‘Elementary’ review: Meet Sherlock Holmes’ ‘dad’
CBS obviously has a great deal of confidence in “Elementary,” as they have decided to give Jonny Lee Miller and company the coveted timeslot after the Super Bowl early next year. Is the show worth it? This is what may be a subject of debate for some.
Ever since the beginning, much of this series has relied heavily on the talents of Miller, who does do a stellar job bringing new life to a Sherlock Holmes character that has been taken on so many times that he could have risked coming across as stale. The issue is everything surrounding him, as the past two episodes have lost some of the show’s charm. The villains have not been as strong, and the cases also have not held our interest as much. Case in point this week, where the primary case was all about Holmes trying to solve the mystery of a plane crash where murder was also involved. This was somewhat interesting, but there was nothing about it that was earth-shattering given the standard set beforehand.
On the flip side, at least this episode did a great job in showing us a little bit of the Holmes character’s backstory. When Sherlock’s father asked him and Watson to dinner, he knew that the man would bail and hired an actor to prank Watson instead. This led to Lucy Liu’s character going on a warpath in order to figure out just why this man has become like he is, and it turns out that the “actor” Holmes hired was actually a friend who knew him back when he was going through some of his struggles with addiction. While she did not learn everything in a week, it was a step in the right direction as we learned about someone named Irene who Sherlock was at one point in love with (or at least this is the suggestion).
What did you think about this episode, and do you want to find out more about Holmes’ past moving forward?
lijana
November 11, 2012 @ 11:29 am
I now understand why Elementary is so boring… other Americans adn US reviewers like you are only interested in the boring predictable procedural episodes. You bash the interesting character-building episodes so you praise the by-the-book cases and you criticise the episodes like this this week’s and last because they are different.
Thus US adaptations of UK dramas lack the soul that made the original uniquely entertaining. Heads up… we fans want to find out more about Holmes and Watson their relationship and their pasts.
Lx
November 9, 2012 @ 8:37 am
I loved the episode, albeit was a boring case but we learnt about Holmes’ fear of flying and the prank was good in introducing a man who knew him when he was using. Remember this is a show looking through Watson’s eyes, so it was nice to see her deducing skills again.
Great episode, looking forward to Irene Adler who I hope isn’t a love interest this time.
kete
November 9, 2012 @ 3:08 am
Urgh, God no! This show’s so boring I couldn’t be less interested in any of the characters’ backstories. It’s a totally generic US procedural without wit or charm with totally generic lead characters without charisma and chemistry. Why they’ve tacked the names Holmes and Watson on these pretenders is only too clear: to cash in on the current SH-hype. IMO a total fail.