Thanks to my flu, I powered through the remains of Elementary Season 1, and may even make it through Season 2 before it runs out on Sky boxed sets.
The plots are many and varied, but the arc and the grist of the series basically covers its handling of two of the more controversial figures in the Sherlockian canon: Irene Adler and James Moriarty (note; spoilers will apply.)
Basically, no-one ever really knows what to do with Adler. She tends to be shoehorned into a romantic role, and usually that of a master criminal, if not on Moriarty's scale. It's an odd departure from the original, in which she is just a smart, tough, independent woman who is being victimised by her ex - Holmes's client, whose case he actually takes lest instead he employ a blunter instrument - whose goal is to be allowed to marry and live her life in peace.
Adaptations find this difficult to deal with, perhaps because for a figure that looms so large, she doesn't actually do very much. Mind you, neither does Moriarty, who only has one appearance, in which Holmes concludes his pursuit of the Napoleon of Crime with what is revealed later to have been a dismissive curb stomp duel. Adapters tend to reverse the balance of power, making Moriarty the stalker.
Elementary goes one step beyond, making the American Irene Adler (Natalie Dormer) the assumed identity of British criminal mastermind Jamie Moriarty. Dormer plays both roles to the hilt, although she's clearly having way more fun as the slinky, lethal Moriarty. Adler is once more the love of Holmes's life, rather than merely a woman whose intelligence impresses him, but by making her a fiction I find I mind this less. That 'the paragon of her sex' is a mere figment of Moriarty's imagination speaks volumes of this Holmes with his awkward mannerisms, operational approach to sexuality and tendency to stand way too close to people.
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| Natalie Dormer, femme fatale for hire. |
Basically, no-one ever really knows what to do with Adler. She tends to be shoehorned into a romantic role, and usually that of a master criminal, if not on Moriarty's scale. It's an odd departure from the original, in which she is just a smart, tough, independent woman who is being victimised by her ex - Holmes's client, whose case he actually takes lest instead he employ a blunter instrument - whose goal is to be allowed to marry and live her life in peace.
Adaptations find this difficult to deal with, perhaps because for a figure that looms so large, she doesn't actually do very much. Mind you, neither does Moriarty, who only has one appearance, in which Holmes concludes his pursuit of the Napoleon of Crime with what is revealed later to have been a dismissive curb stomp duel. Adapters tend to reverse the balance of power, making Moriarty the stalker.
Elementary goes one step beyond, making the American Irene Adler (Natalie Dormer) the assumed identity of British criminal mastermind Jamie Moriarty. Dormer plays both roles to the hilt, although she's clearly having way more fun as the slinky, lethal Moriarty. Adler is once more the love of Holmes's life, rather than merely a woman whose intelligence impresses him, but by making her a fiction I find I mind this less. That 'the paragon of her sex' is a mere figment of Moriarty's imagination speaks volumes of this Holmes with his awkward mannerisms, operational approach to sexuality and tendency to stand way too close to people.
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