10.01.2012

Knee-jerk review: CBS' "Elementary"

1. If ever a network was a perfect fit for a Sherlock Holmes "re-imagining," its CBS, a company that never met a string of pretty female corpses it didn't want to build an show around.
2. When you're dealing with Sherlock Holmes, casting the lead character is pretty important.  And Johnny Lee Miller does a pretty good job.  He's clearly having fun.
3. But the show is very... simple.  There are plenty of clever bits where Holmes gets to show off his powers of observation and deduction (and isn't this the same gimmick as "The Mentalist"?), but no real surprises.
4. It's the TV equivalent of a airport paperback.  You know what you're getting and mostly just hope the execution is competent and mildly diverting.  Which it is.
5. The most interesting thing about the show is the suggestion of Holmes and Watson's dark, damaged substance-abuse, foiled-career pasts.
6. Lucy Liu seems to be an acquired taste.  The only thing in which we ever really liked her was "Southland" last season.
7. Don't even get us started on the notion that this outside consultant can have this kind of free reign over NYPD resources.  We don't care how well you know Aidan Quinn.
8. A quietly decent little show, but we get the gist.  We don't have to watch it again to know how it all turns out.

1 comment:

  1. "TV equivalent of an airplane paperback"

    Like that. I now totally get the series. I do like Johnny Lee Miller, though.

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