Elementary Was "Good Enough" TV, and That Was Plenty

I won't pretend that Elementary was an especially good show. It wasn’t. Still, when I watch tonight’s series finale, I’ll have seen all 154 episodes. That’s far more time than I’ve spent with many vastly superior series, either because they didn’t produce as many, or because their superior quality was somehow less satisfying than my weekly fix of Sherlock-y shenanigans. For all its faults, Elementary brought me a specific kind of joy for seven seasons.

That's thanks to the many elements of the series that do, in fact, work quite well. As Holmes and Watson, Jonny Lee Miller and Lucy Liu have displayed a fantastic chemistry over the years, and happily, the series never made them a romantic item. Instead, we’ve seen two gifted actors spar as intellectual peers, professional colleagues, and close friends. Their partnership is the charming anchor for the entire show. Aidan Quinn and Jon Michael Hill are no slouches either as, respectively, the gruff-but-good-hearted Captain Gregson, and the smart-but-over-it detective Marcus Bell. Since this core foursome has remained in place for the entire series, they’ve developed a very nice rhythm for solving the weekly murder mystery.

And about those murders: Some of them have been downright ludicrous — whether in their execution or in the laughably random clue that solved them. Remember the Season 3 episode when everything hinged on the ability to smell nutmeg, and then somehow identify that the scent was actually fake nutmeg? Sure! Why not?!? Or how about the Season 7 episode when Sherlock discovered a hidden elevator in a New York apartment, then immediately realized a shady landlord had used it to make his getaway from a crime scene? Fine! I accept that New York apartments have hidden elevators, and just because I haven’t found one in my bathroom doesn’t mean it isn’t there.

All of this absurdity works because the show itself maintains a light tone, suggesting we needn’t take it very seriously. It’s hard to get mad at a series that knows it’s goofy, and besides, the mysteries have always been just compelling enough to make for a pleasantly distracting hour.

Please don’t misinterpret "pleasantly distracting" as a backhanded compliment. In fact, that very descriptor is what has kept Elementary on my DVR all this time. It’s good enough that I don’t hate myself for watching it, but it’s unchallenging enough that if I accidentally fall asleep for five minutes, I know a tertiary character will reiterate whatever essential plot points I’ve missed. While I do love dense and challenging TV, there’s always at least one hour a week that I want to let my mind relax after a hard day. For that hour, I've often turned to Elementary.

Of course, that  same relaxed attitude also gave the series some leeway when it came to a few bad habits. If a drama I counted on for quality storylines operated as haphazardly as Elementary, I’d never get over it. But when, for example, Watson suddenly stopped wanting to have a baby, or Holmes magically recovered from his concussion-induced hallucinations, or Bell stopped having personal storylines altogether, I merely noted these lapses with a wry salute of my highball glass and settled in for another crime-of-the-week.

Releasing myself from the need for consistent or even comprehensible storytelling also means I can focus on things like Watson’s clothes, the parade of Broadway stars like Laura Benanti and Kerry Butler in major guest roles, or the many excuses the series found to have Jonny Lee Miller walk around shirtless.

Most of us have at least one show like this, and as such, I’ll admit to some regret as I settle in for the last episode of Elementary, because I don’t have an immediate replacement in mind. Hopefully, with any luck, there will be another plucky detective in my not-too-distant future.

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Mark Blankenship has been writing about arts and culture for twenty years, with bylines in The New York Times, Variety, Vulture, Fortune, and many others. You can hear him on the pop music podcast Mark and Sarah Talk About Songs.