Arrow and Elementary
Nov. 16th, 2012 04:34 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
daibhidcSo I've now watched four episodes of each of these, and while I tried to go in without any expectations, I have to say I'm liking Elementaty more than I expected and Arrow a bit less.
My basic problem with Arrow is simple: Quentin's right, the guy's a murderer. I'm not totally opposed to the idea of killer vigilantes, although they'll never be my favourite characters, but it's a weird fit for Green Arrow, who may have killed occasionally, but generally only when he had to, and famously went to a monastary to atone the first time it happened. (Then again, I didn't read the Grell series, where I understand things were different.)
And to make it worse, his killing is somewhere between arbitary and completely backwards. He'll wipe out a crooked businessman's bodyguards, who probably don't even know their boss is a crook, but the man has to be given a chance to atone, and if he doesn't take it is left for the police. How does that make any sense? I'm not insisting on boxing-glove arrows, but maybe blunt "impact" arrows that have the same effect?
And are they planning on doing anything interesting with Laurel, or is she just going to be the Lois Lane? And Silver Age Lois at that?
Enough negativity, Elementary is something else entirely. It's also something else entirely from Sherlock, which is a nice surprise. And unlike Arrow which appears to be making a lot of decisions based on Not Being Justin Hartley's Green Arrow, Elementary does this by just doing what works for it, rather than defining itself against something.
The characters are brilliantly realised (Miller's Holmes is instantly distinguishable from Cumberbatch's, but equally valid as a development of the original character), the tone is deftly set, and it manages to differentiate itself from Sherlock simply by not being retellings of Doyle's stories. (Well. Ish. The second episode seemed to be riffing a bit on The Sign of the Four, but not that much.)
And a possible in-joke so subtle that even after spotting it I'm not sure it's really there (a far cry from Arrow naming EVERY SINGLE MINOR CHARACTER after a random DCU person or a comic book creator involved in Green Arrow) - is Detective Bell named after Dr Joseph?
My basic problem with Arrow is simple: Quentin's right, the guy's a murderer. I'm not totally opposed to the idea of killer vigilantes, although they'll never be my favourite characters, but it's a weird fit for Green Arrow, who may have killed occasionally, but generally only when he had to, and famously went to a monastary to atone the first time it happened. (Then again, I didn't read the Grell series, where I understand things were different.)
And to make it worse, his killing is somewhere between arbitary and completely backwards. He'll wipe out a crooked businessman's bodyguards, who probably don't even know their boss is a crook, but the man has to be given a chance to atone, and if he doesn't take it is left for the police. How does that make any sense? I'm not insisting on boxing-glove arrows, but maybe blunt "impact" arrows that have the same effect?
And are they planning on doing anything interesting with Laurel, or is she just going to be the Lois Lane? And Silver Age Lois at that?
Enough negativity, Elementary is something else entirely. It's also something else entirely from Sherlock, which is a nice surprise. And unlike Arrow which appears to be making a lot of decisions based on Not Being Justin Hartley's Green Arrow, Elementary does this by just doing what works for it, rather than defining itself against something.
The characters are brilliantly realised (Miller's Holmes is instantly distinguishable from Cumberbatch's, but equally valid as a development of the original character), the tone is deftly set, and it manages to differentiate itself from Sherlock simply by not being retellings of Doyle's stories. (Well. Ish. The second episode seemed to be riffing a bit on The Sign of the Four, but not that much.)
And a possible in-joke so subtle that even after spotting it I'm not sure it's really there (a far cry from Arrow naming EVERY SINGLE MINOR CHARACTER after a random DCU person or a comic book creator involved in Green Arrow) - is Detective Bell named after Dr Joseph?
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no subject
Date: 2012-11-16 05:50 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-11-16 11:43 pm (UTC)The second episode seemed to be riffing a bit on The Sign of the Four, but not that much.
Not enough for me to pick up on it.
- is Detective Bell named after Dr Joseph?
Now that you've asked, I can't doubt it.
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Date: 2012-11-16 11:46 pm (UTC)My response to the first episode was to tweet that the Doyle Holmes canon was rather Elementary's grandparent, and Monk was its parent; and that when Sherlock arrived at the crime scene he seemed about to examine it through his hands.
It hasn't been that bad since then though.