The Sword and Laser discussion

Kinda reminds me of the Moffat ver...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qUJeWv...

Hmm looks who's Watson...

Wow! That looks Great! I'll have to watch the series. Thank you. BTW, if you're looking for a Sherlock Holmes like series but with a different twist, I'd highly recommend the Jason Dark series by Guido Henkel.

The BBC/Moffet one is so good, I doubt this will come close..but I like Johnny Lee Miller, so I'll give it a shot.

I do intend to watch it; but it looks like something that was thrown together in the wake of the Moffat series and the Ritchie movies, so I don't hold out much hope. Though it would be nice if it were good, considering the indefinite status of Sherlock

I dont have much hope of it being better than Sherlock but I do want to see how it plays out. There have been a few American shows where they have had a character that is pretty much Sherlock Holmes by another name which have been good so it will be interesting to see how they approach this.

Neil wrote: "I dont have much hope of it being better than Sherlock but I do want to see how it plays out. There have been a few American shows where they have had a character that is pretty much Sherlock Holm..."

The character of Gil Grissom on C.S.I. leaps to mind as an example. I sometimes wonder if this concept has jumped the shark; with shows like Perception and Numb3ers, you'd think these people would contribute more to society by doing their day jobs, and leaving the murders for the police.

Daran wrote: "The character of Gil Grissom on C.S.I. leaps to mind as an example. I sometimes wonder if this concept has jumped the shark; with shows like Perception and Numb3ers, you'd think these people would contribute more to society by doing their day jobs, and leaving the murders for the police. "

Gil Grissom was one I thought of as well along with Detective Goren from L&O Criminal Intent. And lets face it House is pretty much Sherlock Holmes M.D. There have been many good shows with characters borrowing traits from Holmes so this has the potential to be a good show.

I am guessing that the American show will have the standard format of 45 minute episodes rather than the 90 minute ones 'Sherlock' has so each story will need to progress more swiftly and there will be more of them so they will need to go outside of the books and short stories for inspiration or they will run out of material quite quickly. Will be interesting to see how they sustain it.

Watched the pilot. Not bad so far. At least it doesn't feel like a bad copy of Sherlock.

Rob wrote: "Watched the pilot. Not bad so far. At least it doesn't feel like a bad copy of Sherlock."

I agree for the most part, except Holmes in both series appears to be socially stunted. I think both series can stand nicely on their own. I thought the pilot went off quite well.

Matthew wrote: "I agree for the most part, except Holmes in both series appears to be socially stunted. "

Yea but he wouldn't be Sherlock Holmes if that wasn't true..

Having seen it, I think it could stand shoulder to shoulder with most of the other crime dramas on TV.

I haven't seen it yet. I hope it's on demand.

I liked the Monk TV show, so this should be enjoyable.

I wasn't impressed with the pilot of Elementary, and some of that is that I think they cast Johnny Lee Miller and Lucy Liu in the wrong roles - I'd have much rather have spent an hour watching Liu as Holmes.

Rest is hidden for semi-spoilerish stuff, nothing detail based but thoughts that may be offputting to someone who hasn't seen it

(view spoiler)[Even in the books, Holmes has a sort of frantic energy that's like a dog with a bone when he's on to something but I dunno... It seemed to me like he was sleepy or something during this episode.

There's also the fact that Holmes is pretty much always done as having an Aspergers like condition, which makes him socially 'stunted.' Again this comes from the source material but doesn't seem to have translated at all to this series. To me during the pilot he just came off like an asshole who would deliberately say things that would upset people rather than saying things and unknowingly causing offence.

And as for his methodology, there were very few points where it actually seemed as though he was following any real train of logic from point A to B to C and so on. It felt a lot like guesswork, as though it was a series of lucky guesses rather than an incredibly intelligent person working it out methodically. It also seemed that the police were written to be rather stupid and inept rather than writing Holmes as being 'better'.

I also felt that Watson was something of a let-down. She's been taken from army medic to fired surgeon and she really seems to lack any real direction as a character. She just seems to be there to occasionally ask the 'investigator' type questions, a role that thus far could easily have been filled with anyone, even a different someone every week. (hide spoiler)]

On the whole, I think Moffat's Sherlock presents characters and a style truer to Conan-Doyle's works then Elementary has so far.

I don't think it's fair to compare Moffat's Sherlock to Elementary. Moffat is trying to retell the original stories with a modern (and tongue in check) manner. It's a very unique sort of show. Elementary is very much in the genre of crime drama. It's in the same style as Castle (though not as good imo), or any of a dozen others on network TV these days. What, by contrast, can you compare Sherlock to?

Aloha wrote: "I liked the Monk TV show, so this should be enjoyable."

I only liked the Sharona-era Monk. Something went downhill after that.

Jonathon wrote: "I wasn't impressed with the pilot of Elementary, and some of that is that I think they cast Johnny Lee Miller and Lucy Liu in the wrong roles - I'd have much rather have spent an hour watching Liu ..."

I actually would loved to have seen the characters turned on their heads as you mentioned. It would be interesting to see the whole things with the character's roles changed up. This was only one episode though so I would like to see how the series hits its stride.

@Daran

They're both modern adaptations of Sherlock Holmes, so I feel like it's a perfectly valid comparison. Regardless of how they achieve their end goal, they're both doing the same thing. And when comparing the two series, Elementary doesn't come out on top for me. Not even close in a lot of areas.

Unfortunately, the whole thing for me played too much like 'generic crime drama #6392' and the Holmes/Watson relationship already feels like yet another rehash of Castle/Beckett and Grissom/Sidle and countless others from basically every other crime drama out there.

I think a lot of the difference comes from the fact that Moffat and his team are huge fans of the original source material and they're not reacting to viewers' responses to another show.

@Jonathon

I agree with all your points, but that's why I don't think they can be compared. This show can be successful as Crime Drama #6392 because those shows are popular, and Elementary is an above average example the genre. At least the pilot was.

Something more cerebral wouldn't be able to follow The Good Wife, and lead into Person of Interest. It's just smarter than the former, and a little dumber than the latter. And that's exactly what you want there.

Moffat's opinion on "Elementry":

http://www.bbc.co.uk/newsbeat/17453924

FYI for anybody who's interested, the pilot is available for free on iTunes.

The first episode felt like it was checking off boxes...
"Sherlock"
"Watson"
"Not interested in women"
"Bee keeper"
"Drug addict"
etc...
But it was a passable crime drama.

I'll give it 2 or 3 more episodes to find its legs. I didn't like Psych until a few episodes in and now that's one of my favorites. Elementary just needs to figure out how it is different from any other consulting detective show and it could be great.