No, Sherlock Holmes is inconsiderate to Watson and Mrs Hudson, he is peremptory with clients/suspects/ the foolish. But he is perfectly capable of comporting himself well when he has need and he is not an unremitting jerk. Your assertion is false.

But planes full of dead people - that's gold!

Success is not a measure of quality. By that standard the Transformers films are masterpieces and Avatar is the best film ever made.

So, let's get some perspective:

Watson's military background is not a "theme" of either Study in Scarlet or the Sign of FOUR (thank you very much). It is mentioned briefly in both. it has no substantive effect in either and could be seamlessly replaced with anyone of a dozen other backgrounds that would have been functionally identical.

So you assert, with no authority and no appeal to logic that my criticisms of Sherlock are simply invalid. But I'm in rant mode?

Sherlock has incredibly silly plots. If you have a high tolerance for silly then you might enjoy this show. I am unequipped with such a tolerance so for me Sherlock is a slick, visually interesting, well acted piece of television with really dumb stories and a complete jerk for a central character. Oh, and it's…

Having watched the first two seasons one of the striking features of Sherlock is that he is very smart and a complete jerk. That's not effective characterisation. I don't like complete jerks, I don't understand why Watson or anyone else puts up with him. The Sherlock Holmes of the original stories is hard to get along…

No, it does not form the central theme of Study in Scarlet. It is an explanation of why Watson is in London, at a loose end, and in need of affordable lodgings. It provides an example of Holmes' deductive and observational skills but quite frankly so would any other profession/location you append to Watson. And…

As an aside I think it is illegal under New York law for private investigators to carry concealed firearms. So an ability to use a pistol is rendered obsolete by the choice of setting.

So, twice, which is what I said right?

Nearly everything in Sherlock means something. Which I would totally care about if it wasn't most often something completely stupid. If a show is too dumb I'm going to tune out, that's what Sherlock did and failed to engage me in any other way.

You might like to read Eleventy-one's post above about the world's most lame-ass triad for an in-depth discussion of why the jade pin episode is pure dumb from beginning to end. I think you should be aiming higher than predicting gross stupidity.

This is just self-aggrandising bulldust. I've been reading Holmes stories for over 30 years and I've read the entire corpus multiple times and made great efforts to seek out additional material. Elementary is better than Sherlock because it doesn't have staggeringly stupid and illogical plots.

So, the clever part is the fact they don't explain stuff?

So are Hansom Cabs, revolvers, and telegrams, all of which appear way more frequently than Watson's military past.

Maybe my problem is the fugue state I go into when Sherlock starts unfurling its dumb plot elements. I remember there are female characters I don't really remember them doing anything interesting apart from Adler and what she did was actually more tragicomic than impressive.

" no, Sherlock fans appreciate the cleverness of the show and like to get challenged on a level few TV shows even bother with"

"no, Sherlock fans appreciate the cleverness of the show"

Ah, I see, so Sherlock is only subject to criticism from people who can stomach it well enough to sit through it in its entirety but the same qualification does not apply to Elementary.