"Elementary" pilot play-by-play

(My friend Kate told me to watch CBS's Elementary pilot and tell me what I thought. The pilot in question came under quite a bit of controversy before it even aired due to being an American knockoff of BBC's Sherlock, though Elementary's creators claim that they took their own direction in modernizing the sleuth. I pulled up the pilot via video search and typed a series of notes as I watched. Here are my first impressions.)

It starts out in the exact same way as Sherlock - someone's getting murdered, then cut to Watson starting a normal day. I guess there's not really much of another way to start out such a series, but still, it sticks out at you.

The "sober companion" angle is fine on its own, so why make Watson a woman?  Once you've changed both aspects, it ceases to seem like Sherlock Holmes. Besides that, the whole situation feels forced; I don't pretend to know much about sober companions, but the notion of a rather petite woman suddenly having to move in with a large, muscular, half-dressed druggie who just broke out of rehab is difficult to buy.

Joan seems, so far, to have no personality of her own; the straight man at her very flattest and paperiest. She doesn't seem even remotely surprised to be in such an odd situation. Holmes is just a bit too reminiscent of Cumberbatch's Sherlock to ignore, although he's balanced it out with a shred of that guy from Psych (unfocused eyes; wild, cheerful speech). They go to too much trouble to make him eccentric; though he abhors sex, he's decided for some reason that it's good for his brain and has been hiring prostitutes. The first scene between him and Joan was cliché to the max. Also, he shortens "sober companion" to just "companion", with a significance which feels like a big, dirty, unwelcome wink at the Whovian crossover audience from BBC.

Once again, Watson's watch becomes a smartphone, and Holmes is using it to find out dark family secrets--this time, it's about her dad's affair. Rather liked the Elementary take on the situation, but it's nonetheless stolen from Sherlock, and then it all gets subverted in a way that's supposed to be funny but just falls flat.

The investigation consists mostly of Holmes goofing around the place like Matt Smith's Eleventh Doctor in new surroundings. The "finding the body with a marble" thing was, admittedly, clever and fun. I even enjoyed Holmes' reaction ("Sometimes I hate it when I'm right."). But the problem was, it didn't feel at all like a Sherlock Holmes reaction. It's as if they treat him like a separate character 80 percent of the time, then awkwardly shoehorn him into the Holmes role now and then so we'll remember who he's supposed to be ("I don't think. I observe. I deduce." He was barely coherent two seconds ago. Why so intelligent and terse all of a sudden?)

I liked the line "Did he also wear bigger hands when he strangled his wife?", and the way it was delivered; that feels more like the Holmes I know. (Echoes of that famous sarcasm from The Sign of the Four: "On which the dead man very considerately got up and locked the door on the inside.")

I loved Holmes keeping bees on the roof; very cool visual, and nice nod to a bit of canon that hasn't come up in Sherlock yet. The comment about Joan having two alarm clocks was nice too; good line. And the fact that he's actually gone off drugs puts an interesting spin on things.

Holmes texting Joan is a little…well, I guess I can't really blame them, since such is modern communication, but that's, like, the famous thing from Sherlock. I'm glad they're having Joan look at the medical shots and be that trustful person victims can talk to, because it somewhat justifies her continued presence; it was beginning to seem a little weird and why-is-he-even-bringing-her. And I guess she's curious about the case, at least. It's slightly smoother than it was, but it's still not Holmes and Watson. It's as simple as this; you can't do Holmes and Watson with a man and a woman. You can do a very interesting, complex relationship, but it won't be a Holmes and Watson relationship.

Okay, I'm glad Joan is kind of showing some personality now. She even buys opera tickets--and he's not the one who likes opera. Some interesting twists here, and there's almost a fatherly quality to Holmes now. (Interestingly, this Holmes doesn't seem to have trouble understanding feelings--he tried to spare Joan's. Earlier in the episode, a woman called Holmes "a jerk", and now it seems she's genuinely right. Cumberbach's Holmes comes off as a jerk because he's socially backwards; this Holmes is just eccentric, but he understands people. Therefore, when we see him acting like a jerk, it actually is because he's a jerk. Hah.) I like Holmes' handling of the case so far (noticing the mole in the photos, and suddenly this case seems more complicated then we thought), but it feels stupid when he says he got all the photos "via" Facebook.

I like that Holmes is actually calling Watson "Watson". It just feels right, and it put a smile on my face. (That was one thing that always bugged me about Sherlock--the first-name basis, with Watson being "John". I understood them trying to incorporate the modern element, but "Watson" is a name with some heft to it, a name that one can snap out or whisper huskily in the same breath as "The game is afoot!", and I felt that, by removing the constant use of the name, they'd taken out a more potent element than they were aware of.) The fact that he's trying to embarrass her at the opera house so she'll listen to him, however, killed my Holmesy-good-feeling buzz and reminded me that this guy ain't Holmes. Holmes would show some reverence for the opera.

Section with Holmes discovering the killer was really well-acted and intense. Once again we see him filled with human concern for the victim and anger at wrongdoing; none of that "you're scum but so am I, really" thing Cumberbach's Sherlock has when interacting with killers. Tough and gritty, this Holmes, but certainly not emotionless or sociopathic. We actually see his face set like a Sidney Paget illustration at one point, which was unintentional, but awesome.

The whole "redeeming conversation through prison glass" setup was cheesy, but well-acted. "I'm very pleased, Watson" made me feel happier than that hive of bees on the New York rooftops--great delivery. And Watson makes the point I made before: that Holmes' shtick feels forced. He's not a misanthrope, she posits, just afraid to make connections. Kind of taking the opposite tack of Cumberbach's Holmes, who simply doesn't understand or need connections.

Y'know, it occurs to me that this whole show would be vastly better if Jonny Lee Miller's character were being played as a somewhat delusional wannabe Holmes--a guy who's read the Conan Doyle stories (and probably seen Sherlock as well), who genuinely has a gift for deduction, who longs for Holmes' emotionlessness but doesn't actually have it. A broken man, hiding under a Holmes disguise that doesn't really fit him.

Bottom line: Lucy Liu's stoic female Watson turned out to be genuinely lovable. Holmes is enjoyable, too, if you regard him as what he is--a guy who isn't really Sherlock Holmes, if they'd just stop pretending.