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seriousficDid anyone have a Lloyd Bentsen moment when it turned out that the hashtag for Elementary was #sherlock?
I’m not sure how fair the comparison is. American TV is famously weak out of the gate, with the common refrain being to give a show six episodes to get its footing before passing judgment. British TV, on the other hand, is government-funded and doesn’t operate on the same ‘pilot>pick-up’ structure. They don’t need to have a first episode that encapsulates the entire series for the viewing public, they just film six episodes of something and fuck off to read Harry Potter.
Aside from that, Elementary is intended to run for something like twenty-two episodes a year, while Sherlock only went for three (admittedly, movie-length ones). If you asked me to come up with three very good Black Widow stories in a year, I could do it; twenty-two very good Black Widow stories, all of which must follow each other, operate under the same set of rules, and not make Sears pull their commercials from my time block… that’s another matter. And in fact, Sherlock’s very first episode never aired; it was rewritten, reshot, and included on the DVD where it was mocked by the creators.
So, with all that said, you can see how little it means that Elementary’s first episode isn’t as good as Sherlock’s. This is no fault of the actors, the characterization, or even the direction. It’s that the central mystery was less involving than Sherlock’s “serial suicides,” the hint at Moriarty was more compelling than vague insinuations that American!Sherlock and American!Watson had angst (Sherlock’s over a former flame, naturally enough, who he surely calls out to as he buries his sorrow in tattooed prostitutes. The second part of that sentence is true). The mystery in Elementary is flat-out bad; the kind of overcomplicated plotting you could picture Sherlock’s Moriarty indulging in before razzing Holmes for ever considering it. It involves plastic surgery to make a woman look like a potential murderer’s target, a psychologist “aiming” said murderer at his wife, the boring motive of killing said wife for her money, and the very silly conclusion of Watson finding a cell phone in a bag of rice that happily contained all the psychologist’s sessions.
It’s early to say, but I think the difference is that the mystery isn’t meant to matter in Elementary. It’s just a vehicle to get Sherlock and Watson bantering about this and that, whereas Sherlock has a sort of gamesmanship to its mysteries. Both Sherlocks impress with spot-on deductions, but while Jonny Lee Miller’s tend to come in the form of factoids (Watson smells of beeswax, hence she must be a surgeon, because surgeons use beeswax lotion to protect their hands), Cumberbatch’s are more actual deductions, like the string of observations that get him Watson’s alcoholic brother giving him a cell phone. Miller is a trivia buff; Cumberbatch is a great detective.
As I said, Elementary is more about the banter and the series’ pick-up, so the pilot has to run through a series of cliches. The Meet Cute, the Oh It’s Such A Hassle Genius-Wrangling, the Doubting Police Officer, the Red Herring Suspect Who Fools The Police But Not Our Hero, the Tease of Deep Dark Secrets, the Five-Minute Bit Where It Seems Like They Might Split Up, the Sidekick Proving Her Worth, the Jerk Turning Out To Have A Heart of Gold, the Random Fanservice (bees! my god!). It’s a procedural, so we’ll see if things get more experimental as the format has time to grow. Watching the first episode of Community, for instance, there’s no way to know that eventually we’d get paintball episodes.
As for the characters, since that’s where the appeal of Elementary lies: both Sherlocks are almost cynically calculated for fannish appeal. Miller’s Sherlock is, as I said, a Jerk With A Heart of Gold who is only sarcastic because he was woobieishly wounded in the past, while Cumberbatch’s Sherlock has numerous fanservice-y hints of guy love with his Watson. To its credit, Miller and Liu avoid any UST and interviews say they’re not going in that direction, but that was the idea with Warehouse 13 as well and we’ve still gotten Pyka hints, so I wouldn’t be surprised if a few months from now, we start getting meaningful glances between Sherlock and Joan. In the end, I prefer Cumberbatch’s ‘Sociopath Learning To Be Human’ over Miller’s ‘Batman With Impulse Control Issues’ (or ‘House Without The Cane’). They’re different enough to make claims of rip-off fall away for a bit, even if Miller’s “WHORES AND CAR CRASHES!” Americanization lends itself to quite a few jokes. No way an American show is having a hero who characters joke about being a virgin!
