Elementary?

Yesterday a new Sherlock emerged (albeit in pilot) under the title 'Elementary' at the US TV station of CBS. It puts Sherlock Holmes, the master detective, in a modern day setting. And of course comparison with BBCs acclaimed Sherlock is obvious.

The new Sherlock (let us henceforth call him CBS Sherlock) is a recovering addict and has Dr. Watson as a rehab companion at one of the brownstones in New York. CBS Sherlock is as gritty and moody as all the previous incarnation of the master sleuth, however he seems a bit unsure of himself at certain times (which is completely unHolmesworthy – legions of fans of Mr. Holmes have come to believe in the supreme self-confidence of the man, frustrated at times he might be but unsure naah!!). 

The case as shown in the CBS pilot is pretty straight forward a psychiatric wants to get rid of his wealthy wife (killing the wife part was there as a plot device in The Adventure of the Retired Colourman), what does he do? He uses one of his umm.. neurotic patients (who has a history of violence) to have a murderous go at his wife. To do this the doctor keeps no record of his meeting with the patient, allegedly changes drugs as well as changes his wife’s appearance (fat to thin, mote to no mole and blonde to red head) to allegedly make her fit the victim profile of the neurotic patient.

Well after some good Holmesian deduction CBS Holmes confronts the evil doctor with the theory only to be laughed off. Later from audio recordings in the cell phone of the killer it is proved that the doctor was in fact treating the killer. In between there were canonical moments like Holmes rearing honey bees (His Last Bow) etc.

So far so good, but still one question arose in my mind as a lawyer, how does the evidence tie up the doctor with the murders. The audio recording proves that the doctor has till now mislead the police by stating that he did not know the killer, yes he can be charged with obstruction of justice, but how to prove before the court that he’s the killer, still there are no smoking guns just surmises and theories. Of course people are bound to say that one should look for deductions in detective stories and law (as if there is any) in legal dramedies (Suits, Boston Legal etc.). But still it would have been better script if CBS Holmes could have found a more convincing smoking gun. Background score could also perhaps be a bit more menacing.

But having said that we must wait for the actual series, this is merely the pilot and they can be quite different from the actual product. One can dig up the pilot of BBC Sherlock (available at Youtube) which was never at par with the actual episodes (in the pilot BBC Sherlock actually is drugged by the cabby while in the first episode it is shown that Sherlock went with the cabby on his own volition).

Thus the verdict would be to [wait and watch] if CBS Sherlock can match or excel the BBC Sherlock (third season later this year?). All in all it is going to be a good few next months for Sherlock fans.