is sherlock holmes now redundant?

lechat

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Ferisar said:
I think what you're experiencing are the effects of a bad depiction of Sherlock Holmes, not the redundancy of the Conan Doyle's character.

Aka, watch Sherlock.
i have and to be fair it is of a much higher quality than elementary is but that does not change the fact that sherlock is not needed in a world of forensic science, computers and competent police officers

TrulyBritish said:
I don't think you could ever claim Holmes is redundant due to the rise in these crime dramas. For one thing Holmes stories are never really focused on the "real-life" aspect of crime so they fill different niches.
Secondly, claiming Holmes is redundant due to these is like claiming Tolkein is redundant due to all the fantasy stories we have now. Sure it's got a lot of the same tropes and ideas, but that's because everyones being saying "Hey look, that guy made a successful story about an eccentric genius detective that annoys his police friends, let's do that too!"
Of course I'm being pretty simplistic.
i think you missed the point. that would be relevant if i had said "there is no need for CSI new york because we already have CSI miami, CSI, NCIS, SVU ETC.ETC" (did i say that? cause if not im totally saying it now) i do not mean that sherlock holmes is played out i just do not see how he can fit into the modern world, i mean seriously, put him on NCIS and what is he? abbie's whacky sidekick for one episode?
 

MeChaNiZ3D

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Well he is redundant in the modern age. That's not where he is set though, is it? That's like saying swordfights are redundant because we have guns now. That's all well and good, but when the characters don't have guns, a good swordfight is perfectly good.

And that said, Sherlock Holmes-esque characters are aplenty in crime series. There tends to be someone who extrapolates more than the others and sees if the evidence matches, if that isn't what the entire team is doing, and often it'll be that they simply had the wrong scenario and they find it went differently as evidence comes to light.
 

Yopaz

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Angie7F said:
NCIS ans CIS and stuff are science based.
Nooooooooooooooope. CSI is actually much closer to science fiction with little actual science involved.


OT: No, he's not redundant. Sure we got crime scene forensics and investigation procedures in a lot of TV shows now, but there are still shows that are based on the intelligence of the investigator in combination with the technology.

Then there are shows like The Mentalist where the evidence helps, but i's often misleading or not enough where the point of it is about manipulation and intuition. There's Psych which relies a little more on the evidence than The Mentalist, but is also based on intuition based crime fighting.

Now I'm not that much of a fan of Sherlock Holmes, but I am a fan of that kind of mystery novels. It has been the origin of a different area of the genre than what is explored in CSI where it doesn't try to feign realism (which frankly CSI does a miserable job with) and rather have the unrealistic intelligence of the protagonist.

It should also be noted that Sherlock and both the Sherlock Holmes movies have gained some popularity.
 

viranimus

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Actually I think it is the other way around.

There has been so many attempts to repackage Sherlock through history (Batman, House, Thousands of other incarnations such as those cited) that we had been through a rather long drought of the original artifact. This recent resurgance of Holmes is just in an odd and unexpected position of accidental temporary over saturation.
 

New Troll

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CSI (and somewhat NCIS) is more about the evidence, not deductive reasoning. If anything, I would classify Elementary more along the lines of a Mentalist-clone. But where the Mentalist goes in wild directions to get a confession, Sherlock (character) goes to not-so-obvious places to find missing clues. I was VERY skeptical of the show Elementary, especially since Sherlock (BBC) is one of the greatest shows of all time (in my opinion) and I'm a fan of mystery-drama shows, but so far I have to say it's not bad. I'd rate it somewhere between Castle and Person of Interest.
 

King Billi

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Dryk said:
King Billi said:
I don't think Sherlock Holmes can really be equated to modern american cop shows?
You haven't seen Elementary have you? The entire premise seems to be "Let's make a modern American cop show, but with a British guy called Sherlock Holmes!" :p
Really? Hmm... I was kinda hoping that it might have at least kept the style and tone of "Sherlock" just with an American setting.

Oh well.
 

dmase

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I've watched a couple episodes of elementary and I have to say I don't like it that much. But that might be because I saw the british show sherlock before watching elementary. Watch Sherlock, that is what a modern day holmes would be.

Also having watched a lot of CSI and Law&Order there is still no lone intellectual superiority seen in Holmes and occasionally Watson.
 

