Sherlock Holmes Archetype

I’ve been on a crime and intrigue kick in terms of my television watching interests as of late. I tend to mix in lighthearted shows between the darker ones, so after finishing the dark crime thriller The Killing and watching the comedy Louie (which I HIGHLY recommend), I figured it was about that time to get back into the darker side of things. The problem is, after Louie, I wasn’t quite ready to go back to a pure dark show like The Killing. To find a medium, I thought, why not go back to the crime procedural space of shows? I satisfied this criteria by starting the show Elementary, the modern day rendition of Sherlock Holmes in New York. I must say, I’m quite satisfied with it. It has the crime, the humor, and the hilarious troubled genius. After catching up with it (the new season starts this week), I realized that I may be quite fond of this type of formula. Here’s a list of shows that I’ve watched which follow similar themes of Elementary:

House (Sherlock Holmes in a medical setting)
Sherlock (Sherlock Holmes in a Sherlock Holmes setting made by the BBC)
Psych (A hilarious detective with hyper-vigilance who solves crimes with an equally hilarious sidekick, similar to Sherlock Holmes and Watson)
Leverage (not Sherlock Holmes, but f**k it, it’s a procedural crime show with an African American hacker who handles the computer side of things, so here’s my way of promoting it, apropos of nothing)

Not counting Leverage or Psych (at least not in the “troubled” since for Psych), I noticed that I have an affinity to the troubled genius who solves puzzles and/or crimes. Networks and studios have put the same Sherlock formula out there in both TV show and movie form in different ways, and I’m a sucker for it every time. I can’t explain my draw to Sherlock; maybe it’s because I want to identify with the troubled genius of his character. Let me now say that I’m NO where near a genius and I’m not exactly troubled. However, there’s something about their methods to solving puzzles that no one else can that makes me envious of them. Maybe it’s the fact that I envy their genius. Maybe it’s the fact that they follow the beats of their own drums, regardless of what people may think of them. Whatever it is, you can count on the fact that I’ll be there week after week to see their adventures and vicariously live through their experiences.

P.S. Yes, I love television.

P.P.S. Expect a travel review next month about my time in Boston