The Game's Afoot

Elementary 
CBS Television 
Thursday Nights; 10 PM 
With Jonny Lee Miller, Lucy Liu,  Aidan Quinn
Four Scoops of Bosco

Reviewed by Allen Bacon, The Daily Bosco

For the Sherlock Holmes purists who would prefer curling up with a spot of tea in front of a fire to read the original books of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle or watch old movies with Basil Rathbone or even the television series from the 1980's with Jeremy Britt, they may be disappointed to learn that the latest television incarnation of arguably the greatest fictional detective of all times is actually pretty good.

Never mind, if Watson is now a female, Joan Watson, played by Lucy Liu...you know, one of Charlie's Angels.  Or if the show is now based out of modern day Brooklyn....not anywhere near Baker Street in 19th Century London.

As a matter of fact this latest adaptation probably has more in common  with the shows Monk or The Mentalist than with the original Sherlock Holmes.

Think about it... The main character definitely is Obsessive Compulsive , has an acute eye for details and a cute assistant helping him through the disorder and helps him solve crimes and is played by an English actor.

Good, creative writing and interesting mystery story telling by Robert Doherty (writer) and direction from John Coles and Michael Cuesta  through the first two episodes sets it a part from other current shows in the genre.

One of the ways that Elementary is distancing itself so far from the British  Sherlock is that it is not updating the traditional Sherlock Holme's stories like Hounds of the Baskervilles.  

It will also be interesting to see, as the show continues, if we see updated versions of characters like Mycroft Holmes and Dr. Moriaty.

This is not the first attempt at bringing the Sherlock Holmes story up to date.  This started with the movies featuring Basil Rathbone who started out in the Victorian era but jumped to fighting the Nazis in World War II.

This is not even CBS's first attempt to make the story contemporary and replace the Watson character with a female actor.  In fact there were two made for television movies in the 80's that had a character  by the name of Jane Watson.

And of course, more recently, the brilliantly acclaimed BBC show Sherlock and the movies with Robert Downey Jr. and Jude Law.

At least in this one they aren't blowing stuff up.

Not yet anyway.