It’s Miller time on the Sherlock bandwagon

Elementary is an modern-day, American TV version of Sherlock Holmes. It’s not an American remake of the Steven Moffat–Mark Gatiss update, which I love, and some might say it has taken too many liberties with the original. Watson is now female.

   I’ll leave you to comment, but I don’t make my thoughts of remakes a huge secret on this blog. And, I know, this is technically not a remake, but the timing is a tad suspicious.
   However, there is nothing new under the sun. It’s not the first time CBS has attempted a contemporary Sherlock Holmes series, nor is it the first time it has made Watson female. In the mid-1980s, there was The Return of Sherlock Holmes, where Dr Watson’s great-granddaughter (Margaret Colin) awakens a cryogenically frozen Sherlock Holmes (Michael Pennington). It was actually filmed in the UK, with London standing in for various American locales. Of course, this meant that Canadian actor Shane Rimmer (whom Lewis Gilbert dubbed ‘the standard American actor’) had to have a part, as did Connie Booth.

   If Elementary came before Sherlock, I might have given it a shot, but it reeks of metooism. And, of course, Elementary would never have existed if it were not for copyright expiry and the idea of public domain—something which I find ironic given how the US entertainment lobby behaves sometimes.
   I know, I’m dissing a show I have never seen, and this is coming from a guy who watched all 17 episodes of the Life on Mars remake. Maybe I’m older now and don’t have the same time to waste.


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