It's Elementary, My Dear Beast

[neadods]

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.

Comments

[penguineggs.livejournal.com]

That's extreme capitalism for you; turning all relationships into the essentially economic.

In ASiP, one of the ways the relationship is built really quickly is that you have everyone overtly trying to put John off Sherlock (with the possible exception of Stamford, who is more proactive than he is in ACD, but still no more than benevolently neutral) except for Mycroft who tries to hire him as a spy/jailer. John's integrity in refusing that role - before asking how much, and despite his financial straits - makes you warm to John; this is a good man, with principles. But it also colours your reaction to Mycroft; anyone who tries to put his friendless brother in the position of having an in-house spy is not a good man, whatever his motives may be. I don't know how you retrieve a dynamic which starts with the John equivalent and the Mycroft equivalent on the same side *against* Sherlock.

[neadods.livejournal.com]

anyone who tries to put his friendless brother in the position of having an in-house spy is not a good man

And that's not even bringing up that Mycroft has just announced that his brother is friendless because he's incapable of having friends. (I would like it if someday Moffat & Gatiss went into why they decided to turn a friendly but distant relationship into an outright sibling war. Aside from the "Maybe he's Moriarty" moment they were going for.)

I don't know how you retrieve a dynamic which starts with the John equivalent and the Mycroft equivalent on the same side *against* Sherlock.

Someone on the other post has mentioned this is how Scully and Mulder start. But how you turn the dynamic from "he's not crazy, this shit is real" into "he's brilliant, but he still has to stay off the smack" I don't know.

Side note; one thing that I appreciate in PINK as opposed to STUD is that all through canon, Watson seems beside himself to meet Holmes; the more so every time Stamford says "Uh, he's a little weird, you know." John, on the other hand, has no problem hitting Sherlock with a reality check in their first five minutes. "That's it? I don't know your name, I don't know the address..."

[penguineggs.livejournal.com]

I would like it if someday Moffat & Gatiss went into why they decided to turn a friendly but distant relationship into an outright sibling war. Aside from the "Maybe he's Moriarty" moment they were going for.

I think it would be wise for them to keep their mouths shut given how everything each of them says gets torn apart by fans with agendas at present (see current post in my DW for details) but fwiw I think they got the idea of antagonism in general from The Private Life of Sherlock Holmes and the specific form of antagonism from what happens if you update ACD's line (Greek Interpreter, I think) about Mycroft "being, in effect, the British Government" and bring that into the 21st century through the consciousness of two left-leaning BBC writers. (Gatiss was born and brought up in a mining village in Co. Durham and lived through the miners' strike,there, for God's sake, and Moffat is Scottish with all that entails in political unease with Westminster's priorities).

The British Government - and being the power behind the British Government - has a word association now which includes extraordinary rendition, fake WMDs, going into Iraq on a lie, being too cosy with the Murdochs, covering up Mau-Mau atrocities, authorising (possibly) the Kelly assassination, Porton Down, attacks on the disabled, clause twenty-eight, bankers bonuses....it comes with a whole heap of word association shit. Death for death, Mycroft clearly has more blood on his hands as the british government than Moriarty has as the Napoleon of crime, in both his 19th century and 21st century incarnations - I think it's a lot harder to see that as justified blood at the time Sherlock's coming out.

[neadods.livejournal.com]

see current post in my DW for details

I saw that. Oh. My. God. There ought to be a sanity test before anyone can get on Twitter.

Death for death, Mycroft clearly has more blood on his hands as the British government than Moriarty has as the Napoleon of crime

Good point.