Elementary, 1x02 "While You Were Sleeping"

At the beginning of Elementary's second episode Joan Watson has dragged Sherlock Holmes to a session of a drug abuse support group but instead of listening to his 'comrades' Sherlock repeats a mantra over and over inside of his head. He does so in order to avoid feeding his brain with unnecessary information since the human mind is an attic one has to take care of and keep tidy to maintain splendid mental achievements. Filling the brain with useless knowledge, its finiteness is stodged to that extent that it cannot absorb any new and probably more important information unless one decides to delete any prior memories. At least that is how Sherlock's brain works. Shortly, he is called by Gregson to assist in a case that does not seem to be that difficult to solve at first glimpse but turns out to set a series of murder with peculiar circumstances rolling, committed by a apparently comatose woman. After finding out about the woman's twin sister, Sherlock reaches an impasse as the sisters prove to not be monozygotic twins, however, the motive for murder is connected to an inheritance dispute that arose after the twins' wealthy and well-known father had died and children who were begotten in several love affairs are now to benefit from the dead father's heritage. A hint that is spotted by the detective in a second support group session serves the correct solution of the case and proves that it can be useful to Sherlock to occasionally listen to others and make room for seemingly unnecessary information in his brain attic. As in the previous episode, Sherlock shows off his skills in deduction and raises suspicion in Gregson's assisting officer Bell who is convinced by the detective's abilities in the end and shakes hands with him as a sign of a well-functioning collaboration in the future.

Elementary, 1x01 "Pilot"

The pilot episode of Elementary serves as an introduction to a brand new adaptation of Arthur Conan Doyle's detective icon Sherlock Holmes. The setting changed radically in that the plot is set in New York instead of London what is comprehensible since the production company CBS Production Studios is American as well. Sherlock Holmes, played by Jonny Lee Miller, has suffered from drug-related problems and has come to New York in order to check into a rehabilitation centre before he escapes on his very last day of rehab and moves into one of his father's barely furnished flats in Brooklyn. On that very day, Dr Joan Watson, a former surgeon who has lost her profession due to a patient's death, starts her work as Holmes's sober companion, hired by his father, and has to be his flatmate for the next six weeks. In London, Sherlock has worked as consulting detective for Scotland Yard and now he wants to continue his profession by assisting the NYPD in their cases, either by receiving phone calls or spying on the police radio, accompanied by Watson who he introduces to Captain Toby Gregson as his valet. By using his distinctive and some kind of weird method of investigation, modern technologies such as his smartphone with an additional lense for high-resolution photos and the help and advices of Joan Watson, Holmes solves the promiscuous case of murder of the wife of an psychologist. That crime is so interwoven that even brilliant Sherlock has difficulties to decode the mystery, gets on the wrong track judging from the false clues the true murder has constructed in order to not get caught and, finally, Watson finds the most important detail that leads to the solution.

We as viewers are introduced to the series as witnesses of the crime that is being investigated in the pilot episode of Elementary. Everything is set in slow motion, we see that a red-haired woman is being attacked by a masked man when suddenly the camera becomes shaky and the action rushes while we follow the burglar right behind his steps, chasing the woman to her bedroom where she desperately tries to reach something we cannot see because of our limited perspective. So the viewer is sucked into the plot right from the beginning and does not have any choice to keep his or her distance to the crime that is happening right in front of him or her. In the end it almost seems that we even change positions with the culprit but when the scene reaches its climate the introduction is cut and comes abruptly to an end what leaves us viewers stunned in our chairs, maybe even disturbed.

You can find my detailed analysis of Sherlock Holmes and Joan Watson's characters underneath the cut. Feel free to give me some feedback or do some corrections as well as additions to my analysis. : )

Abstract: Bachelor thesis

Topic: The re-imagination of Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes in a contemporary context on the basis of the TV series “Sherlock” and “Elementary”

When it comes to detective fiction, most people immediately think of Sherlock Holmes, created by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. He is characterised as an adventurous genius whose greatest interest lies in the science of crime. Therefore, he does several experiments isolated in his chamber in 221B Baker Street, London, or at the medical laboratories of Barts University, consumes drugs and is accompanied by his flatmate Dr John Watson, who writes down Holmes’ adventures in a journal. However, this classical image of the famous “consulting detective” is depicted slightly differently in two recent TV adaptations called “Sherlock”, created in 2010 by the British Broadcast Corporation (BBC), and “Elementary”, created in 2012 by CBS in the USA. Both shows are set in modern times, one in London and the other in New York, and through putting Sherlock Holmes into the present he is able to use modern technologies as well as cases become more complex. Apart from that, the characters’ psychoses are emphasised to a great extent as they become apparent to the spectators from the first episode onwards. In both series, Sherlock is a high-functioning sociopath with neuroses, who clashes with the people around him because of his social incapability. In “Sherlock”, John Watson suffers from depression as an aftermath of his military service in Afghanistan where he practised as an army doctor, while Joan Watson, the female companion in “Elementary”, gave up her profession as a surgeon because of a medical malpractice that caused her patient’s death during a surgery. Above all, James Moriarty, who appears in “Sherlock” as the antagonist and is said to appear in “Elementary” simply as M., is clearly categorised as a psychopath since he commits crimes and murders out of boredom and wants to challenge Sherlock, thus, he even plays with human lives and tortures his victims just to enjoy himself.

But why do the creators put such an emphasis on the characters’ psychoses, which cannot be found in Doyle’s stories, at least not to such an extent, and what do they aim for by doing so? Do modern times require a certain amount of psychological issues and edgy characters in order to satisfy today’s audience? And if so, what is the fascination of sociopaths and psychopaths that appear so often as protagonists and/or antagonists in TV series nowadays?

In my Bachelor thesis, I want to cope with those questions and deal with the approach of detective and crime fiction as well as the classical image of the Victorian Sherlock Holmes in contrast to his re-imagination in contemporary media, in this case television, but also with the medical discourse of sociopaths and psychopaths as the protagonists in both TV series show features of said mental disorders. Another psychological point of research I want to look at is the meaning of social relationships to Sherlock Holmes. While Doyle’s original does not have any need for deep social interactions despite with his companion Dr Watson, although this relationship can hardly be categorised as a deep friendship by contemporary means, “Sherlock” and “Elementary” show that Holmes fancies to not work all alone on his cases and befriends Watson, even becomes somehow dependent of his flatmate, but also socialises with Lestrade, Mrs Hudson and Molly Hooper in “Sherlock” as well as with Gregson and Bell in “Elementary”.