Well, well, well. CBS have given the go ahead to a modern version of Sherlock called Elementary. Hmm.

CBS GREEN LIGHTS ELEMENTARY, MODERNIZED SHERLOCK HOLMES SERIES BASED IN NEW YORK CITY

see post #2222


im also not sure its going to set in modern times or not, based on the DHD article it seems like its going to be set later in Sherlocks life, when apparently he moves to New York, with a modern tone to the writing and storylines.

I am sure that all Sherlock Holmes fans are familiar with his time spent in NY.

Is not the RDJ Sherlock Holmes, a modern take on the story in its own way?

How did the repeats tank when H&A usually got less than that at 1.15pm?

I can't see the Lloyd Webber show airing that soon. ITV will have BGT in the Spring and I can't see them running two talent shows in one night. Sundays are a possibility I suppose but it wouldn't be clashing with The Voice there anyway. I think it'll be on in the Summer though as apparently the producer auditions aren't until next month, so I doubt they'll get it turned around that quickly. I'm still not completely sold on the idea but Lloyd Webber's previous shows have done OK and let's face it, can't do any worse than Popstar To Operastar and especially Born To Shine did last Summer!


It'll be crap, mark my words. Seems a bit pointless doing it when it almost certainly won't come anywhere close to the quality of the BBC's version just now.

well to be fair CBS is not making this for a UK audience, its making it for a US audience, one who may not have seen Sherlock.

That said it will most likely be dreadful, but it will be dreadful on its own, without being compared to Sherlock

BBC Sherlock is already popular in the US - 6.5 million for its PBS showing for the first series.

I suspect this US version won't do too well, it'll basically be Sherlock in New York - and EVERYTHING you expect it to be like it will be like. And anyone worrying about 'copying' as Moff says 'we'll be watching'

In other news, Merlin had a big rise on Syfy on Friday, rising 0.2 in 18-49 to 0.6 and 1.7million.
Quite a big increase on an already higher rating than previous series.

didnt know that many people watched it in the USA, that is giving the networks a run for there money/viewers, no wonder they want there own version.

To be fair the networks (and even cable) would like more than 6 episodes in two years.


has Moffatt said anything about this yet? Has someone tweeted it to him?

It was sighted as a projected a while back. Fortunatly I was right with the watching quote, so a search of his tweets came up with this:

https://twitter.com/#!/steven_moffat...07980164005889

Hmmm, will Sherlock's success on PBS hurt Elementary? It's not as though it's a UK show which has no airing whatsoever in the US.

Just to stress CBS have ordered a pilot. It'll likely be one of at least 10 drama pilots they order over the next few weeks and may never see the light of day given that only 2 or 3 of those shows are likely to be picked up. People are getting way ahead of themselves.


Benefiting from a stronger lead in from Smackdown it would seem which posted increases this week as well.

Thanks! That's fantastic!
And hilarious too, because in comparison, the new episode of Supernatural had 1.55m viewers on the same night... on the CW.

The CW are regularly beaten by cable.

ABC Family's Pretty Little Liars and Secret Life of the American Teenager for example regular deliver a ratings beat down on Gossip Girl.

I agree tbh. I wonder if DJ had ideas of the show being another hit in his latter acting years with several series and inevitable calls for Christmas specials. Had he been the new Clouseau thats certainly what would have happened.
Instead its bombed, and the high profile nature of the build up has made that fall a merciless bandwagon that everyone has jumped on to poke fun at it.
I think as a kid I would have been quite sold on TRB and even now I dont think its a dead loss, but clearly its not carried the adult audience and as such the post watershed scheduling sticks out like the sorest of thumbs. All rather sad really.
I enjoyed The One, loved the milion million million sketch and some of the others. But with that kind of rating it does beg the question as to whether there will ever be a true pre watershed hit sketch show again.

this is true, and I dont judge the US networks on what they pilot, only what makes it on-air. However some awful pilots go to series, look at shows like "Work It " on ABC or H8r on the CW, every season there is 2 or 3 shows that should never have gone past the pilot stage that get a series.

You could also have The Playboy Club on NBC, Free Agents on NBC, and Prime Suspect should never have been on a network yet alone NBC. Also Charlies Angels should never have happened at ABC.

