Review: Elementary

There's been a fair amount of wank/controversy/silliness over the new Sherlock Holmes adaption, Elementary.

I really enjoy the BBC series Sherlock and given that Elementary and Sherlock are both modern adaptions of Sherlock Holmes comparisons are inevitable. After watching six episodes of Elementary so far I think Elementary is edging out as my favourite Sherlock Holmes adaption where they aren't mice.

I really enjoy Lucy Liu's Joan Watson - I'm disappointed that with the gender swap they felt like they also had to alter the military background, but having more ladies in important, non-sexualised roles is rarely something I'll object to. She's clever! She's sassy! She tells Sherlock off when he's crossing her boundaries, and calls him out when he tries to take credit for everything. She's single, it doesn't seem like she's super thrilled about that but she's not in a rush to change it either.

She is not (and OH I REALLY HOPE THIS NEVER CHANGES PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE) in love with Sherlock and he is not in love with her. They, due to Watson's position as his Sober Companion, spend more than 2 hrs apart at any time and yet six episodes in neither of them appear to have any interest in undressing the other and watching a man and a woman grow a friendship that doesn't involve any angst is really quite awesome and I didn't know how much I wanted this until I saw it. Don't get me wrong - I really love me some UST, but sometimes people of different genders can just be pals, you know?

I've recently finished A Study in Scarlet by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and I'm part-way through A Sign of Four and even though I've been watching Elementary recently and it's been a while since I've seen Sherlock I definitely see Benedict Cumberbatch's Holmes in my head while reading the novels. That said, I think I like Johnny Lee Miller's Holmes better. People have said that Miller's Holmes is more 'human' and then other people have said that saying so is ableist because they read Cumberbatch's Holmes as being on the autism spectrum: I don't particularly want to get into that debate, but if I had to use small words 'More Human' seems like a good way to explain the difference.

Cumberbatch's Holmes intellect and skills seem superhuman. He's like a superhero (or supervillain, perhaps) and I think that's pretty faithful to the novels. I think Watson is the character we're supposed to identify with and we, with Watson, stand around in awe of Holmes' incredible brilliance. Elementary brings Holmes down to earth a bit more: he's clever, certainly. Incredibly observant but he's... just a guy. An insufferable, jerky, drug addicted, lonely guy.

My favourite part of these kinds of shows is the mystery/whodunnit aspect, and Elementary does that well. Sherlock does too... for two episodes out of every three. It seems to spend the third episode of each series in some kind of boring Moriarty story which basically does nothing for me (I don't particularly care for the "Chaotic Evil" flavour of villain. Give me some better motivation than "he's insane and evil", please!). Elementary, so far, has stuck to the whodunnit formula and while it may very well have less formulaic episodes later in the series right now I'm really enjoying the formula.

Sherlock's wrong about things. It's a Sherlock Holmes show basically there's a crime and then Sherlock has a theory that everything thinks is ridiculous and then he turns out to be... right about some things but completely wrong about others. He's just this guy, you know?

Anyway if you like Sherlock Holmes adaptions and CSI hasn't put you off crime shows forever I really recommend Elementary. Also the music (by Zoe Keating! Yay!) is rad.