Lucy Liu cast as Watson in CBS' Sherlock Holmes show

Discussion in 'TV & Media' started by Dream, Feb 28, 2012.

  1. Kelthaz

    Kelthaz Rear Admiral Rear Admiral

    Joined:
    Apr 28, 2005
    Location:
    Toronto, Ontario
    Waston as a female? Don't care either way. Could be an interesting change.
    Third Sherlock adaption in under 5 years? Ugh, getting sick of this.
    CBS? Mainstream crap with no originality. Now if it were HBO I might be interested.

    This is almost definitely a pass for me.
     
  2. Dream

    Dream Admiral Admiral

    Joined:
    Dec 2, 2001
    Location:
    Derry, Maine
    Also Watson is an army doctor not some surgeon who lost her license after a patient died like she will be on the show. They don't even the same background!
     
  3. the G-man

    the G-man Rear Admiral Rear Admiral

    Joined:
    Oct 22, 2010
    Location:
    to your immediate right
    This is actually not the first time Dr Watson has been a woman in a network TV updating of the Holmes story, interestingly enough. There was a made for TV movie back in the 70s starring, of all people, Larry Hagman as. Holmes.

    There was also the movie They Might Be Giants
     
  4. Christopher

    Christopher Writer Admiral

    Joined:
    Mar 15, 2001
    No, it really doesn't. I've never known it to happen in CSI or CSI:NY, and it certainly didn't happen in Law & Order: Criminal Intent. Or broadening the parameters beyond cop shows, there's Warehouse 13, which features a male-female agent duo, and it's been made very clear that Pete and Myka think of each other as brother and sister and would never be romantically involved. Same with The Middleman, where the title character was portrayed as a surrogate father figure for his female sidekick; the show's creator did a weekly online Q&A, and whenever a fan suggested "shipping" MM and Wendy, the creator reacted in disgust to a suggestion he considered incestuous.

    So as with every other objection you've raised, you're dead wrong and far too narrow-minded in your assumptions. There are plenty of ways for men and women to relate to each other besides the romantic or sexual, and luckily there are plenty of television creators who understand that far better than you do.


    Good grief, you actually think the race of the actor matters? Where the hell are you posting from, the 1950s?
     
  5. Hound of UIster

    Hound of UIster Vice Admiral Admiral

    Joined:
    May 26, 2002
    This is almost as bad as turning Watson into a robot in that future reboot version.
     
  6. Guy Gardener

    Guy Gardener Fleet Admiral Admiral

    Joined:
    Apr 15, 2000
    Location:
    In the lap of squalor I assure you.
    What about Watson and LeStrade then?
     
  7. Dream

    Dream Admiral Admiral

    Joined:
    Dec 2, 2001
    Location:
    Derry, Maine
    Off the top of my head, we had X-Files, Bones, Castle, and Chuck. This is something I've noticed more and more with recent new shows. I can't see the writers not resist the urge to make it romance.

    This new Watson from this show will have absolutely NOTHING to do with the one from the books. She isn't an army doctor, isn't male, isn't even British (my biggest complaint). They've changed the character too much. Why call her Watson if her character is completely different from the books?

    They changed Starbuck into a female, but her character still resembles the one from the original series somewhat.

    The BBC Sherlock brought Watson to the modern era, but his character is pretty much the same from the books. Meanwhile the Watson in the recent movies played by Jude Law is probably my favorite Watson. I don't have any problems when it is done well, but I can't see this show turning out that way.
     
  8. Saul

    Saul Vice Admiral Admiral

    Joined:
    Dec 27, 2002
    Location:
    東京
    Well, I'm glad they are doing some things different and of course making Watson changes the relationship between the character's. They've always had a bromance as men. I think setting it up this way is to give it some sexual tension ala H'uddy/C'ouse.

    The more different the series can be the better. I don't want a copy of 'Sherlock'. This says to me it's not going to be like 'Sherlock' so far.
     
  9. Asbo Zaprudder

    Asbo Zaprudder Admiral Admiral

    Joined:
    Jan 14, 2004
    Location:
    Rishi's Sad Madhouse
    Maybe Lestrade will be female as well. Here's hoping...
     
    Last edited: Feb 29, 2012
  10. The Wormhole

    The Wormhole Fleet Admiral Admiral

    Joined:
    Jul 23, 2001
    Location:
    The Wormhole
    You're right, they should have left Watson a male, and developed a romantic relationship between him and Holmes. Now that would have taken the show in a different direction than other crime dramas on American networks.
     
  11. Admiral Buzzkill

    Admiral Buzzkill Fleet Admiral Admiral

    Joined:
    Mar 8, 2001

    Because there's no difference between a cheesy sci-fi gimmick and casting a woman in a part. :rolleyes:
     
  12. Guy Gardener

    Guy Gardener Fleet Admiral Admiral

    Joined:
    Apr 15, 2000
    Location:
    In the lap of squalor I assure you.
    To make this Holmes not the other Holmes he has to be the opposite of a virgin.
     
  13. Captaindemotion

    Captaindemotion Admiral Admiral

    Joined:
    May 26, 2001
    Location:
    Ireland
    Why not wait and see the series and see what she has in common with the books? She's a doctor and she's Holmes' sidekick. Her chemistry and dynamic with him is much more important than her past.

