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It's Elementary, My Dear Beast
Promo clips are now available for the remake of Beauty and the Beast and Elementary, and I'm deeply ambivalent about them both.
Beauty and the Beast was one of the major fandoms in my life, possibly the first one to go absolutely white-hot for me... emphasis on hot. First big fandom love. First time as a BNF.
First and ugliest fandom war I've ever been in, and I was a front-line fighter.
Elementary... I've been championing it mostly for the fun of tease-trolling the people freaking out about it. Ben Cumberbatch has been remarkably classy about it, pointing out that there's already room for two Holmeses right now, so why not three? Moffat is getting pricklier by moment; from complaining it was too close to his version, he's now complaining that it's too far from canon.
As he specifically cites Watson as a woman as one of the changes, the conversation about this is probably going to take the overall tone of "Moffat is a sexist git, round #41792."
Thing is, I think he's right. Oh, not about Lucy Liu; the only problem with her casting is she'd be a better Sherlock. The entire setup is unrecognizable, and not because it's been put in America. Elementary's Holmes is in forcible rehab, having been kicked off his consulting work with Scotland Yard. His father has hired Joan Watson to be his constant companion to make sure he stays straight. Watson was a surgeon "until she lost a patient and her license" which makes me wonder just how badly she fucked up, because it's not like people don't die in surgery all the time and *not* because of medical malpractice.
They solve crime!
With the exceptions of the names, it's as if the scriptwriters put Monk (constant monitoring), House (addiction, abrasive behavior), and CSI/NCIS/blah blah (crime solving) into a blender. Which makes me wonder why they even bothered with the names. The Ritchie movies owe more to canon than this!
Will I watch them? Yeah, probably both, at least a couple of episodes. But I'm not excited about either one.
Beauty and the Beast was one of the major fandoms in my life, possibly the first one to go absolutely white-hot for me... emphasis on hot. First big fandom love. First time as a BNF.
First and ugliest fandom war I've ever been in, and I was a front-line fighter.
Elementary... I've been championing it mostly for the fun of tease-trolling the people freaking out about it. Ben Cumberbatch has been remarkably classy about it, pointing out that there's already room for two Holmeses right now, so why not three? Moffat is getting pricklier by moment; from complaining it was too close to his version, he's now complaining that it's too far from canon.
As he specifically cites Watson as a woman as one of the changes, the conversation about this is probably going to take the overall tone of "Moffat is a sexist git, round #41792."
Thing is, I think he's right. Oh, not about Lucy Liu; the only problem with her casting is she'd be a better Sherlock. The entire setup is unrecognizable, and not because it's been put in America. Elementary's Holmes is in forcible rehab, having been kicked off his consulting work with Scotland Yard. His father has hired Joan Watson to be his constant companion to make sure he stays straight. Watson was a surgeon "until she lost a patient and her license" which makes me wonder just how badly she fucked up, because it's not like people don't die in surgery all the time and *not* because of medical malpractice.
They solve crime!
With the exceptions of the names, it's as if the scriptwriters put Monk (constant monitoring), House (addiction, abrasive behavior), and CSI/NCIS/blah blah (crime solving) into a blender. Which makes me wonder why they even bothered with the names. The Ritchie movies owe more to canon than this!
Will I watch them? Yeah, probably both, at least a couple of episodes. But I'm not excited about either one.
no subject
I've been wrestling with this for the past day, because the trailer doesn't put forward anything recognizably Holmes beyond the name. What I do get from the trailer is something that looks like the typical CBS procedural with a quirky/damaged lead character that happens to have some recognizable names.
I'm led to two conclusions. One, there is nothing Holmesian about Elementary. Two, the series' Holmesian elements are downplayed in the trailer for Elementary because they don't sell the series well. I'm hoping for the latter, I fear the former.
I do want Elementary to be good and to thrive. Anything that gets people interested in the Canon is a good thing. And, to be frank, a competing series could prompt Moffat to up his game, which wouldn't be a bad thing.
The Ritchie movies owe more to canon than this!
They do. A Game of Shadows may just be my favorite version of FINA. :)
no subject
THIS. And the thing is, CBS has shown that's a trope that already works for them, so why bother tying it in to Holmes at all?
I'm not actually anti-Elementary; I'm just starting to wish that they'd done what they obviously wanted to do, which is stamp out a new series, period. *They could have.* Canon is out of copyright; there was absolutely nothing Moffat could do if they'd had a detective with addiction issues and an ex-army doctor.
The remake of Beauty and the Beast doesn't make me itch half as much, but then, neither Catherine nor Vincent are one of the world's most recognizable literary figures.
And while I'm with you on wanting more people to read canon, I'm wondering how many people will pick up canon after Elementary and go "WTF?" and put it back down. (Or worse, a Goldberg tie-in novel followed by the man himself bitching at Malice that Holmes fans dared correct him over canonical points. Not that I have obvious issues with him or anything.)