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  • Review: CBS’s ‘Elementary’ is a Wait and See

    8 Comments »QuickCapsSep 28, 2012

    By

    fingers. crossed.

    I both did, and did not, want to watch the pilot of CBS’s Elementary, which premiered last night at 10pm, but which has also been floating around the internet for a bit longer than that. The reasons for not wanting to watch it should be pretty obvious – the biggest being Stephen Moffat’s Sherlock starring the incomparable duo, Martin Free and Benedict Cumberbatch. In addition to the fundamental indignation that comes from the notion that something excellent is being knocked-off, viewers of Sherlock – and fans of Moffat – know the full story – CBS loved it, and approached Moffat about doing an American version, which he couldn’t commit to due to scheduling constraints. Most knock-offs do everyone the good service of feigning a sort of ignorance. With their decision to go ahead, CBS denied us even that. This was a blatant go-ahead without the motor that made the car move – without Moffat. Without Cumberbatch. Also? The show’s executive producer was partially responsible for the CW’s Ringer. NEED I SAY MORE?

    And yet…Jonny Lee Miller. Jonny Lee Miller, who wormed his way into the hearts of me and most of my contemporaries (including Angelina Jolie’s) with his role of Sick Boy in Trainspotting, and of Edmund in the Austen adaptation Mansfield Park. He is a good actor, whose recent turn on Dexter disproved what his stint with the failed Eli Stone had made writ – the guy can helm a TV show, and he isn’t afraid of darkness, violence, and pathos. Add to this, Lucy Liu. Where to begin with my ardent feelings for Lucy Liu?  Remember when she played Fry’s girlfriend-in-a-jar on Futurama? I kind of want to go the way of the internet on this and just be all “LUCY LIU. YOUR ARGUMENT IS INVALID.” Instead I’ll say that this bit of casting alone was intriguing enough to give at least the pilot a watch. So watch it I did.

    Here’s the thing – it’s a mystery procedural. You need to know that, and accept it going in. If you don’t, you will be disappointing. It will be not unlike wanting to watch Deadwood and getting Calamity Jane starring Doris Day instead. Straight up. In a perverse way, the show’s done itself a disservice by being so closely associated with the UK’s version, and even to a large extent, with the works of Sir. Arthur Conan Doyle at all. Because so much of what Sherlock was doing was fairly revolutionary and had a bit of complexity sprinkled over the standard mystery format, it was a breath of fresh air. That’s not the case here, and setting the show in New York doesn’t help. It’s like loudly announcing your naked as a way of making everyone think you are cool with accidentally being naked. It just draws more attention to you.

    The fact remains, Miller and Liu are both incredibly charismatic – though not necessarily generating any sort of chemistry of their own. That could be just fine -  Miller’s ability to peer at a person and see everything about them – that’s straight up perfect, and I defy anyone into Sherlockania to deny it. Liu’s furtive, isolated persona is mesmerizing. Cool. That’s fine, that’s great, even! I’d like to see a take on this story where the Lady-Watson and Holmes develop a bond different than the romantic or erotic typically played out on these shows (exceptions including Monk, holla). (I AM LOOKING AT YOU BONES AND MOONLIGHTING) But even without a sexual charge for each other, there’s got to be a sense of rapport, and, while I could watch the two probably sit and talk about what to order for lunch for 45 minutes on the basis of their looks alone, these two don’t have that.

    For all the ire I had mustered at the re-telling of the story, strangely, it might have benefited from being a bit more extreme in their choices of redirecting the narrative. Strangely, there isn’t enough that is new here to separate Elementary from the other well-cast but creatively dull mystery procedurals that trot along network TV through the week. That’s sort of inexplicable really, in fact, there really isn’t any excuse as the perfect example (for better or worse) of this sort of reboot exists in the pop cultural lexicon – a little program by the name of House. Sadly, this show evokes none of the pathos of early House. If anything, I kept thinking about Medium, another Rob Doherty affair, which probably isn’t a good sign.

    All of this stuff to one side – I wouldn’t write the show off as of yet. If the show backs off the formula and delves deeper into exploring the traumatic psychology that is the only possibly entryway to a point of understanding between the Watson and Holmes we met last night, we might be on to something. The show is superbly acted, and I think Liu and Miller are more than up to the challenge. Even last night you could see the two making strong, strong, character choices – they were, through no fault of their own, existing on a Network show, which was trying in the blind-man-stumbling way, of most networks, to play the anti-hero card without quite knowing how to go about doing it well. I am incredibly hopeful they figure it out, but as of right now – I am not optimistic.

