Serving as both a trailer and a behind-the-scenes feature for the new American version of Sherlock Holmes; Elementary finds Sherlock coming to New York City for rehab.
First impression: Jonny Lee Miller seems to be channeling a bit of Matt Smith rather than Benedict Cumberbatch. Also, Holmes’s father is alive? (Will he be played by Alan Rickman?) The music isn’t doing it much favors, but we’ll reserve full judgement until the fall. What did you think? (News via Bleeding Cool)
It seems that all Steven Moffat’s fears are coming true.
*sigh* Honestly, if they were coming out with this 3-5 years from now I probably wouldn’t mind. In fact, I might even be interested…but it just can’t stand up to Moffat’s Sherlock. In fact, it’s embarrassing.
This isn’t as bad as I feared. They didn’t make Watson a kung-fu expert or some of the other things I was fearing…but I’m still not excited about it, other than as an opportunity to get together with friends and mock it mercilessly.
I have a sneaky suspician the main reason they made Watson a female in this iteration is so that eventually they can give us some crappy love stories.
Also, do we know yet if these are going to be based off original Sherlock stories, or will it basically just be another procedural?
It seems more like The Mentalist than Sherlock Holmes to me.
I would buy this as a Holmes-inspired procedural under just about any other name. As an “actual” Sherlock series, though, I feel a bit skeptical. I’ll give it a shot because of Jonny Lee Miller, but if the scripts don’t come through…
I think they should have swapped the leads. That would have been more interesting. As it is, the show seems rather pedestrian. Holmes here is a cross between Greg House and Patrick Jane.
He’s no Bandersnatch Cummerbund.
Looks awful quite frankly. He’s not Holmes at all, not nearly alien enough. It’s just all thrown together in typical American fashion. There’s plenty wrong with Sherlock, but it has the right feel (don’t get me wrong, I love it).
Totally agreed with RonHogan – a (vaguely) Holmes-inspired police procedural is all it’s going to be.
Looks okay – will have to see how the stories hold up.
Since the Brit version is very unHolmesian to me, it doesn’t bother me particularly that this version isn’t very Holmesian either. Holmes did tend to throw himself about observing the physical clues, but he was also a remarkably polite person.
Holmes and polite? does not compute
I like Lucy Liu, and I like the idea of genderswapping, but
1) Dropping Sherlock into NYC and having him and Watson come from different cultures, in that sense, is jarring.
2) I would almost rather have had both characters genderswapped than just one, largely because with a m/f partnership I don’t believe the network will be able to resist some half-assed dragged-out romantic subplot between them.
3) This version of Holmes doesn’t seem quite…alien? enough, quite disassociated enough from humanity. But maybe that’s hard to get through in the short clip. Cumberbatch has set a high bar for “No seriously, what species *are* you?”
Oh.
I don’t know why they have proceeded with it when there is already “The Mentalist” with Simon Baker putting a decent show.
Can’t guess what Cumberbatch thinks of this one! Lee Miller has worked with him and both are reportedly friends. If this comes out any where near Sherlock Season 3 we all know who will take a massive beating. :P
the American Sherlock
Says all I need to know there. No need to watch the trailer, no need to endure the show. Done.
I wanted to hate this, but it seems interesting
All this is showing me is that Sherlock needs more episodes than just the three TV movies every year. It needs to put this train wreck to shame. I can definitely get behind that.
I don’t see how this show can succeed while constantly being compared to the Moffat version. Plus, no updated Holmes stories… I feel like that’s been the strongest part of the BBC import. I love how they’ve been adapting the classics for the modern age. I don’t think I can handle another procedural where they solve the same murders.
I kind of like Lucy Liu in the Watson role, but didn’t like her yelling at Holmes and Holmes being cowed by it. Sure Watson might yell or get angry, but when does that ever stop Holmes from getting to the point or getting what he needs.
Of course I’ll watch it because I’m a Holmes junkie, but I’ll watch it with trepidation. It’s going to have to do a lot to win me over.
I liked it better than I thought I would… reminds me more of Monk than Sherlock for some reason. It seems a lot differnt from sherlock… will be a completely different show so I think they can coexist
So, it’s basically L&O: Criminal Intent with the characters renamed back to Holmes and Watson.
I liked Vincent D’Onofrio better.
DO NOT call them Holmes and Watson when they are so palpably in every way and every place NOT HOLMES AND WATSON!
Got that off my chest ….
:)
Love, C.
I already wrote a long rant about this trailer on my Tumblr, but the tl;dr version is like so:
The creators of “Elementary” have, from what I’ve seen, written an original character to tag along with Sherlock and are pretending that said character is just like canon Watson. They’re wrong.
What’s really sad to me is that if Lucy Liu and Johnny Lee Miller were to switch roles, this trailer would be AMAZING.
I am very prejudiced about this I admit. Even though I actually like Jonny Lee Miller, especially in Jane Austen adaptations, and I kinda wish for this to be good so that we would have something that helps us while waiting for Sherlock Season 3. Sherlock did most of the premise incredibly well already why would we need one in America?
I hope the show will be good anyway, as I said any good Sherlock Holmes adaptation I would love, but I can’t feel Holmes or Watson in this trailer. Admitedly Guy Richie’s Holmes and Watson are not exactly in line canon either but I feel the characters if that makes sense. I beleive they are some alternate versions of Sherlock Holmes and John Watson not the same Universe as Sherlock of course but still close enough. These two as far as I can see are not in any way near, especially Watson and that’s not about the gender at all. Maybe the show will give a better characterization that is not obvious from the trailer.
It would work much better , as said, if this show was less Sherlock Holmes in America more another show in America inspired by Sherlock Holmes. Then the caharcters would have more room to breath and we would not tear them apart for not being right.
a poltically-correct Sherlock, wow can’t wait.
The show was just as pointless as I expected it to be. Holmes is suddenly interested sexually in random women? Really? Is it necessary to inject homophobia into everything in order to Americanise it? I’m just waiting for the Obligatory Heterosexual Romance to start developing between Holmes and Watson, because that is obviously the only reason that the creators decided to make Watson female. Why couldn’t Holmes be female, too? Because women can’t be geniuses? Or because that would take things into ambiguously lesbian territory (heaven forbid!)? Maybe it’s because Macho American Men couldn’t handle watching a show with two female leads, because girls are weak, ok.
And why New York, pray tell? Holmes loves London – it’s his city – so the only reasons I can find for that decision are the usual American arrogance and laziness. So many little details wrong, too, like this weird penchant Americans have for forcing stubble and sloppy dressing onto Sherlock. In canon Watson describes him as “prim”, so GET IT RIGHT. There’s a reason people still love Sherlock Holmes over 100 years after the fact, and that’s because the original stories are incredible. This useless show doesn’t even follow any of the original (excellent) plot lines.
And it’s naturally obvious why the show was created in the first place – it was the wild success of the BBC’s “Sherlock” that prompted the American entertainment industry into copycat mode, as is their usual working method. I’m so, so tired of remakes, especially when they fail completely at capturing what was brilliant about the original material. Verdict: FAIL.