I just re-watched it recently: I promise those things happened.

Erm, by HER power she survived. By her intense emotional power, and the power of the tie she forged with Sherlock.

Fair point that she did have agency and defy the male characters, even if it was only the traditional Victorian woman's ability to choose who she married. It's a spark, yes, but it's not the landmark piece of progressivism everyone says it is when they criticize the update.

1) She kept the photos from him in their first encounter, exactly as did the original Irene.
2) She drugged and beat him.
3) She tricked him and Mycroft into believing she was dead.
4) She came up with a password so paradoxically obvious and so remote to Sherlock's experience that he, for most of the episode, had no idea…

I'm impressed that, after 10 minutes, you couldn't come up with a more cogent response to a legitimate point than "you're stupid."

The story you're thinking of is "The Man with the Twisted Lip," and in it Watson goes into an opium den to find the husband of one of his wife's friends. He finds a perfectly sober Sherlock undercover.
http://www.eastoftheweb.com…

Whether you found it fun to watch or not, Irene Adler outwitted and bested Sherlock left and right in that episode. She LITERALLY beat him at one point. And the original Adler was the one who was tamed—Irene got away from the entire thing, and almost no one knows she's alive so she gets to just carry on.

Erm, he talks pretty regularly about being a soldier, in even Season 2 his military background became a pretty big deal at the Baskerville testing site. He cuts his hair and walks like a soldier in every single episode. And most importantly, the entire reason he's spending so much time with Sherlock is, we know from…

Bwhahahahaha!
Seriously? I don't consider marrying—and giving up everything for a man through that marriage—a "progressive" feminist victory, and that's your response?

There is nothing feminist about a victory that involves being "tamed" and settling down like a good little woman. And I'd say it's less a "screw you" to the prince than a "I've seen the error of my lascivious ways."
And Irene completely dominates every single scene right up until the moment Sherlock manages, just…

Still not an addict.

Sherlock was never a "habitual drug user." He craved stimulation, and when he didn't have a case he used. Turning that into a full-fledged drug addiction is changing the character.
And London isn't THE most important character, but it is A very important character. That's one of the few things the Downey Junior version…

Um, no, but it is a purely sex-based change to the basis of the character and means that, in Elementary, Watson isn't Watson—whether named John or Joan.
And women weren't allowed in the army in 1857. They are serving in Afghanistan in 2014. If you're going to update, that's a perfect thing to use, and was dismissed…

Yes, instead he meant that when she defeated Holmes she managed to run off, get married, and retire into marital bliss before Holmes made his move.

My reasons for not watching this show:
Turning Holmes into a woman is fine—although Sherlock would have been a better genderswapping choice. But completely altering her character solely because she is a woman is not. Removing the war background is fundamentally changing the character and making them into a completely…

The Irene Adler short story involves a woman whose sole victory is to see Holmes coming and move house before he comes to get her blackmail photo. Her happy ending is to be married off to a random man and to settle down and give up her life of being a professional mistress.
The Irene Adler episode is about a woman who…