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  • Ganieda Moher

    First of all, my friend – Sherlock Holmes is in the public domain.
    BBC’s “Sherlock” is hampered by extraordinarily goofy and problematic
    writing (you can tell these guys are from “Dr. Who” – it’s all so very
    twee) and a mean-spirited and cold Holmes (though I do like Freeman’s
    Watson). If you actually read the canon, as I have done for 30 years,
    you’ll find that Conan Doyle’s Holmes was neither cold nor mean…nor
    was he motivated by “boredom,” as the BBC Sherlock is. In point of
    fact, if you’re looking for a beautifully portrayed, more canonical
    Holmes, Robert Downey Jr’s version is more all that (cut through the
    big-studio action and comedy in the RDJ movies, and you find a Holmes
    who cares, who is motivated by justice, and who is graced with the big
    screen’s first truly canonical Watson by his side. Not to mention that
    the world’s top expert on Holmes, Les Klinger, is the advisor on the
    movies…). But – regarding “Elementary” — it is patently NOT a
    “knock-off” of BBC’s series. “Modern” versions of Sherlock Holmes have
    been created since the earliest days of the movies, when it was too
    expensive to create a Victorian costume drama, so they would have Holmes
    running around in contemporary clothing in a contemporary world. Most
    of the Basil Rathbone Holmes movies are actually SET in the 1940s,
    contemporary to his audience (and in some of them, Holmes fights the
    Nazis!). There was a rash of Sherlock Holmes TV movies in the ’70s and
    ’80s where Holmes and Watson solved mysteries in the modern world.
    There were at least two earlier shows with a female Watson, btw. The
    BBC Sherlock series does NOT own Sherlock Holmes and it certainly does
    NOT own the idea of a “modern Holmes.” The “Elementary” show-runners,
    out of courtesy, approached the BBC with the idea of collaboration, and
    were apparently very rudely rebuffed, so they went their own way with
    the series they had created. Again, PUBLIC DOMAIN, and BBC did not own
    the idea. The BBC producers have done themselves no favors by shooting
    their mouths off about how butt-hurt they are over “Elementary” – they
    and their show have lost a lot of respect over this in the Sherlock
    Holmes fan community. They should have been above it, and they instead
    childishly complained and yammered, and then got poor Cumberbatch to
    mumble something of the same, so he was tainted by the same ridiculous
    brush. This entire thing has all been the fault of Moffat and Gatiss
    and their compatriots, who should have sucked it up and remained above
    the fray, and instead shot their mouths off and got their army of
    pre-pubescent fangirls into a panty-twisting tizz. Why can’t we enjoy
    ALL the Holmeses without certain producers jumping in and muddying the
    waters? The Americans, to their credit, have stayed classy, which is
    more than anyone can say for the overreacting Brits.

    • http://www.fempop.com/ Rebecca Jane Stokes

      Kudos – and thanks for getting in on this, I heart people who do their homework. I should have made it clearer that Elementary was NOT a re-make of the BBC’s take on the duo. That said – the fact remains that CBS was inspired to make their show based on Moffat’s success which at the very least makes it a derivative take, no?

      I absolutely agree re Downey Jr.

      And out of nerdy curiosity – have you read Laurie King’s Mary Russell books? I think you might dig them!

    • http://twitter.com/ReallyOnlyErin Erin Treat

      I loved this post. You make a lot of points I’ve been making to friends recently. Holmes can stand many interpretations, but people (usually ones who haven’t read the books) get caught up in the most recent popular portrayal and balk and anyone trying to do it differently. I remember people scoffing at the ass kicking he does in the films back when they first came out because Jeremy Brett rarely did much of that sort of thing, but they didn’t realize that Holmes was every bit as brawny as he was brainy in the stories and he never lost a fight in any of the books.

      I love “Sherlock”, but I’ve always been bothered by how much of a jerk he is in it. It has no basis in the stories. In “Elementary” how upset he is by the dead woman was refreshing and that was when I really started to give the show a chance. If they could escape the common crime of the week format that so many other shows do and become a bit more inspired by the lurid, hyper realistic, pulpy style of the short stories ,they could really set themselves apart.

      They have to think outside the standard TV show format, darn it! Sherlock Holmes needs to be the prime, shining example of the quirky expert who solves cases the cops can’t. He has to make Patrick Jane look like a bush leaguer. Otherwise what’s the point?