I agree. The post-watershed scheduling continues to be incredibly baffling because when you watch The Royal Bodyguard it is abundantly clear that it was written (and presumably commissioned) with a much earlier slot in mind. I don't know that the earlier slot would have changed the shows long term fate but I suspect at least it wouldn't have been quite this embarrassing for all concerned airing at 7:30 where it would at least have stood a chance of capturing some younger/family viewers. In general I think its a shame that sitcoms (and in fact comedy in general) are now almost universally pushed to post-watershed slots.


The problem with The One... is that its tied far too closely to the appeal (or lack thereof) of older comics who, if we're honest, haven't exactly left that much of an enduring legacy or left audiences clamouring for more. I just don't think there were many people who spent time wondering where Jasper Carrot was and why he's not on television any more and Lenny Henry's general lack of success in everything as of late should have confirmed the same was true for him. It worked with The One Ronnie because Ronnie Corbett is still fondly remembered and it felt like a bit of an event (due in part to being broadcast on Christmas Day). I think a hit sketch show pre-watershed is possible but at the same time I suspect it would have to be something that starts away from BBC1 on either BBC2 or 3 and grows an audience before eventually finding a home on BBC1.

In fact generally speaking the BBC might want to take note of the fact that Outnumbered is really the only comedy (at least the only one I can remember) they've had in recent times that has managed to find an audience on prime time BBC1 (and even then I still think the BBC stuck with that more for the critical praise than anything else). Miranda built an audience on BBC2 and Mrs Brown's Boys built an audience in that late night slot. Everything else they've tried has just floundered and usually been awful.

Although now I've written that Come Fly With Me springs to mind but that had some fairly exceptional circumstances helping it out and its not entirely clear if the BBC is ever actually going to get a second series of it at this point.

Undeniably the US networks take a lot of truly awful shows to series.

Work It in particular was an inexplicable pick-up. It wasn't popular with test audiences, very few people within ABC liked it and advertisers absolutely hated it at the up fronts. Why, exactly, Paul Lee decided to ignore all that remains a complete mystery but its not the greatest sign of things to come at ABC that his 'gut' led him to think it was going to be a hit. In general though you can usually look at most of the shows in development and ultimately the ones that get picked up and see why a network has picked them up.

H8R was mauled by critics and not many people saw it but when you look at the general premise you can see why The CW thought it was a good idea and why they thought people would watch. To be honest with you I think their mistake with H8R was to make it a weekly series. I think as an occasional special it has a lot of potential. It would need a title that doesn't make me want to punch the screen as well I suppose.

There are very few shows that networks pick-up and you think 'why the hell are they doing that!'. Work It was one and to a lesser extent Glee was one a couple of years ago although you could see the logic in that it just looked like a disaster waiting to happen. It really cannot be overstated how wrong a lot of people were about Glee.

I wont lie when I heard about H8R, I thought it would be dreadful but yes the title did influence that opinion. I dont recall my opinion about Glee, but yeah I can see why some people may well have written it off quickly.

Even a show like Pan Am, which is currently all but axed you can see why it went to series, even if its struggled to find its identity.

Elementary, you can understand why it has a pilot, but I cant see it going to series, and if it does I dont see it being very good.

As for Work It, having just viewed the trailer, im not sure who its more offensive to. Who was watching Prison Break and thinking "what I really want to see is Sucre in a derss?"

It seems to be one of those films BBC1 likes to trot out whenever the need arises, like ITV1 with Wimbledon, Tomorrow Never Dies, About a Boy and Bridget Jones Diary.


Unless by some remarkable quirk of fate it actually ends up a groundbreaking, entertaining, classy piece of must see television - which I doubt massively - I think you'll find I won't be changing my tune. Even if it gets 10m a week, if it's shite - it's shite.

I remember being sceptical as musical TV shows rarely work but it proved me wrong, however i do wonder whether it can beat the fourth season curse that seem to affect promising shows like Ugly Betty and OC. Ryan Murphy seems to have gone back on having new kids in season 4.

