E3:1. The painful details.

Perhaps I was a little too light on my comments on the third season premiere of CBS's Elementary. So let's get a little more in depth . . .

Joan Watson is having lunch at a nice restaurant with her own Professor Moriarty, Elana March, having set in motion plans to bring the criminal kingpin down. A few months later, she's solving a theft for a private client. She then finds a missing lizard for her neighbor's brother . . . and has a meet-cute in the process. (She has a turtle, he has a lizard.)

Joan Watson is a mystery-solving machine.

At least she is until Mr. Elementary's presence in New York mystically lowers her detective quotient with his cloud of random weirdness. For some reason he thinks that an "isolator helmet" from the 1920s is an effective and useful mental aid.

Captain Gregson doesn't want him back, and lectures Mr. Elementary like a schoolboy who's missed a few classes: "You want to come back, that's fine. You want to leave again, that's fine, too. But the work is going to have to be exceptional." Because Joan Watson seems to be covering things just fine.

Except that she still thinks whacking people with a baton is an effective form of self-defense, and gets in a fight with the only other person in New York stupid enough to agree with that notion . . . the one other woman in NYC trained by Mr. Elementary to whack things with a baton. Whack fight! Whack fight!

Pity Kitty Winter isn't the fiery female from the old Canon of real Sherlock. Well, maybe not a pity, because her weapon of choice was acid. Anyway, Kitty is Mr. Elementary's "protege, not my partner" -- in other words, another woman he can abuse the way he once abused Joan . . . and still seems to think he can.

Mr. Elementary has come to the conclusion that his calling in life is as a mentor and teacher, and not some kind of dom-sub detective kinkster. Joan doesn't like him. Gregson doesn't like him. The jury is still out on Kitty Winter's opinion of him, but I'm betting she doesn't like him either.

I know I don't like him. He's still running around like he deserves the name of the world's first and foremost consulting detective, a guy who knew exactly what his purpose in life was. Mr. Elementary simply solves crimes because his writers make him say the solution. Before he returned to town, Joan Watson got to say solutions for the writers.  But she gets to spot the final clue in this episode, and bring down her nemesis, Elana March.

So one basically has to ask one's self, why is anyone putting up with Mr. Elementary at all any more . . . except as someone Joan can secretly be harboring affection for. Joan's "Why here?" and Mr. Elementary's "Because I belong here, as do you" belies the showrunners early statements that Mr. Elementary and Joan will never become a couple. They're bad fiction soulmates, not a well matched set of friends like the real Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson. Now rivals, secretly in love. Sheesh.

For all the feminist hype about a female Watson, Elementary is now in a place where it would be a better show if Joan Watson was just the main character, and it let go its pretense of knowing anything about a man called Sherlock Holmes.

A better show. Maybe not yet a good show, without some improvements backstage, but still . . . better without that British guy, whom it now seems Britain doesn't want either.

Ah, Howard, it's not even worth complaining about any more.

There are about eighty Canonical characters whose names begin with "M," first or last. And here's the funny part: None of them are "March." So as a "nod" to the one true Watsonian Canon, the writers of CBS's Elementary, felt it appropriate to ignore all eighty or so actual "M" names from the Canon, most of which haven't been used by any TV Sherlock show, and go with one that isn't in the original sixty stories.

Yeah, that makes sense.

In case you were wondering, "M" isn't the most common name-starter in the Canon. At a rough count, it looks like "S" has it beat out, so "Smith" would actually be a good name to use as a "nod" to the Canon . . . especially as it is actually IN the Canon.

And so we begin the third season of the show that can make a Sherlockian go "Huh? What? That's still on?"

It is.

Imagine a world where Sherlock Holmes fought Moriarty at Reichenbach (except he didn't) and then, after spending a long while away from London, came back and found Dr. Watson solving murders for Scotland Yard . . . and the Yard feeling no urgency to replace Watson with their former consultant. And Holmes brought a new buddy back with him, and that buddy and Watson swatted at each other with sticks for a bit.

