Elementary: The Second Season

Perfect.

Spot checked DVD's, and they seem to be functional.

Perfect

I must also admit that although I grew up reading and enjoying all the Sherlock Holmes stories, I am usually disappointed by their TV and film adaptations. This series has been an exceptional stand out, and I highly recommend it for any Holmes fan. I picked up the DVD sets of Seasons One and Two.I do suggest you start with Season One before watching Season Two, so you can appreciate the progress of characters, relationships and sub-plots. Season One establishes the relationship between Holmes and Watson, how they come together, and the season ends with episodes involving Dr. Moriarty. Season Two explores their partnership and living compatibility, has an episode filmed in London to show Holmes' back story, and brings in Inspector Lestrade and much more with Holmes' brother Mycroft. I enjoy seeing how characters and plots from Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's original stories are being worked into the series.The modern treatment of Holmes and Watson - placing them in NYC, making Watson a female, showing Holmes as a recovering addict, having them work with the NYPD, etc. - is both creative and fresh while still being respectful of the original material. The essence of the characters and their relationships remains true but there's far more depth and background now. It also makes Holmes more believable in a modern day setting. I would imagine it difficult to come up with new story-lines each week for Holmes but there are no bad episodes in either season (I have yet to see season three, though it gets great reviews from fans).I think all the actors have been very well chosen for their roles and they complement each other very well. Holmes' character has so many quirky expressions and mannerisms that it's impossible to take your eyes off him. Essentially, each episode plays out like a crime drama but there's far more importance on the character development here, compared to other TV crime dramas. Also, in comparison to ANY other TV show I've EVER seen, Holmes (especially) has very long scenes of dialogue to deliver... it must be an especially demanding role simply for the memorization of lines, and I think Johnny Lee Miller (and Lucy Lui) deserve awards for this!Now that I've praised the show, I should explain why I've deducted one star from the season two DVD package. First, as others have mentioned, there are often times when Holmes dialogue is hard to hear. These are usually quiet scenes where he is conversing with Watson and while we can clearly hear her, his voice is a very quiet mumble/whisper. I don't believe this to be a problem with the DVD but a problem with how the show was filmed. I happens in several episodes and I do hope they correct this on future releases. Second, the menu on the last DVD in the set is finicky and does not always take me to the chosen episode. The other discs work fine. Thirdly, compared to DVD's of other TV series, this show is much more expensive, so wait for it to go on sale.

Jonny Lee Miller and Lucy Liu are great in this! I am a longtime Holmes fan. I read all of Arthur Conan Doyle's works when I was a kid and I've reread them several times since. I love Benedict Cumberbatch's rendition of a modern day Holmes and Martin Freeman's modern day Watson in BBC's Sherlock series. But I had never given Elementary a chance because I didn't think that a modern-day Holmes could be done any better than what the BBC Sherlock series has done. But I found that you really can't compare the two. They are both excellent! Jonny Lee Miller's version of Holmes is smart, sexy and funny. He doesn't find sex abhorrent and he has had his heart broken by a woman. Unheard of! Benedict cumberbatch's character almost went there with Irene Adler but not quite to this level of heartbreak marked by a descent into drug abuse. Jonny Lee Miller gives a pleasingly quirky and briIliant take. It's a much different take than what we're used to - the traditionally very cerebal and logical Holmes character who keeps regular people at bay. Miller's portrayal manages to balance all of that with showing Holmes' vulnerability at pivotal points. Lucy Liu is brilliant and beautiful as Watson. She emerged from being just Holmes's protege and sober companion in season 1 to being a great deductionist in her own right! I love it. And if you watch the series carefully ( this season and the ones after) you can see Asian and Amerasian actors appearing in greater numbers than I've ever seen them before in a series and I have to think that this has to be due to her influence. Bravo!

It's a terrific show. I Highly Recommend you try turning on the closed captioning (subtitles) if you struggle at all to understand what is happening. In season 2, the show continues to get better and better as the main characters become more and more 3 dimensional. Still, in the beginning of season 2, I began wondering if I was getting it. The thick English accent and the speed with which Holms delivers his words makes it challenging to keep up. Enter subtitles and the show has Really Come to Life!

