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Elementary, My Dear Fandom
With apologies to Austen, for what do we live but to make sport for our fellow fans and laugh at them in our turn? In the last two days, I’ve gone from being lukewarm about the concept of Elementary (CBS’ take on modern Holmes) to being 100% enthused about its premiere. Not because I’m expecting it to be brilliant, but because Holmes fandom – the Sherlock fringe in particular – is already being so entertaining in its indignation, and I’m expecting the schadenfanfreude to just get better over time like wine.
The break point was a blog I read last night. At first it annoyed the snot out of me because it was one of those “there is only one possible right way to think about this, which is the way I think about it, so I will handwave without logical rebuttal any arguments against me and try to humiliate the person making them.” And we all know how well I take the idea of someone issuing me an opinion. But then I realized two things. First: in order to rebut, the person had to quote the original argument, which was pretty strong even with a thick layer of disdain coated on top. Second: once I cooled down, I simply had to be amused by a counter argument that boiled down to “America hoses up adaptations of British media and it already has several popular modern-era TV shows about very observant men.” Both halves of that argument are correct, but you’ve got to admit that mating them into the single concept, “America can’t get it right, so it shouldn’t try and besides, America has already done it right more than once so it shouldn’t try” is impressive contortionism.
The speculation and even newspaper articles are hilarious in a “seriously, do you know NOTHING about show business?” way. I’m strongly reminded of when Freema Agyeman didn’t sign on for Torchwood: Children of Earth and some unnamed BBC minion was quoted as saying that “scripts are being thrown into shredders” several months before the first script would have been finished, much less printed. Yes, I’m sure that Moffat and Gatiss are watching this with a wary eye and if CBS steals one of their original ideas - Molly, Sally, Sarah, Anderson, Sherlock’s deductions rolling in text onscreen, etc. – then they can *and should* sue.
Does nobody realize that the execs at CBS already know this? Just as they already know that the names Sherlock Holmes, Dr. John H Watson, Mrs. Hudson, Inspector Lestrade, etc. are out of copyright and the concept of text messaging is not even copyrightable, nor are New York City, forensics, crime detection, and the modern era. There is plenty they can do without having to pay a royalty to Moffat and Gatiss, just as there is plenty they can do without paying royalties to the creators of House, Psych, CSI, Law and Order, etc.
Which leads to the next “you’re kidding me” argument: That Elementary will reduce the audience for Sherlock. Because there are so few TV viewers in America, and they totally won’t watch more than one show that is relevant to their interests. For that argument to work, we’d still only have three networks and they’d only show one crime drama, one sitcom, one medical drama, and one documentary. Ever. And Nielsen knows that now would be a horrible time to launch a new detective/forensics show, it’s not like CSI and NCIS have been trading off top of the ratings for *years* or anything like that.
(And by the way? When CBS came up with NCIS, everyone just KNEW it was a cheap knockoff of CSI and it would never last even if it wasn’t sued out of existence after the first episode. It's not at all like CBS has already danced this waltz or wants to capitalize on its current strengths, I’m just sayin’.)
But to be honest, to be really honest, the reason I want Elementary to premiere is that if people are going to go this nuts this early, then from the very bottom of my black heart I am looking forward to making popcorn and watching the Sherlock fringe of Holmes fandom to have canon!fail conniptions. “OMG! Inspector Gregson is so a ripoff of Lestrade’s first name!” “They totally stole the idea of a cabbie with an aneurism from Study in Pink!” “I can’t believe they even swiped the bit about Sherlock not knowing about the solar system!”
The break point was a blog I read last night. At first it annoyed the snot out of me because it was one of those “there is only one possible right way to think about this, which is the way I think about it, so I will handwave without logical rebuttal any arguments against me and try to humiliate the person making them.” And we all know how well I take the idea of someone issuing me an opinion. But then I realized two things. First: in order to rebut, the person had to quote the original argument, which was pretty strong even with a thick layer of disdain coated on top. Second: once I cooled down, I simply had to be amused by a counter argument that boiled down to “America hoses up adaptations of British media and it already has several popular modern-era TV shows about very observant men.” Both halves of that argument are correct, but you’ve got to admit that mating them into the single concept, “America can’t get it right, so it shouldn’t try and besides, America has already done it right more than once so it shouldn’t try” is impressive contortionism.
The speculation and even newspaper articles are hilarious in a “seriously, do you know NOTHING about show business?” way. I’m strongly reminded of when Freema Agyeman didn’t sign on for Torchwood: Children of Earth and some unnamed BBC minion was quoted as saying that “scripts are being thrown into shredders” several months before the first script would have been finished, much less printed. Yes, I’m sure that Moffat and Gatiss are watching this with a wary eye and if CBS steals one of their original ideas - Molly, Sally, Sarah, Anderson, Sherlock’s deductions rolling in text onscreen, etc. – then they can *and should* sue.
Does nobody realize that the execs at CBS already know this? Just as they already know that the names Sherlock Holmes, Dr. John H Watson, Mrs. Hudson, Inspector Lestrade, etc. are out of copyright and the concept of text messaging is not even copyrightable, nor are New York City, forensics, crime detection, and the modern era. There is plenty they can do without having to pay a royalty to Moffat and Gatiss, just as there is plenty they can do without paying royalties to the creators of House, Psych, CSI, Law and Order, etc.
Which leads to the next “you’re kidding me” argument: That Elementary will reduce the audience for Sherlock. Because there are so few TV viewers in America, and they totally won’t watch more than one show that is relevant to their interests. For that argument to work, we’d still only have three networks and they’d only show one crime drama, one sitcom, one medical drama, and one documentary. Ever. And Nielsen knows that now would be a horrible time to launch a new detective/forensics show, it’s not like CSI and NCIS have been trading off top of the ratings for *years* or anything like that.
(And by the way? When CBS came up with NCIS, everyone just KNEW it was a cheap knockoff of CSI and it would never last even if it wasn’t sued out of existence after the first episode. It's not at all like CBS has already danced this waltz or wants to capitalize on its current strengths, I’m just sayin’.)
But to be honest, to be really honest, the reason I want Elementary to premiere is that if people are going to go this nuts this early, then from the very bottom of my black heart I am looking forward to making popcorn and watching the Sherlock fringe of Holmes fandom to have canon!fail conniptions. “OMG! Inspector Gregson is so a ripoff of Lestrade’s first name!” “They totally stole the idea of a cabbie with an aneurism from Study in Pink!” “I can’t believe they even swiped the bit about Sherlock not knowing about the solar system!”