'Sherlock' gets its lowest audience post leaked episode

The final episode of BBC's 'Sherlock' season 4, which recently aired, was watched live by just 5.9 million viewers.

The lowest in its history and fewer than 'Antiques Roadshow' or 'Countryfile', the figure was a marked slump from New Year's Day, when 8.1 million Britons tuned into the popular detective series, reports the Daily Mail.

And an even bigger fall from the series' height in 2014, when nearly 13 million tuned in to see how Benedict Cumberbatch's character survived an apparently fatal fall.

Frustrated fans of the literary detective complained that the show's storylines had become too confusing and that the episode finale 'The Final problem' was 'totally over the top'.

'[Creator] Steven Moffat spends too much time trying to be too clever for his own good,' said one viewer on Twitter.

Another user branded the series as 'ridiculous'.

But BBC insiders claimed the reason the ratings slump is partly because more and more people are recording shows to watch later, or viewing them on catch-up services.

According to consolidated ratings, 9.5 million people have actually watched the final episode.