To the Watsons: as of now, I don’t think it’s fair to make a comparison. To me, the core of any Watson is that he’s Sherlock’s best friend and partner. He’s the guy (or girl) who would help Sherlock hide the body, as it were. In both shows, they depict Sherlock and Watson’s first meeting, so it’d be unrealistic to show them as hetero life partners so quickly. Although Sherlock literally has more time to show Sherlock and Watson teaming up. In contrast, I thought it a bit rushed how Elementary ran through “We’re a team!” “No, we’re not.” “I’m sorry for being a jerk.” “Friends forever!” As I said, procedural, they have to do the mini-origin story thing, it’s just somewhat clunky.
To be kind of indelicate, I think Freeman has the traditional look of Watson down as far as looking like a stolid British upstanding citizen for the 21st-century. You can’t really judge Liu the same way of course, since her Watson is necessarily an Asian-American woman. But she does fit as an upper-middle-class American everywoman to contrast to Holmes’ weird genius; I’d wager the average New Yorker professional would look more like Lucy Liu than a fat guy with a moustache.
I think Watson is always supposed to be something of a audience surrogate/average guy, perfectly smart, who just can’t do what Sherlock does. In Victorian England, that’s a white guy. In modern America, it can be anyone. And they do portray Lucy Liu as that instead of being ~exotic~ or anything. She watches baseball! So, bonus points.
Additionally, Liu holds up well even when waylaid by fast-paced pilot busywork (for instance, we’re told that she gets information out of a witness by being nicer and more compassionate than Holmes, but we don’t get to see that). And I will give points for there never being a scene where she has to put on a slinky dress or strip down to a bra and panties for no reason; the “she’s all woman!” moment, you know. The only scene where her Watson and Holmes are really on the same page is a coda where they’re watching baseball together (because it’s Sherlock Holmes in America, get it?) and it’s promisingly broTP.
So I guess my overall recommendation would be to give Elementary a chance. It has a far firmer hold on my DVR than Revolution, it at least has all the ingredients to become a good show, and it does meet my tempered expectations for a “wacky crimefighter” show on CBS. It’s just not the “blows Eldritch Cucumber out of the water” show the Sherlock hatedom was hoping for.
I’m not sure how fair the comparison is. American TV is famously weak out of the gate, with the common refrain being to give a show six episodes to get its footing before passing judgment. British TV, on the other hand, is government-funded and doesn’t operate on the same ‘pilot>pick-up’ structure. They don’t need to have a first episode that encapsulates the entire series for the viewing public, they just film six episodes of something and fuck off to read Harry Potter.
Aside from that, Elementary is intended to run for something like twenty-two episodes a year, while Sherlock only went for three (admittedly, movie-length ones). If you asked me to come up with three very good Black Widow stories in a year, I could do it; twenty-two very good Black Widow stories, all of which must follow each other, operate under the same set of rules, and not make Sears pull their commercials from my time block… that’s another matter. And in fact, Sherlock’s very first episode never aired; it was rewritten, reshot, and included on the DVD where it was mocked by the creators.
So, with all that said, you can see how little it means that Elementary’s first episode isn’t as good as Sherlock’s. This is no fault of the actors, the characterization, or even the direction. It’s that the central mystery was less involving than Sherlock’s “serial suicides,” the hint at Moriarty was more compelling than vague insinuations that American!Sherlock and American!Watson had angst (Sherlock’s over a former flame, naturally enough, who he surely calls out to as he buries his sorrow in tattooed prostitutes. The second part of that sentence is true). The mystery in Elementary is flat-out bad; the kind of overcomplicated plotting you could picture Sherlock’s Moriarty indulging in before razzing Holmes for ever considering it. It involves plastic surgery to make a woman look like a potential murderer’s target, a psychologist “aiming” said murderer at his wife, the boring motive of killing said wife for her money, and the very silly conclusion of Watson finding a cell phone in a bag of rice that happily contained all the psychologist’s sessions.
