Shark Puppet

Welcome to another edition of Channel Chaser! Few characters in television have received more attention in recent years than one of the most iconic super-sleuths of all time: Sherlock Holmes. Following the wildly successful revival films starring Robert Downey Jr. and Jude Law, a host of other shows have sprung up around Sherlock characters: most notably, the BBC’s Sherlock and CBS’s Elementary.

I suppose it’s only fair to start with Sherlock, seeing as it came first. After initially being put off by the first episode and refusing to watch more, once I gave Sherlock a chance I had to admit that it was a well-crafted show…for the most part. As much as I dearly love Steven Moffat for his work on Doctor Who and think he has great skill as a writer, the same problems with his technique are present in some parts of Sherlock.

Moffat excels at constructing impossible situations it seems his characters will never escape from, but when it comes to endings he occasionally drops the ball, resorting to using conveniences and deus-ex-machinas to resolve the plot. And let’s honest here: is there really any greater deus-ex-machina than Sherlock Holmes’s intellect in this show? While I understand that Sherlock is supposed to be a man unlike any other, his deductive prowess and observational skills are pretty much superhuman, raising the bar to near ludicrous levels.

On the other hand, the acting and casting in Sherlock is superb; Benedict Cumberbatch really makes you believe that he’s a high-functioning sociopath, and Martin Freeman brilliantly portrays the faithful but long-suffering Watson. I especially love how the minor characters like Mycroft Holmes, Irene Adler and Jim Moriarty are just as good, if not better than, the main cast, making the show extremely fun to watch. I just wish they had more to do, especially Watson. Freeman’s acting talent seems to be wasted a lot of the time as he is clearly not on Sherlock’s level and is confined to menial duties in investigations. This makes him a good foil to Sherlock in terms of personality, but not in action.

Sherlock is also much more faithful to the original Conon Doyle literature, as all the episodes are nearly word-for-word remakes of existing Holmes tales, minus a few modern-day updates. Elementary, meanwhile, is much more like a typical police procedural, plus a few Sherlock Holmes elements. The crimes described in the show, while they obviously take place in a different setting (New York versus London) are also relatively mundane in comparison to the elaborate plots devised by the bad guys in Sherlock. While they may not be as compelling, I think this makes the stories in Elementary slightly more interesting and original, in that the writers are essentially detailing real-world situations and thinking about how Sherlock Holmes would react to them. This pushes Holmes farther outside of his “comfort zone” and expands more on what his general character might be like if he were a real person.

Elementary does partially suffer from an overall weaker cast. Supporting characters like Thomas Gregson, Gareth Lestrade and Mycroft Holmes are dry, one-dimensional, and not overall very interesting. Even Irene Adler/Jamie Moriarty (yes, they are the same in this show, and yes, Moriarty is a woman) is potentially a very interesting character that just hasn’t had the chance to shine. I say this hopefully, but the fact is she just hasn’t wowed me yet. In Sherlock, when Jim Moriarty entered the scene, he inevitably stole it with his unbelievable charisma; and although Natalie Dormer is undoubtedly a great actress judging by her performances in Game of Thrones, she has yet to steal my attention as successfully.

I find the lead actors in Elementary are much more interesting. Although I was initially skeptical, Lucy Liu’s Joan Watson is sharp, sensitive, and keeps enough of a healthy dose of skepticism to keep Sherlock Holmes’ eccentricities in check while still being a much more active and helpful companion than her male British counterpart. Liu’s Watson even seems to be taking on the role of Sherlock’s apprentice, almost an intellectual equal to the great detective, something I don’t ever see Freeman’s Watson doing.

While I’m sure personal tastes will differ from person to person, I in many ways prefer Johnny Lee Miller’s version of Sherlock Holmes in Elementary to Cumberbatch. While Miller’s Holmes retains all the social ineptitude and genius of his British counterpart, his intellect is toned down a bit–let’s say to just genius rather than superhuman. He is also a far more emotionally open character, showing on multiple occasions that he has human flaws and really does care about the people he works with. I understand what Cumberbatch and Moffat are trying to do with Sherlock in the British series, but there is a limit to my tolerance of Sherlock’s arrogance; from the awful way he treats others much of the time, he seems meant to be an essentially unlikeable character.

The closest comparison I can draw with Miller’s Sherlock is the Doctor from Doctor Who. While he obviously has a good heart and is opposed to violence in almost all cases (something Cumberbatch seems to have no problem with, by the way), he can be self-absorbed, tactless and vain, needing some kind of “companion” to keep him balanced and away from his self-destructive tendencies. Lucy Liu’s Watson appears to be merely the latest in a long line of such companions, including Lestrade, who warns her that people who get to close to Sherlock, much like the Doctor, have tragic endings. Also, when Sherlock is roused to anger, he does so in such a dangerously calm and menacing way that it is infinitely more terrifying to me than Cumberbatch’s relatively simplistic and loud outbursts.