There's more to it than that, because it's all about the relationship, really. A relationship between a guy that's supposed to be good at something and his apprentice, who is of the opposite sex, as all of his apprentices seem to be, so there can be a sort of non-sexual tension of some sort.

Yeah, I just don't get it. I used to find this show slightly offensive on several planes, not the least of which was calling a character "Sherlock Holmes" who had little more than an English accent to back up that claim. But at this point, as it has wandered around and found its own . . . something . . . well, it's just so far from having anything to do with Sherlock Holmes as I've always known him that it's not even irritating any more. It's just sort of . . . "Oh, that . . . ."

And Forever is on now. Pity they didn't call that guy "Sherlock Holmes," running around all immortal with Judd Hirsch as Dr. Watson running an antique shop. It would have made just as much sense, but been so much more charming.

Considering Sherlock Holmes and sex.

It's good to see and actor who can play a good Sherlock showing us that he actually gets the character.

This week in Elle UK, a really nice interview piece with Benedict Cumberbatch had a little sidebar extra with B.C. postulating a length about Holmes in the bedroom. And it's well thought out.

Basically, the Cumberbatch position on Holmes and sex is that he would master it as he did everything else he set his mind to. Of course, if you read the main article, you see the even more true understanding of the character:

"He's asexual for a purpose, not because he doesn't have a sex drive, but because it's suppressed to do his work."

It reminds me of an old shtick that the Rock used to do in a professional wrestling ring. An opponent would show up and say something or the other, challenge, threat, whatever, and the Rock would simply ask:

"What's your name?"

And then the moment the other wrestler would open his mouth to reply, the Rock would boom:

"IT DOESN'T MATTER WHAT YOUR NAME IS!"

That, in its simple essence, can be paraphrased for the truest summation of Sherlock Holmes's sex life: "IT DOESN'T MATTER HOW HIS SEXUAL TECHNIQUE WAS!"

And the actor who plays him on a particular TV series seems to get that. On a show where the writers, directors, and producers seem to get a lot of things about Sherlock Holmes.

Shippers can write things a bit differently -- it's what they do. Fan fiction is the black market of ideas, where we get things that are illegal, immoral, or otherwise unavailable for fun and profit, so Holmes's non-existent sex life is certainly going to turn up there. But for a serious, full-tilt Sherlock Holmes, the consummate detective, the best there is at what he does?

Well, just ask Benedict Cumberbatch.

That Thursday TV Schedule.

Hey, this Thursday is "National Watch A Random TV Show And Call The Main Character Sherlock Holmes Day!"

Let's look and see who some of the contenders are in the night's listings:

"The Biggest Loser"
"Scandal"
"Botched"
"Ridiculousness"
"Fixer Upper"
"Rehab Addict"
"Laugh at My Pain"
"How To Get Away With Murder"

What is it with Thursday nights and shows that are just sort of  . . .  not something we associate with Sherlock Holmes?

Ah well, there's always the On Demand. Catching up on Forever is always cool.

The next anti-Sherlock.

A couple of years ago, a writer for the Daily Kos wrote rather nastily of Benedict Cumberbatch under the headline "An Anti-Sherlock For Our Generation?" They were, of course, referring to BBC Sherlock, but today that headline showed the first signs of being true . . . and true about Benedict Cumberbatch as well.

My comic-book-reading pal sent me the text "Bennie 'batch as Dr. Strange! Woo hoo!"

Dr. Strange, Marvel comics' most wizardly superhero, and I go way back. Stephen Strange is a bit like Joan Watson . . . a surgeon who lost his ability to do the work, then went and apprenticed to a master of the mystic arts, eventually to become the Sorcerer Supreme.

I Hear of Sherlock Everywhere had the story from io9 . . . a rumor that seems a little firmer than most, the Marvel Studios might be casting Benedict Cumberbatch as Stephen Strange, and it's a role he'd be fabulous in.

