The WORST episodes of Sherlock Holmes

Every episode of Sherlock Holmes ever, ranked from worst to best by thousands of votes from fans of the show. The worst episodes of Sherlock Holmes!

Based on the characters created by Arthur Conan Doyle: Dr. John Watson returns from Afghanistan, and decides to share lodgings in Baker Street with Sherlock Holmes, an acquaintance of one of Watson's own friends. Not long afterward, Holmes brings Watson with him when he solves a murder case that has confused Inspector Lestrade. Watson soon becomes Holmes's friend, assistant, and chronicler, as the private detective takes on one baffling case after another.

Last Updated: 12/2/2021Network: Status: Ended
The Case of the Tyrant's Daughter
star
4.80
5 votes

#1 - The Case of the Tyrant's Daughter

Season 1 - Episode 39 - Aired 10/17/1955

A chemist is accused of the murder of his fiancé's stepfather, who was determined to keep the two apart. Although there is mounting evidence of the chemist's guilt, Holmes is requested by the old man's housekeeper to investigate the case, as she believes the young man to be innocent.

Directors: Steve Previn
Watch Now:Amazon
The Case of the Christmas Pudding
star
4.86
7 votes

#2 - The Case of the Christmas Pudding

Season 1 - Episode 23 - Aired 4/4/1955

When a serial killer is sentenced to death, he issues a threat that he will kill Sherlock Holmes before he himself is executed.

Directors: Steve Previn
Watch Now:Amazon
The Case of the Careless Suffragette
star
5.00
4 votes

#3 - The Case of the Careless Suffragette

Season 1 - Episode 20 - Aired 2/28/1955

A zealous suffragette acquires a bomb shaped like a croquet ball, intending only to draw attention to her cause, but it is switched with a real croquet ball and explodes, killing a member of Parliament.

Directors: Steve Previn
Watch Now:Amazon
The Case of the Singing Violin
star
5.00
4 votes

#4 - The Case of the Singing Violin

Season 1 - Episode 15 - Aired 1/24/1955

Betty is being tormented by apparent hallucinations, the latest of which she refers to as a 'singing violin'. Her stepfather brings her fiancé to see her in this condition, and he tells the young man that there can be no wedding, because Betty is going to be declared insane. The fiancé goes to consult Sherlock Holmes, but he is murdered before he can see the detective. When Inspector Lestrade consults Holmes about the murder, Holmes recognizes the name of the dead man and also of the step-father, who is the lone surviving partner in a large tea and spice business. Holmes quickly forms a theory about the murder, and sets out to prove it.

Directors: Steve Previn
Writer: Kay Krausse
Watch Now:Amazon
The Case of the Shoeless Engineer
star
5.17
6 votes

#5 - The Case of the Shoeless Engineer

Season 1 - Episode 12 - Aired 1/3/1955

Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson are spending a restful day in the country, when they encounter a badly injured man who is carrying an unconscious young woman. They take the pair back to their flat in London, and after Dr. Watson has treated them, the man explains what has happened to them. He is Haterley, a hydraulic engineer with a business of his own. He had been hired by Colonel Stark and an associate, who wanted him to fix a large hydraulic press for them. He was taken to the colonel's country home, where their housekeeper tried frantically to warn him about Stark. After a tumultuous encounter, he and the housekeeper had barely escaped with their lives. From other details, Holmes deduces that Stark was involved in counterfeiting. Holmes, Watson, and Inspector Lestrade then set out to finish the case.

Directors: Steve Previn
Watch Now:Amazon
The Mother Hubbard Case
star
5.33
6 votes

#6 - The Mother Hubbard Case

Season 1 - Episode 10 - Aired 12/20/1954

Sherlock Holmes tracks down a murderer who uses a young girl to lure victims to empty houses, where they are killed.

Directors: Jack Gage
Writer: Lou Morheim
Watch Now:Amazon
The Case of the Violent Suitor
star
5.33
3 votes

#7 - The Case of the Violent Suitor

Season 1 - Episode 25 - Aired 4/18/1955

"Aunt Lottie", an advice columnist who is actually a man named Alex Doogle, advises a young woman to break up with her violent and insanely jealous boyfriend. The jilted boyfriend then finds Doogle, severely beats him and threatens his life. Doogle turns to Sherlock Holmes, both for his own protection and to save the young woman from her crazed fiancé.

