Confused by Sherlock? Try putting your phone down.

Spoiler Alert! Spoiler Alert! Big red bouncy spoiler alert!

Even with only 2 ‘O’ Levels, it seems I must be super intelligent, because I understood everything that happened in Sherlock ‘The Final Problem’ – and series 4 in general.

Mainly, I think, it was because I stayed the hell off Twitter and actually watched it.

In fact, I purposely let my phone battery run down and charged it up again out of reach, in a different room, so I wasn’t tempted. I knew I’d need to be fully compos mentis to stay with the show – maybe other viewers should recognise their own failings and do the same.

So I’m here to address just two of the incredulous, outraged questions I noticed when catching up on the timeline after the finale.

How was John shot at point blank range but is now walking around, not in hospital or dead?

How could John climb out of the well when he was chained to the bottom of it?

Firstly, John was shot – with a tranquilizer. Which you would have known if you were paying attention at 6 minutes 36 seconds into the episode, when he advises Mycroft that Eurus shot him, and Sherlock dismisses it as “only with a tranquilizer”.

Secondly, the rope was not thrown down for John to climb out, it was thrown in for someone to climb down – with either the key to the chain, courtesy of Eurus, or a bolt cutter. John grabbed hold of the rope to help keep himself clear: it’s one thing treading water in your pyjamas holding a brick, quite another when your legs are weighed down by a chain. We never saw him climbing out … do we really need to be spoon fed every detail?

I remember some viewers of The Missing being afflicted by similar issues: “Where are we now?” “Her hair’s long! It was short a minute ago!” “How is this happening?”

It was as clear as a freshly squeegeed window if you kept your eyes on the screen, folks. The date was written on it, every time it changed.

If you really can’t handle complicated or fast moving, then stick to Death in Paradise (which I love, btw) and stop blaming the writers, the production team and the BBC for your inability to focus. Sherlock should be challenging and the last thing we want is it being dumbed down because some viewers have got the attention span of a gnat.

Great, award winning dramas deserve your unreserved commitment: PAY ATTENTION!