Elementary
Awesome things about Elementary.
- · It’s similar to RDJ! Holmes and quite different to Brett! Holmes or Cumberbatch! Holmes. And that plays out nicely with Liu’s more serious Watson.
- · Watson’s the one to find the crucial piece of evidence to solve the case.
- · Holmes is less of a cold fish in this one.
- · The apiary on the roof.
Not-So-Awesome things about Elementary
- · The mystery is disappointing. Jut lure a writer away from one of the CSI shows, already.
- · The villain is incompetent. And by incompetent, I mean I could actually plan a better murder than he. Also, the evil overlord list tells you never gloat to the hero about not being about to prove something. It also points out that simple plans have less detail to go wrong and end with you in prison, being someone’s whiney bitch. Hypotheticals outside a classroom? Is taunting the hero.
- · Why did Sherlock have to find the body? You’d think the husband would go, “I found her in the safe room” to the police, who would, yanno, open the safe room and see the dead body. I’d hope the first thing the police would ask him would be “where did you find your wife?” because if not, how do they know there’s been a murder in the first place?
- · The murder takes place in New York. Why would the victim actually invite the deliveryman inside for a glass of water? If it were a plumber, cleaner, maintenance man whom you see weekly/ monthly, I could see letting them and pouring them a glass of water only if they had an appointment with you that day. Floral Deliveryman? That’s hard to swallow, even if the victim had seen him every week for the last two years. What’s he delivering that he needs to come inside for- trees? I think a man must write this scene because I can’t see an adult woman who is aware of the statistics of sexual assault inviting someone who has no business inside the house inside. Add to the fact you see him once a week for maybe a minute, which works out to spending one and three quarters of an hour over a two-year period, and you likely only know their name, how they are, and a physical description.
- · The Villain has poor money management skills. He’s paying for extensive plastic surgery (to quote Sherlock), hair trim and color (likely with highlights/lowlights, and deep conditioning treatments to keep it a natural looking red) every six weeks for two years, flowers every week for those two years- just to possibly trigger his patient’s obsession to assault and murder buxom redheads.
- · Both Lucy Liu and Jonny Lee Miller talk softly and are hard to hear over, well, everything.
- · The Doctor apparently is the only one to know that he is seeing this patient, which is not believable. His receptionist likely has access to patient records, the patient’s primary care physician either referred him to the villain or made a note that the patient was seeing a Dr. So-and-so and was on this medication. Heck, it should be in his primary physician’s records when he started seeing this guy and a reason why (depression, anxiety).
Conclusion:
- · The weakest part is the plot. The dialogue is nice, the characters are interesting, but the plot is where it falls down. I hope this was a case of pilot anxiety and the rest of the season is much better on the plot side of things. I will wait and see what happens in the next show.
Things I am predicting
- · Watson was a trauma surgeon.
- · There is no medical malpractice suit against her for the patient’s death, thus causing her to lose her license.
- · It will come out that yes, her patient died on the table, and that she feels guilty but in the eyes of the law she is not guilty of medical malpractice.
- · She can’t stand the sight of blood after losing her patient.It will be brought up.
- · Her patient was likely a child. Or an addict. Or a teenage addict.
- · Watson will be denied enjoyments that Sherlock does not share (baseball? Opera?).
- · There will be more twinned outfits.