10.25.2012

Television: Sherlock Holmes Shows

So. Sherlock and Elementary. It's amusing how the media has tried so hard to turn these shows into a fight. Meanwhile the stars of each have gone out of their way--almost to an absurd degree--to praise one another. This is in large part because they've worked together and maintaining connections in the industry is always important. But truthfully, the two programs have very little in common aside from the protagonists' names. I don't even think they're the same genre. Well, both are dramas, but one is flat out drama (sometimes bordering on melodrama) and the other is that subset known as a procedural. Just completely different feels to those. And while both Sherlock Holmes are in ways recognizable as the character established so long ago by Doyle, they are not at all alike to one another. The Watsons even less so.

I had a friend say Elementary was shite, but (at risk of sounding much like Cumberbatch and JLM), I think each show is solid and good at its own thing, establishing its own brand. Sure, if you go into Elementary expecting Sherlock, you're going to come away dissatisfied and vice versa. It is a peeve of mine how fans go rabid and refuse to be open to new things.

Only marginally related: I do have two questions for Benedict Cumberbatch; send him my way, would you?

2 comments:

sp said...

What are the questions?

M said...

Doesn't matter. He's too terrified of me to answer!