Hot Picks
|
|
|
Elementary - Pilot
episode 1.1
USA 2012
produced by Alysse Bezahler, Carl Beverly (executive), Michael Cuesta (executive), Robert Doherty (executive), Sarah Timberman (executive) for Hill of Beans Productions, Timberman-Beverly Productions/CBS
directed by Michael Cuesta
starring Jonny Lee Miller, Lucy Liu, Aidan Quinn, Dallas Roberts, Manny Perez, Jonathan Walker, Kristen Bush, Craig Walker, Michael Nathanson, Randal Turner, Melissa Zapin, Sherry H. Arell
written and series created by Robert Doherty, based on characters created by Arthur Conan Doyle, music by Sean Callery, Zoe Keating
TV-series Elementary, Sherlock Holmes
review by Mike Haberfelner
|
|
Available on DVD! To buy, click on link(s) below and help keep this site afloat (commissions earned) |
Always make sure of DVD-compatibility!!!
|
|
|
|
|
New York City, the 21st century: Dr. Joan Watson (Lucy Liu), who has
been barred from surgery due to malpractice, has taken on a new job as
sober friend for a British millionaire's son who has just been released
from rehab, a certain Sherlock Holmes (Jonny Lee Miller). Holmes, she soon
learns, is a hopeless eccentric with a brilliant mind but also violent
mood swings and social deficiencies - and he's a self-appointed consultant
to the local police force. And thus, his friend on the force, Captain
Gregson (Aidan Quinn) calls him in for a weird robbery and potential
murder case where the victim is missing. And at that crime scene, Watson
for the first time sees Homes in action, how he finds the body in the
panic room in no time, redeems the victim's husband Dr. Mantlo (Dallas
Roberts), who has for the police been prime suspect, and comes to the
conclusion that this must be the work of a trophy-collecting serialkiller.
Going through the files of homicide department, Holmes soon finds a trail
to a former victim of potentially the same man who survived though, and
can actually identify the assailant - but when Holmes wants to relay that
information to Captain Gregson, he learns that he's already at that man's
apartment, and he's dead - an apparent suicide. Thing is, a few things
don't add up for Holmes, including the fact that the killer's cellphone is
missing, and suddenly he comes to the conclusion that the man behind the
killer was actually ... the victim's husband Dr. Mantlo, who was the dead
culprit's psychiatrist and might have used his patient's condition to get
rid of his wife. But knowing something and being able to prove it are not
the same thing, even for Holmes ... Ok, it's quite obvious that
this series was the transatlantic answer to the great success of the
British series Sherlock,
the similarities are just too striking, anmd even the idea to make Watson
female isn't quite new, it was (probably, this isn't based on in-depth
research) first done in The
Return of the World's Greatest Detective, another modern-day Sherlock
Holmes adaptation, if a more comedic one. But that said, Lucy Liu
does a solid job as Watson, as does Jonny Lee Miller as a very eccentric
and erratic Holmes. And these two really are the anchor of the series,
because the writing has its shortcomings: Basically the whole serialkiller
theme is just too far-fetched and constructed to ring true and really
Americanizes the Sherlock Holmes concept a bit too much.
Still, the main characters are strong at least, which at least holds
promise for better episodes along the way.
|
|
|