New Troll

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lechat said:
i think you missed the point. that would be relevant if i had said "there is no need for CSI new york because we already have CSI miami, CSI, NCIS, SVU ETC.ETC" (did i say that? cause if not im totally saying it now) i do not mean that sherlock holmes is played out i just do not see how he can fit into the modern world, i mean seriously, put him on NCIS and what is he? abbie's whacky sidekick for one episode?
Well you could say that about anyone. Put Gilligan on the 3 Stooges and he's not really all that important, but give him his own show in his own environment and you have his own unique comedy. Abbey could just as easily be a whacky sidekick in an episode of Elementary.

As for the incompetence of law enforcement, the TV is saturated with those shows and it's really the only way to make a series. Otherwise every episode would just be someone else making the discovery that finishes the story. There's really got to be a protagonist to keep the show involving. It's only part mystery story, other part their drama. Not only is it how will Sherlock solve this mystery, but also will he fall of the bandwagon, or interact with Joan Watson differently, or introduce some new tidbit of his lost love, or explain more about his estranged father, or...
 

IronMit

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Johny_X2 said:
wait Elementary? What?

Were American audiences just unable to identify with the British cast of Sherlock? Or what reason would there be to make essentially the same thing again but - from what I've seen - less good?

sigh.

Go watch Sherlock. It's quite a unique take on the genre and feels very different to most modern detective TV shows. If anything, it shows how the character of Holmes is still very much relevant even today.
This.

I don't like current crime/detective shows (they follow the same boring american safe formulae...kind of like how all FPS need regenerating health) but BBC's Sherlock shows how this genre within a genre is still relevant and entertaining today.

The first 'crime' show worth watching since Colombo
 

Elementary - Dear Watson

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Johny_X2 said:
wait Elementary? What?

Were American audiences just unable to identify with the British cast of Sherlock? Or what reason would there be to make essentially the same thing again but - from what I've seen - less good?

sigh.

Go watch Sherlock. It's quite a unique take on the genre and feels very different to most modern detective TV shows. If anything, it shows how the character of Holmes is still very much relevant even today.
I think it was more that the US couldn't accept the worlds most famous bromance... so had to make Watson (the best ex-army officer in fiction... suck on that Sharpe!) female... The worlds most suckiest move since watching Hitler brainwash a few nations worth of Central Europeans!
 

IronMit

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Elementary - Dear Watson said:
I think it was more that the US couldn't accept the worlds most famous bromance... so had to make Watson (the best ex-army officer in fiction... suck on that Sharpe!) female... The worlds most suckiest move since watching Hitler brainwash a few nations worth of Central Europeans!
lol. reminds me of Plinketts review of the JJ abrams first star trek movie;

They had to establish every single character was straight in any way possible.
 

Ed130 The Vanguard

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I prefer my murder mysteries to be about deduction and reasoning. With those you at least have a chance yourself to figure out the case rather than "science, more science, absurd science, big twist, gunfight to catch killer" that seem to be the only thing that the acronym series can do.
 

omega 616

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lechat said:
Sherlock is Batman without the BS.

He solves crimes using detective skills and nothing else, with csi and all the others they slowly hone in on the "perp" and you're constantly guessing who it is.

Sherlock doesn't slowly reveal who it is, they leave you in the dark till the very end when he then stuff like "the small brown smudge on his trousers was the same colour as the mud in Mrs. Pennyworths flower bed" and you see how all the little clues comes together.

Yeah, IRL a Sherlock isn't really needed requires too much hard work and time. Just swab everything and use a computer to do the work.

I haven't seen elementary 'cos casting Watson as an Asian woman is criminal, artistic license be damned. Nothing against Asians or women but if Watson has always been a white guy why are you changing it to an Asian woman?
 

