Elementary Season 1, Episode 1

Joan Watson, a disgraced surgeon now employed as a sober companion,  heads to her new charge, Sherlock Holmes who’s just broken out of his rehab facility on the day he was to be released. The British consultant doesn’t care to have her around, but disobeying his father’s mandate for the companion would mean being kicked out of the “Least renovated” of the five properties his father owns in New York. Reluctantly, he drags her along with him on his case.

They arrive at the scene of the crime – thought to be a kidnapping thus far, and Sherlock quickly deduces the woman in question was murdered, and she never left the home. Finding a safe room her husband supposedly didn’t know about, they discover her lifeless and broken body. And just when it seems like Sherlock has figured out who it was, their prime suspect is found dead in his home, apparently having committed suicide. With doubts, Sherlock and Watson begin to unravel the tangled web that lead to the woman’s death – and the reason an already beautiful woman would so drastically change her appearance.

My thoughts:

I do appreciate that they’ve kept Sherlock British in this series (for one thing, it’s unlikely that anyone in the US would name their child Sherlock in this day and age.) It will be interesting, as the series progresses to get more insight into this Sherlock’s back-story. So far, we know that he’s a recovering drug addict – something that seems trumped up to bring him and Watson together, so we’ll see how that plays out – and that something made him leave London where he was a consultant to Scotland Yard. It’s obviously not the job, since he dives right back in….

The first case was twisty enough to not be boring. Though there were a few things that bothered me. 1) The guy is in a roid rage, but has the wherewithal to go back and kick in the door to make it look like it was a break in. 2) Watson seems bored with her predicament, she stumbles on the case solving “Rice” conundrum by accident, not because her curiosity has pushed her to look for the answer – and that feels a) lazy and b) not true to the original characterization (Watson stays with Sherlock because he’s intrigued by the man’s mind and by solving cases to promote a greater good… This Watson feels like she’s bored.)

I can’t help comparing this series to the British produced Moffat helmed version. And while I’m not going to write this series off after a single episode… at the moment, Cumberbatch’s Sherlock is more intriguing, and Freeman’s Watson is less boring. It’s sad, because I like both Jonny Lee Miller and Lucy Liu, but I feel like this series – unless they do something spectacular with it – is going to be a waste.