★★★★★ 0/5

Elementary is now Sherlock Holmes: Elementary

Check your series linking, TEN has now retitled its US crime series in guides.

13
Leave a comment

2014-06-04_2334TEN has retitled US crime series Elementary in guides as Sherlock Holmes: Elementary, effective from this Sunday.

Whether the move is to distinguish the series so as to help draw more viewers to it isn’t clear. Last Sunday it attracted 458,000 viewers.

Seven similarly branded The Blacklist as James Spader’s The Blacklist -despite the fact it was a list by the character Raymond ‘Red’ Reddington. It couldn’t revert the name back to its original title until the first season was over because changing it mid-season would affect its series-linking with PVRs (it has since dropped the Spader reference). These are title-sensitive with Electronic Programme Guides.

Nine had plans to title US sitcom Mom as Mum (as seen in early promos) but thankfully didn’t follow through.

Sherlock Holmes: Elementary will air from 9pm over the next 2 Sundays, following extended MasterChef episodes, with Graham Norton at 10pm.

13 Responses

  1. It’s not really misleading. The value of Elementary is that it takes Sherlock Holmes and Dr Watson and is able to use 20 odd episodes to develop their characters and those of their support players, and is able to open the world of Holmes much wider. The explorations of what makes Holmes who he is, and the taking of Watson as an apprentice, makes logical extrapolations, based on the original stories, of what Holmes might be like in the 21st century.

    Sure there are many aficiandos of both the written word and the BBC series who have serious reservations of Elementary, but there are also many champions of Jeremy Lloyd who don’t like BBC’s offerings as well. And in the end it doesn’t really matter: there have been so many depictions of the great detective, some faithful to a fault, others way out, but they all share the same inspiration- Sherlock Holmes. Elementary isn’t a…

  3. @Sydney2K – “Why not highlight the fact and pique the interest of people who might like the series but didn’t realise it featured the famous detective”.

    Because it’s misleading. The character in Elementary is quite far removed the literary Sherlock Holmes. Sure, there are some elements taken from the story – drug addiction, attention to detail, brusque manner, etc – and a couple of other characters have the same names (altho’ different gender), but Jonny Lee Miller’s Sherlock is not much like the nbook character or as he was portrayed by Benedict Cumberbatch and Robert Downey Jnr.

    Ten need all the help that they can get but better decisions not deception is the way forward.

  5. I guess we’ll see if it does anything to the ratings. I’m glad I’m not recording things however. Although I’m sure there’s probably some that do that are glad of the warning. So thank you for telling us about it David.

    I’m guessing if they are doing this with the EPGs they will advertise it that way on the radio too. Don’t know if it will be successful.

  6. I see no problem with the move. The show features a character called Sherlock Holmes, who is a well known literary figure. Why not highlight the fact and pique the interest of people who might like the series but didn’t realise it featured the famous detective.

  8. Is MasterChef next?

    Will it be called ”George, Garry and Matt’s: MasterChef”

    or even Offspring…..Nina Proudman: Offspring”

    Don’t get it??

  9. Yep, another ill-advised move by Ten attempting to use the well-known character of Sherlock Holmes to hook in a few more eyeballs while pissing of their loyal viewers and losing all those whose PVR won’t pick up the change.

    Perhaps they think that they’ll trick a couple of people into thinking it’s more like the Gatiss-Moffat drama? It won’t work, this is a completely different type of show that gives bare lip-service to the original story elements.

    Sherlock Holmes: Elementary – between Matt Preston’s MasterChef and Graham Norton: Graham Norton.

  13. The Freeview EPG uses CRIDs to track items, not the title. So long as the CRID remains the same freeview powered PVRs should continue to record Elementary.

    That said, in the past the CRIDs on SC10 carried channels have changed repeatedly without any particular reason. Shows such as Sons of Anarchy have gone to air on SC10 with at least 4 different CRIDs, all within a single season.

  15. If they were hoping to grow the viewer base, they probably actually just did the opposite (protip: viewers PVR everything). What it does show is exactly how out of touch with the modern state of play Ten is, however.

Leave a Reply