Thursday, July 19, 2012

Emmy and the Sherlockian crank.


My descent into Sherlockian crankdom continued today.

I use this blog to self-monitor my patterns as a Holmes fan, among other things, and this aging Sherlockian seems to grouse about everything Sherlockian, to the point one has to wonder if I could be positive about anything. If there was ever proof of that theory consider this reaction to today’s news:

BBC’s Sherlock garnered thirteen Emmy nominations, a fact that should thrill any Sherlockian or fan of the show, of which I am both. I love the fact that Sherlock Holmes is making his way into the award show circuit, having loved Robert Downey Junior’s Holmes reference on the Oscars a while back, and the fact that we now have a full-blown Sherlock incursion into the top U.S. television awards.

And that’s the bug in my bonnet – although the Emmys is primarily an American television institution,  it sometimes awards those few BBC television shows that are bought by some American channel and shown here. Some American channel, in the case of Sherlock, that made me wait five extra months to see the specific program that got nominated. While a great show like Luther gets an appropriate “BBC One” listed as its producing network, Sherlock has “PBS” following its name in the nomination nod.

We don’t call Sherlock, “PBS Sherlock.”  We call it “BBC Sherlock,” as the BBC is the responsible party. If an American network wants to claim Holmes, let’s see how CBS’s Elementary does. FOX’s House, ever so close to Holmes in so many ways, did fine, but just wasn’t the genuine article.

While I would love to see Sherlock take home all thirteen of its honors, the idea that those calcified dinosaurs at PBS should get any congratulations for that wonderfully British show has me at odds with myself.  So I guess I’ll just hope Sherlock wins and that someone from the BBC knocks any PBS folk off the stage when acceptance time comes.

And if that isn’t the mindset of a crank, I don’t know what is.

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