ELEMENTARY - News, Reviews, and Discussion

[137th Gebirg]

I think they just picked the DIA to be the over-reaching jack-booted government agency of the week, simply because all the other TLA's (three letter acronyms) have been done to death and this one is rarely ever mentioned. Unfortunately, like so many others mentioned here in various posts, horribly misused in this particular role.

 

[Aragorn]

Who's still watching this show? Sounds like it'll be on the chopping block and when that happens, there won't be a single show left on CBS I even watch, especially after that trifecta of axing Limitless, Person of Interest and Supergirl last season.

Anyway, I've started catching up on the show, and the characters and how they solve the crime are still more interesting than the cases themselves. What I'm not feeling at all is Shinwell and SBK. It feels like the research was done by a bunch of suburbanites watching gangbanger movies and then trying to PG it for CBS.

 

[stardream]

Who's still watching this show? Sounds like it'll be on the chopping block and when that happens, there won't be a single show left on CBS I even watch, especially after that trifecta of axing Limitless, Person of Interest and Supergirl last season.

Anyway, I've started catching up on the show, and the characters and how they solve the crime are still more interesting than the cases themselves. What I'm not feeling at all is Shinwell and SBK. It feels like the research was done by a bunch of suburbanites watching gangbanger movies and then trying to PG it for CBS.

I"m watching it and am waiting on news about renewal. I'm not that into the whole Shinwell thing either.

 

[Christopher]

I think the Shinwell arc would've worked better with a more charismatic actor in the role.

I hadn't heard that the show's renewal was in question. It'd be a shame if it ended before they managed to bring Moriarty back for one more arc. On the other hand, I haven't been as engaged by the cases lately, which tend to be rather gimmicky and convoluted. And they don't work as proper mysteries, the kind that play fair with the audience by providing the information needed to solve the case ahead of time if one is observant enough. I noted last night that there was no way of deducing the killer's identity in advance, because he was only in one scene and the key piece of information about him wasn't established until his arrest. I mean, I did peg him a little bit ahead of time because Sherlock said the killer was male, and because they were obviously lying to the producers when they said that one contestant was still wanted for war crimes. But there were no clues planted earlier.

 

[Allyn Gibson]

Who's still watching this show? Sounds like it'll be on the chopping block...

As of two days ago, Deadline was confident that it's going to be back.

Anyway, I've started catching up on the show, and the characters and how they solve the crime are still more interesting than the cases themselves. What I'm not feeling at all is Shinwell and SBK. It feels like the research was done by a bunch of suburbanites watching gangbanger movies and then trying to PG it for CBS.

Honestly, the whole Shinwell thing hasn't worked for me. I think Christopher is right; a different actor might've sold the character better.

I haven't been as engaged by the cases lately, which tend to be rather gimmicky and convoluted. And they don't work as proper mysteries, the kind that play fair with the audience by providing the information needed to solve the case ahead of time if one is observant enough.

This doesn't bother me with Elementary -- or any filmed Sherlock Holmes story, really -- because Doyle's original stories, right from A Study in Scarlet, don't play out as mysteries the reader can solve themselves. Sherlock Holmes stories aren't Encyclopedia Brown stories.

 

[Snaploud]

I'm still watching. Hopefully it will get renewed and Moriarty will come back.

 

[Christopher]

As of two days ago, Deadline was confident that it's going to be back.

That's a relief.

This doesn't bother me with Elementary -- or any filmed Sherlock Holmes story, really -- because Doyle's original stories, right from A Study in Scarlet, don't play out as mysteries the reader can solve themselves. Sherlock Holmes stories aren't Encyclopedia Brown stories.

I'm just getting tired of the modern TV-procedural trope of the detectives bouncing from one suspect to another, forming a succession of theories of the case that get disproven within the next few minutes, and getting drawn into an ever weirder and more convoluted mystery before finally revealing that the killer was one of the first people they talked to but that we haven't seen even once since then. It's a clumsy story structure. When I first noticed it on Castle, I thought it was specific to that show, but it seems to be the standard format for procedurals these days, and it's worn out its welcome for me. I'd rather see more cohesive plotting. Elementary tosses out some interesting ideas, but often it just uses them as red herrings and moves on before really developing them. For instance, the idea of the Ugandan child soldier, the war crimes he was forced to commit, and the aftermath of those crimes could easily have sustained a whole episode, given how complex a situation it is. It felt wasted as a red herring.

 

[Locutus of Bored]

Honestly, the whole Shinwell thing hasn't worked for me. I think Christopher is right; a different actor might've sold the character better.

I tend to think it's down to the dialogue and characterization of Shinwell in this case rather than the actor, since I thought Nelsan Ellis did an outstanding job when he played Lafayette on True Blood, a character which is about as far away as you can get from the glum and quiet Shinwell as you can imagine (Lafayette is a flamboyant, funny, and charismatic full time Creole cook, part time prostitute / vampire blood drug dealer).

 

[Gov Kodos]

I tend to think it's down to the dialogue and characterization of Shinwell in this case rather than the actor, since I thought Nelsan Ellis did an outstanding job when he played Lafayette on True Blood, a character which is about as far away as you can get from the glum and quiet Shinwell as you can imagine (Lafayette is a flamboyant, funny, and charismatic full time Creole cook, part time prostitute / vampire blood drug dealer).

