"A Dangerous Move At Chess" [BLAN]

Many authors have written pastiches fitting Sherlock Holmes into a greater historical context; although most of them center around Victorian England, Charlie Roxburgh attempts to mix some Russian history with Holmesian deduction in The Case of the Russian Chessboard. And although it's a promising premise, the execution is somewhat flat.

Mr. Roxburgh's tale has a great start - in fact, it's almost a pitch perfect recreation of the many tales of the Canon. In fact, the idea of Russian conspirators and tsarist enforcers operating near and around Baker Street not only reflects what Conan Doyle might have written, it provides an ample amount of promise for any Sherlockian reader.

However, although this is a very brief tale, its brevity is one of its major faults. Just as many items are set into motion, the story seems to have a rushed ending. It is not a bad tale - just one that might have been better told as a novel-length adventure rather than as a short novelette. With the "Russian Chessboard" analogy coming into play (with Holmes himself explaining it), there is a great potential that is sadly never met....and that would be a great vantage point for writing a sequel and/or continuation of this story (especially with several themes that might resonate in our present time)

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"Not Quite So Bad as That" [SIGN]

On May 16, amid the flurry of Sherlock buzz hitting the web, CBS announced its fall schedule and Elementary made the cut, set to air on Thursdays at 10:00 pm, the time slot currently occupied by the Sherlock Holmes-inspired “The Mentalist” (which will move to Sundays).

The initial chatter was limited, due largely to the fact that there wasn't much information available about the series other than its stars, Jonny Lee Miller and Lucy Liu. When compared with the impressively successful "Sherlock," it was natural for some commentators to wonder if the American production was simply borrowing heavily on the British hit.

We'll know for certain on September 27, when the series will premiere on CBS. Now we're seeing a fuller synopsis of Elementary than we’ve yet had, including this tidbit; “Following his fall from grace in London and a stint in rehab, eccentric Sherlock escapes to Manhattan where his wealthy father forces him to live with his worst nightmare – a sober companion, Dr. Watson.”

There was also three minute trailer of  Elementary that Sherlockians  no doubt combed through for clues on the quality of the show as if it were the Zapruder film. In the last couple of weeks, CBS has posted a longer  trailer (video embedded below the jump).

Steven Moffat, co-creator of BBC’s Sherlock told TheInsider.com in May, "What we did with our Sherlock was just take it from Victorian times into modern day. They've got three big changes: it's Sherlock Holmes in America, it's Sherlock Holmes updated and it's Sherlock Holmes with a female Watson. I wonder if he's Sherlock Holmes in any sense other than he's called Sherlock Holmes.”

For months Moffat held the threat of lawsuit over CBS’s head if their Holmes incarnation was not noticeably different from the BBC; now he wonders if the very differences he called for make it anything but Sherlock Holmes. Politics lost a fine spin doctor when Moffat entered show business. Of course spin is a major part of a producer’s job and Moffat is very good at what he does, as even a cursory review of his résumé will confirm.

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