Elementary Leftovers

In containing the length of earlier comments on the premiere of Elementary a few points got left out, and so, for the sake of a lazy Sunday, here they are:

-- Anybody else been noticing that when Elementary contains major Canonical characters or character development, the writing credits are always Rob Dougherty and Craig Sweeney? I'm curious if Dougherty writes the character development part and Sweeney the mystery part, as the mystery always seems separate from the character play. The Mycroft story and the Lestrade story in the latest episodes were separate that way. My favorite episode of the series thus far has been the Miss Hudson "Snow Angels" episode, which featured a single writer, Jason Tracey, and an integrated plot. I look forward to Jason Tracey's return, as he'll be writing an early episode of this season to see if he bump the level of the show up again.

-- That thing where the four masks on the wall didn't line up -- again, Elementary seems to want to raise Mr. Elementary up by making everyone else incredibly stupid. That mask was so hideously out of line that a.) no one could have missed it, and b.) a genius murderer would never have been so inept as to hang his wall masks that sloppily. Did he hire it out originally to cover up his poor lining-up skills? And why wouldn't he have used the original nail hole that hung the mask? (And let's not get into the whole "acetone plus plastic makes a plausible milk imitation." Give it a try sometime.)

-- Mycroft's phone call in French -- was it just to make him sexier to Watson, or the set-up for some later revelation that he's a top-level government spy? It's still hard for me to believe they'd waste the character as a trust-fund restauranteur who got cuckolded by his own brother.

-- Mr. Elementary can follow pigeons. I still want to see him actually do that.

-- After all the fuss last year about how the show is socially forward-thinking by having a female Watson and a transgendered Miss Hudson, the bit where Mycroft was introduced using the overweight person's equivalent of the "N" word seemed a bit oafish. It also emphasized that Mr. Elementary is being portrayed as an out-of-control man-child more than the disciplined, top-of-his-field professional we were used to in the Canon.

-- And how does Joan Watson get away with beating a guy down in the park? She's not a member of NYPD, and even they might take some heat for starting their contact with a non-threatening suspect using billy club. It's a bit of a ha-ha because she's a little lady, but had she been a burly, deep-voiced male, we might see this scenario a bit differently.

-- The return of Elementary's dysfunctional detective made me miss Monk a lot for some reason. Which made me consider this: If Monk had been named Sherlock Holmes and Sharona called Watson, I suspect that show's charm and cleverness would have eventually won me over, despite the fact it would have been wholly non-Canonical. I miss Monk.