I liked the actor but I didn't feel the full effect of his characterization was realized in Sherlock and Joan's views when they argued. His story fully said from the beginning with the ex-wife that gang bangers are all about themselves and what they want regardless of who they hurt. Nothing really contradicted that but since Shinwell was focused solely on destroying SBK it was easy to imagine him wanting to make amends for his past as Joan did, in spite of his own warning to her about his world being dangerous. However, Shinwell wasn't really made as fully part of Holmes and Watson's world as Kitty was so the whole reveal and end felt anti-climactic to me. His whole mission stamp said dead man walking for season ending puzzler right from the get go. I liked the actor but his story was played out in a pretty pedestrian way.

 

[Aragorn]

Elementary has been renewed, so I'll still be watching one show on CBS this fall.

 

[Jax]

Glad it's just a 6th season though I do think maybe call it a day after six. I have done my usual routine of keeping the episodes for several months and then blitzing the show and I have almost caught up in only a few weeks (only 2 behind). Season 4 was better but John Noble will do that but season 5 has been fairly enjoyable.

 

[Christopher]

Okay, what the heck was going on with that woman Sherlock was confiding in, whom I'm pretty sure we've never seen before? Given that she didn't interact with anyone else (and given that he left the room and shut the door behind him rather than leaving it open for her), I got the sense he was hallucinating her -- but then that phone-tip thing happened, so either she's real or he's developed a dissociative identity disorder. And if she's someone real, and if they love each other as she said at the end, who could she be, except Moriarty somehow?

And please don't tell me that she's his secret sister we never heard of until now, since that didn't work out so great when Sherlock tried it.

 

[stardream]

Okay, what the heck was going on with that woman Sherlock was confiding in, whom I'm pretty sure we've never seen before? Given that she didn't interact with anyone else (and given that he left the room and shut the door behind him rather than leaving it open for her), I got the sense he was hallucinating her -- but then that phone-tip thing happened, so either she's real or he's developed a dissociative identity disorder. And if she's someone real, and if they love each other as she said at the end, who could she be, except Moriarty somehow?

And please don't tell me that she's his secret sister we never heard of until now, since that didn't work out so great when Sherlock tried it.

She's really in a cell somewhere controlling him coz she has seekrit mind powers.

 

[Allyn Gibson]

Okay, what the heck was going on with that woman Sherlock was confiding in, whom I'm pretty sure we've never seen before? Given that she didn't interact with anyone else (and given that he left the room and shut the door behind him rather than leaving it open for her), I got the sense he was hallucinating her -- but then that phone-tip thing happened, so either she's real or he's developed a dissociative identity disorder. And if she's someone real, and if they love each other as she said at the end, who could she be, except Moriarty somehow?

And please don't tell me that she's his secret sister we never heard of until now, since that didn't work out so great when Sherlock tried it.

The AV Club reviewer seems to think May is Sherlock's dead mother.

I'd kind of like to see Elementary do a "Sherlock with DPD" story. (That's the premise of Michael Dibdin's The Last Sherlock Holmes Story, for instance.) I really thought Sherlock was going to go there; I thought that Jamie Moriarty was largely a figment of Sherlock's drugged out imagination, so the criminal mastermind that was haunting Sherlock was really Sherlock himself.

 

[Christopher]

The AV Club reviewer seems to think May is Sherlock's dead mother.

That was my first thought, but the text thing suggests she may be real, so I'm not sure.

I'd kind of like to see Elementary do a "Sherlock with DPD" story. (That's the premise of Michael Dibdin's The Last Sherlock Holmes Story, for instance.) I really thought Sherlock was going to go there; I thought that Jamie Moriarty was largely a figment of Sherlock's drugged out imagination, so the criminal mastermind that was haunting Sherlock was really Sherlock himself.

Yeah, the fact that Sherlock treats Holmes as borderline mentally ill is why I really don't want Elementary to go there.

And Jamie Moriarty is Natalie Dormer's Elementary character. I think you mean Jim Moriarty.

 

[Allyn Gibson]

And Jamie Moriarty is Natalie Dormer's Elementary character. I think you mean Jim Moriarty.

I am so embarrassed. My coffee hasn't quite kicked in.

 

[stardream]

The AV Club reviewer seems to think May is Sherlock's dead mother.

I'd kind of like to see Elementary do a "Sherlock with DPD" story. (That's the premise of Michael Dibdin's The Last Sherlock Holmes Story, for instance.) I really thought Sherlock was going to go there; I thought that Jamie Moriarty was largely a figment of Sherlock's drugged out imagination, so the criminal mastermind that was haunting Sherlock was really Sherlock himself.

Nicholas Myers did something similar for the 7% Solution except in that case Moriarity was just a harmless college professor who had bad associations for Sherlock which only came to light when he went over the top with his drug use.

 

[Enterprise is Great]

Elementary returns mid season with just 13 episodes

 

[Christopher]

Elementary returns mid season with just 13 episodes

I would take that as bad news, but the explanation about it being a response to changing viewing patterns makes sense. Cable and streaming shows tend to have 13-episode seasons or thereabouts, so maybe networks are just catching up with that trend. Fewer episodes per season allows for tighter storytelling, so it can be a good thing.

Although the downside is that staff writers get paid less if the seasons are shorter. That was one of the issues behind the averted writers' strike recently -- negotiating a pay raise for cable and streaming shows, to balance out the shorter seasons. If networks now go to shorter seasons, hopefully there will be raises there too.

 

[Allyn Gibson]

If they're going to keep Elementary on Sunday nights, a 13-episode midseason order is for the best. How many times was it pre-empted or bumped back an hour or two because of football this season? Way too many times to count. A midseason debut and Elementary avoids all that.