Comment on Elementary script (repost from a forum)
After an impossibly high benchmark set by BBC Sherlock, it is an uphill battle for CBS to top the Moftiss version in a way that still stays true to the original Sherlock Holmes stories. Good luck to them, but I’m not hopeful.
” I read the script for Elementary today, and Moffat and Gatiss have nothing to worry about. If ONLY Elementary were a bit more like their show! Sadly, it lacks all the devotion to the characters that makes Sherlock so great. It’s actually not a bad mystery pilot at all… but it’s not Sherlock Holmes. It’s basically your average CBS procedural with a character called Sherlock Holmes who’s SORT of like Sherlock Holmes, and a character called Watson who’s really not much like Watson. (And a character called Gregson… who actually IS sort of like Gregson.) It’s not just Watson’s gender that’s changed; there’s really not much to recognize in Joan Watson of the John Watson character we know and love. Holmes is suitably arrogant and selfish, but he’s not asexual, and his powers of deduction veer from simplistic to superhuman depending on what the script needs them to be. His final demonstration is quite a stretch even for him.
There are a few nice nods to the canon, but not the loving tributes of Moffat and Gatiss. This Holmes adaptation more pays lip service to the original characters than dotes on them, the way their show does. I’ll still tune in and check it out, and see what kind of Holmes Miller makes, but my expectations will definitely be low. Like I say, it’s not a bad procedural at all… it’s just not Sherlock Holmes.”
- Brisco
