Elementary

	Saturday, April 20th, 2024
      
	Subscribe
	Advertise

Elementary

CBS, Thursdays 10/9 Central

Sep 27, 2012 By Jeremy Nisen Issue #42 - The Protest Issue

Elementary is a modern-day reinterpretation of the Sherlock Holmes stories, featuring Lucy Liu and Jonny Lee Miller both playing tightly-wound characters who are not so into sharing. It’s hard to fancy spending an hour staring at a poker face-even a beautiful one.

The premise in brief: recovering addict Sherlock Holmes has been assigned Joan Watson as his “sober companion.” Let the fun begin.

This pilot is okay; it’s tough to make lofty proclamations about a pending series based on a first episode. Even so, there’s something to be said for putting your best foot forward. Does the question of why a man with a rice allergy had a bag of rice in his apartment really scream “compelling aspect of the mystery” to you? But some of Holmes’ observations are clever or close to it, and Miller’s frenetic take on the character is currently on the correct side of the line between annoying and dynamic. The quieter nature of Liu’s Watson does the character no favors; Holmes may have too much personality, and hopefully Watson will blossom in that regard. They’re both perfectly serviceable characters with the potential for more.

The story undercuts itself a touch by Holmes admitting that some of his deductions regarding Watson were accomplished beforehand via Google-fu. It seems that in the search-engine era, steps should be taken to make Holmes’ deductions more impressive rather than less. Despite the clunkiness, the show was fine. Definitely needs more evidence before a final analysis. (www.cbs.com/shows/elementary/)

Author rating: 6/10

Rate this show
Average reader rating: 2/10