One final go around for US TV’s modern take on Sherlock Holmes, with Jonny Lee Miller filling the detective’s shoes and Lucy Liu giving us a Watson who’s on something approaching an equal footing with our resident genius.
This seventh and final season was…well, it was a bit odd, wasn’t it? Things had been resolved to a certain degree at the end of season 6, and this extra go around required both that those consequences be addressed and that everything took on the shape and form that viewers had been enjoying for several years now. Which is not to say that what we got was bad as such, just that it feels like a tightrope of sorts is being walked, since the difficulties raised in season 6 seemed pretty inescapable, and yet must be escaped for season 7 to operate as expected.
Given the sheer volume of TV shows which never makes it this far and/or get unceremoniously cancelled without knowing the ending is coming, Elementary can consider itself lucky to have the chance to go out on its own terms without resorting to cheap, audience-baiting tricks (my favourite of these is a show which, cancelled at the end of its third or fourth season, simply had one of the main characters, out of nowhere, shot by a sniper just before the credits rolled…clearly hoping the fans would be in suspense and this would gain them another go around). And the overarching plots of this season is actually a very good one — I’ll not spoil it, nor shall I mention any names, since it’s fun watching the themes that it explores unfurl — and, perhaps given the reduced number of episodes, feels like it’s given an appropriate amount of space to breathe before being concluded. That, then, is what’s good.
What’s bad? Well, the final episode is…weird as hell, suddenly cramming in all manner of developments, giving one character a disease out of nowhere, and then finishing up with an ending that might as well freeze-frame over the smiling faces of the main cast for how asinine it feels. If that was the final plan for creator Robert Doherty I’ll be amazed, and as a final final finale it leaves an odd taste…one that almost has me hoping that the show gets picked up again in a few years just so that that isn’t the last we see of what have been wonderful characters I’ve enjoyed spending a lot of time with. I suppose that’s one way to bait a new series: end on a weird, inconsequential note that throws in about three seasons worth of content for no good reason and the fans will be ravening for literally anything else as a formal goodbye.
Anyway, it’s far from all bad; I’d recommend the following if you’re cherry-picking your way through.
‘Gutshot’ (7.2, o.b. 30th May 2019)
[Scr. Jason Tracey & Robert Doherty, Dir. Guy Ferland]
A deeply personal case starts out looking hopeless before some solid detection unearths a crime scene and throws in a new complication that sends everyone scrambling. After an enjoyable opening episode which nevertheless felt a little…off, this is a good return to what we’ve come to enjoy about the show to date: the presentation of a series of events without any apparent pattern, slowly unravelled so as to make crystal clear sense come the end. Some good emotional writing deals with the consequences which sent everyone reeling at the end of season 6, too, and it ends on a note of genuine peril…just be prepared for elements of the motive here to seem unaddressed, as they’re picked up a couple of episodes later so that this all begins to make sense retrospectively. An odd choice for a mystery-of-the-week show, but one that does eventually pay off even though it feels dissatisfying upon first watch.
‘Red Light, Green Light’ (7.4, o.b. 13th June 2019)
[Scr. Robert Hewitt Wolfe, Dir. Jonny Lee Miller]
One of the enjoyable elements of tropes in mystery fiction is when you’re caught out by something you totally should have seen coming; it happened to me here, and I’m willing to believe I’m not alone. A crash between a lorry and a van proves explosively fatal and sends us back into the gangland world via an old, er, friend of the series. Some of the detection leans a little into the conveniences that betoken Elementary‘s style sometimes — an omniscient hacking collective, the limitless reach of Sherlock’s father, etc. — but that misdirect caught me completely unaware, and the ‘real time’ capture of the malefactor is a very enjoyable touch. Plus, the lingering threads from episode 2 start to draw together, implying a larger, darker game behind events in this series in a way that the show has never quite managed before, and it’s…really good.