But can you possibly get any more "anti-Sherlock" than a character who completely works with magic, ignoring reason, science, and logic? Well, maybe he's not illogical or unreasonable, but still . . . no magic in the Sherlock Holmes universe. None at all, other than the magic of good storytelling.

It's a bit like those comic actors who suddenly want to play a serial killer to go a different direction than the ones in which they're usually cast. After being Sherlock Holmes, Khan, and Alan Turing, all big brains of logical worlds, a go at the guy who was beyond Dumbledore before we had Dumbledore has to be attractive. And a lead role in a Marvel movie these days? Who could turn that down?

It's all still a rumor right now, of course, but if Benedict Cumberbatch has to play somebody during his off-duty Sherlock time, Dr. Strange is a pretty good choice.

A Sherlock meets a Ripper.

If all of the Sherlock Holmes similarities in ABC's new drama Forever hadn't struck a chord already, in the show's sixth episode, Dr. Henry Morgan confronts a killer who may be Jack the Ripper.

What makes it interesting is that Morgan was around for the original Jack the Ripper's killing spree . . . just like Sherlock Holmes.

Well, at least, we all tend to believe Sherlock Holmes was around for the original Ripper killings. Both the detective and the slasher were active and becoming famous in the same city at the same time, so it has always seemed impossible that their paths didn't cross. And yet we have no records of that crossing . . . just as we have no records of the end of Jack the Ripper's career.

Which makes the themes touched on in Forever this week a bit resonant for the Sherlockian mind. Sherlock Holmes and Jack the Ripper have both lived on past their proper human lifespans in our minds, just as Henry Morgan of the ABC show lives on in his fictional TV storyline. It's almost like they both exist in some eternal battlefield version of Victorian London like some Norse mythology afterlife.

Vincent Starrett famously wrote in his poem "221B," "Here dwell together still, two men of note, who never lived, and so can never die." Holmes and the Ripper suffer from a similar curse -- since they never truly battled and decided a victor, they can never, ever be done with their fight. Professor Moriarty may be Sherlock Holmes's best known arch-nemesis, but Holmes beat Moriarty. Over, done, beaten. As much as we like to see that replayed in its many forms, we know how it comes out.

Holmes versus the Ripper? On it goes.

Kind of like Forever.

The turtle opens up.

Apparently Action Sherlock wasn't the only one speaking in cartoon thought balloons this week -- over at CBS.com, Clyde the turtle is counting down to season three of Elementary. You'll remember Clyde as one of those random elements that the creators of CBS's Elementary threw in to their unique version of the Holmes mythos to help make their detective quirky.

And what kind of thoughts does Clyde have?

"I can't believe the genius detective still hasn't realized I am the one taking the socks from the dryer."

Clyde's level of disrespect for Mr. Elementary is apparently pretty high.

"Detective Clyde, it has a nice ring  to it."

Clyde seems to think that anyone can be a consulting detective, which is quite natural given the fact that Joan Watson appears to be taking over the job from Mr. Elementary after minimal training.

"I spy with my tortoise eye . . ."

Clyde has a somewhat cliched and juvenile sense of humor, or else an invisible friend whom he plays games with.

"Does this sweater make me look fat?"

Clyde is not only disrespectful of Mr. Elementary, he appears to be mocking Joan Watson's fashion taste, body sense, and gender here.

"Turtle soup is NOT on the menu."

Clyde is not a cannibal. Good to know. It was bad enough Mr. Elementary was sleeping with Moriarty and not knowing it, but if he kept the Hannibal Lechter of pets in his house without knowing it, that would be something else entirely.

"Sherlock! I wasn't done reading this one yet."

Given the rest of Elementary, I think Clyde may be referring to one of the sixty stories of the original Canon. Poor guy is probably still reading it at turtle pace, trying to find the story where he appears.

Use Mr. Moon's Moonfind, Clyde! And get ready for disappointment.