Elementary pilot

[amanuensis1]

The pilot of Elementary has leaked; I watched it. Feel "meh" about it.

First...remember my "Matt Damon does zip for me emotionally" a few weeks ago? Yyyyeah, well, thaat's Lucy Liu for me too. So I'm afraid that's #1 on the list of why I won't stick around for more. That's a personal reason and not a critical one.

But the rest is decidedly critical. Nothing else connected with me either. The script doesn't convince me that Sherlock is particularly clever; it just feels like everyone else is ingenuous, unsuspicious, and kinda dumb. Aiden Quinn's character is such a null point here, not showing even the least bit of annoyance with Sherlock's offensive quirkery. I thought that was supposed to be part of the fun, in Sherlock-Lestrade interaction?

The script feels plastic-y and plodding. Nothing seems funny, nothing's zingy. I never even made it as far as considering the dynamics of the Watson-Holmes relationship, because of the fake feeling, slow script. In Sherlock's words, bored.

Comments

[http://users.livejournal.com/_hannelore/]

voice of disagreement here! :P I was hyper-excited to actually see a woman on television who isn't loaded up with make-up and a need to impress the boys, so Lucy Liu certainly did it for me. I was actually relieved at the lack of quirky/funny/zingy and I've certainly seen entire volumes of Sherlock-Lestrade annoyance (i.e. the Jeremy Brett version) that it was interesting to see something else.

I also thought it was good that it showed what I like best about Sherlock, that it's not really all about being super-clever or amazing, but that observation (not just seeing) will get you much farther. I haven't seen a single Benedict Cumberbatch episode so I'm not really comparing it at all, but I'm willing to give Elementary another try after seeing the pilot.

[amanuensis1.livejournal.com]

It's certainly possible that the BBC Sherlock has given me, yanno, EXPECTATIONS, which might have me holding up higher standards of quirky/zingy/argumentative/fast-paced for derivative forms. And it's certainly possible that I just don't connect to Lucy Liu.

There were a few other things that bothered me, though, in their execution. Watson as babysitter, the stereotype that if a doctor loses a patient it causes an emotional breakdown to the degree that they leave their profession...a lot of little niggles.

[shezan.livejournal.com]

I like Liu a lot, but not here. She & JLM have ZERO chemistry. As in Zero in Fahrenheit.

[amanuensis1.livejournal.com]

In KELVIN. Boo-yah! :D