horologists:

WHAT IF

JOHN’S BLOG

STARTS UPDATING

what character in the Hobbit was called Johnbo were we even watching the same movie maybe I fell asleep during that part

inspector-leboodel:

or “Why Joan Watson Is Awesome and You Should Love her”

Note: This isn’t about deciding whether Elementary is better than Sherlock or vice versa (I still love Sherlock). It’s about why Elementary isn’t just a pointless, carbon copy, the reasons it can (and should) be enjoyed as a separate adaptation, which brings new things to the table, and why people need to stop using stupid reasons like “Watson is a woman” (because there are actually elements of Elementary* that are closer to ACD than Sherlock plays them) and “it’s a copy, because Jonny is wearing a scarf/Lucy is wearing a jumper!” (you are being an immature Sherlockian, and you’re embarrassing those of us who can like/respect multiple adaptations) to hate it.

1. Sherlock’s behaviour is a realistic, and much more approachable balance of a stubborn, candid asshole and compassionate human who can admit where he’s wrong and how valuable Watson is, even if it’s often grudgingly.

2. Sherlock frequently treats Watson’s approach to solving things/sobriety as “wrong” rather than “stupid”.

3. Joan Watson. I could just leave it at her name but she’s worth mentioning in every aspect. She’s a multi-dimensional, developed, and strong female, and it’s a WOC playing an incredibly famous fictional character who was originally a white male.

4. Joan calls Sherlock out on his bullshit.

5. She’s in charge of him, but she makes compromises.

6. She tries to improve his condition while being respectful to it and understand that you can’t apply the same methods to everyone. Especially not Sherlock.

7. She protects other people from his nature, but she also listens to him and understands how important cases are to him.

8. She doesn’t always agree with his methods, but she doesn’t shut him down unless he’s completely out of line.

9. She’s intelligent, strong-willed and isn’t afraid to get her hands dirty, but she’s also allowed to be human, and she’s allowed to be “feminine” with a variety of interests that don’t conform to any gender stereotypes/sub-stereotypes.

10. The cops are people with legitimate concerns that Sherlock actually tries to accommodate. They’re not just painted as a bunch of stupid bastards who wont listen to Sherlock.

11. While every cop/detective show uses a lot of artistic license, Elementary tends to be a lot more realistic than most (e.g. 1x03, for once a person who doesn’t know the make, model and year of a car they saw for two seconds at night).

12. It doesn’t stick to the original stories, but manages to keep you guessing despite being one of numerous cop/detective shows.

13. The qualities that separate Sherlock from others are applied in a much more believable sense. He displays anxious behaviour, and his social skills read more as someone who genuinely doesn’t understand how a lot of interaction is supposed to work, rather than simply not giving a shit.

14. Regardless of being one of numerous Sherlock Holmes adaptations, it manages to approach things differently, whilst still being faithful to the canon.

15. Sherlock does in fact have lines that he knows aren’t to be crossed.

16. He can care about solving the puzzle and saving people simultaneously (which is something much closer to ACD canon than Sherlock plays it), and appears visibly distressed about the nature of certain criminals. You can actually understand people wanting to get him involved.

17. They basically call out the bullshit of anti-Elementary people in-universe (e.g. in 1x02: Holmes: Why must you continue to act like you’ve never seen a dead body before? You were a surgeon, you went to medical school, surely you worked on cadavers. Watson: Right. Because that’s exactly the same thing.)

18. Even without Lucy, the casting is a lot more racially diverse than Sherlock tends to be.

19. Joan doesn’t just simply tolerate Sherlock’s bad behaviour. She will challenge him on everything he does. And she doesn’t let him get away with disregarding her privacy/boundaries.

20. But she also respects his boundaries when she feels it’s not her job to test them.

21. The show cares about the victims, not just the investigation.

22. They do not sexualize the relationship between Sherlock and Joan, and the cops are not constantly asking them whether they’re fucking each other.

23. Joan may regret the mistake that brought her where she is, but she defends what she does and she’s proud of her work as a sober companion (as she should be).

24. It’s Holmes and Watson. Not Holmes (with Watson).

25. Joan has an active role in the investigations. She notices and finds crucial elements to cases, even if it just ensures that Sherlock’s theories will be taken seriously. She also gets to apply her medical knowledge in more useful and natural ways (to be fair, in Sherlock John basically turns up and points things that most of us probably could from watching TV, and the police likely already know because they’d have an actual medical examiner/coroner).

26. Sherlock has social issues, and is a recovering drug addict, but whilst Joan takes both very seriously she does not belittle him or invalidate his opinions for either of those reasons. She does not treat him as a lesser person for getting into drugs in the first place.

27. In the show in general - even if its not discussed at every second - the seriousness of Sherlock’s previous addiction (and potential to relapse) is never dismissed.

28. Joan praises Sherlock when he acknowledges the feelings of others/his personal triumphs without treating him like a child.

29. While you can tell she enjoys the cases, Joan’s life does not revolve around Sherlock. Even if she’s not a doctor anymore, she doesn’t sit around constantly lamenting the state of her life.

30. We get to see the emotional side of Sherlock without compromising his believability as Sherlock Holmes.

31. Sherlock may still come from an upper middle-class English background, but it’s not portrayed as glamorous or idyllic – quite the opposite, really – which is particularly unusual given that he’s the lone Brit in an American setting/show.

32. Sherlock is taken seriously by the police, but he doesn’t get to run amok, and he doesn’t get to trample all over the police who are just doing their jobs.

33. Sherlock actually treats Gregson with respect.

34. If you directly translated the way Sherlock often treats John in Sherlock to Sherlock and Joan in Elementary, it would be considered at least borderline abusive (I think a lot of people gloss this over in Sherlock because they’re both men and therefore “equal”). Elementary retains the dynamic of Holmes and Watson without making their relationship too unhealthy.

35. Last, but not least, Sherlock still has/plays a violin.

This is probably incomplete, but it’s the things that stand out for me.

As an afterthought, if you’ve never watched Elementary, or basically blacklisted it from it’s conception (you probably won’t see this post anyway) I can understand the initial suspicion over it. Not to say that the UK hasn’t done it the other way around, but the US does have a history of adopting English shows with varying success (Skins, Shameless, The Office, Being Human, Life on Mars, trying to get Misfits etc.) of which - considering the fact that Elementary was at one point applying for a direct adaptation of Sherlock - this would potentially have been the most recent. This sort of overpowered the fact that Sherlock Holmes already has multiple adaptations. Add to that the timing, you have the reasons I was originally skeptical of it myself (and I think the same goes for quite a few people). I was also wary of how the dynamic might shift now that Watson was a woman, i.e. whether it would become a sexual relationship and whether she would be allowed to assert herself over Sherlock.

If you watch the show, or research into it properly - you don’t have to like it - you will see that none of this is really an issue. Hence why a lot of people’s justification for their dislike is “because they wear X so it’s copying” or simply “because”. If it’s not your cup of tea, that’s fine, but don’t hate on it for stupid reasons and don’t clog up the tags with your hate.

*hehe