Elementary Will Explore Sherlock Holmes' Addictive Personality

The two modern-day Sherlock Holmes are buddies. Discussing the new series Elementary today at the TCA (Television Critics Association) press tour, Elementary star Jonny Lee Miller was asked about Sherlock star Benedict Cumberbatch, with whom he’s worked before.

Said Miller, “I love the work that Benedict has done with Sherlock. I would call him up like a groupie after every episode had come out.” He said they had a “private discussion” after Miller took the role on Elementary and noted, “I’ve been able to reassure him about how different this script was,” adding he felt for that those differences would be apparent for everyone rather quickly, including the fact that it’s “another country and a whole other vibe.”

Sherlock's executive producer, Steven Moffat has said (including to IGN) that he had some preliminary discussions about adapting his series for CBS that never came to fruition. But asked about that today, CBS president Nina Tassler stressed that Elementary was an idea pitched to them by executive producer Rob Doherty (not one suggested to him by CBS) and that while Sherlock is "wonderful," “I think there’s plenty of room for another Holmes in our world.”

Elementary takes place in New York -- where Holmes has relocated from London, following a descent into drug addiction -- and Doherty said the idea of putting Sherlock in New York (suggested by fellow EP Carl Beverly) instantly intrigued him. Doherty said he also asked himself the question going in, “What have I not been seen from the source material?” The answer he felt was really exploring Sherlock’s drug use -- referenced in the Arthur Conan Doyle books -- which had been mentioned once or twice in other adaptations, but “never really dictated plot.” The other thing that Doherty responded to in the books was an underlying theme of Sherlock having bad relationships with women, who he never quite seemed comfortable with.

A big connection to both of those elements is Elementary’s version of Watson, here reinvented as a woman (played by Lucy Liu) who meets Holmes when she is assigned to be his sober companion, as he leaves rehab. Doherty and Liu both said they liked the idea of Holmes and Watson being put in this forced dynamic that Holmes might have some innate discomfort with, using that as a springboard to show how their friendship develops.

Doherty has previously stated, at Comic-Con, that he wants to keep this a friendship, avoiding a romantic, “Will they or won’t they?” dynamic and stressed today that Holmes and Watson are colleagues and partners and that “it shouldn’t matter” that Watson is a woman. But he also acknowledged, “People are going to wonder. But wondering and asking questions is something you really want your audience to want to do.”

Liu said her Watson was “just as unstable but not as obvious” as Holmes and was looking to “distract from her problems with his problems,” while being drawn to “his oddities and his inability to be as stable as most people would like to be.” Liu also hinted at “a nice undercurrent about how she was a surgeon and lost her license” and said that dark past would slowly be unraveled as the series continued.

Doherty said that while Sherlock’s managed to beat his drug addictions when the show began, his overall addictive personality is a key aspect of the series. “Our Sherlock is a puzzle solver. You might call it an addiction.”

Speaking about the continuing popularity of Sherlock Holmes, Doherty said Arthur Conan Doyle seemed to almost be a century ahead of his time, coming up with a character and paradigm that works and can be transplanted to, “the past, present, future, comics and books.”

Asked by one journalist how you avoid turning things into “Encyclopedia Brown,” Doherty acknowledged that it was difficult coming up with compelling cases for Holmes and Watson to solve each episode, particularly given how smart and observant Sherlock is. “It’s hard. It’s really hard, but it’s not a good reason to not try to do it.” Doherty added that he had confidence in his writing staff, remarking, “I think we’re on a good track. I don’t think we’re anywhere near Encyclopedia Brown!”

Doherty’s big announcement at the top of the panel was that Sherlock’s arch nemesis Moriarty would indeed be a part of Elementary, as would Sherlock’s father.

Asked if he could discuss his take on Moriarty, Doherty said, “We want to keep all our secrets,” but added, “I feel it’s important to be true to the spirit of the character."

"There’s a little more wiggle room [with Moriarty],” Doherty said, who noted he was such a shadowy figure in many of the books - the producer recalled a line about him being something akin to “the spider at the center of the web of crime.” The source material involved agents of Moriarty and the idea that he always had his “finger in the pie,” and Doherty remarked, “We may be able to make some use of that. There’s a few dominos we can knock over before we get to that.”

Elementary premieres September 27th on CBS.