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.
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.
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.
As it is, I find the entire premise to be bandwagon jumping of the worst kind.
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.