I could repeat the review I wrote for Season 1, because what I wrote in that review also stands for Season 2. I can’t recall having ever seen Lucy Liu cast outside the Asian femme-fatale stereotype before, but now I have seen her talent as an actor as I have never seen it before. She takes the dullness out of Watson; lights a flame under him and propels him into orbit a second time.Whoever thought of the idea of Dr. Watson as a woman—a Chinese-American woman at that—was a genius. And we can’t blame Arthur Conan Doyle for not thinking of this, because in those days women were the property of men equal to a stove or a couch.In addition, Johnny Lee Miller plays a Sherlock Holmes so extreme and out-of- this-world that he jumps off the screen and into your imagination like crazy glue.Oh, one last thing, before I allowed myself the pleasure of watching Season 2, I watched Season 1 for the second time. I think that the script writers hit another home run out of the park.Will they do it again for Season 3? I'll be waiting to find out.

Despite the opening episode being set in London the second series of the brilliant Elementary is fairly and squarely based in the Big Apple with the episodic police procedural structure gradually morphing into a fascinating exploration of Sherlock’s psyche as we observe him adapting to his changing personal circumstances, struggling to establish and maintain worthwhile connections and not giving in to the desire of his addiction. The high level of writing continues to be as intricate as ever with the convoluted plotting and adept detective work, however as with television series of such quality it is the evolving relationships of the main characters which fascinate with the dynamic between Jonny Lee Miller’s Sherlock and Lucy Liu’s Joan Watson being particularly intriguing as the latter moves from being sober companion to apprentice, partner and friend. The appearance of Sean Pertwee’s Gareth Lestrade, Sherlock’s former partner in London gives us an interesting window into times past, but it is the complicated relationship with his brother Mycroft which gives the series an unexpected and rewarding depth and provides an insight into Sherlock’s bewildering and torturous persona. The series is definitely not insular and the occasional intrusions of the National Security Agency and the anonymous internet hacktivist collective known as ‘Everyone’ provide a wider perspective, while the final few episodes take the narrative in an unexpected direction. I am really looking forward to the next season.

How on earth do the Americans do it? This is unquestionably a better and more accurate interpretation of the spirit, if not the letter (London/New York, Watson male/female), of Conan Doyle’s works. Watching ‘Elementary’ feels like turning the pages of a Sherlock Holmes story for the very first time.Perhaps it’s this. Holmes, as originally written, is a complete outsider. He is almost an immigrant in his own native London. Likewise, Johnny Lee Miller’s Holmes. Aside from the obvious borderline Asperger’s difference, ‘Elementary’s’ Holmes is not only an addict immigrated into the clean and sober world of New York, but he is also a newly arrived Brit in America.It is his divorce from the rest of humanity that enables him to see it so clearly and objectively. The Brit recovering addict re-emerging, blinking into a sunlit United States so accurately reflects the apartness that Conan Doyle gave him in the original texts. Johnny Lee Miller nails it. Season 2 is surprisingly better than Season 1. Always a good sign of more great seasons to come.

Loved Season 1 already. But Season 2 really got me. Very elaborate and beautifully written dialogues. This Series shows that you don't need action sequences or shootouts to be riveting. What I love most is the focus on detail and the authenticity of the characters. In my opininion this is the first time that a highly gifted person is portrayed correctly with all positive and negative traits. I even based a talk on how to identify gifted people on "Elementary".And when I realised in the middle of Season 2 that Sherlock is suffering from an Anxiety Disorder I had to watch Season 1 again finding more and more clues I didn't see before and when you listen closely to some throwaway-lines you can even deduce that his father is responsible for that, leaving Sherlock with a complex childhood trauma. I know that you can watch "Elementary" as a "normal" crime series, but this "extra" is the reason why I love it so much.

This series has truly been a surprise package. While I had been pleasantly surprised by the first season due to its deft handling of the reinvented Holmes-Watson chemistry, and the stunning nature of Moriarty, this season stands out due to its humane touches. Yes, we veer further away from the canon. Yes, the futile attempts to sex-up Watson during the majority of the episodes appear pathetic. But, we also get to see one of the best procedurals, with all the twists and turns that affect the lives of those who try to keep others safe. Recommended.

This season is even better than season 1 (which itself was fantastic). The plots are elaborately designed and extremely clever. The season finale is not just "tying up loose ends" (which to some extent was the case with season 1) but an intelligent, interesting plot with twists and surprises until the very end.(The only thing to complain about, is that in a couple of episiodes it's actually quite easy at an early stage to guess who is the guilty one -- just by that person's awkward body language or some other "tell".)