It's funny, looking at what cycles into the zeitgeist -- the little bits of culture that come bubbling back up and then suddenly everyone has a different version. Vampires, zombies, fairy tales -- Sherlock Holmes.
I watched the first episode of Elementary. It lacked the fun of Guy Ritchie's Victorian Buddy Cop version, and the sheer genius of the Moffat/Gattiss/Cumberbatch/Freeman version.
Jonny Lee Miller and Lucy Liu were perfectly good as Holmes and Watson. They really didn't have any chemistry to speak of, but that's not their fault, it's the writers'. Watson as drug addict Holmes's handler? Not a good setup, and definitely seems to owe a little too much to that recently-concluded other TV adaptation of Sherlock Holmes, House.
And as for Holmes being a genius, well, it comes across as more that he's the only character who isn't a complete moron. You need the world's greatest mind to tell you that a guy doesn't have the same size foot as the one that kicked in the door? That doesn't make him a genius, it makes you a really terrible forensic detective.
Indeed, there is one brilliant observation that solves the whole case -- and Holmes doesn't make it, Watson does.
All this to say: I don't think I'll be checking out the second episode. I guess if I want my Sherlock fix before next season, I'll just have to go see The Hobbit. Oh darn.