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Difficult to write about the issues with this runt in the litter without revealing the plot, in short it is a dog and I resented my time wasted on it. This comes from someone who, until yesterday, considered the 'new' Sherlock as TV at its finest.

A contract is formed between producer and viewer when watching any TV series; the first episode allows the viewer to decide to commit or not. Good or bad there is an expectation that the rest of the series will continue at the established standard. But there have been a number of TV series in the last 12 months where I've been left with a sense of betrayal e.g. the final episode of London Spy, and the final episode of Spiral series 5. And now Sherlock!?

Thankfully this Sherlock was not the final episode of the old series, nor even the first of a new series - it was simply a holiday special - and while it failed in its intention to link the two series, it may have done no more damage than an advert break.

Please BBC, put someone in charge of dramatic output who has the cahonnes to say 'no, this is not good enough, go back and do better!'.

This was poor and left me grieving for BBC Drama - who is going to make quality television if the BBC can't? It had a lot of the right ingredients - if they were re-making The Singing Detective, then Rufus Sewell would be a perfect choice, so it was only right that Michael Gambon played Sewell's older self. But the pace was slow, the plot became nonsense (was it perhaps originally a six part that was then cut down?), and the dialogue was awful. They left the worst til last though, the ending was truly dire leaving me regretting that I had spent 3 hours getting there - God knows how the actors and crew felt when they saw it, after all it took them a lot longer.

Why is this 4 and not 1, because I like the genre.

I would love to have seen the looks on faces of cinema goers as they came out from watching this film back in 1954 - I suspect it would have been a mixture of wonderment at why the film was made, amazement that Gene Kelly couldn't act his way out of a paper bag, curiosity to know if a contract has been taken out on the script writer, and suicidal depression at having spent time and money going in the door in the first place. I have given this one point above the worst possible score as I am sure it had honorable aspirations i.e. to reflect the commitment of brave men during the war. But to be sure, this was no Dam Busters!!