Comic-Con 2012: ‘Elementary’ Cast, Creators Defend Female Watson
by Lesley GoldbergSherlock Holmes has crossed the pond and arrived in New York, with CBS’ fresh take on the famed detective, Elementary, meeting the make-or-break audiences of Comic-Con.
Starring Jonny Lee Miller and Lucy Liu, the modern-day telling features Holmes relocating to the U.S., where he assists the NYPD in solving difficult cases. Liu takes on the role of Dr. Joan Watson — that’s right, Holmes’ right-hand man is a lovely lady — assigned to oversee Sherlock’s newfound sobriety…
Meanwhile, the pilot makes several references to Holmes’ unseen father, with the series creator noting that the character will “cast a shadow over a lot of what we do in the early goings.”
“I love the idea of him as a mysterious shadowy figure we’ll get to build and make a part of the series,” Doherty said.
They had us at “Jonny Lee Miller, but we were gone at “Holmes’ unseen father.” Why that bugs us when we’re okay with Watson being an Asian woman and the whole thing being set in the U.S. in contemporary times and Holmes being fresh out of rehab we don’t know.
Maybe it’s our own daddy issues, but it seems to us that most, if not all, of the great mythological and literary heroes don’t have dads, or certainly don’t have their fathers “casting a shadow over a lot of what we do….” Even when the daddies are gods they usually just, you know, spill their seed and move on and the kids don’t really care.
So we’ll be watching ELEMENTARY, but we’ll also be casting our own shadow over this show in a kind of “one false move and you’re out” Big Daddy sort of way.