Lucy Liu cast as Watson in CBS' Sherlock Holmes show
- Thread starter Dream
- Start date
^How so?
Logically from the timeline... I'm guessing Alien had been on the shelf for a while but when Star Wars started making hundreds of millions of dollars, it was fast tracked out of development hell.
I think Moffat's still smarting from the abject failure that was the US version of Coupling.
There's nothing to say we have to sell our concept just cos the USofA comes a calling.
9 episodes of a failed us sitcom probably earned him more money than the first three seasons of doctor who.
Imagine a character knocked on your door late at night and said "I want to buy your car."
You say, "I have to go to work in the morning, don't be an idiot."
He offers you 5 times the blue book value, but you really can't be bothered, so you tell him to bugger off and you go back to bed, only to find in the morning that your car has been stolen.
You say, "I have to go to work in the morning, don't be an idiot."
He offers you 5 times the blue book value, but you really can't be bothered, so you tell him to bugger off and you go back to bed, only to find in the morning that your car has been stolen.
If memory serves, Alien was a script that Fox had had sitting on the shelf for five or six years, and once Star Wars hit they wanted something else in a spaceship and Alien was the only thing they had ready to go.
But the next morning you might wake to find that Demi Moore has buggered off with Robert Redford anyway.
I don't think CBS wanted Moffat to come to run an American Sherlock. I think, like NBC did with Coupling, they just wanted the concept and they always had an American producer in mind for a present day American Holmes. And they also wanted to prevent any legal hassles and nuisance suits down the road.
I liked it when they had the indecent proposal on mad About You.
they'rein vegas playing games.
A Robertredoforlookinglike bloke walks up to the Buchmans... "I'll give you a million dollars to sleep with your wife."
Jaimie looks at Paul, and Paul looks at Jaimie.
"You good with that honey?"
"Sounds perfectly reasonable."
"Well, I'll see you tomorrow then."
And Paul goes back to rolling dice unconcerned about what just happened.
they'rein vegas playing games.
A Robertredoforlookinglike bloke walks up to the Buchmans... "I'll give you a million dollars to sleep with your wife."
Jaimie looks at Paul, and Paul looks at Jaimie.
"You good with that honey?"
"Sounds perfectly reasonable."
"Well, I'll see you tomorrow then."
And Paul goes back to rolling dice unconcerned about what just happened.
Watched the pilot episode last night. I'm pretty sure this show came about because someone said "Hey, what should we do with these unused Monk scripts?"
I know Monk is a take off of Sherlock Holmes, but this version is a complete rip-off of Monk except the main character is a drug addict instead of having OCD, and it's set in New York instead of San Francisco.
Aside from the obvious similarities of noticing a bunch of minor things and putting them together in way to solve crimes, here are the all-too-striking similarities between the two shows:
1. The sidekick is a female in the medical profession (Sharona was a nurse, Watson was a surgeon), who more of less unwillingly goes along with the main character.
2. Monk/Sherlock works as a civilian contractor to the police department.
3. Monk/Sherlock's best friend is a Police Captain and former co-worker who spends too much time working cases and not actually being a Police Captain.
4. The Police Captain is partnered with kind of a dim-witted detective who doesn't like the main character upstaging them (Randy didn't like Monk in the beginning).
5. Both characters breakdowns came about because of a woman. Monk had a breakdown because of the death of his wife, and Sherlock went into drug addiction because someting happened to a woman he was in a relationship with (obviously more of this to come).
I know Monk is a take off of Sherlock Holmes, but this version is a complete rip-off of Monk except the main character is a drug addict instead of having OCD, and it's set in New York instead of San Francisco.
Aside from the obvious similarities of noticing a bunch of minor things and putting them together in way to solve crimes, here are the all-too-striking similarities between the two shows:
1. The sidekick is a female in the medical profession (Sharona was a nurse, Watson was a surgeon), who more of less unwillingly goes along with the main character.
2. Monk/Sherlock works as a civilian contractor to the police department.
3. Monk/Sherlock's best friend is a Police Captain and former co-worker who spends too much time working cases and not actually being a Police Captain.
4. The Police Captain is partnered with kind of a dim-witted detective who doesn't like the main character upstaging them (Randy didn't like Monk in the beginning).
5. Both characters breakdowns came about because of a woman. Monk had a breakdown because of the death of his wife, and Sherlock went into drug addiction because someting happened to a woman he was in a relationship with (obviously more of this to come).
Holmes has always been a drug addict.
Watson has always been a doctor
Holmes invented the idea of "Consulting Detective"
Gregson is a character from the Holmes stories
Holmes always shows up and frustrates the cops.
I assume the woman will turn out to be Irene Adler.
Watson has always been a doctor
Holmes invented the idea of "Consulting Detective"
Gregson is a character from the Holmes stories
Holmes always shows up and frustrates the cops.
I assume the woman will turn out to be Irene Adler.
I watched the pilot and thought it was totally uninspired. The mystery certainly wasn't something to keep anyone's interest, so what else is there? Characters. I didn't feel like we were doing much of exploring their characters and there wasn't much of Sherlock in the show, nor Watson. If this is what they put together for the pilot to represent in general what you can expect from the series, I would pass on future shows. Stick with Sherlock on BBC. Ultimately, I would probably characterize it as Sherlock in name only, but then again it is only called "Elementary".
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.
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 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.
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.
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).
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).
