Sherlock and Elementary may have the same premise, but the shows are different enough that fans of Arthur Conan Doyle’s character will watch both without worrying about comparisons. CBS Elementary premiered in 2012, two years after the BBC Sherlock debuted. Between the Robert Downey Jr.-led Sherlock films and the BBC show, Sherlock Holmes was experiencing a resurgence in popularity in the early 2010s that made an American show almost inevitable. Still, given that Elementary it would also be about a contemporary version of the character, Comparisons between the CBS show and Benedict Cumberbatch’s quickly dominated the conversation.
Jonny Lee Miller played a very different contemporary Sherlock Holmes to Benedict Cumberbatch, and that was just one of the many differences between the CBS procedural and the BBC show. However, considering that Elementary left when Sherlock was at its peak – both in terms of popularity and quality – the American show was often unfairly compared to the British. Elementary wasn’t trying to hit the same notes as Sherlockand that’s why watching both series provides very different experiences.
Elementary’s procedural formula makes it completely different from Sherlock
Elementary had over 20 murders for Sherlock to solve per season
While both Sherlock and Elementary saw Holmes working on a different case in each episode, the structure of the CBS show couldn’t have been more different from that of the BBC. As an American network television series Elementary it usually had 24 episodes per season. It lasted seven seasons and concluded its run with 154 episodes. from the BBC SherlockNow, there were 12 episodes in total and one special. Another big difference was the length of said episodes – each Sherlock episode was 90 minutes long, while ElementaryThe episodes were 44 minutes long.
|
Show |
First Episode |
Final Episode |
Rotten Tomatoes critic score |
Rotten Tomatoes audience score |
|---|---|---|---|---|
|
Sherlock |
July 25, 2010 |
January 25, 2017 |
78% |
83% |
|
Elementary |
September 27, 2012 |
August 15, 2019 |
95% |
89% |
Elementary it was a more traditional procedural, the structure of which wasn’t much different from most American crime shows, the only problem was that Sherlock Holmes was now involved. Elementary included all the tropes you would expect from a CSI or Law and Order episodebut it never felt too generic thanks to the character Sherlock Holmes. This was a different approach to the BBC Sherlockwhere each episode felt like a chapter in a larger story. The BBC cases Sherlock appeared larger and more interconnected than those in Elementary.
Elementary and Sherlock are not really similar (despite having the same premise)
Sherlock and Elementary share little beyond their main character
It’s easy to compare Sherlock and Elementary as they share the same premise – a contemporary version of the Sherlock Holmes mythos. However, there are so many differences between the programs that it is arguably unfair to compare them. Sherlock had a unique charm that would be impossible to replicate in a series with 24 episodes per seasonlike this ElementaryThe week’s hundreds of cases offered something you would never get on the BBC programme.
When Elementary was announced, there was some controversy surrounding the CBS series’ similarities to the BBC series Sherlock which almost evolved into a legal battle. In 2012, Sherlock producer Sue Vertue revealed that CBS approached them about remaking the British show, which didn’t happen (via The Independent). To The Hollywood ReporterCBS explained that Elementary it would be based on Sherlock Holmes and related characters, not the BBC show. Interestingly, Elementary survived Sherlockwith the first ending two years after the second.
Source: The Independent, The Hollywood Reporter.