Stand with me on the terrace, for our friend BBC Sherlock.

Poor BBC Sherlock, we hardly knew ye.

You were so good at first, so promising, and then you gave into your mammoth fan base, and somehow, while focusing so much of your third season on their service, made so many of them unhappy . . . and now . . . and now . . . well, I'm sorry, but I guess the ride is over, the light has gone out, it's all downhill from here.

I've been reading more than a few internet diatribes of that sort of late, oddly timed to surround the beginning of the third season of that other show with a character named "Sherlock," and heaven knows we had enough kvetching after Sherlock's third season was done. Everybody has their favorite episode, season, or fanfic bit about the show at this point, and that makes for a lot more discussion of the show's ups and downs, who liked what better and what was done better when.

But let's not forget one thing, once all is said and done: That very last episode of Sherlock we saw? The very last one that the series's creators put together for us?

It won seven Emmy awards.

Not awards from the show's fans, whom season three was apparently over-indulging according to many. Not awards from some mystery genre convention or annual Sherlockian dinner party.  No, the award that recognizes excellence across the whole of the American television industry. And Sherlock isn't even an American show.

Not just one random award, either. One for its Sherlock. One for its Watson. One for its writing. And four more. One of the biggest, if not the biggest, winners for the year.

One could honestly say, "Wow, it'll never be that good again." Seven Emmys is a pretty high mark in the career of any TV show. But you know what? It doesn't have to be that good ever again, and it can still the best Sherlock Holmes the small screen has brought us for many a year. Those are pretty good laurels to rest on, and I have a strong feeling that those behind Sherlock are not going to rest. With both Cumberbatch and Freeman doing quite well in their non-Sherlock careers, a certain level of quality has to be maintained to make it worth their while. And it's been such fun so far, who could give that up?

Yes, we're in that long gray, interim period between those short, short, happy seasons of Sherlock. And we don't have quite the "dead/not dead Sherlock" cliffhanger to get all excited over. And the Elementary fans have to gripe about something other than the obvious.

But did the last season mark another sort of Reichenbach for Sherlock?

Not hardly. Seven Emmy awards. The latest episode. Yup.