Am I late from the Elementary train? And for those who don't know, Elementary is new Sherlock Holmes show by CBS which got a lot of attention by being obvious BBC Sherlock rip-off and by casting Lucy Liu as the doctor John (now Joan) Watson. Despite there being some very wordy critics in the blogosphere, I decided to see for myself and downloaded the pilot.
After seeing the pilot I can say yes, there were some very obvious parallels between the Elementary and BBC's Sherlock and personally I think it is obvious that CBS is riding on BBC's coattails. It doesn't mean that the Elementary can't be at least moderately good show on it's own anyway. In both shows we see younger, more unhinged version of detective Sherlock Holmes in a modern setting. We get to see scene where Watson meets Holmes for the first time in both adaptions - something that has not been portrayed in earlier TV-shows. Both has the Holmes deducing Watson scene, admittedly with different outcomes. It was very hard for me to watch this show without comparing the two all the time, but I do that for every single adaption. And of course there will be similarities - they are based on the same books. Duh. I will keep my eyes open for plagiarism while watching this show, but at least the pilot passed the test well enough.
I don't deem it necessary to even comment on Watson being a woman or Watson being Asian or Watson not having military background. If Disney can replace the tenants of Baker Street with mice, CBS can do whatever they please with their casting. I was worried before watching the show that they would use femWatson as an excuse for ridiculous flirty banter between Holmes and Watson, and was pleased to see that this wasn't the case. I am actually rather interested in following if the series can keep it up - it's regretfully rare to see plain friendship between a man and a woman in the media. I liked that Watson had more active role in solving cases in Elementary than in most adaptions, and Holmes acknowledging that he doesn't really need her for solving cases - he just works better when she's there.
Johnny Lee Millers Holmes was... not very Holmesy. I am quite keen on the original stories as well as Granadas Holmes, and one thing I hate to see being taken away from the Holmes' character is his gentlemanly habitus. I think that Holmes is supposed to have that snobbish, upper-class-private-school sort of feeling to him, which is in no way diminished by his eccentricity. That is why I've never really taken with R.D.J-Holmes, and why I wasn't as thrilled about Elementary as I could have been. I don't like my Holmes all rugged and gruff. He is supposed to be sharp, precise, intelligent and ruthless, not some sort of action hero puppy who runs around kicking bad guys, damn it! But I love that they included the bees. Bees were great.
All in all I will be following Elementary with interest and a moderate amount of scepticism, and recommend checking it out for those in Sherlock withdrawal. It's not the best adaption out there but it could be a lot worse.
