Lucy Liu is Dr Watson...

[Vertigo]

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbi...osite-Jonny-Lee-Miller.html?ito=feeds-newsxml



Sorry but I think I'll stick to the Steven Moffat BBC version!

 

[Interference]

Oh, good grief!

"Robert Doherty ..... the creator, known for his work on Star Trek Voyager and Tru Calling, is making Holmes’ best friend female...."

Well, with credentials like that, it will undoubtedly be faithful and respectful to the original idea. The show should run and run

Ideas-wise, they've missed the boat - there is nothing they can do that will bear up favourably to comparison with Sherlock and I am truly dubious that American audiences will take to it at all unless they turn it into a sit-com or a CSI-style forensics programme. What in the world are they thinking of?

The only way I can think of that they will succeed with this blatant band-waggoning is if they abandon all connection with Doyle and make their Holmes an amnesiac time-traveller (revealed in Season Four after many enigmatic "flash-backs").

 

[Ursa major]

Now the fair sex really is Watson's department as Lucy Liu will play Sherlock Holmes' sidekick... as a woman

It could be worse: Lucy Liu could be playing Dr Watson... as a man.

 

[thaddeus6th]

This just seems a bit silly to me.

They've missed the boat, then relocated Holmes to America, now they've given Watson a sex-change. Presumably Holmes will be addicted to coffee and play the saxophone to unwind.

 

[AnyaKimlin]

I'll wait and see. Lucy Liu does quirky really well and might just pull it off. If she hadn't been in Ally MacBeal it would've been a definite eww

 

[Interference]

Watson doesn't have to be quirky, Anya. Some of the best took the role seriously *grump*

 

[AnyaKimlin]

Watson doesn't have to be quirky, Anya. Some of the best took the role seriously *grump*

He doesn't have to be but if she is more quirky and Sherlock is less so it might work quite well. I'm not saying it is a good thing, just reserving judgement. Personally I'd have loved to see Peter MacNicol in the role but he doesn't seem to have ever been in the running.

 

[The Ace]

Why is there never a tragic studio fire when you need one ?

 

[paranoid marvin]

It's not the first time a character has changed sex in a 're-imagining' (Starbuck in BSG for example). Does it really matter?

I'll watch out for it , and it'll either be good or it won't. When Basil Rathbone played the role I considered it definitive (albeit in a contemporary setting). Then Brett Holmes comes along and proves the definitive period deerstalker-wearing sleuth. And then the recent Beeb series proves that (at times) Sherlock can be brought into the modern era of mobiles and laptops and still be enjoyable.

Personally I didn't think the recent films were great (although much better than they could have been) and the US just doesn't seem to 'get' British drama (Men In Tights was far more convincing than Costner's Hood). So I don't hold out much hope, but judging by some recent US series (Game of Thrones, Boardwalk Empire, and The Walking Dead), there is hope.

 

[Dave]

I've nothing against re-interpretations of classics, and Holmes in New York with a female Watson would sound interesting usually. It is just that there has been so much Sherlock re-interpretation recently that I'm beginning to tire of it. Surely, there must be another series of books that is also out of copyright?

 

[Interference]

I'm not saying it is a good thing, just reserving judgement.

And that's where I have to acknowledge your superior thoughtfulness and integrity. Personally, I've already judged the series and they haven't even shown any yet

You know, they could have just made a detective series and not bothered trying to hang the Holmes tag around its neck and possibly would have got away with it. Instead, they're inviting complaining letters from hoards of purists who will watch it religiously just to nit-pick and lots and lots of bad press and adverse pre-publici- Hold on.....

I think I'm beginning to get a handle on how the Hollywood TV exec's mind works.....

 

[Ursa major]

I think I'm beginning to get a handle on how the Hollywood TV exec's mind works.....

So you'll have noticed that their thought processes generate a lot of cents.

 

[AnyaKimlin]

I would kind of like to see a Cagney and Lacey version of Holmes and Watson. I wondered if they wanted to avoid the homosexuality references rather than wanted to be politically correct and have a woman.

I do like Lucy Liu though - most of that is because I loved Ally MacBeal and Ling was such a fun character. Part of me can envisage this one working.

 

[Ursa major]

Well, Holmes and Watson presumably use still the same bathroom, so that's something on which to build.

 

[AnyaKimlin]

Well, Holmes and Watson presumably use still the same bathroom, so that's something on which to build.

Didn't watch Ally Macbeal lol ? They had unisex toilets in that Although they were very male and female in personalities there wasn't huge segregation between the sexes in it.

Ally MacBeal - The Unisex Bathroom

My slight reservation is I think Lucy Liu would actually have made a better Holmes - her character in Ally MacBeal is very similar to the Steven Moffat interpretation. (maybe that is why I am kind of seeing this), but I struggle see her playing second fiddle. She'd probably have made an exceptional Moriarty (an improvement on the UK one).

 

[Ursa major]

The existence of the unisex bathroom is the only thing I've ever known about that show.


(Well, that other actress inadvertantly making her face look like a duck's was in the news, I suppose, but that wasn't necessarily show-related.)

 

[Interference]

....but I struggle see her playing second fiddle.

As we know, Holmes played fiddle quite well

But you've actually hit on something that might have made me more interested in seeing this "version". Casting Holmes as a woman would have been seriously intriguing.

I also wondered if the male-female dynamic might have been a focus-group decision to steer them clear of the tired old sexual-orientation theme. Unfortunately I imagine that two or three seasons of will-they, won't-they will be the alternative we have to face instead, which is, for me, even more tedious and unexciting than are-they-or-aren't-they - which is a dull enough preoccupation.

 

[Ursa major]

Regarding the 'will they, won't they'.... Presumably, in the last episode, they'll explain why they didn't: because of their sexual orientations.

 

[Interference]

Regarding the 'will they, won't they'.... Presumably, in the last episode, they'll explain why they didn't: because of their sexual orientations.

Though I thought only Lucy Liu had genes from that part of the world.

 

[AnyaKimlin]

I agree with that and that is my gripe with this casting - not that Watson is a woman, but the woman they cast would've made a fantastic Holmes. Conan Doyle's Sherlock was so completely asexual and kind of transcended gender that I actually don't think it matters if he his played by a man or a woman.