Lucy Liu cast as Watson in CBS' Sherlock Holmes show

[Starbreaker]

The ending with the baseball game on TV was nice, but I thought the rest was pretty boring. Also... the hidden panic room? That's been done in every crime series series ever. I know I should judge it on its own merits... yada yada yada... but the pilot for Sherlock was much better.

[Forbin]

I didn't impress me very much, and my wife outright hated it. Oh well.

I tend to NOT like bringing a classic character into the present and pretending his whole literary history never existed. I.e., for this series to work, it has to be in an alternate-reality 2012 where there was never an Arthur Conan-Doyle series of stories, nor any of the many Holmes movies or TV series. I'm sure that's not a problem for many people, but I have trouble wrapping my brain around it.

[Nerys Myk]

Forbin wrote:

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I didn't impress me very much, and my wife outright hated it. Oh well.

I tend to NOT like bringing a classic character into the present and pretending his whole literary history never existed. I.e., for this series to work, it has to be in an alternate-reality 2012 where there was never an Arthur Conan-Doyle series of stories, nor any of the many Holmes movies or TV series. I'm sure that's not a problem for many people, but I have trouble wrapping my brain around it.

When its done as well as Sherlock its great. Elementary, not so much.

[Christopher]

Forbin wrote:

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I tend to NOT like bringing a classic character into the present and pretending his whole literary history never existed. I.e., for this series to work, it has to be in an alternate-reality 2012 where there was never an Arthur Conan-Doyle series of stories, nor any of the many Holmes movies or TV series. I'm sure that's not a problem for many people, but I have trouble wrapping my brain around it.

Well, it's no different from, say, a Superman movie being set in a world where Superman hasn't been a defining part of pop culture since 1938. Or having Star Trek be set in a future where there was never a 20th/21st-century franchise called Star Trek. Or having a vampire series wherein vampires have always been killed by sunlight for thousands of years, even though that trope wasn't introduced into vampire fiction until Nosferatu in 1922. Or the various works of Arthurian fiction that situate King Arthur and Camelot in the Middle Ages even though the legends (and their possible historical antecedents) date from nearly a millennium earlier. The one thing that's always going to be missing in any fictional universe is its own history and legacy as a work of fiction.

For me, the part that's hardest to suspend disbelief about is something different. I can buy an alternate world where Conan Doyle's detective fiction was never published. But it's hard to believe that anyone who bore a child in the late 20th century would've named them "Sherlock." It's a pretty weird name. But I suppose it's possible. There have been various historical figures with the last name Sherlock, and a few places with that name (in Australia and Kansas, though, not England). So I guess he could've been named after one of those.

[CaptainCanada]

When you look at what people are naming their kids these days, it's hardly that implausible.

I liked it fine. It's a CBS police procedural, but then, Holmes stories fit that quite well (indeed, they defined the type to a great extent).

[Professor Zoom]

Forbin wrote:

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I didn't impress me very much, and my wife outright hated it. Oh well.

I tend to NOT like bringing a classic character into the present and pretending his whole literary history never existed. I.e., for this series to work, it has to be in an alternate-reality 2012 where there was never an Arthur Conan-Doyle series of stories, nor any of the many Holmes movies or TV series. I'm sure that's not a problem for many people, but I have trouble wrapping my brain around it.

I would urge you to give the BBC's Sherlock a try. It's fantastic.

[Gov Kodos]

Professor Zoom wrote:

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I would urge you to give the BBC's Sherlock a try. It's fantastic.

Maybe the literary history of the great 19th century literary detective is for Solar Pons? I doubt they'll think of mentioning August Derlath, though.

[Forbin]

My nephew named his baby daughter "Bristol," after his favorite raceway. I guess he's never seen Benny Hill. This kid ever goes to England in her adult years, she's in for it.

Christopher - yeah, most of those other things don't bother me (much - placing Arthur anywhere but the 6th century is just wrong!). Maybe I just have a been in my bonnet over Holmes. I love the Brett series SO much, it's become the defining Holmes for me.

