mrbaseball is spot on here. This show is ONLY about the character interactions and relationships. This is the one thing I pay really close attention to on TV shows, and this show is going to nail it (this is the only place where we're in disagreement). I'm 100 percent convinced of it. A lot of people were trashing POI early in its run (wrongly), and they changed their minds as the season progressed. It's very hard to develop a good platonic chemistry in one or two episodes, and these two are doing a great job of it (remember, Holmes really does not like Watson, and they are doing a good job of opening him up to the possibility of them becoming friends). The show's not supposed to be about the bit players (everyone is solid in their roles), it's about the mind of Holmes, and the relationship of him and Watson. The cases drive the episodes, but it's not ultimately about that.

If they wanted to go for something different, they could literally copy the formula of the Guy Ritchie movies, which domestic audiences ate up to the tune of $209 million for the first, and $186 million for the second. The TV show could easily have a built in audience, and based on the kind of numbers we've seen for the show, so far, people just don't know what it is, or there would be more viewers.

I agree about the case stuff, Phill. It's just not likely to change. I am a huge fan of complex cases. The worst show with this in recent memory was the vastly overrated Awake. I remember there was one episode where I solved the case, and the exact reasons why, within 30 seconds of the killer's first appearance. The cases definitely shouldn't be like that, but they could certainly be a little bit more complex than they are, and still appeal to most of us. Another good analogy for this show is House. You could watch House for the cases, or you could watch House for the relationships (I chose to watch for the relationships), and this is basically a good way to approach Elementary, in my opinion. I'm definitely not watching it for the cases (this is coming from someone who is a huge fan of pretty much all of the Law & Order franchise, minus the last several seasons of the regular Law & Order, and the last 2 seasons of SVU).

Monk is a great example (even though I think you are talking about the specific case). This show is very similar to Monk, though with a much harder edge.

I can't see any kind of overarching storyline happening in this series. It's about relationships, which may pull us into a larger overall scope of knowledge of the characters, but there's no real outside influence in the show, nor does there really need to be. It would have to be some contrivance like a corrupt cop or politician making Holmes out to be crazy, when he gets too close to a big case, and no one believes him...possible but really contrived and unnecessary. The biggest chance of something like this happening revolves around his rehab, as we learned that Quinn's character doesn't know anything about that.

I agree that would be interesting, but people are having a really hard time getting past Watson as a woman, so I can't even imagine the criticism of having Holmes being portrayed by a woman. It's a weird world we live in. Everyone wants to compare it to something, as opposed to allowing it to stand on its own merits.

I dont know. We could have some sort of story arch like in The Mentalist, which comes around about every 5-6 episodes (in the early seasons at least).

I think it's a little too early to tell, but, so far, this is really nothing more than a generic police procedural featuring Sherlock Holmes and a re-booted Watson, which is what makes it interesting.

I don't watch The Mentalist, so I can't comment on that.

There has to be a recurring Moriarty character in the show. How can you adapt Sherlock Holmes and not include his arch nemesis in some way?

It just wont be something they will do in the first few episodes though.

I'm betting that character will be someone from overseas that wants to pull Holmes back or something. I doubt it will be a New York character. The threat of "home" has been a somewhat prevalent theme in the first couple of episodes, so that's a place where they might be able to add in some nice creativity.

I thought this episode was really top notch. Characters are good, relationship is good, case was good this week. Best episode of the series for me.

TY for the bump. I missed the show had a new ep the other night and wouldnt realise till next week if you hadnt.

agree last night episode was really good

Agree with this being the best episode so far. Liked the way Sherlock played off the other players

Best ep yet. I hope this is the quality for the rest of the season.

I looked it up and wasnt surprised to find the writer, who got his big break on House, was different to the guy who did the first two.

So I just watched all 3 eps in a row. I actually didn't much like the pilot at all - I found the case to be incredibly boring and everything else seemed like a rip off from so many other procedurals featuring an arrogant genius in the lead (which maybe wouldn't have bothered me so much if all the little things he did and said to make himself appear genius didn't come off so contrived to me). Lucy Liu as Watson was the only thing that seemed the least bit creative about it. But I am not the type to give up on shows, so I watched the 2 next eps.

And I must say, ep 2 and 3 are way better than the pilot imo. Part of it may just be me getting used to the Sherlock character, but mainly I found the cases to be very interesting and better than what most other procedurals are offering atm, so for that reason I'll stick with it for now.

I must be missing something with LL, she has almost no facial expressions (maybe 1 more than the Twilight girl), no charisma, and just seems to be phoning it in.

yea this. Good case, good twist & good character development.

Here to agree with everyone about this. It's officially basically where it needs to be. To me, this is easily the best new series of the network TV season, and I don't think it's particularly close. It should be around for awhile.

I think Lucy's doing fine, and I find myself always looking at her when she's on screen, which clearly means she has some kind of presence. This is about as much as I've liked her since Payback and maybe Ally McBeal.

Another good episode last night I thought. Miller is enough to keep me interested the entire episode.

Watching this show makes me miss Eli Stone

It wasn't amazing or anything, but it was interesting and I wanted to see where they took it.

Yeah, I enjoyed Elementary. Its not an amazing show and is settling around the B-level for me, but its fun and if the cases are great the show is great.

Ive mentioned the show a couple times, but I want the cases to be like Jonathan Creek which for me still stands out as the best detective show ever made. I know why it isnt, its really daring to do cases as crazy advanced as JC did every episode and the US audience may reject it, but I prefer shows that fail while being great than are great at being good.

I prefer to have shows I like stay on the air. However that can be done works for me. It has to be a slow process to pull in the viewers, and then amp up the complexity (like Grimm's starting out as a relatively normal procedural in a bizarre world, and then really expanding on everything else once the audience was hooked). It's a fine line to go from being a convoluted case (like Law & Order: Criminal Intent), to being way over convoluted, which a lot of intricate cop shows try to do. You shouldn't have to trick the audience in the course of a case, you should just want them to enjoy the cracking of it, whether they figure it out or not..

I did figure this case out, but that's not a knock on the show. I'm watching it more for character interactions, and hoping the police work doesn't get in the way. I'm really pleased with the show's progression, so far, and I'm expecting it to be around for a long time.

I dont know if you have ever seen Jonathan Creek, but whilst the cases were ridiculously complex they always write and edited the payoff in an extremely straightforward way where they would have the title character explaining it to someone but more in a narration over footage of the death happening. They completely nailed the formula of how to do an intelligent, witty and advanced detective show.

I've never heard of it, Phill. Is there anywhere to legally check it out? I'd like to see it.

It was made by the BBC and is on DVD, but apart from that I have no idea if its on Netflix or similar in the US as I cant access your version of those sites.

It's unfortunately not on Netflix, but I'll do a little searching to see if I can at least see the Pilot. How long was it on the air, and how many episodes per season and length?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jonathan_Creek

27 eps over 4 seasons and two specials with runtimes that varied from 40 min through to 2 hours for one of the specials (the two hour one is my fave fwiw).

If I remember the pilot correctly from its summary on wiki its a decent example, though there were several better cases.

Ill spoil tag this about tonight's ep since apparently it hasnt aired in America yet: