Elementary 1x01-1x07

[oyceter]

Hey, I finally watched some TV! FWIW, the only Sherlock Holmes I have ever consumed is the first RDJ movie and The Great Mouse Detective. I.e. every thing I know about Sherlock Holmes I learned through fannish osmosis, and I'm not particularly invested in any reading or version of Holmes and Watson.

The show is a nice balance between the killer-of-the-week procedural mysteries and the ongoing mysteries of Holmes' and Watson's pasts. I am generally not one for mysteries, so the main draw of the show for me is the developing relationship between Holmes and Watson and how it is changing both of them. I rather like how much the show expects you to want to slap Holmes as much as admire him for his deductions, and I'm particularly fond of Lucy Liu's many facial expressions of "I am not impressed."

I'm not sure why Holmes and Watson works better for me than Tony Stark and Pepper Potts. Probably something about Watson not being under Holmes' pay, and the fact that she is clearly the costar of the show, even if she is a bit sidelined a la Scully with Mulder. And hey, Scully primed me very early to like emotionally contained women who raise their eyebrows at their male partners who are frequently behaving in odd ways. As previously mentioned, I want to smack Holmes most of the time, particularly in the episode in which he goes on about how Watson should simply sit there, a receptacle to his insight and wisdom. But so far, most of the times Holmes is a jerk, he is obviously being a jerk and sometimes even gets taken down a peg or two.

The mysteries themselves are good enough on a case-by-case basis, though I can clearly tell when twists (and usually a general direction of the twist) in the case are going to pop up by timing and by how well things are going. There have thankfully been not too many scenes of women being killed and tortured, which is my very low standard for anything involving crime and TV.

The show has also managed to pass the Bechdel test several times, and even between two women of color (!!), but I do wish it were a far more regular thing. I am also wondering how Detective Bell is going to do over the course of the show.

And on a completely random note, I love the opening sequence. (Mouse! Hello! You are almost like a rat!)

In conclusion: I heart Watson.

Comments

[cyprinella]

But so far, most of the times Holmes is a jerk, he is obviously being a jerk and sometimes even gets taken down a peg or two.

and then he apologizes! It's amazing!

[oyceter]

I know! It is kind of sad that this is amazing, but omg I am so happy it happens.

My dear Watson, I owe you a thousand apologies!

[sanguinity]

Canon-Holmes spent a lot of time apologizing to Watson. IJS.

Re: My dear Watson, I owe you a thousand apologies!

[cyprinella]

I was thinking of more recent versions like House and BBC Sherlock. My exposure to ACD Holmes is mostly through the lens of Laurie R. King so I'm sure that's not particularly accurate either.

Re: My dear Watson, I owe you a thousand apologies!

[sanguinity]

Oh, absolutely! There has been a lot of unmitigated assholiness in recent productions. So it was quite a shock when I went back into canon and saw exactly how often he apologizes to Watson. Almost always unprompted, even. Canon-Holmes apologizes as freely as breathing, nearly.

Of course, when you take into consideration what Holmes had typically been doing just before he began apologizing... *eyeroll*

Re: My dear Watson, I owe you a thousand apologies!

[oyceter]

Interesting! See, I vaguely know about House and BBC Sherlock, so I figured the interpretation of Holmes the asshole is from ACD? Is it one of those things that's there and people lately decided to run with it? I was also wondering about the somewhat non-neurotypical representation that I think some of them go with (I feel Elementary's JLM goes this way, but it hasn't been made explicitly canon).

Re: My dear Watson, I owe you a thousand apologies!

[sanguinity]

In canon, he's... bipolar, maybe? He has both manic and depressive phases, and craves mental stimulation, otherwise he mentally caves in on himself: the cocaine habit is how he self-medicates between cases. (You see a bit of that driving need for mental stimulation in Elementary when Miller!Holmes is hatching the police scanner, quivering for a case.) There's an argument to be made that canon!Holmes is perhaps on the spectrum, too -- the way he catalogs all particulars, never generalizing -- but I don't really see any other parts of the spectrum's suite of behaviors in him.

Canon Holmes has a tendency to run roughshod over Victorian mores, and he's as rude as fuck about what people fail to observe/deduce, especially the Scotland Yard inspectors. Beyond that, though, he's not actually an asshole. (Well, things like The Dying Detective aside. His relationship with Watson is all fracked to hell and back, IJS.) He tends to be consistently solicitous of clients' pain, for example, and will go out of his way to not embarrass them. He does have the geek-boy thing where The Internal Logic of Being Right >> Social Convention, but he doesn't view that as a reason to eschew manners. (Again, with exceptions.)

Re: My dear Watson, I owe you a thousand apologies!

[(Anonymous)]

Yeah, Conan Doyle's Holmes sometimes gets impatient with Watson and says things like "You see, but you do not observe" when Watson fails to realize what allegedly obvious significant deduction his friend has just come up with. But he generally behaves much less inconsiderately and exploitatively toward him than BBC Sherlock does to his Watson or House does to Wilson.

On the other hand, Conan Doyle's Holmes is consistently rude and insulting to recurring supporting character Inspector Lestrade, whom he openly regards as an idiot. (As a result, I was pleasantly surprised at the mutually respectful relationship between Holmes and Captain(?) Gregson--who I think has the same last name as another Scotland Yard detective Holmes worked with less acrimoniously in some of the later Conan Doyle stories--on "Elementary.") To be fair, after having Holmes solve cases he was clueless about multiple times, Lestrade (who only calls in the consulting detective because his superior officers keep ordering him to) is still mouthing off to the guy's face about how convinced he is that Holmes is just a charlatan with improbably good luck. So Holmes does have a certain amount of provocation.

Holmes is portrayed as somewhat arrogant and less than impeccably polite--especially toward people whom he finds stupid or obstructive--to some degree in just about every version I've seen. However, the idea of Watson specifically as some kind of not-terribly-bright doormat was reportedly introduced at some point in the Basil Rathbone (Holmes)/Nigel Bruce (Watson) series of Sherlock Holmes Hollywood movies. The only one of these I'm sure I saw is "The Hound of the Baskervilles," and I don't recall noticing this tendency in that. But it's been literally decades since I last saw it, and I think the producers supposedly made Watson more of a dopey comic relief character in the later Rathbone movies anyway. So it's possible that Sherlock's asshole tendencies started to be emphasized more as a corollary of that.

Or it might be something that became a major theme in various movies, etc., satirizing Holmes, like the 1960's or '70's one whose title I forget in which the premise was that Watson was the real deductive genius, but he'd hired an actor to front for him as Holmes so people would pester or threaten the actor instead of him. Unfortunately, the actor was an egomaniac who soon became convinced that he actually was the world's greatest detective (Sherlock, not Batman) and went around acting like a condescending jerk to everyone else, including Watson, as a result.

Marfisa

[lady_ganesh]

I KNOOOOW

[skygiants]

Every time I try to talk about this show I just end up going "BOUNDARIES!" and waving my hands about enthusiastically. Watson sets up boundaries and makes it clear when Holmes is crossing them! IT'S AMAZING.

(Normally I can't maintain interest in procedurals at all, something about them short-circuits my brain, so I don't know why this show is working for me but I'm not going to question it.)

[oyceter]

Oh man, I love how all the little conversations I've been seeing about the show have been "Boundaries! Yay!" Fandom, ILU.

I also really love that Holmes attempts to set up boundaries as well, even though the ways he does so are horrible and boundary-crossing and completely maladaptive. It is even better when Watson is all "Hey, your boundaries are fine. But the way you do it IS NOT."

I normally have very little brain for procedurals too, so I was really glad the show has enough slow-burning, slow-building character stuff to keep me interested.

[crossedwires]

Someone on tumblr posted gifs of the similarities between the credits of Elementary and The Great Mouse Detective. hee!

I hope Carrie, Joan's friend, becomes a recurring character! And that they continue to pass the bechdel test. I initially watched the show for Lucy Liu, and was pleasantly surprised that I didn't end up disliking Holmes! And I really like that his genius does not excuse his terrible behaviors. And I'm still amazed that Watson is written as a person and that so far the show hasn't been racist/orientalist towards her. I hope they don't have an orientalist chinatown episode like all procedurals seem obligated to make.

[oyceter]

Eeee, the gifs! I kinda want to rewatch Great Mouse Detective now, I really liked it as a kid.

I am really hoping Carrie becomes a recurring character as well, because I want to know a lot more about Watson in med school and practicing. Part due to being a medical stuff geek, but also because there is so much complicated stuff there that Watson never refers to.

And omg. I REALLY hope they manage to handle Chinese stuff well. I like Watson's comments about not speaking Chinese as well as her parents would like, but hope they complicate things soon.

