Elementry

Season 1 Episode 1 **

Tomorrow night the premier episode for CBS' new series Elementary airs, but the trailers have already garnered a fair amount of criticism. The biggest thing against the show is the character names. 

I haven't seen one criticism  for the fact that we don't need another detective / crime-drama series. I haven't seen much made about the story or script, other than places where this series is Sherlock Holmes and Watson. 

We already have two versions of this in popular media, the Robert Downey Jr. film franchise and the Steven Moffat produced / Benedict Cumberbatch lead miniseries on BBC. Both are true enough to Sir Conan Doyle’s original version that a divergent version, coming to modern day New York and replacing Watson with a female, is unwanted by the biggest fans. The series already has a 60% disapproval rating on YouTube, and that's before it hits the air. 

Having seen the full episode I can say it reads very much like any other crime drama. What will set this series apart from Gil Grissom, Columbo or Monk? Will it be the Lucy Liu played female co-worker? Nope, Monk and Grissom both had that. Will it be the quirkiness of the lead character played by Jonny Lee Miller? Nope, Columbo and Monk not to mention Law & Order's Robert Goren, were far quirkier. We'll have to watch the show to see, but if they don't establish it in the first few episodes, this may just be the series that Golden Boy replaces in the post-Christmas part of the season.