Miss Watson? Never, Holmes!

CBS's haven't pleased the BBC too much with it's own version of Sherlock entitled 'Elelmentary'. Not only this but actress Lucy Liu will be co-starring along with Jonny Lee Miller as Sherlock.
I for one, will NOT be watching it. I prefer the orignal characters and am a bit of a traditionalist when it comes to Holmes, although I did enjoy the modern take on Sherlock with Benedict Cumbatch .
Why America have to stamp it's paws on any British franchise and ruin it is beyond me - but then ... I'll stick to the books.

I quite agree.American TV seems incapable of taking any British TV series and making their own version without ruining it-Torchwood anyone.

I've heard that the American "The office" isn't bad.

And while Holmes must be in the public domain by now, in general, whoever ultimately owns character rights is signing contracts to make themselves American dollars. It's a two way street and they want the money.

I'm a traditionalist, too, and dislike seeing movie/TV/book adaptations or versions that stray so far from the original that it is almost unrecognizable. And I'm from the USA.

>2 tendring: Torchwood anyone

Three words: Life On Mars.

As an update, has anyone seen this show Elementary, and changed their mind as to actually liking it?

> 7 I have. I like it, to some degree. If you're a purist, you won't like it at all. It's much more of a derivative than a "based on" kind of work. The Sherlock character is an interesting one, but he's not always A.C. Doyle's Holmes. I actually wrote a blog post about it earlier this month, with some detailing of the similarities/disimilarities: http://missjjonartsandentertainment.blogspot.com/2012/11/holmes-set-loose-upon-n...

Very good post. I had been curious as to why they chose Lucy Lui for the part. I have only seen her in Charlie's Angels. But Hollywood are always eager to jump on the bandwagon to draw in viewers by any means, to top up their already over flowing pots of money, not really caring too much about the quality of the show or even if the right actors are chosen for the parts.

But it'll be very intersting as to where Moriarty comes into this. Surely not .... another woman??!!

I actually quite like Elementary - a lot more than I thought I would.

> 9 Thanks. I'm not crazy about the Lucy Liu casting myself, but I guess she's starting to grow on me. In general, I think the problem is that I don't love how they re-developed the Watson character, although I do definitely like that Watson is now a woman. As for Moriarty, eh, I'm not all that concerned yet what they do with that character, if anything. Of course, I reserve the right to change my mind if they do something atrocious!

Watson has been revisioned innumerable times, and occasionally with some success. Lucy Liu is not Watson, so no amount of 'revisioning' is going to make this work. it just isn't Holmes no matter what you call it.

i actually don't hate the show in general. as 'The Mentalist' it isn't too bad.
but then that's already been done.

> 12 but then that's already been done.

Yeah, that kind of sums it up. I find it an entertaining show, but it's not particularly unique.

It's been 70 years since Ellery Queen started the multi-year controversy with his paper "Watson was a Woman" delivered to the Baker Street Irregulars. About time we saw the concept faithfully realized. Liu's role as a physician hired to monitor Holmes's recovery from drug addiction works very well in a Sherlock set in the twenty-teens. The cocaine addict of 1887 has been transformed into the recovering drug addict of our era. Moriority was a device Doyle created to get out of writing any more Holmes stories, and unnecessary for an ongoing set of new stories. In Elementary Holmes is the same slob he was portrayed as by Doyle, is just as insulting to the aristocracy (in America's case, the rich), and uses the same techniques as he did 120 years ago to view human behavior. Using his nose to track the scent of a woman's deodorant was brilliant writing.

Watson's surgical background performs the same role in this series as it did in the books and its great fun to watch the relationship develop.

The deodorant part was ridiculous, even for Holmes. American writers clutching at straws with that one I think.

I'm hearing more and more good reports about Elementary. I'm not enthralled with American settings, but my main worry was that they would romanticise the Watson-Holmes relationship. I do not want to see a romantic Holmes. Luckily, that doesn't seem to be the case.

I have to admit the Lucy Liu Watson is not my favorite interpretation--I think part of that might be because all the recovery lingo grates on me. She seems so focused on "fixing" Sherlock. But the value of Watson hasn't traditionally just been to relate the greatness of Holmes, it's been to act as a sounding board. And the Watson character's performance in those roles in Elementary has been erratic.

