equally impressed and troubled by my unconsciously pedantic brain since the randomly chosen scores I gave the episodes seemed to average the exact rating I gave the series a year back).

This score could have been higher, since most of this was back to the high quality I had come to expect (the Christmas dinner and near-death scene come to mind). Unfortunately, the ending really drags it down. Magnussen memorizing literally millions of details is absurd, and Sherlock getting to come back because of Moriarty is a totally bullshit cop-out that nullifies the previous scenes. He's just allowed to murder people now without consequences? I can't say I'm excited for the 4th season.

god i love sherlock. this is my absolute favourite show. this episode was the strongest in series 3 plotwise, and had some brilliantly fun moments. what i liked about it was that it returned to it's plot-heavy structure without losing that character element that connected so innately with the fans. when it came down to it, i was a bit underwhelmed with how the magneson plotline turned out, but i had a hell of time getting there, and the twist at the end definitely did its job.

Another criminal mastermind you wish, they'd invested some more time in, but it offers some good twist and turns, and wraps a nice bow around the season.

Excellent.