‘From Russia with Drugs’ (7.7, o.b. 4th July 2019)
[Scr. Sean Bennett, Dir. Michael Hekmat]
You have to hand it to the writers and runners of Elementary, they were very good at folding characters from previous episodes back into their schemes, even in minor roles such as here where other routes could have been chosen just as easily — the reappearance here of Lili Mirojnick’s Olga from season 4’s ‘Murder Ex Machina’ (4.9) being just another of the tiny pieces of verisimilitude that help this show feel so well-developed. Concerning the murder of a thief who only stole from drug dealers and has been found drugged on a pile of money he liberated from an unguarded house, this also develops through clever detection and patient building (Olga being the one leap necessary, hence so well-placed), and even contains a motive that’s pretty interesting (and well-motivated within the episode itself) once it all falls out. Sure, the criminals would surely have had time to remove the…thing…which puts Sherlock & co. onto them, but, meh, a mere quibble. Good jokes (“I’ll loan you my DVDs…”) and an interesting B-story, too — the full package.
‘Miss Understood’ (7.8, o.b. 11th July 2019)
[Scr. Bob Goodman, Dir. Michael Smith]
Another returning character, this time from the excellent earlier episode ‘Miss Taken’ (4.7), with Mina (Ally Ionnides) having served her jail time and now seeking Sherlock and Joan’s help in finding the person who shot her foster mother. The only problem? There’s no evidence that Mina was ever fostered by the victim and, given her history of lying and impersonation, it seems likely that some bigger game is at play here. The air of uncertainty surrounding Mina is well-played, with new developments throwing her into fresh light seemingly every five minutes, and the ol’ bait-and-switch at a key moment where it seems that all is finally becoming clear. For a show built on the complete trust between Holmes and Watson, it’s interesting to see some uncertainty at its core, and the motive and eventual resolution does that excellent Elementary thing of skewing into factors well within everyone’s sight and yet beyond the consideration of most people on a day-to-day basis.
‘The Latest Model’ (7.10, o.b. 25th July 2019)
[Scr. Robert Hewitt Wolfe, Dir. Ron Fortunato]
With our adversary now firmly established, this episode does pleasingly insightful work in making his raison de nemesis as compelling as possible. The best bad guys are the ones whose motives always seem just about on the verge of reasonable, and the sheer amount of work Sherlock does in this episode is clearly unsustainable on a larger scale as his point would seem to rely upon. The crime of the week is a little less well thought-out, but this is almost saved by the ending…which would have been even better if a revelation (that the suspicious viewer will…suspect) was given in this episode rather than the next one in order to reframe it. I sort of understand why it was done like this, with a week between episodes ample time to mull on what seem to be the consequences…but surely an earlier reveal would have hit harder.
~
Elementary recommendations on The Invisible Event:
The Invisible Event 
You picked excellent entries there. As you say, finales are hard and given just how good some of the cases of the week were, a fuller season or an 8th year was clearly doable. My recollection is that the order for the final 13 was several months later than normal so really did generate issues. I actually really enjoyed the last episode but it does feel like several episodes boiled into one as you say. I think the final few scenes between Holmes and Watson are great though – and so glad it never lost its sense of humour or jumped the shark. Is the sniper finale you mention the one starring a red-haired actor by chance? If it is, I know the one you mean …
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I think the choices were easier this tie around because the quality is a little lower than in previous seasons, plus there were fewer to choose from. But it’s been a great ride, and I remain grateful to you for getting me on this horse in the first place.
Who knows, maybe I’ll find time for Medium one of these days. Just not yet, I’m afraid.
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Whilst series 7 had an interesting plot arc, I thought the ending of series 6 was perfect. There was so much crammed into the final episode of series 7 that it just ended up being a bit silly.
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Especially perfect is Watson’s last line at the end of series 6. It almost feels a shame to continue the show after that.
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I’m sure there’s an internet theory that season 6’s perfect ending is the real end, and season 7 is, like, a fever dream or something. It really did seem to end on the right note: Holmes in his original habitat, Watson by his side… To return for this run is, frankly, a trifle underwhelming — and, yes, I’m aware of the difficulties behind the scenes, most of which means we’re lucky we got something even this good.
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Nah, I’m sure the internet theory would be a herion hallucination rather than a fever dream…
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Ha, can’t believe I missed that.
