ELEMENTARY has dropped on Hulu (was it there before and I hadn’t seen it?) and as I’m busted with COVID, I’m indulging. The pilot’s a masterclass, the show’s an A+ example of procedural writing, balancing the serialization and B plots.
Your occasional reminder that SHERLOCK was a hobby and ELEMENTARY was a proper piece of work. Also, that’s the amazing Zoë Keating as the incidental music, which I’d forgotten.
Have you seen the @hbomberguy.bsky.social video on Sherlock? It's almost 2 hours long and yet I've watched it numerous times (it got me to watch Elementary and I'm forever grateful).
I disagree. Sherlock turned into a bunch of plot lines that never paid off and random info dumped at the end. Elementary tries to drip feed you a little more info as Holmes finds it, so you can try and figure it out yourself. It has a logical line of how he found the answer (in most eps)
In both Sherlock and Doctor Who, I believe you can spot the exact moment when attempting to work on both shows simultaneously turned Moffat’s brain into suet.
I was so ready to hate ELEMENTARY when I first heard about it, but I was won over. The final episodes of season 1 are brilliant. (It's also the only action show I've seen where a character who gets knocked out a few times suffers ill-effects from it.)
They did that on Bones too, and turned what looked like a jokey stunt episode (having Stewie from the Family Guy as a guest character) have actual meaning.
Top to bottom, from structure of season to individual shows always advancing the world a bit, to the context revolving from place to place and face to face, and the cast was just right, from the core four to all the guests who threw heat across and through seasons.
(I just rewatched it fwiw)
I'm *very* sorry that you've got the Rona, hoping you have leeway for extended hardcore rest, and feeling casually vindicated to find that you are also an ELEMENTARY supremacist.
You don't know me from a fence post, and I'm sure you have Good Advice and caring people on your side, but juuuust in case, let me be a tiny voice encouraging "Rest as much as you can, even if your initial course feels like no big deal." One of the best defenses against long-term effects. Good luck!
(Or: LOL, artists and writers cannot catch a break, eh? "As much as you possibly can" represents RADICALLY different amounts of rest for different people, inevitably. I wish it were not so, and I'm glad you're feeling better.)
There was a weird SF spinoff from Elementary - Limitless the TV series which was full of all the kind of stuff they couldn't get away with on Elementary (including a tribute to Ferris Bueller's Day Off.) A show that was so much fun it could only last one season.
ELEMENTARY is running on Start network OTA two eps / day, 7 days / week. On the third repeat of all seasons now and we're still catching things we missed.
I have a lot more time for ELEMENTARY's interpretation of Holmes as overly sensitive theatre kid than for SHERLOCK's super-observant sociopath.
But ELEMENTARY has so much more than just the best interpretation of Holmes. The character arcs, both of the leads individually & their relationship!
I still find it funny that @roberthewittwolfe.bsky.social had to basically audition for the writing gig on his own show because the network wanted to make sure he knew the procedural formula.
I am glad this kind of show is seeing a resurgence. Need to put Elementary on my watch list as I never saw it originally. For my money, the top three procedurals that were excellent from start to finish are Leverage (tip of the hat), Burn Notice, and Monk.
I was actually watching the pilot of that a few years after it started, and I realized “I don’t know how to write this.” So I grabbed a pen and legal pad, restarted it, and then broke the first few episodes as I watched. It’s not my thing but it’s a wonderful piece of work.
I have never learned the craft of script writing to allow me to analyze something like this. I lack the mental constructs.
Excepting Story, are there any resources you can recommend to learn more about the abstractions of the craft? I’ve learned a lot of disciplines and it’s learning to see, for me
You know I can’t think of any procedural books of the top of my head. I didn’t have any either for what it’s worth, and I attacked screenwriting like I did my physics degree - notepads, colored pens, break down examples until I saw the patterns.
I don’t feel like I have it in me at this age to do what you describe. I feel like the guidebook that says “here’s how to see/look at this situation” or “what’s important is…”
I’m still watching movies and learning structure
There are certain shows where I want to see how it is they got an effect, a mood, etc. And why some things seem not to work.
I came late to writing and literature.
