‘Elementary’ season 2, episode 5: A preview, and how ‘Two and a Half Men’ is hurting it

This story, for “Elementary” fans, is going to be a bit of a mixed bag. On one side of the coin, we have a promo below for what looks to be a fun episode next week. Sherlock Holmes believes that he has almost all of the pieces put together to solve a very important case, but he realizes soon after that there is also one extremely valuable thing that he is missing: A body. Meanwhile, we also hear that Watson is going to dive into a little bit of romance this week which is always fun just for the sake of shaking things up a little bit with the main characters away from the weekly case.

But we also want to spend a bit of time in this article raising an interesting question: What has caused this show to take such a big tumble in the ratings? “Scandal” is the only major competition Thursday night at 10:00 p.m. Eastern, but even with that, the show has slid down to dangerous levels in the ratings. Next to “Hostages,” it is now performing worse than any other show airing from Monday-Thursday on the network, and that is not a good sign.

But, to put on our Sherlock hat, is there any single reason why this is happening? The biggest problem that we see is that simply for whatever reason, the idea of a Holmes series never resonated with CBS viewers the way in which the network probably thought that it would. While it was never a disappointment by any means, we believe that the network expected this to be a huge hit. It was even handed the post-Super Bowl spot last year. But, that even did not give it a ratings bump.

This year, it is hurt more by not having another drama before it in “Person of Interest.” Instead, you have the silly fart comedy known as “Two and a Half Men,” and there is not a lot of “leave the TV on” viewing happening there. This is in some ways why the TV measurement system now is so antiquated (since this is the reason why many shows after hits have good ratings), but if there is no other system in place, a show like “Elementary” could suffer.

What do you think is really going on here? Be sure to share below! Meanwhile, click here if you’re interested in seeing one thing that should make you excited to see the on the show … news on the return of Moriarty.

Photo: CBS