It’s early to say, but I think the difference is that the mystery isn’t meant to matter in Elementary. It’s just a vehicle to get Sherlock and Watson bantering about this and that, whereas Sherlock has a sort of gamesmanship to its mysteries. Both Sherlocks impress with spot-on deductions, but while Jonny Lee Miller’s tend to come in the form of factoids (Watson smells of beeswax, hence she must be a surgeon, because surgeons use beeswax lotion to protect their hands), Cumberbatch’s are more actual deductions, like the string of observations that get him Watson’s alcoholic brother giving him a cell phone. Miller is a trivia buff; Cumberbatch is a great detective.
As I said, Elementary is more about the banter and the series’ pick-up, so the pilot has to run through a series of cliches. The Meet Cute, the Oh It’s Such A Hassle Genius-Wrangling, the Doubting Police Officer, the Red Herring Suspect Who Fools The Police But Not Our Hero, the Tease of Deep Dark Secrets, the Five-Minute Bit Where It Seems Like They Might Split Up, the Sidekick Proving Her Worth, the Jerk Turning Out To Have A Heart of Gold, the Random Fanservice (bees! my god!). It’s a procedural, so we’ll see if things get more experimental as the format has time to grow. Watching the first episode of Community, for instance, there’s no way to know that eventually we’d get paintball episodes.
As for the characters, since that’s where the appeal of Elementary lies: both Sherlocks are almost cynically calculated for fannish appeal. Miller’s Sherlock is, as I said, a Jerk With A Heart of Gold who is only sarcastic because he was woobieishly wounded in the past, while Cumberbatch’s Sherlock has numerous fanservice-y hints of guy love with his Watson. To its credit, Miller and Liu avoid any UST and interviews say they’re not going in that direction, but that was the idea with Warehouse 13 as well and we’ve still gotten Pyka hints, so I wouldn’t be surprised if a few months from now, we start getting meaningful glances between Sherlock and Joan. In the end, I prefer Cumberbatch’s ‘Sociopath Learning To Be Human’ over Miller’s ‘Batman With Impulse Control Issues’ (or ‘House Without The Cane’). They’re different enough to make claims of rip-off fall away for a bit, even if Miller’s “WHORES AND CAR CRASHES!” Americanization lends itself to quite a few jokes. No way an American show is having a hero who characters joke about being a virgin!
To the Watsons: as of now, I don’t think it’s fair to make a comparison. To me, the core of any Watson is that he’s Sherlock’s best friend and partner. He’s the guy (or girl) who would help Sherlock hide the body, as it were. In both shows, they depict Sherlock and Watson’s first meeting, so it’d be unrealistic to show them as hetero life partners so quickly. Although Sherlock literally has more time to show Sherlock and Watson teaming up. In contrast, I thought it a bit rushed how Elementary ran through “We’re a team!” “No, we’re not.” “I’m sorry for being a jerk.” “Friends forever!” As I said, procedural, they have to do the mini-origin story thing, it’s just somewhat clunky.
To be kind of indelicate, I think Freeman has the traditional look of Watson down as far as looking like a stolid British upstanding citizen for the 21st-century. You can’t really judge Liu the same way of course, since her Watson is necessarily an Asian-American woman. But she does fit as an upper-middle-class American everywoman to contrast to Holmes’ weird genius; I’d wager the average New Yorker professional would look more like Lucy Liu than a fat guy with a moustache.
I think Watson is always supposed to be something of a audience surrogate/average guy, perfectly smart, who just can’t do what Sherlock does. In Victorian England, that’s a white guy. In modern America, it can be anyone. And they do portray Lucy Liu as that instead of being ~exotic~ or anything. She watches baseball! So, bonus points.
Additionally, Liu holds up well even when waylaid by fast-paced pilot busywork (for instance, we’re told that she gets information out of a witness by being nicer and more compassionate than Holmes, but we don’t get to see that). And I will give points for there never being a scene where she has to put on a slinky dress or strip down to a bra and panties for no reason; the “she’s all woman!” moment, you know. The only scene where her Watson and Holmes are really on the same page is a coda where they’re watching baseball together (because it’s Sherlock Holmes in America, get it?) and it’s promisingly broTP.
So I guess my overall recommendation would be to give Elementary a chance. It has a far firmer hold on my DVR than Revolution, it at least has all the ingredients to become a good show, and it does meet my tempered expectations for a “wacky crimefighter” show on CBS. It’s just not the “blows Eldritch Cucumber out of the water” show the Sherlock hatedom was hoping for.
