Critical Approaches - Sherlock v Elementary

Sherlock V Elementary

Mystery Crime Drama

The Mystery Crime genre, just like all other genres abides by a specific set of codes and conventions. Characteristics such as a detective protagonists, an assistant, police, crime solving and of course a mystery.

The main protagonist of the Mystery Crime Genre is the detective character. He/she is often depicted as one step ahead of the police at all times who are usually represented as incompetent and unobservant. The detective is one of the best there is and solves crimes with ease, that is until they are confronted with a crime they cannot solve. A crime committed by someone who seems to be much smarter or harder to catch than the average criminal the detective has to deal with, this gives us our story. The plot will be about the chases between the detective and the criminal. There will usually be a red herring suspect about halfway through an episode who throws the protagonists off the trail of the criminal temporarily, possibly making the search for the real antagonist more urgent later in the episode. The criminal will seem to be one step ahead of our protagonists up until the last minute when the detective finds a way to defeat them.

Character representation

In the beginning of Sherlock we meet John Watson an ex doctor and soldier in the British army who was discharged on account of injury. He is finding it hard to adjust to his new life in London after serving in the military for such a long time, making him bored, depressed and causing him to develop a psychosomatic limp. John Watson stars out as a clearly a downtrodden character in the beginning of the series, A soldier with no war to fight. Until by chance he meets our other protagonist Sherlock.  This meeting is exactly what John needs. Each case that Sherlock takes on becomes another battle to fight for John. Soon after he moves in with and begins working with Sherlock his limp and his depression begins to disappear quickly.
Sherlock Holmes is a “Consulting detective”, a genius who thrives off the thrill of a mystery he cannot explain and so he will solve crimes for the police for free. He describes himself as a “high functioning sociopath”, he has very little understanding of human nature and is incredibly detached from the people around him. John becomes his more human counterpart during their detective work together. Over time Sherlock actually appears to begin to care about John, contradictory to his sociopathic nature and even kills a man to save John and his marriage.

In Elementary the first character we meet Joan Watson who has been employed to be the “companion” of Sherlock by his father. Joan was previously a surgeon who quit her job because of a botched surgery that caused a death of a patient that she still feels guilty for. She found a new career in rehabilitating drug addicts. Over time She becomes so interested in Sherlock and his detective work that she quits her job as a sober companion and joins him as a full time companion.
The Sherlock Holmes of Elementary is a consulting detective who is also a drug addict during his time in London caused by the death of Irene Adler. His drug problems became so out of control that he was forced to leave London and enter a rehabilitation program in New York. Joan was assigned to him because of this.  He is not the most likeable character. As well as battling his drug problems he also is somewhat obnoxious, and has temper problems.

The protagonists from Elementary and Sherlock are not typical good guys. They never waver from the side of good, but they are all seriously flawed characters. John Watson is obsessed with the war he once fought and misses it and Sherlock is a sociopath that cares very little for the people around him.
Joan Watson lost her job because of a mistake she made and now works in a job that she hates. Sherlock is brash and bad tempered and suffers from a drug problem.

Narrative Structure

In the first episode of Sherlock a lot of time is taken to develop the protagonists of the tv show before the actual mystery is introduced to the watchers. We meet John Watson first and learn about him and his life, then we are introduced to Sherlock’s life and the two become one life. Then we are introduced to the mystery of the dead women in pink. The two of them work together to slowly uncover the mystery before it comes to its climax. They writers can make the show this way because each episode can span up to over an hour making all of this very easy to fit in. Sherlock is a flexi narrative series, because each episode has its own story, but each story contributes to an overarching plot. We can tell this because each case throughout the series was devised by one main antagonist, Moriarty and his name is introduced in the end of the first episode when Sherlock interrogates the murderer.

The narrative of Elementary goes much less in depth in regards of character development, likely due to its much shorter 40 minute run time. The case is introduced to the audience the moment the show begins then we are very quickly introduced to Joan and Sherlock very little time is taken to explore their backstories and soon after their meeting they are confronted with the same case and get to work trying to solve it. The show does have time for the occasional development in their relationship but not much time is taken on it.

In conclusion both Elementary and Sherlock are almost textbook examples of the Mystery Crime genre. This is likely because they are both derived from the original texts that essentially created the genre. But, both shows refuse to abide to the archetype of the perfect hero, each of our protagonists are deeply flawed and the shows both focus greatly on that.