EYE ON SHERLOCK HOLMES

CBS has announced several TV pilots it has commissioned for the next season, among them 'Elementary', a look at Sherlock Holmes set in contemporary New York.

Blerg.

So many things about this disappoint me. First off, it's just a blatant rip-off of the idea utilized by Steven Moffatt and Mark Gatiss for 'Sherlock'. Unless of course they're using some kind of gimmick - like he was in suspended animation and only returned to the waking world in the 21st Century. But even that has been done three times before in the TV Universe (and none of them in the main Toobworld!)

And then there's the setting of New York City. Again? Why does everything have to be set in New York City? (I suppose an L.A. location would be worse though.) At least 'Being Human' on Syfy, although too much a carbon copy of the British original, is set in Boston. I suppose New York City is the ideal venue for a consulting detective of Holmes' skills, teeming with the dark atmosphere that breeds the crimes he loves to solve, just as London was for the Holmes of the 19th Century. But what about Chicago or Detroit, or even better, Washington D.C.?

I don't wish them ill, as it really will have no effect on my vision of Earth Prime-Time. But I just don't see this project getting accepted by a mass audience.

BCnU!