In the end, while Elementary appeals more to me personally than Sherlock does, I can certainly see the merits of both and must admit that both are spectacular shows. I honestly can’t wait to see what the future has in store for Sherlocks of all stripes.

Welcome back to this week’s edition of Channel Chaser! So maybe it’s just me, but I think that so far I’ve been pretty charitable in my reviews of TV shows, and I’ve tried to point my readers toward shows I think they might enjoy. Well, it’s time to change that. This week, I’ll be talking about a program that you should probably avoid, but that happens to be a guilty pleasure of mine. Okay, a very, very guilty pleasure. Let’s talk about Steven Spielberg’s epic alien apocalypse, TNT’s Falling Skies.

Depending on whether you watch it or not, I’m sure many of you are probably wondering in varying degrees, “What’s wrong with Falling Skies?” A fair question, and I’m here to tell you that there’s plenty to talk about. First of all, the historical metaphors: Falling Skies is, for all intents and purposes, a modern-day retelling of the American Revolution–well, plus alien invaders and big freakin’ space guns. And the show seems to get a little too excited in shoving the symbolism down the viewer’s throat.

The main character of the show, Tom Mason, is a history professor-turned-freedom fighter in the post-invasion world specializing in–guess what–the American Revolution. The alien bad guys, casted in the role of the British oppressors, are frequently trying to crush the human rebels of the “2^nd Massachusetts” regiment, another obvious effort to draw the historical parallel.

The unfortunate truth is that the Revolutionary metaphor isn’t even that strong to begin with; after all, fighting a controlling foreign power was only one small part of why the Revolutionary War took place. The producers of the show conveniently overlook the need to establish more support for this overarching theme other than “We’re the Resistance, and we’re the good guys.”

I’m actually kind of annoyed by the flagrantly patriotic and preachy tone the show takes sometimes when the characters talk about the need to fight back, and Falling Skies seems almost intentionally to avoid any outside influence on the story–meaning, from countries other than the U.S. You would think that in three seasons of a story that saw aliens invading the entire Earth, someone would have at least once mentioned another world nation, but if you did, you’d be wrong. Maybe this will change in the upcoming fourth season, but I’m not hopeful.

The show also commits the unforgivable sin of casting great actors in mediocre roles. Noah Wyle, the show’s star and by all accounts a capable actor, is probably the only exception to this rule; his character, Tom Mason, is probably the only truly dynamic person in the show and the only one I can really find it in myself to care about. He has a very believable arc from his first introduction as a mild-mannered academic used to sitting on the sidelines to a battle-hardened and cynical leader who sometimes lets his emotions get too much control over him.

The other characters I’m a lot less crazy about. Veteran star Terry O’Quinn gets introduced at the end of season two as Arthur Manchester, the power-hungry and paranoid president of the New United States with close personal ties to Tom, but his role is relegated to about three episodes when it could and should have been developed for at least a season or so. Moon Bloodgood, who plays Tom’s love interest Dr. Anne Glass, is pretty one-dimensional and bland, as are Tom’s band of kids.

Familiar TV face Colin Cunningham should be interesting as John Pope–a former convict and anarchist who serves as Tom’s personal nemesis–but his character frustratingly rejects multiple chances to prove he has even an ounce of decency. Maybe this is on purpose, but regardless, it really ticks me off. Even Karen Nadler, who was transformed into a mediator for the alien overlords in an attempt to put a human face on the invaders, is an incredibly cheesy villain who might as well twirl a mustache, shake a fist and yell, “I’ll get you next time, Tom Mason!” What is this, the 1950s?

Finally, the truth is that while Falling Skies tries to be edgy and suspenseful, the so-called “plot twists” are generic sci-fi fare that seasoned viewers can see coming from a mile away. Who knew that the Skitters were humans transformed by the Harnesses? Actually, I did. The Volm betraying their would-be human allies? Saw that coming. Weird baby with alien DNA? Totally called it. You get the idea.

The one positive thing I can say about Falling Skies is the great special effects. Then again, it’s a Spielberg series with a huge budget, so it had better at least have that. Although I seem to recall another big money series that was hailed for its revolutionary visuals–anyone else remember Fox’s dinosaur blockbuster Terra Nova? Oh, right; that was a terrible show, too. Oops.

My rating: 2/5

The logic behind Falling Skies seems to be that if you wow the audience with CGI, they’ll manage to forget that fact that the story is about as dry as the Sahara Desert. I really, really want to like this show more than I do, but I just can’t. The wooden acting, predictable plotlines and problematic symbolism all combine to make a program that’s trying way too hard to be a hit to be good. That being said, I will almost certainly keep watching Falling Skies just because I want to see what they do with the sci-fi elements. One can only hope that maybe they’ll find it in their massive budget to hire a real writer at some point.