Okay, this is just getting ridiculous.
Live-tweeting Elementary can be some fast-paced fun, but a.) you have to watch the show, and b.) you have to pay attention to what is happening on the show. And if you're paying attention to Elementary with an active mind, well, disbelief comes very quickly.
Not disbelief that Jonny Lee Miller's character is Sherlock Holmes . . . no, we crossed that bridge long ago. Disbelief that anyone is actually falling for this burlesque of actual intelligence.
Having written the book on Holmes's methods, obscure as it now is, I feel I have some small background in talking about how Sherlock Holmes does what he does. And I can also tell you how the guy in Elementary who is plainly not Sherlock Holmes does what he does.
He takes some common bit of everyday knowledge, like what a safe deposit box key looks like, and then just rattles it out before anyone else in the room can say, "Hey, that's a safe deposit box key!" If you talk constantly, giving no one else a chance to talk, use larger-than-necessary words to describe things (Or just weird alternate verbalizations . . . can Mr. Elementary say "Sponge Bob Squarepants" like a normal person? No, he has to say something like "yellow undersea sponge man."), and speak with an English accent, well, of course you sound like the smartest person in the room. But it doesn't mean you are.
The entire New York Police Department seems to be just background for Mr. Elementary. Captain Gregson and the crew are just there so he's not talking to the air. He wanders their precinct house at all hours, going through their evidence, wanders their crime scenes freely, does everything a cop would do, but doesn't get paid or have a desk. The criminal justice system magically cooperates with his every whim and weak chains of evidence. Elementary is, at the end of the day, a bigger fantasy than one of those vampire or demon-hunter shows on the CW, despite its ongoing urban grit.
And this week, Elementary made the bold plot move of bringing in a male Watson figure to make up for the fact that their female Watson figure doesn't seem to be having any chemistry with their over-talkative twitch-aholic. I'm hoping he's really Moriarty. But then again, I can't imagine this show getting that clever.
There was a time, some years ago, when I couldn't believe that Americans were actually accepting an obvious knucklehead as their president. At the time, I thought that the disillusionment I felt was just a bad feeling that would pass, as it did when the occupant of the Oval Office changed. Now I realize that it was the universe preparing me for what America would accept with the name "Sherlock Holmes" slapped on it.
And it just keeps coming. Next week, Mr. Elementary spends the episode in the toilet.
Seriously. And I can't wait for the flush.
The ongoing investigation of Sherlock Holmes, reported from the Peoria, Illinois outpost of Baker Street's dirtiest half a dozen.
"Disbelief that anyone is actually falling for this burlesque of actual intelligence."
ReplyDeleteI think I mentioned already that a few commenters on TwoP felt that 'Sherlock' was too clever for them. Perhaps they like this version better because it's Sherlock for dumba**es?
Of course the IQ80 and lower clientele needs something to watch on TV, too. Apparently this show is taylor-made for them.
"Elementary is, at the end of the day, a bigger fantasy than one of those vampire or demon-hunter shows on the CW, despite its ongoing urban grit."
ReplyDeleteI henceforth choose to watch Elementary--if, indeed, I can stand to continue to watch it at all--as if "Sherlock Holmes" were a brain-eating zombie. God knows I've lost enough brain cells watching it already.