[glass_icarus]

Ooh, yay! I've been hearing many good things about Elementary so now all that's left is to, er, sit down and just watch it. >.>

Also: (Mouse! Hello! You are almost like a rat!) -- I find this entirely too amusing, hee! ♥

[oyceter]

Haha, that was me up till last week! I mean, I would have watched anyway for the Lucy Liu casting, but I was mentally prepared for it to be an "Enh, not for me" show. So I'm glad that both me and other fans seem to be enjoying it!

(CB laughs at me every time the mouse shows up in the credits because I always squee.)

[sanguinity]

I'm not quite caught up (soon! soon-soon!) but I've been enjoying it lots, too. I got sucked into Sherlock Holmes fandom this last year via BBC Sherlock, and had very much worried about a female Watson, given the no-boundaries, codependentness of the original canon. ("Oh, but it is worth getting shot/poisoned to know that he cares about me!") I am delighted with what the writers and Liu have done instead. Boundaries are good! And she often calls him on shit that he got away with in canon! And then he looks abashed (eventually), and concedes that she is right! Hahahahaha!

I am also delighted that the writers and Miller have gone with a compassionate Sherlock, one who cares fiercely about the victims, as well as about moral justice. (Somebody is going to get hurt! You must let him stop it!) I swear, I most love the character when he is wigging out about that, and not trying all that hard to pretend that he isn't.

[oyceter]

Oh, that's so interesting, re: original canon! CB and I were talking about it, since he started watching Sherlock as well, and he says it's really neat how Sherlock has an incredibly romantic/sexual tension between its Holmes and Watson whereas Elementary is incredibly good at doing the platonic thing. Despite being a diehard XF shipper in the day, I hope the show continues down the platonic thing with Watson and Holmes.

I read "A Study in Scarlet" after watching, but there's not much Holmes-worship there yet? I guess? Do they get very close later on? (And is it worth reading more?)

I really like that JLM's Holmes is very clearly not right all the time, even if he is brilliant, and I love that his brilliance doesn't excuse stuff, and that things really get to him even when he pretends he is all rational all the time.

My dear Watson, I owe you a thousand apologies!

[sanguinity]

Sherlock's shippiness and Elementary's platonicness: yes. Even as I enjoyed the fuck out of Holmes' proposal that Holmes, Watson, and the phrenology-head are an OT3. :-D

Oh, god, "A Study in Scarlet" is horrid, ugh. (The Utah section ARGH ARGH.) And it's not much fun on the shipping front, either. Just all around: ugh.

The Sign of Four, the second novel, on the other hand, is as shippy as all hell: it covers the case during which Watson meets his fiancee, and all the Holmes/Watson pining is hard to overlook. However, warning for no-holds-barred Victorian orientalism: there was a chapter near the end that I just flat-out skipped, because I really did not need to hear the backstory of the Indian treasure.

Holmes-worship: The Three Garridebs and The Devil's Root both have "it was worth almost dying to know that you care for me" moments. The Dying Detective is perhaps the most astonishing example in canon of Watson being COMPLETELY UNABLE TO DRAW A LINE AT ALL, MY GOD. The three story sequence, The Final Problem, The Empty House, and The Norwood Builder are also rather marked in their "I have no existence other than to follow you" on Watson's part. (Some may argue that the first two stories of that sequence qualify as extenuating circumstances, but even within those first two, there are parts that make me go "Really, Watson? Really?" And then when I reach that early paragraph of Norwood Builder -- you'll know it when you see it -- my eyebrow goes straight to my hairline: extenuating circumstances, my foot.)

In general, I tend to read the stories for the Holmes/Watson shippiness and wtferies, and find them very satisfying on that front. The plotty stuff, on the other hand, meh, I mostly skim that. ;-)

Re: My dear Watson, I owe you a thousand apologies!

[oyceter]

OMG "Study in Scarlet" was SO weird. Especially because I had seen someone online say it was a great mystery, and then halfway through we're in an anti-Mormon Western with a dear sweet white girl, and I was just... ?!?!?!

And I like getting a look at Holmes and Watson first meeting, but I was unimpressed by Holmes' deducting. More infodumpy geekery! I was also amused to find Holmes' "brain as space-limited attic" metaphor in the story and how Elementary grabbed it. (And was happy Watson immediately told him that most psych studies say that's not the case.)

Is there stuff to read for Irene Adler or Mycroft stuff? Or... Mycroft is the big villain? Something? HI! I KNOW NOTHING ABOUT THIS!

Re: My dear Watson, I owe you a thousand apologies!

