Watching TV Serials online; Rosewood

Everyone is fascinated by Sherlock Holmes.  It has been a passion for over a century.   No one really thought to make a ‘stab’ at a modern day version, until recently.

The closest anyone came was the Medical Show; House in which the kind of ‘deductive’ reasoning and blurting out of some secret discovered by simple observation had to suffice.

The BBC grabbed onto Sherlock which was a modern day version of Conan Doyle’s detective.  This show kept to the ‘canon’, the 122B Baker’s Street, the Dr. Watson, a returnee from the war in Afghanistan, and bits and snips of the original stories.

The personality of Sherlock Holmes was well played by Benedict Cumberbatch, who seemed the perfect actor for the role.   The stories, however, became more ridiculous until the last season seemed to be written by non compos mentis inmates of a facility who could take flying leaps from reality into insanity at will.

Elementary is an American version of Sherlock Holmes.  In this program, due to his drug addiction his father sent him to New York City, he went into a care facility, emerged, and a ‘sober companion’ was hired.  This was ‘Jane’ Watson, a medical doctor.

The actor playing Sherlock Holmes, Jonny Lee Miller takes a bit of getting used to, but over time one can deal with his rather repulsive personality.  The stories are good, the balance between Sherlock/Watson/Detective Bell are good.

Then there’s Rosewood; he’s a pathologist.   He deals with dead bodies.  His personality is sparkling, he has a happy family life, he’s friendly, he is nothing like the sociopathic Sherlock Holmes in Sherlock or Elementary.

He picks up the clues and makes the deductions easily and pleasantly.

So this is a Sherlock Holmes who deviates from the ‘consulting detective’ to the morgue, (which is his personal morgue as he is a ‘consulting forensic pathologist’.

He ‘consults’ with the Miami Police Department on cases and comes up with brilliant deductions which the audience is able to see as he sees it.

Where in Sherlock and Elementary there’s no real focus on the clues, so that one sees but doesn’t see the clue until it is pointed out, in Rosewood, the camera close ups the yellow in the eyeball, the blood trickling. The deduction of pancreatic cancer, signifying that the deceased wasn’t thrown from the balcony but jumped, seems evident as Rosewood states it.

As one likes Rosewood, (as one can’t like Sherlock Holmes) the recognition that this is a ‘version’ of a modern day Sherlock is put aside, for the viewer is interested in the character and the plots.  It is only if one were watching or had recently watched Sherlock or Elementary, that the connection would be made.

The ‘partner’ of Rosewood is a female detective who is at first discomforted and disinterested in him and his assistance, but over a short time, they get on the same page.

This is a good show to watch.