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Agreed; one more series to round this off more satisfactorily would be perfect…
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How would you compare the show to Jonathon Creek, Monk, and BBC’s Sherlock? (I liked the first, found the second okay but a bit too easy, and strongly disliked the third for being not fair play or solvable in a lot of episodes with outlandish deductions at times.)
I was wondering where on the spectrum this fell. Thanks.
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I know you weren’t asking me, but I’ll answer anyway. Love Jonathan Creek, especially the first few seasons. Never a fan of Monk. As for Sherlock, well, it was kind of a guilty pleasure–fun and outlandish, not to be taken seriously, and it WASN”T SHERLOCK HOLMES. Elementary feels true to the spirit of the Conan Doyle stories despite the change in venue, gender, and personalities, in a way that Sherlock does not.
Like the originals, Elementary generally involves some unusual situation that H&W have to explain (although the show format necessarily always involves murder and the official police). Also like the originals, Elementary is not usually fair play, but the fun is in watching how they pick it apart rather than in trying to beat them to the solution.
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The most vexing thing about the lack of fair play here is how close they nearly come on a few occasions, where it would have been wonderful to have the information and so potentially anticipate the solution. I get that it would be difficult to do week after week, especially with the way some of the plots develop, but knowing that the information was there there whole time would have been delightful.
Still, you can’t have everything…
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One problem is, I think, that you can’t just do fair play sometimes; if you’re going to do it, you have to commit to doing it all the time. Otherwise we’d be pissed off every time we get to the end of an episode and realize we spent it trying to solve a puzzle that we weren’t meant to solve. Elementary’s approach seemed to be to give us mysteries that weren’t strictly deducible, but were often guessable. So, whenever suspect #3’s alibi is presented or his motive is disproven, we get to guess at the final twist. For me, this worked well and was sustainable for 24 episodes per season.
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Yes, you make an excellent point — better to never expect it and so not be frustrated than to be on the lookout for fair play only to be vexed 20 weeks out of 24.
Good distinction between deduction and guessing, too. The plots develop at such a wonderful rate, the audience had no choice but to do the latter. And, as you say, that’s far easier to sustain (and feeds, dare I say it, more entertaining plot developments).
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I’ve watched the first three seasons of Monk, and think Elementary is the better show on that evidence. Monk is just so damn inconsistent, with its highs often exceptionally good — the episode where a man in a coma must be one one mailing bombs to people, say — but its lows more numerous and often quite low (the comedy of that series is often pretty first-base stuff, and I find that wearing).
Jonathan Creek is better as a fair play mystery show, and the ingenuity is easier to appreciate because the problems are to clearly outlined. You know what the problem is, the characters investigate it and find an ingenious solution. In Elementary half the fun is seeing the plot skew off in completely unexpected directions, which JC was not set up to try and do. And I’d say that Elementary maintained a higher standard with its approach, too: the last few seasons/episodes of JC — from ‘The Judas Tree’ onwards — are dire.
Sherlock was…wild. The Holmes/Watson dynamic at the heart of it is more obvious fun, and the later seasons leaned into the slightly bonkers setup. But it ended up a very different show to how it started — not a problem in my eyes, but those wanting a more traditional take on the characters are likely the ones most disappointed with where it ended up. Again, its highs are wonderful — the episode with the wedding in season 2 might be the best piece of plot construction done on British TV this century — and as a piece of imaginative fancy that updated the characters and flew with those conclusions I loved it, but the way it broaden won’t be for everyone.
I would attempt a ranking of the shows overall, but each has much to recommend it and each has its flaws (none of the season-long arcs in Elementary felt especially well-paced, for one — they just get forgotten about sometimes, and it’s weird). But hopefully that provides some comparisons to get you thinking 🙂
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This was an good season, but I do think that Season 6 was a much better send-off.
As for other mystery shows, I am very partial towards Murdoch Mysteries, which is somewhat fair-play from recollection.
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Not heard of Murdoch Mysteries, so thanks for that. Shall attempt to find out where they are and see if I can watch them.
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