Elementary vs. Sherlock, Or, Why I Disagree With Most of the Internet

(tl;dr — because I am contrary!)

CBS’s Elementary and the BBC’s Sherlock are the most well known current television updates of the Sherlock Holmes stories. Both follow the adventures of the Great Detective and his bff, Watson, transposed into the 21st century, with a healthy helping of original plot and characters.

Judging by relative prevalence of mentions on the Internet, there seems to be a consensus that Sherlock is by far the better show. It’s classy! It’s British! It’s witty! It stars Benedict Cumberbatch and Martin Freeman, and fandom agrees they’re both hotttTTT on their own and also would be super-cute as a couple!

Cumberbatch, Freeman, and their supporting cast do a fantastic job, and I’m not going to harsh on the joy their fans get.

But for me, Elementary is the number one Sherlock Holmes show out there, and here’s why.

What? But Elementary has worse production values and plotting!!!

It… kind of does. Sherlock is visually slick, with nifty stylistic tricks that let viewers share the Great Detective’s eagle eyes and Google-like knowledge. Its episodes span ninety minutes, allowing the writers to develop a complicated plot with convincing red herrings — no “obviously that guy’s the villain because he’s the only guest star in this episode” or “well, we’re only at the second commercial break, so the person in prison can’t be the real culprit.”

Sherlock boasts witty dialogue and clever jokes; Elementary has its bon mots but far fewer compulsively quotable lines. Sherlock has never made me go “… actually, that’s not the way that real-life thing works at all.” Elementary is apparently set in a world that has significantly different science and mathematics than our own.

So why would I prefer the latter to the former?

Well…

Sherlock makes me angry.

Every. Single. Time.

Don’t mistake this for me disliking the show or the characters; many of my favourite stories make me angry. I love Sherlock Holmes, House M. D., the Chronicles of Narnia, Star Trek, and the Harry Potter series, but… because I do love them so much, each of their weaknesses stings that much more. I don’t like it when they exclude types of people who I think belong in stories or perpetuate unconsidered stereotypes that I find tired and insulting.

Sherlock‘s white male characters are pretty awesome. Any character who doesn’t meet these two criteria sucks.

Y’all know what I think of Irene Adler. OC Molly Hooper, Mrs. Hudson, and Watson’s girlfriends/fiancée/wife are all painfully two-dimensional in stereotypical-female ways. They are the vehicles for running jokes that I find cringe-worthy , perfect partners who are stronger Johnlock shippers than even the fans, or cardboard cut-outs who help motivate the men to do stuff. Every main character is white (and if you are immediately pointing out the single very minor exception, the fact that this description identifies the character in question only proves my point).

Like, for goodness’ sake, Luther shows the BBC can do it.

Elementary has its problems: women are always running into plot trouble because of their feeeeeelings. A bisexual person having had romantic relationships with both men and women is such a Mind! Blowing! Plot! Twist that we’re supposed to be shocked when it’s the key to the mystery.  Some important characters seem to be white and male only because those are Western entertainment’s default settings.

But Elementary tries. It casts women — fantastic actresses, some of whom happen to be women of colour and some of whom happen to be trans women — in key roles that are canonically male (and also canonically not American or from the 21st century or…) — and it doesn’t make a big deal out of their gender, race, sexuality, etc..

In Elementary, there are room for other perspectives, not only that of white, male Sherlock. And those perspectives are equally valid. Sherlock doesn’t take quite the same tack.

That’s because, at their hearts, these are shows about two completely different things.

Sherlock is about wish fulfillment. Elementary is about how being smart doesn’t change the universal requirement to be a decent human being.

Who wouldn’t want to be Benedict Cumberbatch’s Sherlock Holmes? He’s brilliant. He’s powerful. He never, ever has to be weak — even his most vulnerable moments are artificially strengthened by post-defeat revelation that actually, he totally had everything under control. He planned to fake his own death! He knew all along how to defuse the bomb! All those times you thought he was down? He actually was still smarter and better than everyone else!

And he never, ever has to make a real personal sacrifice to keep the relationships that are so important to him. No one forces him to stop being a dick or tells him to quit his terrible behaviour. All he has to do is act with minimal decency — calling his friend a “friend,” saying a nice thing during an otherwise inappropriate wedding speech, or not repeating a rude and offensive comment once he realizes the other person’s mad at him — and everyone reacts like he’s the biggest sweetheart they ever met.

Wait, is anyone questioning his secret heart? Let’s bring back Mycroft, who’s not only a jerk but — worse sin! — a prissy jerk to make Sherlock look good by comparison.

Being the BBC’s Sherlock is a ton of fun. Being Elementary‘s is painful.

Jonny Lee Miller’s Sherlock messed up pretty bad. He had a real* drug problem that sent him on a downward spiral, to the point where he made mistakes solving cases. He turned to drugs in part because he let himself love someone in a vulnerable way, and failing her was more than he could take.

But that doesn’t excuse him from treating other people like human beings. Through Watson’s eyes, we see the truth: everybody feels really bad sometimes for reasons just as good as Sherlock’s. Human beings love, and love hurts. Sherlock doesn’t get to be special because he’s Sherlock Holmes; he still owes it to his colleagues and friends to be a decent human being.

Lucy Liu’s Watson calls Sherlock out on his hijinks. She’s an adult who understands that keeping a tortoise in a desk drawer, treating sex like an unremarkable physical need such as hunger, or breeding bees on the roof are personal eccentricities that can be dismissed with an eye-roll; serious matters require timely and direct communication.

No, it’s not OK to stalk your friend, even if you’re doing it from a place of love — your good intentions don’t trump her discomfort and right to privacy. No, no matter how much it inconveniences you, your friends deserve to put their own emotional needs before yours — even if them setting the boundaries they require makes you feel really sad.**

Elementary may be silly and sometimes (OK, often) poorly plotted, but it’s about Sherlock Holmes learning to co-exist, not about Sherlock Holmes winning against others. And that subversiveness brings me back more compulsively than cheekbones and snappy repartee.

* That is, one we’re supposed to understand as significant and serious rather than strictly verisimilitudinous.

** And if she were in Sherlock, she’d probably add “No, if you leave a wedding early because you can’t find a dance partner for the first dance after trying only a few people, that is a choice that you could have made differently, not an indication that you’re tragically fated to be alone in life.”