I wanted to give Elementary a chance...

[alley_skywalker]

So I got curious about Elementary. So I watched a long promo and some clips. OMG. I already had issues with this show just concept wise but I though, hey, out of patriotism at least, maybe I should see if it's good despite the issues. (Yea, the genderswap irks me - I like my John/Sherlock either as a romance or a bromance but their dynamic is a

Comments

[methleigh]

I did not like it either. I tried. I found it artificial and stilted, as if it is trying for something it cannot attain. I don't think that is BBC Sherlock, because they have nothing in common. The problem I have is that the Elementary Sherlock could be just anyone. And the Elementary 'Watson' is nothing like Watson. So, it is just a show, based so loosely on Sherlock Holmes it may as well be "Mystery series featuring world-weary junkie/ex-junkie and his keeper."

Do you think Sherlock Holmes is an A-----e? I'm not going to dispute it, for he can surely be or can be viewed that way. I'm just curious. I didn't see the "Not everything is deducible" episode. But it is DEFINITELY not something Sherlock Holmes would say. He says: "Give me more data!" (so I can deduce everything.)

In an interesting note, I just read Conan Doyle's long-lost first novel, The Narrative of John Smith and there is a character who lives upstairs from JS who was wounded in the Afghan war by a Jezail bullet, etc.

[alley_skywalker]

I used asshole as kind of a generalizing term? IDK. ACD Sherlock always came off as a huge snob to me. BBC Sherlock initially came off as an ass, but now I think he's just autistic. And yea, that's the thing - it's just NOT Sherlock Holmes and the parts that DO stretch into that territory sound a lot like bad BBC Sherlock copies to me. As for Watson, you're right. It looks like she could be a wonderful character...but as her own character. Not as an incarnation of John Watson becasue the character is SO different

[rumpledlinen]

Yeaaaah. I watched the promos for Elementary and it just left a bad taste in my mouth. I really don't like that they only genderswapped one person; I would have loved it if they had swapped both but as it stands I didn't like it. I don't think it's really comparable to BBC Sherlock (at least it's less sexist, from what I hear) but it just... didn't seem very good. :/

[alley_skywalker]

Yea, see if they'd genderswapped both of them that would be a lot more interesting. And at least there wouldn't be this feeling like they're trying to make the shipping that inevitably resolves out of these things more normative and "ok". Also, if they wanted to swap only one of them for the sake of being "progressive" or whatever, they should have swapped Sherlock. Because having a logical (and rather cold) female lead and her less keen MALE sidekick would be a hell of a lot more progressive than sticking the girl in the sidekick role AGAIN. How do people not see this

[rumpledlinen]

Yeah, I get that feeling too. :/ I don't like it. At least, though, Joan doesn't take shit from Sherlock (from what I hear) - she is the sidekick, yes, but she's not his "housemaid" or anything.

I think the main complaints are Irene. It's not that she's a dominatrix; it's that she's, in canon, the woman who beat Sherlock. And for some reason the show chooses to call her that, but... she didn't. She didn't beat him. She fell in love; she became "Sherlocked" and so he could beat her. And I /hate/ that because she could have beaten him! I don't understand why they didn't let that happen - she could have beaten him, gone on her merry way, but instead they have this weird twisted thing in which she continually needs saving from Sherlock. I don't think Molly is sexist - I think she's a really honest portrayal of what a lot of women are like (she's my favorite on the show, absolutely).

[alley_skywalker]

Yea. I mean, I was glad she didn't beat Sherlock becasue I didn't like her much but the whole thing about his saving her in the end was really weird. Like...if Sherlock went all the way to the middle East...wouldn't John notice? Lol, IDEK. It was weird. I didn't think of it as sexist though. I guess it could be seen that way but it didn't feel that way to me.

[lokifan]

Oh God, the googling thing sounds awful. Like, not everything is deducible in reality - but Sherlock Holmes is a semi-supernatural character while being enormously logical, he can DO these things.

Personally I loved the idea of the genderswap (although I REALLY WISH they'd both been swapped, or just Sherlock) but then they made her not a soldier. Which I hate. I think the soldier/doctor thing is at the heart of Dr Watson, and really, if you want to do a female Watson partly to be progressive you should probably not take away the army background for no apparent reason.