Oh - Modernized Shakespeare is another thing that bugs me. I recently caught the Ethan Hawke "Hamlet". Didn't like it, nossir. Brannaugh's Hamlet is fairly borderline for me - setting it in 19th century Denmark just made me keep thinking "what about whoever was REALLY in charge there at the time? are we saying they didn't exist?"

I know, I know, sometimes I need to suspend disbelief and let art flow and all that. I usually have no problem. It's just certain things.

[Greg Cox]

Christopher wrote:

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For me, the part that's hardest to suspend disbelief about is something different. I can buy an alternate world where Conan Doyle's detective fiction was never published. But it's hard to believe that anyone who bore a child in the late 20th century would've named them "Sherlock." It's a pretty weird name. But I suppose it's possible. There have been various historical figures with the last name Sherlock, and a few places with that name (in Australia and Kansas, though, not England). So I guess he could've been named after one of those.

As opposed to James Tiberious Kirk?

[Allyn Gibson]

Gov Kodos wrote:

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Maybe the literary history of the great 19th century literary detective is for Solar Pons? I doubt they'll think of mentioning August Derlath, though.

Solar Pons! Nice.

Or maybe Sexton Blake, who was "the poor man's Sherlock Holmes" in his earliest appearances.

[Greg Cox]

Forbin wrote:

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Christopher - yeah, most of those other things don't bother me (much - placing Arthur anywhere but the 6th century is just wrong!). Maybe I just have a been in my bonnet over Holmes. I love the Brett series SO much, it's become the defining Holmes for me.

Although it's perhaps worth remembering that the Holmes stories weren't period pieces when they were originally written, and that, of course, Basil Rathbone was doing Holmes in the present-day as far back as the forties . . . .

[Christopher]

Forbin wrote:

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Oh - Modernized Shakespeare is another thing that bugs me. I recently caught the Ethan Hawke "Hamlet". Didn't like it, nossir. Brannaugh's Hamlet is fairly borderline for me - setting it in 19th century Denmark just made me keep thinking "what about whoever was REALLY in charge there at the time? are we saying they didn't exist?"

No worse that The West Wing saying Jed Bartlet was president instead of George W. Bush. Or that the US election cycle was 2 years off of what it really is! Countless works of fiction set in the present day have replaced real presidents, monarchs, governors, mayors, etc. with imaginary ones, or replaced real TV networks, corporations, and even cities or countries with imaginary ones.

I can handle alternate-world modernizations of Shakespeare in principle, but some of them work better than others. For instance, the TV version of the recent David Tennant/Patrick Stewart Hamlet didn't quite work for me -- it was set in this Eastern Bloc-like surveillance state with security cameras watching everything, and yet the characters still hid behind arrases when they wanted to spy on someone. It was a distracting incongruity.

Greg Cox wrote:

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Although it's perhaps worth remembering that the Holmes stories weren't period pieces when they were originally written, and that, of course, Basil Rathbone was doing Holmes in the present-day as far back as the forties . . . .

Yup. If anything, I'm surprised we haven't seen modernizations of Holmes more often, given how many other remakes are updated to the present day.

[Hyperspace05]

I thought the pilot was pretty decent, better than expexted. I'll keep watching.

I think it is good that they are taking a different spin on the Holmes/Watson characters in a modern day setting compared to BBC's "Sherlock".

[Mister Fandango]

I didn't like it. But I didn't hate it either. I think the problem for me is that it was just bland and boring. I literally had no interest in anything that was going on. And I think that's even worse than hating it, because at least that way I have some emotional connection with what's going on.

[Allyn Gibson]

Greg Cox wrote:

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Although it's perhaps worth remembering that the Holmes stories weren't period pieces when they were originally written, and that, of course, Basil Rathbone was doing Holmes in the present-day as far back as the forties . . . .

Go back a decade before Rathbone, and Arthur Wontner's Holmes films were set contemporaneously in the 1930s as well.