@avclub-871a6f53ba8bda0e260763ab2cf3b1c8:disqus In "Ransom for a Dead Man" a high-tech telephone was used that could automatically call a phone number at a pre-set time and play a tape recording of a kidnap victim (already dead). The wife (who was behind the whole thing) took the call in front of the FBI and then…

Thanks for the great reply. I am quite convinced it is a different coat in the picture than the one worn on the subway platform. It's much darker in the photo and looks like leather to me. Anyone else?

I thought the actual plot of the crime was good. Making Joan's first case resemble Sherlock's first case seemed contrived.

"Monk", the plot link between "Elementary and "Sherlock". "Mr. Monk and the Daredevil" bares more than a passing resemblance to "The Reichenbach Fall": Monk's nemesis, Harold Krenshaw becomes famous and popular in the newspapers while Monk's reputation takes a hit. The final confrontation on the roof of a hospital;…

Let's see. Mentally disturbed man pushed random woman in front of train. Patches are ubiquitous on army jackets. Six month after crime, police man hours devoted to case: zero. Wife disappears, leaves Dear John video. Husband is a natural suspect, but no evidence of crime. Video even corroborates his story. Six month…

The brownstone is in Brooklyn. "Your off his teats now, Watson, you can stop taking his side." But apparently Sherlock yet still has to be weaned. That's why he should be politic to Father's minions. You don't want word to get around you're a dick to the hoi polloi who could hire you for lucrative cases once Papa cuts…

Most definitely. There was a theatricality to the Holmes of the stories and Miller certainly captures that. They are even great when he withholds them, as being totally blank when Joan mentions Columbo. Last summer in ShortList magazine, Benedict Cumberbatch quoted Miller as saying "Mate, I've got the f*cking mountain…

As a Sherlockian, I happily defend "Elementary" from charges that it is Sherlock Holmes In Name Only. Rob Doherty and company have made difficult choices with their take. They have eschewed many of the tropes (London, Baker Street, Mrs. Hudson, deerstalker, pipe) that would make someone who has never read Doyle go,…

Jennifer Hudson as who? If you're talking about Ms.Hudson there are enough critics of the sexual and racial politics of this show as it is (I'm not one of them). She could make a cool Milverton though.

"Watson already has a history of crossing the line with at least one of her sober companion clients"—Actually, that wasn't a client but a boyfriend. The confusion comes in by the fact that Joan tells Sherlock that Liam was a former client before eventually coming clean and saying, no, he wasn't a client but her…

Captain Apathy, the closed captioning indicated that the captive sex slave was speaking Russian. The Russian word for police is "politsiya", certainly close enough to Spanish, Portuguese and Italian for anyone not to know what language it is without a handy technological cheat.

Captain Apathy I believe that was Russian with the locked-room sex slave. Doyle's Holmes spoke fluent French, German, Latin, perhaps Italian. As he assumed the identity of a Norwegian during the Great Hiatus he may have spoke that as well; it would be embarrassing if Sigerson ran into another Norwegian and didn't…

Aren't shell corporations just post office boxes? Couldn't Main Moon Cleaners be basically that with the added advantage of a physical presence for those rare occasions when other services are needed?

Captain Apathy is right. There is no difference between Sherlock on "Elementary" and Holmes in the Canon in using the available evidence to come to a conclusion as in the way you're indicating. In"Rat Race" when Sherlock tells Fowkes that every time he uses the word innocent he tunes out, up to that point all the…

Piecar: Sherlock wants Joan to learn self-defense, as in last week's "Details". "She knows there's no reason to be smacking a Slam Man with a stick, but she's still doing it." As we've seen in "M." and "The Deductionist", singlestick can come in handy, so, in fact, there is a reason.

"as for "a little more effort", bit subjective no?" Actually, no. In "The Five Orange Pips", Holmes sends John Openshaw back home to Horsham by himself late on a dark stormy night when he had deduced the KKK were in London. Holmes could have accompanied him as bodyguard or had him stay at Baker Street overnight and…

This is a pretty common complaint among those who find Miller and Liu to be Holmes and Watson in name only. I'm not sure I agree that Miller guesses all the time. Could you supply some examples? In the Canon Holmes was not always right. In "The Speckled Band" his original theory, before going to Stoke Moran, was that…

Sounds like a great pub name.

Yes, on the Canon watch, Musgrave was an old college acquaintance who called on Holmes early in his career (before he met Watson) to help him find his missing butler. On the show Sherlock tells Joan that Natasha's death can't be a coincidence, yet that's exactly what it was in the "Bruce-Partington Plans" when Watson…

Hilarious! Joan's medical school must be located somewhere near Pawnee, IN.