The only … only … good thing I can say for this endeavor is that we will end up with more than three 90 minute episodes at a time. Of course, given what a botch I expect this to be, that may not be a good thing. #ddtb
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CBS green-lights modern U.S.-based version of Sherlock Holmes
Called Elementary, the new series takes Arthur Conan Doyle's detective to New York City.
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Errrgggg…blech. New York City? Why not just do an American detective in NYC then?
I hope they don’t induct this into the Sacred Canon!
Fred: I think it’s doable. I just think it’s going to be a challenge to make it distinctive and creative.
And, don’t you know? Americans will only watch TV shows that are set in America. The only way we’d see a story set in London is if the protagonist were an American, full of zany “duck out of water” bits.
Part of the charm of Sherlock Holmes for me was the atmosphere, which was brilliantly captured in the PBS series with Jeremy Brett. A smart detective in modern New York City? Don’t we have enough modern Smart Detective shows?
@Karen – You can certainly use the atmosphere of NYC.
Of course we have a lot of modern Smart Detective in New York shows — that what makes it safe for the network!
I don’t care for these temporal transplants. Even the Basil Rathbone movies were more appealing before they moved him to the present day to help in the war effort (although those were old enough by the time I saw them to steel feel “period”).
Why move “historical” characters to the present? Do audiences resist other time settings? Characters like Holmes are largely a product of those times. I’d rather see a new detective in the style of Holmes than a transplanted Sherlock. And making him American? Well, i certainly didn’t care for CIA agent “Jimmy Bond” in the first adaptation of Casino Royale!
@Avo – I think retellings of tales in a modern setting can bring new insight into both the story and its timelessness. It can also be laziness in the production or audience or both.
Is Sherlock Holmes purely a product of his time, or are there fundamentals of human personalities that apply over the centuries? How much is nature, how much nurture? Is it just a matter of name? Would a Holmes-like character set in modern day, with an associated Watson, but renamed be somehow better? Again, I think it depends on the production — if it’s just the names but different characters, then it’s irksome; if a slavish imitation, then why bother? But a different historic setting can bring different perspectives.
For that matter, retellings of the tale even ostensibly in-period are often very different as a reflection of the era in which they were created. Contrast the Basil Rathbone Holmes films to the Jeremy Brit teleplays to the modern “Sherlock” to the Robert Downey, Jr. film series … and to the original books. Aren’t they all “transplanted Sherlocks”?
Is James Bond purely a late 50s / early 60s spy, or has the movie series (re)interpreted him over fifty years?
Oddly enough, I’m more sanguine about chronological transplants than national transplants. Though, again, it depends a lot on who’s doing it and how it’s done.
A “Holmes-like character,” sure. But why Holmes himself? Rathbone and Brett played a 19th century Holmes, and both worked. When Rathbone’s character moved to the mid-20th century, it rubbed me the wrong way. Maybe it’s a case of having read all of Conan Doyles’s Holmes stories numerous times from junior high on, but it just didn’t feel right to have him flying to America and then driving in automobiles hunting for bombsights or some such.
With Bond, it’s a bit different because the movie series has continued since the time of the books. If Bond had been written as a Revolutionary War spy and they made him a contemporary one, it would rankle. I wouldn’t want to see Horatio Hornblower in the modern navy, either (British or U.S.). You want to do a story in that milieu? Fine! I’m all for it. Just create your own character, even one “inspired by” Holmes, Bond, Hornblower, whoever.