Suprising Choice for Watson in CBS' Sherlock Holmes Show

[espanolbot]

Some of you may remember how I mentioned that CBS was getting into trouble with Stephen Moffat's production company, because of their modern Sherlock Holmes show, Elementary, having a bunch of simularities to the BBC's Sherlock.

Details in full here.

Well in the time following the complaints, CBS have been attempting to distance their version from the Moffat version, and one of the major ways is who they've got to play Watson, namely, the awesome...

Lucy Liu!


Wait, what?

Yeah, Watson is going to be Joan Watson instead of John in this version, which I think'll be pretty cool. Makes me hope that the show actually does well now.

Apparently the set up for the show is that Holmes is a consultant for Scotland Yard (like in the books and the Moffat version) who is sent to New York City to go into rehab (why? We have them here I'm sure), and ends up helping out the NYPD when he's over there. Joan is a former surgeon that lost her license after one of her patient died who rents an apartment with him, or something.

So yay for Liu getting the role (though she appears to be one of the only Asian actresses in the States a lot of the time, like how Lauren Tom (also an awesome woman) is every Asian cartoon character), though I have a slight feeling that making Watson a woman is to do away with the "bromance" thing from the Moffat version.
http://spinoff.comicbookresources.com/2012/02/28/cbss-modern-sherlock-holmes-pilot-casts-lucy-liu-as-watson/?utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_medium=twitter

For legality, here's Holmes' appearance in the League of Extraordinary Gentlemen,

Comments

[icon_uk]

That really doesn't excuse the plagiarism implicit in the whole "Elementary" concept IMHO, especially so shortly after they'd expressed an interest in Sherlock themselves.

I'm also not sure I agree with the assessment of the casting, it does seem to smack of trying a little too desperately to be "different" from "Sherlock", when making the Watson role a woman isn't even original (I can think of three offhand).

What will make or break any such series is the chemistry between Holmes and Watson; Holmes the genius, and Watson an ordinary person, and though an intelligent one, not a genius (Love Nigel Bruce though I do, the making of Watson into a well-meaning, but not terribly bright, duffer set the scene for the assumption that that's how Watson was, when the fact that he's a medical doctor means he's an intelligent man in his own right (Remember Holmes assessment of doctor's after meeting Grimsby-Roylott) and his army career means he's seen quite a bit of the world and is certainly not naive.

Despite the original canon being that they was nothing more than deeply committed friends (even if an occasionally acerbic one, as the sublime Jeremy Brett series made more explicit), "Sherlock" (which really lucked out with Cumberbatch and Freeman, who have a natural chemistry you couldn't buy) played off the long standing jokes about the possible sexual aspect of the Holmes/Watson relationship by addressing it head on; Holmes is a high functioning sociopath, and with one possible exception (though that's also debatable) he has no interest in any sexual relationship whatsoever, and doesn't understand emotional interactions of that sort in relation to himself. Watson is aware of this, and still stays with him as a flatmate because Holmes provides some focus in his own life.

I may be selling CBS short, but I would be a bit worried about a US network TV show going down the road of "He's hot, she's hot... will they, won't they? Aren't we daring for hinting at it?".

And whilst I haven't seen much of Lucy Liu in recent years, I seem to recall her mostly playing strong willed characters who's main trait was that they didn't seem to have much chemistry with other people, not sure that's how I could ever seen Watson's role working.

It's also a MUCH less appealling backstory for Watson. Why does she need to have "failed" a patient? That's a new addition that doesn't add to the character, but does amp the soap-opera value.

[mrstatham]

Could you really call it plagiarism when A - It's Sherlock Holmes anyway, and B - the idea of modernising Holmes is hardly new either? I'm pretty certain I recall a distinctly shitty set of TV movies (with some nonsense about Moriarty's great grandson magically being in America or some such nonsense) from a few years back, and undoubtedly there's been other attempts. Just because Moffat did it most recently, doesn't make his series an original, either.

If Moffat did more than complain, I doubt it'd go anywhere, since it's not like he can lay claim to the characters, concept or setting really - Just like Willingham couldn't do anything about Once Upon A Time mooching a bunch of concepts off of Fables. I'm just hoping this Elementary series doesn't get a fandom as annoying as Sherlock's on Tumblr. I'm sick to the back teeth of endless posts about Andrew Scott and Cumberbatch and Freeman being an OTP.

[icon_uk]

Could you really call it plagiarism when A - It's Sherlock Holmes anyway, and B - the idea of modernising Holmes is hardly new either?

Whilst I agree overall about it, since even most of the Rathbone/Bruce movies are set in WWII rather than the 1880's/90's, I think you can call this plagirism when it comes so shortly after CBS expressing an interest in "Sherlock" specifically, then withdrawing and shortly afterwards producing "Elementary".

[mrstatham]

Well.. Maybe. Heh. But, like they say, imitation's the sincerest form of flattery. *shrugs*.

In a way, at least they're actually going to pay a film crew, actors, set makers, etc, to make an entirely new series, which is quite good given the worldwide economy's still in the toilet. As bizarre as it sounds, I think it's quite interesting that they'd go out of their way to make a series rather than just pay to have one.

Maybe they want more episodes than the BBC could supply at the moment, which wouldn't be unusual for American television, looking at stuff like the differences between the British and American Office shows specifically.

So it might sting Moffat a little bit, but who knows, we could get something better out of it.

[icon_uk]

If I felt for one moment they were wanting to do out of some sense of wanting to bolster the US economy I might be a little forgiving, but colour me sceptical in THAT regard, this is the television industry.

The chances are they DO want more episodes. However, as "The OFfice", "Being Human" and "Queer as Folk" also proved, that can be done by arrangement with the creators of the show they are mimicking, not by giving them a metaphorical knee in the groin as they push past to repeat their work.

[espanolbot]

It wasn't so much the issue that it was a modern take on Sherlock Holmes, as Icon said there arfe dozens of those (even one based in the future), it was the issue that they copied the characterisation of Sherlock and Mycroft from the show, as well as technical details like when the use of mobile phones and the like.

The criticism was for lifting elements from the protrayal rather than the concept, if that makes sense.