Wow. All that vitriol in the original post. Frankly, I'm just happy to see Lucy Liu playing a character that isn't a psycho sex goddess just like she's been playing since Ally McBeal. I like the show just fine.
Good news. Elementary just scored the coveted post Super Bowl slot: http://www.deadline.com/2012/11/cbs-elementary-lands-post-super-bowl-slot/
I watched the pilot of Elementary and I didn't care for it at all, it just seemed like someone took an unused Monk script and just changed a couple of elements (I know, Monk was basically Sherlock Holmes). I have no problem with the actors, or with Watson being a female, and I suppose I should give it another chance since things are often changed after the pilot, and maybe I will if I have nothing better to do. In the meantime, I'll stick with the BBC's version.
I would believe that Jonny Lee Miller's Holmes would lay down his life to stop a Morariaty. Benedict Cumberbatch's Holmes? I would wonder why he wouldn't partner up. Getting overwrought about Elementary after the BBC turned Holmes into a psychopath (which is indistinguishable from a sociopath, notwithstanding a particular stupid line. No matter how beloved it is.) is gagging on a gnat after swallowing a camel. (Some criticisms are so lame that only a cliche can properly dismiss them.) If you don't like Lucy Liu, you won't like Elementary. Enough said, and the rest of this is overkill.
I'll agree. I don't like to give up on a show after a couple of episodes, but the pilot had me thinking. Not that I actually disliked anything specifically, there was just something lacking. I'm glad to see it improved, although, I'm still on the fence.
So, I've posted a passionate and detailed piece depicting 'Elementary' as a poorly cast, thinly veiled and tedious 'SCI' retread, typical in every way of the infantile morass that is modern American television. I made many of the same points which had already been made in another thread on the same subject, having failed to notice that thread before posting. I've indicated clearly that I am speaking as a Holmes fan, NOT a CBS fan, but have had my opinion characterized as "a flimsy and verbose wall of words about nothing, indicative of an arrogant and egocentric fanboy's depressing sense of self-entitlement" who's "posting style" appears to rub a substantial number of you the wrong way. What the matter, kiddies? Am I speaking above your reading level?!
No truespock I think we all understand that you dont like this version of Holmes and Watson. Perhaps you preferred the Charlton Heston version or the Stewart Granger version(Bernard Fox does a brilliant Nigel Bruce here) or even the Roger Moore version, they at least all have names that sound like actors who should have been considered to play the role.
Considering that 'credibility' is awarded here on the basis of who are the most long-term familiar posters, and that newcomers are discouraged in every conceivable way, I don't find your distinctly partisan contention consequential in the least. I WILL be continuing to post here as I see fit, boys and girls. Don't like?...Don't READ!
After the success of Sherlock, it was all but inevitable that the idea would be picked up by some American network and a less edgy rather watered down version grafted onto a fairly standard police procedural. In much the same way as UK TV routinely plunders American (and other countries) TV output - normally unsuccessfully. Lack of originality is a given. Let me be clear where I stand - I think Sherlock is probably the best TV series I have ever seen. I'm only mildly 'Holmsian' but Sherlock is clever, snappy, inventive - brilliantly cast, written, acted and produced - exceedingly high quality and I absolutely love it. Elementary was never going to compete with that. Elementary will produce more episodes in its first season than Sherlock has in three and it's for a completely different (and much more mainstream) audience. It is designed accordingly. And I like it.
What Relayer1 said. The whole point of adaptations is to find different ways of approaching a concept, reworking it to appeal to different audiences. They're not supposed to be equivalent, they're supposed to be distinct. Sherlock Holmes has been handled many, many different ways over the decades; Sherlock and Elementary are just two more variations on the theme. If anything, it's surprising we haven't had more entries in the "present-day Holmes" genre before now. We've had some "Victorian Holmes brought into the present/future through sci-fi means" stories, and at least one version (in DC Comics) where Holmes had simply managed to survive to extraordinary age; but the last time we had a screen adaptation depicting Holmes as a contemporary figure, as far as I know, was the Basil Rathbone film series in the '40s. So "modern Holmes" is a fairly underexplored variation of the mythos, and thus it's good to have more than one version of same to help fill that gap.
Wrong. Your credibility problem is based entirely on the fact that your original post is just ranty bullshit and every successive post has been ranty defensive bullshit responding to posters pointing out your flaws in logic. Lucy Liu can't act because Watson's not super Emotional? Bullshit. Lucy Liu has been playing the same crazy kung fu stereotype character since the frigging nineties. Her performance in Elementary is actually evidence that she CAN act, because it's the first role where she demonstrates she has any kind of range as an actress. Johnny Lee Miller shouldn't have the part because of his name? Utter bullshit. That's the same thing as saying the Cleveland Browns shouldn't be in the National Football League because they don't have cool logos on their helmets. To quote Skip Bayliss, this whole notion is asinine, asi-ten, as-eleven and asi-twelve! It's not a show that real Sherlock Holmes fans would like? Bullshit. Miller's Holmes may be portrayed in a way outside of your experience, but the important part of the character is there: Holmes's powers of observation, reason and deduction, which are unique and seminal in the history of detective stories, and without which even the best actors with the most appropriate names would be useless in the part. Miller is Holmes, New York setting, tattoos and all, and REAL Holmes fans should be able to appreciate that if they give the show a chance. I don't really see what your deal is truespock, but if you're that desperate for traditional Holmes, i'm pretty sure the old Mystery! series version is on Netflix or Hulu or something. Go watch it and beat off to it all you want it. The rest of us like a little variety.
Once again, "Admiral", I have merely stated my opinion, which I am as entitled to do as anyone else here. Your characterization of that opinion as "ranty" is actually my simple refusal to knuckle under to this sites typical bullying tactics. Your determination to make it personal is but the hallmark of the easily intimidated. You're seriously boring me now, sonny!
It was the original post in the thread that was ranty, how could you be standing up to the "bullies" if none of them had posted responses yet? As I said previously, going after the actor's name pretty much made it impossible to take anything that followed seriously.
I think it's pretty clear that Cumberbatch's Holmes is no sociopath, at least not in the clinical sense. Like the literary Holmes and the very Holmes-inspired Gregory House, he can happily maintain a certain level of emotional disinterest in a case, but in his own way cares for and respects others. (His actions in the season two finale, IMO, demonstrate clearly that he has the ability to be selfless.) I was somewhat impressed by the Elementary pilot, perhaps more so by the script than the performances. I'm willing to give the show a fair crack at the whip, and if they do eventually go down the road of having an arch-enemy then hopefully they'll make a really good stab at it.
Exactly. Elementary doesn't have to measure up to Sherlock for me. It has to measure up against other TV shows in which a whacky mismatched pair solves mysteries. On that level, I not only find it watchable, I actually like it.
That's swell. I'm looking forward to reading more of your threads. Now, this last suggestion might be too mind-blowing to comprehend but I'll suggest it anyway: I'm no fan of "Grey's Anatomy," so I don't watch it. And I certainly don't go on to message boards to bitch and moan about it pointlessly or with such poorly thought critiques attempting to disguise them as legitimate discussion. With respect, I would submit that perhaps you should follow your own advice and apply it to the television series you don't enjoy. In simpler terms... if you do not like "Elementary," don't fucking watch it.