[sparkymonster]

Every time I go to re-read "A Study in Scarlet" I manage to repress the existence of that section. Also, it's really not a very good mystery.

To me Holmes can be abrasive, but that is not assholery. Reading the stories or watching the Jeremy Brett Sherlock Holmes (on Netflix Instant!) you can see the deep affection between them.

The thing is, in the ACD canon (which some ppl call conan. HAHAHA) Irene Adler isn't important. She appears in one story in which she pwns Sherlock hard core. She doesn't "get her comeuppance" she just flat out beats him. It's beautiful.

Mycroft is Sherlock Holmes brother. He appears in a handful of stories. Moriarity is not the archenemy of Sherlock Holmes that most adaptions would have you think. It's just that he appears more than once and .

Re: My dear Watson, I owe you a thousand apologies!

[oyceter]

Siiiigh, of course I mix the M-names up. I always kind of enjoy doing things "backwards" just to see how much fanon and interpretation and interpretation trends intersect with the original, so this is fun.

Re: My dear Watson, I owe you a thousand apologies!

[sanguinity]

Yeah, there's a lot of snark and nods to things in canon. BBC Sherlock is VERY SERIOUS about that limited space in the brain-attic thing, btw. (He calls it his "Mind Palace", and there are various scenes of him rummaging around in it, looking for things -- spoiler for S2E2 in the last seconds of that clip, btw.) So I laughed very hard to see Liu!Watson just roll her eyes about the whole thing.

Irene Adler: A Scandal in Bohemia.

Mycroft: appears twice directly -- The Greek Interpreter and The Bruce-Partington Plans -- and indirectly in The Final Problem and The Empty House. In canon, Sherlock and Mycroft have a cordial, if not particularly close, relationship, and Sherlock respects Mycroft as being even smarter than Sherlock is. (BTW, you'd be tickled by the Diogenes club in The Greek Interpreter.)

Most adaptations treat Moriarty as Sherlock Holmes's archnemesis, which is... kinda true, and kinda not. Moriarty is mentioned exactly twice: The Final Problem and The Empty House. (See how many times I've pointed at those two stories now? Go read them. In that order. As much as you could say that there's a Sherlock Holmes long-arc, it goes: Study in Scarlet, Sign of the Four, The Final Problem, the Empty House.) After you read those stories, you probably won't need me to explain what I mean when I say "kinda true, and kinda not." The way most adaptations treat Moriarty is very fannish.

...in short, BBC Sherlock and Elementary are far more like fanworks than straight-up adaptations, in that they spend a lot of time commenting on canon, snarking about canon, and making "did you catch that?" references to canon. Elementary seems less interested in the plots of the ACD stories, and mostly seems to be making up its own casefics, building alternative histories and plotlines for the characters. BBC Sherlock, OTOH, is very invested in the ACD plots, but extends and twists and reinvents them.

[holyschist]

I rather like how much the show expects you to want to slap Holmes as much as admire him for his deductions, and I'm particularly fond of Lucy Liu's many facial expressions of "I am not impressed."

THIS. And it is sadly rare in Holmes adaptations. I don't think Elementary is more faithful than other adaptations--I think most adaptations tend to pick the elements the creators find most interesting about ACD to build on and flatten out the rest. The Elementary creators happen to have picked the elements I find most interesting and (so far, at least), discarded the infuriating ones.

I also like how a) Sherlock apologizes for being a jerk, and b) sometimes it's sincere effort to change and sometimes it's him being a manipulative jerk, again.

I am hoping there will be some regular female characters down the line, but so far I've been pleasantly surprised by almost everything about the show.

[lady_ganesh]

I think most adaptations tend to pick the elements the creators find most interesting about ACD to build on and flatten out the rest. The Elementary creators happen to have picked the elements I find most interesting and (so far, at least), discarded the infuriating ones.

This. I really love Holmes and Watson in Elementary. They are just delightful together.

[tigerlily]

Yes! I love how his being a jerk is always recognized as him being a jerk. Although I was annoyed at that part with the actor saying friendship was different in his case and how people didn't understand that. That's always how it is with these aloof jerk male characters, and not with female characters.

I have also never consumed anything but the beginning of Hound of the Baskervilles before this, so everything I know is from fandom. I appreciate the platonic relationship and the building mysteries of both characters. The cases are all right, sometimes more interesting than other times, but I'm not here for that. I'm here for the characters and the moment-by-moment enjoyment of each episode.

I too wish for more women and worry about Detective Bell.