    Leaving aside the fact that the original Starbuck wasn't as self-destructive as his female successor and leaving aside the fact that many fans went mental at this announcement, as did the original actor. Not to mention that they changed Boomer's sex, changed his/ her race, made her a Cylon. And that all worked out pretty well, if you ask me.

    Law's Watson and Freeman's Watson are quite different from the versions played by Nigel Bruce or Edward Hawdwicke. The Watson of the books is described as a small thin man with a moustache. Robert Downey Junior is very different from the tall thin man with a hawklike profile, which is how Holmes is described.

    This show may not turn out well, you may be right. But deviating from how past versions have depicted the legend doesn't automatically mean bad.
     
  14. Cutter John

    Cutter John Rear Admiral Rear Admiral

    You do realize this is American network television we're talking about here? If theres a lazy way to tell a story, you can bet they'll jump on it.

    Quite honestly, I don't care about the gender change. Hell, I thought the Starbuck debate was a lot of noise about nothing ( I didn't care for NuBSG for entirely different reasons).
    I'd probably find the whole notion interesting if the BBC version didn't exist. As it is, I find the entire premise to be bandwagon jumping of the worst kind.
     
  15. CaptainCanada

    CaptainCanada Admiral Admiral

    Joined:
    Mar 4, 2004
    Location:
    Charlottetown, PEI, Canada
    I really don't get the controversy. They're already changing things up enormously by setting it in the present, and there have been a million variations on the Holmes/Watson dynamic over the years.
     
  16. Greg Cox

    Greg Cox Admiral Premium Member

    Joined:
    May 12, 2004
    Location:
    Lancaster, PA
    Exactly. It's not like there can only be one true, definitive, "canonical" version of any classic character or story. And you're not doing Holmes or Watson any favors by treating them as a sacred cows.

    Granted, the new Sherlock is a tough act to follow, but there may be room for yet another revisionist take on Holmes.

    Let a thousand flowers bloom.
     
  17. Christopher

    Christopher Writer Admiral

    Joined:
    Mar 15, 2001
    You do realize that every one of the counterexamples I cited is an American show, and that they're all either broadcast-network or basic-cable shows? And, indeed, that they include shows actually on CBS? Look at the flagship CSI for a very relevant example. Gil Grissom was a very Holmesian character, an emotionally detached, Aspergerish intellectual, and he never got romantically involved with Catherine Willows (although he did eventually marry supporting character Sarah Sidle).

    Yes, TV lead characters are expected to have romances, but why assume the only possible combination is Holmes and Watson? It's not like Lucy Liu is going to be the only female character on the show, not in this day and age, and not on a network whose audience is about half female (or at least was as of 2008). Maybe they'll have a Mrs. Hudson character as Holmes's NY landlady, a widower or divorcee, and they'll ship her with Holmes. Or maybe, like many series leads, he'll be kept unattached to develop romantic relationships with recurring guests from time to time. As for Watson, they could have her enter into a relationship with, say, a guy named Mark Morstan (a counterpart to Watson's wife Mary in the canon) and end up getting engaged and married to him. There are plenty of ways to get these characters involved in romances without having it be with each other.

    Ohh, there are far, far worse bandwagons to jump onto than adapting a popular fictional concept. It's only TV, after all. Nobody's actually harmed or threatened or deprived of rights as a result of it. So it's gross hyperbole to say it's "of the worst kind."

    And like I said, I'm surprised it took so long for someone to have the idea of updating Holmes as a modern character. I mean, it's not like every Batman adaptation is set in 1939 or every Spider-Man adaptation in 1962. TV adaptations of Buck Rogers and Flash Gordon have generally made them contemporary characters rather than period characters (though Filmation's animated Flash Gordon TV movie made in 1979 and aired in 1982 was a period piece). Some adaptations of Tarzan have been modern, though others have been period pieces. Great characters are timeless. And the idea of exploring Holmes and Watson in a different era and culture is certainly worth experimenting with. So I don't really mind if it's done twice in quick succession, because I just see that as making up for lost time.

    Although of course Holmes has been modernized at least once before Moffat came along; most of the Rathbone/Bruce films were set in the then-present day, and some even involved Holmes fighting Nazis. But that's been the exception to the rule until now.
     
  18. Hound of UIster

    Hound of UIster Vice Admiral Admiral

    Joined:
    May 26, 2002
    It's because it's done by a bunch of greedy American tv executives hoping to cash in on the popularity of Sherlock. We'd have less problems if it was done by the BBC.

    Guess homosexual undertones between two males leads is too much for the brain donors running CBS.
     
  19. Allyn Gibson

    Allyn Gibson Vice Admiral Admiral

    Joined:
    Oct 16, 2000
    Location:
    South Pennsyltucky
    A minor correction, Christopher. The Arthur Wontner films and the later Basil Rathbone films were set in the then-present day. We think of them now as period pieces now because it's no longer the 1930s and 1940s, but at the time those films portrayed Holmes and Watson as contemporary, not Victorian, characters, and the audiences of the time would have seen them as modern portrayals.
     
  20. Greg Cox

    Greg Cox Admiral Premium Member

    Joined:
    May 12, 2004
    Location:
    Lancaster, PA
    Christopher actually mentioned the Rathbone films near the end of his post. And indeed, all but the first two Rathbone films were "modern-day" updates set in the 1940s, although this is more obvious in some of the films than others. A murder at a remote English estate tends to look and feel the same regardless of what era it's set in . . . .
     
    Last edited: Feb 29, 2012