TrulyBritish

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lechat said:
TrulyBritish said:
I don't think you could ever claim Holmes is redundant due to the rise in these crime dramas. For one thing Holmes stories are never really focused on the "real-life" aspect of crime so they fill different niches.
Secondly, claiming Holmes is redundant due to these is like claiming Tolkein is redundant due to all the fantasy stories we have now. Sure it's got a lot of the same tropes and ideas, but that's because everyones being saying "Hey look, that guy made a successful story about an eccentric genius detective that annoys his police friends, let's do that too!"
Of course I'm being pretty simplistic.
i think you missed the point. that would be relevant if i had said "there is no need for CSI new york because we already have CSI miami, CSI, NCIS, SVU ETC.ETC" (did i say that? cause if not im totally saying it now) i do not mean that sherlock holmes is played out i just do not see how he can fit into the modern world, i mean seriously, put him on NCIS and what is he? abbie's whacky sidekick for one episode?
Having never really watched NCIS I can't really say for sure.
However, I do think that BBC's Sherlock is a great example of how Holmes works. All the police have access to forensics, none of them (even Anderson) are actually incompetent (and having read the books, I'm not sure if there were any actually incompetent police officers in that) and yet still Holmes is largely the only the person capable of solving the crime without resorting to a magic camera able to see the reflection on a screw on a license plate (although some of the solutions in the books are a bit daft. Yes, I'm talking about you The Adventure of the Lion's Mane). Holmes was less about knowledge and simply scientific aptitude, but the use of knowledge in independent deductive reasoning.
Certainly I'd argue that Holmes is not redundant in a modern setting, but merely less important as there is a greater knowledge of forensics. And I would still hold that if newer crime dramas are taking on 'Holmesian' attitude on how to recover evidence then it's still a testament to Holmes. For example, is Abbie able to spot all those pieces of evidence because she was trained that way by whomever in the training department, or because that's simply her character? Is she just Holmes' ideals in female form?
 

Furbyz

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Sherlock Holmes will be relevant until someone decides to put Robo-Watson in live action. At that point, I feel I can say that the series has played itself out.


For those who were either too young or too old, yes this was a thing.
 

Karma168

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Johny_X2 said:
wait Elementary? What?

Were American audiences just unable to identify with the British cast of Sherlock? Or what reason would there be to make essentially the same thing again but - from what I've seen - less good?
It's endemic to American imports of foreign media - it has to be Americanised because audiences won't watch foreign shows (according to networks). One of the writers of Futurama moved to the UK to do a kids show (forget the name) and he mentioned that he also pitched it to an American network, who demanded a dub. Now I understand dubbing something like Pokemon since it's not in English but redubbing for an accent change?

It's a strange fear American tv execs have that Americans just won't like anything that's made elsewhere (which is ironic considering the amount of shows that are filmed in Canada), is set outside the US or has a non-American cast. That's why you often see shows being remade (badly) when they cross the Atlantic (the Office being the best example of a shite remake).

I'm just glad they'll never get to Americanise Doctor Who; partly because the BBC will never let anyone else near it and can you imagine how awful an American Doctor Who would be? The style is uniquely British, American tv is just too different to pull it off correctly.
 

Entitled

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It's a different genre.

The decetive mystery genre has it's own unrealistic rules, construction, conclusion, and audience appeal, compared to character-driven police procedurals.
 
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Having watched over half of Elementary's episodes and enjoyed them, and been bored senseless after only a few minutes of *random* CSI, I'll go with no. The character is much more enjoyable to watch than technology and jargon.

There's the odd deductive stretch I find a little difficult to swallow, but for the most part, both "Elementary" and the British "Sherlock" are great shows.

Anyone who enjoys Murder-Mysteries may get something from Death In Paradise. I've thoroughly enjoyed the first two series and am looking forward to a third.
 

Not Lord Atkin

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lechat said:
i have and to be fair it is of a much higher quality than elementary is but that does not change the fact that sherlock is not needed in a world of forensic science, computers and competent police officers
no. the fundamental flaw with that logic is assuming that everyone besides Holmes in his world is incompetent. In fact it's Holmes being more competent than anyone else which perhaps makes them look bad in comparison but doesn't make them actually incompetent.

Honestly, I doubt that any reasonably competent police officer would be able to pull off feats that Holmes does just by looking at things.

When it comes to Holmes, the main hook was always his exceptional intelligence and observational skills. These were always amazing on their own merit, without the need to tone everyone else's brain function down to make Holmes look good.
As such, some of the most interesting bits in books and movies were when Holmes would point out a connection or piece of evidence that had been eluding everyone up to that point and would, in fact, be left unnoticed by any kind of competent police investigator. He would also have this routine in the books when he would make their new clients feel uncomfortable by telling them a piece of very personal information about themselves by, say, looking at the scratches on the chain of their pocket watch (I'm making this one up but you get the idea).