Yesterday I reviewed the New Year’s day premiere of the 4th season Sherlock episode The Abominable Bride.  If you’ve read the review (its here), you know I absolutely loved it.

Loved it.

But what’s most surprising is the fact that it appears this episode has really torn some fans of the show.  While I’m clearly in the camp that loved it, there are those who really detested the episode.

Over at IMDB and on the page representing the episode, the main user review featured (at least for now), is highly negative.  Scroll down a little more and a couple of the topics featured in the message board also note the series is “going downhill”.

Frankly, seeing these negative comments surprises me though by now it should not.

It proves yet again that critical opinions of artistic works can vary -sometimes wildly- from person to person.

As someone who did not think all that much of either Star Wars (back when it was originally released in 1977!) and absolutely hated Guardians of the Galaxy, yet finds himself strangely enthralled by the mess that is Supernova, it should come as no surprise that others won’t agree with my opinions.

Yet the negative reviews of The Abominable Bride nonetheless did surprise me.  Not that they’re many (despite the mentioned critical comments, the film nonetheless scores a high 8.6 out of 10 on IMDB), but it just seemed like those who didn’t like it either didn’t get “into” it (ie, lose themselves in the story as I did) or were frustrated by the fact that the show went on such a flight of fancy.

I admit, the episode did go off on a tangent (especially when the previous series ended on such a cliffhanger).  Still, it’s hard to believe those who didn’t like it didn’t at least see something good in that episode, whether it be the clever dialogue or acting or…

Ah well, that’s why they’re called opinions.