The success of Elementary lies in the ability of its writers to stick to the ethos that makes Holmes beloved
Now that the Academy has handed out its awards for the past season, a new year of scrambling will start. While there is always a hope that Hollywood will improve and give us some gems, the chances are slim at a time when the best films are no longer being made in the United States.
Television, however, is another story. While the British and European industries are also thriving with the success of long form shows which allow for character development over months and years in real time, the Americans, with their massive budgets, are still the best at developing and executing some of the most riveting television to date.
With the recent proliferation of Sherlock Holmes mythology pervading literature, cinema, and television, the concept of Elementary – a show named after the fictitious detective’s most famous phrase, seemed a stretch. Setting a scene for Holmes in modern day Manhattan, with Johnny Lee Miller as lead, and with a surprise twist that turns Dr. Watson into a woman (Lucy Liu plays Holmes’s ever-present, trusty, but subordinate, partner) could have gone terribly awry.
Fortunately, the creators are neither obvious nor stupid. Now in its fourth season, the show continues just as strong as when it started, with excellent writing, an ensemble cast populated with the likes of Aidan Quinn as Captain Thomas Gregson, the long suffering NYPD detective with whom Holmes and Watson work on a consulting basis, and storylines that are a rare mix of police procedural with intriguing problems, clever often hilariously tongue in cheek detective work, and full, round characters that stick in the mind.
Miller and Liu, both of whom have had their own successful cinema careers, work extremely well as the odd couple, a trope that has always made the Holmes-Watson partnership so successful. Thankfully, here, the norm of Watson being the trusty but slightly dim sidekick has been dispensed with. Dr Joan Watson is quite the detective herself, and with her steady brand of intellectualism. Holmes, always socially awkward bordering on unbearable, finds himself all the more humanised by the surprising partnership.
The enduring popularity of Sherlock Holmes has always been inextricably linked to two things, Holmes’s abilities as a detective unparalleled by any other mind, and, his friendship with Watson, a relationship without which these stories would not have had a heart, providing only cerebral interest to readers, and now, to viewers. The success of Elementary lies in the ability of its writers to stick to the ethos that makes Holmes beloved, even while taking liberties from its Victorian conventions. The series is a highly recommended palette cleanser that will delight even the snobbiest viewers.