Directors: Steve Previn
Writer: Lou Morheim
The Case of the Royal Murder
star
5.33
3 votes

#8 - The Case of the Royal Murder

Season 1 - Episode 34 - Aired 6/27/1955

As payment for solving a case, Holmes and Watson are invited to spend a weekend at an estate in the Balkans. However, their vacation is cut short when another guest, Prince Stefan, is poisoned and their host is accused of the murder. Holmes must find the real killer before he himself becomes the next victim.

Directors: Steve Previn
Watch Now:Amazon
The Case of the Unlucky Gambler
star
5.33
3 votes

#9 - The Case of the Unlucky Gambler

Season 1 - Episode 37 - Aired 7/18/1955

A young boy shows up at Baker Street, asking for Holmes' help in finding his missing father. Holmes' investigation reveals that the man is a gambler on the run from his creditors, and the team begins to make the rounds of the seedy gambling underworld in search of the boy's father.

Directors: Steve Previn
Writer: Lou Morheim
Watch Now:Amazon
The Case of the Diamond Tooth
star
5.33
3 votes

#10 - The Case of the Diamond Tooth

Season 1 - Episode 38 - Aired 9/19/1955

While walking along the banks of the River Thames, Watson finds a diamond tooth. The article takes on more meaning later, however, when Holmes learns that the body of a murder victim had been discovered near where Watson found the tooth.

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The Case of the Neurotic Detective
star
5.40
5 votes

#11 - The Case of the Neurotic Detective

Season 1 - Episode 36 - Aired 7/11/1955

Holmes begins acting even stranger than usual -- he tries to keep Watson from seeing the diamond necklace in his humidor, refuses to help Lestrade with the crime wave and dresses up to go with a Miss Jennifer Ames to a dance!

Directors: Steve Previn
Writer: Lou Morheim
Watch Now:Amazon
The Case of the Jolly Hangman
star
5.50
4 votes

#12 - The Case of the Jolly Hangman

Season 1 - Episode 28 - Aired 5/9/1955

Jessie Hooper hires Holmes to find her missing husband, William, and -- with the help of Lestrade's cousin MacDougal of Glasgow -- he his found hung -- like his grandfather. A rope salesman's laugh is the key clue. It is ironically the window that William never returned to repair that traps villain by his tie.

Directors: Steve Previn
Watch Now:Amazon
The Case of the Baker Street Bachelors
star
5.67
3 votes

#13 - The Case of the Baker Street Bachelors

Season 1 - Episode 33 - Aired 6/20/1955

A political leader is being blackmailed, and to find the blackmailers, Holmes and Watson join a lonely hearts club. However, things don't go quite as planned, and Holmes winds up getting arrested and thrown in jail.

Directors: Steve Previn
Watch Now:Amazon
The Case of the Impromtu Performance
star
5.67
3 votes

#14 - The Case of the Impromtu Performance

Season 1 - Episode 32 - Aired 6/6/1955

A condemned man scheduled to hang the next day uses his last request to ask Sherlock Holmes to prove his innocence of the murder for which he is about to be executed.

Directors: Steve Previn
Writer: Lou Morheim
The Case of the Baker Street Nursemaids
star
5.75
4 votes

#15 - The Case of the Baker Street Nursemaids

Season 1 - Episode 26 - Aired 4/25/1955

A baby is left on Holmes' and Watson's doorstep. The child turns out to be the son of a missing French scientist. When Watson is later brutally attacked and the baby kidnapped, the detectives must find the baby and its father and avoid an international scandal.

Directors: Sheldon Reynolds
Watch Now:Amazon
The Case of the Split Ticket
star
5.75
4 votes

#16 - The Case of the Split Ticket

Season 1 - Episode 13 - Aired 1/10/1955

Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson return to their flat to find Brian O'Casey waiting for them. The over-excited O'Casey struggles to get his points across, but eventually he explains how he, his friend Albert, and a young woman whom he met in a bakery shop shared the price of a sweepstakes ticket, tearing the ticket into three pieces, one for each of them to hold. Their number won, and they each stand to win 8,000 pounds. But now Albert has disappeared, and unless the other two can find him by midnight, the ticket will expire, and then they won't be able to collect their winnings.

