On the Small Screen: Elementary

I am enjoying Elementary.

Set in the current day, the premise is that Sherlock Holmes has come to New York at the insistence of his father, as part of a rehab program. Watson is his live-in case manager for a portion of the program. To get his mystery fix, Holmes is a consultant to the NYPD.

The advertised twist is that Watson is a woman. But the real twist is that we are at the beginning of the Holmes-Watson relationship. They're both wounded, these two. How do they move from perfect strangers to steadfast friends? How do they help each other heal?

And there's Aidan Quinn. Squee!

This Holmes is more accessible than other incarnations. Yes, he's brilliant and pain in the potuckus. But we also see him embarrassed. We see him nervous. He's more human and less of a superhero sleuth.

A word about Sherlock, a BBC series which airs on PBS. That show is a translation of the characters and stories into modern-day England. Elementary is a proper CBS crime procedural with enough story about the characters to keep us riveted. Different shows. Both delightful. There's no reason one can't like them both.