I agree that it doesn’t feel like Sherlock Holmes. The BBC version (comparisons are inevitable) is a clever updating of the original stories. Watson is a wounded veteran of Afghanistan, they live at Baker Street, Mrs. Hudson is the landlady, etc. It’s a lot of fun for someone who has read the Conan Doyle stories. This one is OK, but different.
Who would like Lucy Lui, "Charlie’s Angles " “Kill Bill” and the premis is a guy who consults on crime with the observation skill of S.Holmes ? Liked the premier, will watch again, How about YOU?
Welcome to the SDMB, -getitrite. There’s already a thread about Elementary, so I have moved your post there.
Wonder Of Wonder, thanks, good to know that I have a gardian angle.
Glad also to see, there were others who found the new show. Enjoyed the preimer, we’ll see said the sage.
Yes, compared to Sherlock it’s really lacking. It almost feels more like someone used all the material inspired and based on the original (House, The Seven Percent Solution, Probe) but not the source itself. I found the tattooed and flawed Holmes a problem, though an even bigger problem was that he had difficulty understanding humans. ACD’s Holmes is excellent at reading people and has a deep affection for humanity — he’s just not demonstrative about it. And there are some people he knows he can bother because he’s actually doing work to help them. This guy seems to have a serious empathic disability.
But it has potential to be an entertaining show. I actually liked the acting. The mystery and the writing was decent enough, and the leads work well together. Unfortunately if they do as many shows as is typical for TV series it’s likely that they’ll drop the mystery work now and then to ‘develop the characters’. But maybe they can avoid that.
I liked it well enough. I’ll be giving it a go.
It has its problems–the Holmes I know would never disrupt an opera under those circumstances, and is more cultured and self-controlled–but the fact remains that while Sherlock and House are far superior, one comes out 3 times a year and the other is cancelled.
Ultimately, Holmes is one of those wonderful characters created by a terrible writer. He’s fair game for this kind of interpretation.
Not overly impressed. Even ignoring the comparison between the other Holmes franchises running right now, the first show was startlingly mediocre.
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Holmes wasn’t all the smart. It’s supposed to be a sign of his brilliance was that he saw through Watson’s story about why she wasn’t a doctor, but I had guessed the truth about fifteen minutes before. And her story was a doddering old cliche; her original story would have made for some interesting possibilities. Or they could have come up with something actually original.
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The Google line, while funny, also diminishes him: the literary Holmes didn’t need Google. This one should stay away from it.
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The magic clues. This is a problem in a lot of current police procedural these days: a clue is discovered that happens to solve the case because of one lucky coincidence. On CSI, it’s “that chip of paint came from a shade that was only sold in one store in Las Vegas and they have a record of every customer for the last ten years on tape.” Here it was the “perfectly symmetrical” living room and the rice allergy.
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Why the hell did Holmes crash the car? What did that accomplish other than to piss off the suspect?
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The murder plot was too far-fetched to be credible. No one would plan a murder that way and the idea that the two men could meet without anyone seeing them is ridiculous. The killer was depending on something that had a million ways to go wrong and only one way to go right.
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While I give the writers credit for making Lucy a Mets fan instead of the more expected Yankees, the final scene was just plain stupid. That’s not the result of rational analysis; it’s clairvoyance.
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Where was the humor? Holmes was dull and Watson too serious to be interesting.
I put some of this down to the usual problems with a pilot episode. It may improve. But so far, I haven’t seen anything that makes me want to give it any more than a trial period.
So, I had this weird thing where I was taken out of the show every time he mentioned that his name was Sherlock Holmes. I kept expecting one of the other characters to make some snide comment about expecting him to be the world’s greatest detective, or something. And then I had to remind myself that no other character in this show has ever heard of the name Sherlock Holmes in any other context.
It will probably pass in time, but I found myself thinking that if they kept everything about the show exactly the same but changed the main character’s name to something less familiar, it would have felt more real. That’s not fair, I know, but it was just how I felt.
I agree, but for a different reason. I don’t mind re-interpretations of Holmes (I think the newest BBC version is brilliant) but there are some basics that shouldn’t change. They’ve got him as super-brilliant detective, OK, fine, but the other bit that’s so attractive about Holmes is that he’s an English Gentleman (in the Victorian sense.) This new production (and the first Robert Downey movie, I haven’t seen the second) portrays him as total shlumph. Why would any client hire him? I’d be turned off immediately.
We’ll give the show a few more chances, but basically we liked the story line, and wish it were some other named detective(s.)
I like Jonny Lee Miller, so I’ll probably stick with the show. I do expect it to add some more classically Sherlockian touches at some point, though.
I thought about that, too. This Sherlock Holmes has to be living in a parallel universe where Sir Arthur Conan Doyle does not exist.
Another thing that bothers me about the Google reference: if Holmes can look up Watson’s parents on Google, he should also have come across why she was no longer a surgeon; it would probably be the first thing you found.
So, Holmes now has a living father. I wonder what he’ll be like. If Holmes is like this, what must Mycroft be like.
And if that’s the premise, who in the twentieth century would name their kid Sherlock? (I could understand someone who’s an ACD Holmes fanatic. In fact, “ACD Holmes” would have been a better name.)
She is Asian.
I enjoyed it. The way I see it is, there’s multiple ways to “update” a series. I was really hoping for a series that took the original stories and retold them in a modern setting, and when I didn’t get that with BBC Sherlock, I was hoping to get it with Elementary, but no dice, 
You can also update a series by just transplanting the characters to a modern setting. Both Sherlock and Elementary do this, but I think Sherlock still retains a very much Victorian sensibility, while Elementary is a more thorough updating in terms of modern sensibilities and how people like Holmes and Watson would have grown in this century.
I thought the mystery was pretty decent. Even though the producers have said they aren’t using the original stories, that doesn’t mean they haven’t dropped details from the stories in this new series. It’s fairly subtle, but the pilot reminded me of “The Norwood Builder” and “TheCopper Beeches”.
Also liking the obvious plot arcs they’ve set up (the circumstances surrounding Joan losing her license, and how Holmes left/got driven out of London). Definitely looking forward to seeing more.
Obviously you are not familiar with Hitomi Tanaka.
NSFW to google her.
… You didn’t? I am pretty sure I did. Didn’t I?
I’m confused.
Eh, not really? I mean, Study in Pink and the Hound of Baskerville were fairly close to the originals, with their own twists, but both Moriarty and Irene Adler’s stories were almost completely changed. Even the cases listed on the blog are pretty different. For example, the only thing “The Geek Interpreter” really has in common with “The Greek Interpreter” in the pun on the name. Sherlock has an interesting blend of original plots mixed with some plot elements from canon (and other Sherlock Holmes remakes, making their plagiarism threats about Elementary just a wee bit ironic).
It’s still entertaining (I really liked their take on “The Bruce-Partington Plans”/“The Naval Treaty”) but it’s not quite the same as a direct retelling of the plot with updated characters and setting. I do get why no one’s doing that - a) the stories have already been told, by Doyle, so why rehash it? and b)In a television format being super faithful to the plot is limiting. And Sherlock isn’t really even a TV show, it’s a set of made-for-TV movies/ a miniseries. If they weren’t going to do direct updates, CBS certainly isn’t.
You may have a point. I was comparing this one to Adrian Monk and Daryl Zero.