I fell recklessly, unreasonably in love with the first episode, with the result that nothing since has had any chance, really, of measuring up

Yes, that's exactly what happened.

And then after The Blind Baker knumpify and I decided to watch the next to give it a chance to redeem itself, and then that one ended with a horrific cliffhanger, so we watched the Irene Adler episode, which was another mistake. And by then it was four in the morning. No common sense.