One of the things that pissed me off about the UK version is that it stripped Watson of almost all of his agency. He shoots a guy in the first episode, but from then on, he's tagging along like a not-very-bright puppy, there entirely to make vaudeville-esque wide-eyed reaction shots and yelp "Sherlock!" when Sherlock does something rude or shocking or criminal or to be Sherlock's patsy (the drugged coffee) or damsel in distress. And then to blog about it. On the rare occasion when Watson got pissed off, we never took his threats to go away seriously because he didn't take them seriously and neither did Sherlock. We are told that he's a combat veteran and a trained doctor, but none of that matters anymore and it infuriated me.

Joan Watson, on the other hand, walks away from Sherlock and means it even though she has a professional bond with him that's much more complicated to sunder and morally necessary to replace before she does sunder it. Also, she's not treated like an idiot, either by Holmes or by the show's writers. And she takes part in the investigations in a proactive and independent fashion and not as patsy and victim and reaction-shot-dummy. She's enjoying the detectiving because it's a high-wire act that requires skill and balls and cunning, like her old job, but not so much that she's willing to put up with an unlimited amount of crap to do it with Sherlock.

However, I do wish they'd put a little more thought into the cases, which have been pedestrian in the extreme, and made better use of the city. They're shooting here, but you never see it and they're using such fake addresses as to be insulting to anyone who has lived here for more than five minutes. Castle fakes it better and they're in LA.