One thing I do think interesting about both Elementary and the BBC Sherlock is that both shows made Lestrade a sympathetic and even paternal figure, rather than someone in constant competition and conflict with Holmes.

No Lestrade so far in Elementary, and not likely to be. Sherlock Holmes other Scotland Yard inspector, Gregson is the police contact in Elementary.

> 16 I read somewhere (can't recall where now) that the show's creators were definitely opposed to any romantic relationship between the two. That's good because the crime-fighting partners who become lovers storyline has been done enough on TV.

> 17 I agree, I find the characterizations of Watson are all over the map. When the show first started she just seemed to fade into the background of the mysteries, then she started adding some medical advice here and there, now she's making her own deductions. I guess you could argue that living with Holmes is rubbing off on her.

> 17, 18 No Lestrade character with that name, but it could be argued that Captain Gregson and/or Detective Bell is a stand-in. Those characters aren't similar though in characterization, as southernbooklady points out. Based on the conversation in this thread, I started wondering if Detective Bell was given that name as a nod to A.C. Doyle's inspiration for Holmes.

>18 larrymarak: Gregson is the police contact in Elementary

right, right. My bad. But Gregson/Elemtary and Lestrade/BBC Sherlock are of a piece. I think it is interesting how both shows dealt with the adversarial relationship the canon Holmes had with the police. He's superior and arrogant, they are by turns frustrated and dependent on him. That kind of relationship doesn't play with modern audiences conditioned by a million years' worth of cop shows and Masterpiece Mystery series.

I thought it was saying something that both shows decided to go with a relatively good relationship -- even a friendship -- between Sherlock and the Gregson/Lestrade figure, and left the frustration to the underlings on the force.

I also think that Elementary is suffering from trying to make the show too realistic, when they should have settled for simply "plausible." As a result, they have to explain and justify all sorts of forensic evidence and practice that the BBC series is free to skip over. I especially thought Holmes' tennis ball experiments in that last episode were pretty ridiculous.

I was just hoping to point out that the media has made Lestrade Holmes constant police contact, while Doyle did use Gregson occasionally in the stories. A bit of original copying (what a phrase) you don't see too often.

>21 larrymarak: oh yes, that's right, I had completely forgotten!

One correction and a juicy addition: the author who raised a great controversy at the meeting of the Baker Street Irregulars in 1941 was Rex Stout, who wrote the Nero Wolfe mysteries.

He later submited his entire paper to the Literary Review: here it is, Watson Was a Woman.
http://www.hwslash.net/stout.html

I have watched Elementary a few times (when there wasn't much on). It is a poor addition to the Holmes canon but a moderately entertaining addition to network TV. My main annoyance is that Johnny Lee Miller is always talking in that hesitant staccato tone that Michael Kitchen uses, are they trying to rip off Foyle's War as well?

I completely agree! This was a horrible concept. As to the show Sherlock, I think it is a brilliant modern re-telling of the canon. The casting is spot on, the writing is marvelous, and the set design extremely clever. I could see this series going on for years.

The series will go on for years, because it is a group of BBC movies, and not a television show per se...There is no pressure to create new episodes on a week to 10 day basis.

Hopefully, you're right larrymarak. I think Moffat has expressed just such a wish, for Freeman and Cumberbatch do be able to do the show for a while.
Speaking to Yahoo recently, Cumberbatch assured Sherlock fans that there's no reason the show "can't continue until we get too old".
Asked if he could ever get too big for Sherlock, Cumberbatch replied "I don't think that's a possibility because I love it too much. Making Sherlock is all about availability. Martin Freeman has the same kind of pressures on him now. It's a thing of quality not quantity that show - thank God. We started young with it. We started when they meet and we still are young for those roles. There's no reason why it can't continue until we get too old."
Hear, hear!

I hadn't realised (being in the States) that the hit West End play "Frankenstein" starred the lead actor in Sherlock and the lead actor in Elementary. Apparently Benedict Cumberpatch and Jonny Lee Miller alternate the roles.

> 28 Didn't know that fun fact either - thanks for sharing!

I think Elementary is so much better than Sherlock. It is difficult to imagine a bigger load of rubbish than the Christmas special- plots jumping from present day to Victorian, suffragettes dressed as the KKK. As for Lucy Liu she is an admirable Watson and that is no more implausible than Mrs Watson being a British Government assassin.