    • MyrtleMartha

      Just a few comments on your comment:

      You say, “The BBC Sherlock series does NOT own Sherlock Holmes and it certainly does NOT own the idea of a ‘modern Holmes.’” Quite true. It’s a good thing then that, according to all reports, those weren’t the issues discussed between CBS and the BBC. The BBC does, in fact, “own” their creative inventions/additions (as does any TV show), and the showrunners did make it known that they would protect their legal rights in those matters. This is the only sensible business decision; personally I don’t consider their letting this decision be publicly known as “childish…” and “yammering” but those are such generalized insults as not really to be discussable. As far as I can tell, CBS has stayed well away from anything distinctive enough to the BBC version that could get them sued. Good for them. In case you think BBC should not protect its legal rights, CBS would certainly not agree with you as it recently sued another network for producing a show that seemed to use some of CBS’s creative inventions.
      You say, “The ‘Elementary’ show-runners, out of courtesy, approached the BBC with the idea of collaboration. . .” It’s been pretty specifically indicated at the time and since that they approached out of legal necessity because they were asking to do an actual re-make, not merely collaborate in some vague, non-legally-required way. CBS has never denied this.
      You say, “and were apparently very rudely rebuffed. . . ” There is absolutely no evidence for this claim.

      You say, ” they instead childishly complained and yammered, and then got poor Cumberbatch to mumble something of the same.” Again there is absolutely no evidence that the BBC showrunners asked Cumberbatch to do or say anything. He has said that he was misquoted by a source that claimed he criticized CBS. That notification of being misquoted was duly publicized by the original source, which did not deny it and which ceased making the disputed claim. Both Jonny Miller and Cumberbatch (close friends) have said repeatedly that Cumberbatch was entirely supportive at all times.

      You say, “Why can’t we enjoy ALL the Holmeses . . ” and I certainly agree with you that we can, so long as we don’t violate anyone’s legal rights. (For example, it appears that not all the original stories really are yet in the public domain and therefore some can be used only by permission of the copyright owners.) It’s interesting that CBS chose to take its own original tack by imagining a problem that drove Holmes to move to New York, while the BBC had taken its own quite different original path of imagining Holmes as a younger man than depicted by such actors as Brett, a young man who is only gradually developing (largely under the influence of Watson) into the more caring and sensitive person he became in depictions of him at a later age. That gradual transition in character is one of the most interesting parts of “Sherlock.” Perhaps the development of CBS Holmes’ move to New York will turn out to be one of the interesting parts of “Elementary.”

      • http://twitter.com/ReallyOnlyErin Erin Treat

        I’m not arguing with most of your comment but I would like to point out that while Brett made people used to an older Holmes, He’s actually a young man in the first stories. Even as a young man though, he feels strong compassion for people in need and disgust for villainy. That’s why Moffat’s explanation for Holmes’s extreme coldness doesn’t hold up very well. Because in BOTH the stories and the TV series we meet him at the same time Watson does, when they’re men in their mid to late twenties.

        • MyrtleMartha

          The “original path of imagining Holmes as a younger man . . . who is only gradually developing into the more caring and sensitive person he became” isn’t something that can fail to “hold up very well” as an argument, because it isn’t an argument: it’s an original premise, not an “explanation.” It’s a departure from the ACD stories, just as a female Watson is a departure from the ACD stories.

          The idea that Sherlock began in his younger years with much more serious social-connection issues than we see in the mature Brett and Rathbone is a “Sherlock” innovation to the stories, just as Holmes moving to New York is an “Elementary” innovation to the stories. Neither innovation can reasonably be dismissed just because they’re not exactly like other versions of the characters. These are creative-arts decisions by the showrunners.

          What matters from a critical perspective is whether the innovations are made consistent with the overall character development, story lines, etc. As the BBC Sherlock has been changing before our eyes to become more and more like the Holmes we’d previously known in various parts of the canon, it seems to pass the criticism test. Time will tell whether Holmes’ move to New York is blended into the story line, character development, etc.

          I get that you personally don’t like the BBC innovation in Sherlock’s character, and of course that’s fine. The fact that millions of other people love it doesn’t in any way invalidate your view. We’re all entitled to our preferences.

  • Jimmy Mackey

    I’m afraid it seems that the use of the “Sherlock”
    identification ended up being a gimmick to get people interested in a familiar
    character so they would watch the show, or, at least give it a chance. Perhaps with your back story that was not the
    original intention. If you approach it
    as just another procedural, it is quite good on its own. I
    tend to watch TV on my lunch breaks at DISH, using the Dish Online website. I was glad when I saw that the “Elementary”
    pilot was on there, because I heard about it and wanted to see it, only I don’t
    have time at home. Now that I watch TV
    at work, my lunch has become a great time to relax and get away from the
    pressure.

  • Dylan Ray

    Who cares what and what? Just watch both Sherlock and Elementary, for the sake of entertainment. They both have their qualities and differences with S being more ‘retro’ and E being modern. Not to mention Lucy Liu is playing Watson. The only downside is that her character wasn’t as ass-kicking as I thought she would be like in Charlie’s Angel or Kill Bill.

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