Even CBS who have a good track record get it wrong sometimes, it's the nature of the business. FOX IMO has been the risk taker despite having a few dud years where they had the likes of Joe Millionaire and When Animals Attack with shows like American Idol, 24 and even House.

I remember thinking 24 would never work in a 2nd series, and well I was wrong its actually done rather well.

Watching the final Sherlock this evening, I found myself wondering whether we will see any more Jonathan Creek at some point?

There's an obvious overlap between the two shows, and I hope the Beeb don't think "let's not bother with Creek as we've got Sherlock now". It seems unlikely that Sherlock will return until well into 2013, and even in the delayed Easter slot for the last Creek special, it got 6.5m against the last ever Touch of Frost. The previous year, it got 9.9m on New Year's Day.

It's not, to my knowledge, been officially axed. So why isn't Cohen on the phone begging David Renwick to write another one?

Or begging David Renwick to write anything, frankly! I don't think Steven Moffat is the only writer around able to knock out sexy, thought-provoking, classy mainstream drama...

Yeah when you watch Work It you are struck by an overpowering feeling that it was designed to offend as many people as possible in a 30 minute timeslot. It is jaw dropping that it made it to pilot let alone to series.

I think it would be a mistake for CBS to pick-up Elementary to series. Inevitably critics would savage it in comparison to Sherlock and its unlikely it would be able to tap into the pace and style of Guy Ritchie's films on a weekly basis so it would get slaughtered on that front to. It just seems like the market is somewhat saturated with Sherlock Holmes at the moment. Just for reference sake if I remember rightly I think The CW has a modern day Sherlock drama in contention last year although I don't remember if that went to pilot or not. If memory serves the concept was that a young man believed he was the reincarnation of or descendent of Sherlock Holmes or something.


The fourth season of Glee continues to look like a complete mess. Absolutely no one involved with the show seems to have any idea where its going but yet they all continue to talk about it. I suspect the primary problem is that Ryan Murphy had expected Fox to just instantly green light to series a Glee spin-off but for various reasons they didn't so what they were originally planning has fallen apart. My understanding is that they'd told most of the cast who would have been cut at the end of this season that they'd still have jobs come next year and now they don't want to go back on that. Its all very messy.

But anyway...

Fox have taken quite a few risks over the years. 24 was seen as a huge risk at the time although with hindsight it does look like the most obvious hit in the world but a real time serialised action thriller aimed at men left a lot of people waiting for disaster. Especially after 9/11 when it was assumed the country wouldn't have an appetite for a drama set against the back drop of terrorism. And then as Charnham mentioned they had the same mountain to climb with season two. And lets not forget they ran with The Simpsons.

Its kind of interesting to look at the fates of some of the shows that were written off during in development as having no chance and compare it to some of the 'sure fire hits' that have been picked up over the years. Its a crazy track record.

Think Alan Davies and Renwick were unhappy that they had to take a paycut in order for the special to go ahead, wouldnt mind seeing another Jonathan Creek special.

Renwick also has a habit of taking ages to do projects, I really liked Love Soup but the second series didn't work nearly as well as the first.

to be fiar there was a half successful TV series staring a young Tom Hanks, which is a similar idea.

Bosom Buddies


come back Elementary all is forgiven. Sherlock on The CW is almost unthinkable, I can at least picture how a CBS version of Sherlock might go,

Also there has been a US version of Sherlock Holmes before

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sherloc...4_TV_series%29

Yeah I was going to say that I thought one of the main reasons we didn't see more Jonathan Creek was because it took David Renwick forever to write them. Although depending on how quickly they can actually manage to do turn around on series 3 of Sherlock it might not be a bad idea to have a Jonathan Creek special or two up their sleeve for January 2013. It would probably do quite well in the Sherlock slots assuming (which seems like a safe assumption) that the schedules of Steven Moffat, Benedict Cumberbatch and Martin Freeman delay Sherlock until the second half of 2013. Although if the BBC did pick up series 3 at the same time as series 2 it may very well be that everyone has already agreed a shooting schedule for series 3. Presumably managing everyone's schedule is at least part of the reason the BBC order series 2 and 3 together. Of course they might also want to try a new drama in that slot rather than revive an old one and in fact probably should if Sherlock's not available.