Directors: Steve Previn
Writer: Lou Morheim
Watch Now:Amazon
The Case of the Exhumed Client
star
5.80
5 votes

#17 - The Case of the Exhumed Client

Season 1 - Episode 31 - Aired 5/30/1955

Sir Charles Farnsworth is found dead in his mysterious Farnsworth Castle. It turns out that Farnsworth had a clause inserted in this will that his death, no matter what the apparent cause, would be investigated by Sherlock Holmes. Holmes' investigation reveals traces of arsenic in the man's body, and there seems to be no shortage of people who knew Sir Charles who wanted him dead.

Directors: Steve Previn
Watch Now:Amazon
The Case of the Reluctant Carpenter
star
5.80
5 votes

#18 - The Case of the Reluctant Carpenter

Season 1 - Episode 21 - Aired 3/7/1955

Sherlock Holmes races against time in order to find the location of a bomb that was planted somewhere in London by an extortionist.

Directors: Steve Previn
Watch Now:Amazon
The Case of the French Interpreter
star
5.80
5 votes

#19 - The Case of the French Interpreter

Season 1 - Episode 14 - Aired 1/17/1955

Dr. Watson urgently fetches Sherlock Holmes from his club, and brings him to see a French interpreter who urgently needs the detective. The interpreter, M. Dubec, explains how his services were requested by a man named Lattimer, who then abducted him and took him to an unknown location. There Dubec was asked to persuade a Frenchman to sign some papers for Lattimer and an associate, so that they can gain control over his sister's wealth. The case becomes more urgent when the criminals find out about Dubec's meeting with Holmes, and once again take him to their hidden location.

Directors: Steve Previn
Writer: Lou Morheim
Watch Now:Amazon
The Case of the Winthrop Legend
star
5.88
8 votes

#20 - The Case of the Winthrop Legend

Season 1 - Episode 7 - Aired 11/29/1954

Sherlock Holmes seeks a rational explanation for the Winthrop family legend, which foretells the death of any family member who unexpectedly finds silver coins in his possession.

Directors: Jack Gage
The Case of the Shy Ballerina
star
5.94
36 votes

#21 - The Case of the Shy Ballerina

Season 1 - Episode 6 - Aired 11/22/1954

Dr. Watson accidentally comes home from his club with another man's coat, providing an important clue when the other man is murdered late that same night.

Directors: Sheldon Reynolds
Watch Now:Amazon
The Case of the Haunted Gainsborough
star
6.00
4 votes

#22 - The Case of the Haunted Gainsborough

Season 1 - Episode 35 - Aired 7/4/1955

This is the story of the hunt for the MacGregor treasure -- and curse. The villain would be the castle's foreclosing mortgage holder, Archibald Ross.

Directors: Steve Previn
Watch Now:Amazon
The Case of the Eiffel Tower
star
6.00
5 votes

#23 - The Case of the Eiffel Tower

Season 1 - Episode 30 - Aired 5/23/1955

After a famous criminal is run over and killed by a milk truck, Insp. Lestrade finds a mysterious coded note in the man's clothing. He asks Holmes to decipher it, and Holmes' subsequent investigation leads him to assume the dead gangster's identity and he follows a trail of clues to Paris.

Directors: Steve Previn
Watch Now:Amazon
The Case of the Impostor Mystery
star
6.00
5 votes

#24 - The Case of the Impostor Mystery

Season 1 - Episode 29 - Aired 5/16/1955

Holmes and Watson return from a vacation at Brighton to find an impostor has been impersonating Holmes, misadvising Lestrade to guard Hambleburg's not Carrolton's jewelry store and Sir Arthur to hide his valuables in the biscuit jar. Fighting impersonation with impersonation, Watson becomes the maharaja of Gampoor.

Directors: Steve Previn
Writer: Lou Morheim
The Case of the Night Train Riddle
star
6.00
4 votes

#25 - The Case of the Night Train Riddle

Season 1 - Episode 24 - Aired 4/11/1955

A young boy and his father are traveling on a train, and after they have a fight, the boy runs out of the compartment and seems to have vanished into thin air. Although his governess thinks he has simply run away, Holmes begins to suspect something a bit more serious, and his investigation leads him to a nearby circus.

Directors: Steve Previn
Writer: Lou Morheim
Watch Now:Amazon