A reasonably good day, in all respects...

[alexpgp]

...except maybe the rain, but what can you do?

Loads of excellent mental composition, but no opportunity to sit down and set it down in any manner.

Apropos of which, I recall an exchange from Thursday's premiere of Elementary (downloaded for free from iTunes as it is the pilot of a new show), in which Holmes, sitting on the rooftop of the brownstone he inhabits and observing a beehive, informs Watson (who has come up to tell Holmes there is honey leaking into the building) that he is writing a book on beekeeping, and was just composing chapter 19, and would Watson care to hear the most recent few paragraphs?

Moments like that aided the show, which in my opinion will need all the help it can get. I detected barely a heartbeat in the chemistry between Holmes (played by an actor Galina is familiar with but I am not) and Watson (played by Lucy Liu). (Hmmm, can chemistry have a heartbeat? No matter.)

Add to that the effort expended to render Holmes as "life sized" (e.g., Holmes confessing that the mind game he claimed to have played to get a witness to spill information really hadn't been anything of the sort and had simply happened in response to his being a jerk) and I am reminded of a memorable exchange from one of my favorite movies—My Favorite Year—in which film swashbuckler Alan Swann (played by Peter O'Toole) confesses, "Look at me! I'm flesh and blood, life-size, no larger! I'm not that silly God-damned hero! I never was!" To which Benjy Stone (Mark Linn-Baker) replies, "To me you were! Whoever you were in those movies, those silly goddamn heroes meant a lot to me! What does it matter if it was an illusion? It worked! So don't tell me this is you life-size. I can't use you life-size. I need Alan Swanns as big as I can get them!"

To which I can only add: "And I need the biggest Sherlock Holmes you can muster!"

One episode does not make or break a show. I just hope things go uphill for Elementary in subsequent episodes, or it won't be around very long.

Cheers...

Comments

[bandicoot.livejournal.com]

I couldn't stand the sound. I had to check other channels to make sure it wasn't me, but all the dialog was muddy to the point where I had to try lip-reading him because I couldn't understand half of what he was saying otherwise. Unless they clean that up, I won't stick around for long. Lucy Liu is easy to look at, though ;)

[velvet-granat.livejournal.com]

Speaking of Holmes, have you seen the recent BBC production 'Sherlock'?

[alexpgp.livejournal.com]

Yes. All six episodes (comprising both three-episode seasons). I think they're quite engaging and am looking forward to Holmes' return from the plunge he took in The Reichenbach Fall.

I like what that series has done with Dr. Watson, among other things. He's got the right "everymind" that allows Sherlock's brilliance to shine, but he's also got a certain je ne sais quoi that places him in a unique class of sidekick a couple of levels above the picture I got of the character from watching Nigel Bruce play the part in the old 20th Century Fox films (in fact, I think Martin Freeman does Watson more the way he was originally intended by Doyle). And I think Cumberbatch shows just the right amont of pathology to keep his character believable, in a strange sort of way.

(As you can tell, I will watch/read nearly anything on the subject.)

Cheers...