Tag: Elementary

Are CBS’s Holmes & Watson Too “Elementary”?


ElementaryDo you know that there are people who devote their spare and even professional time to collecting mistakes and goofs made in movies, TV shows, etc.?  There is a successful British website Moviemistakes.com (since 1996) whose creator has built himself an entertainment career and a money-making vehicle doing just that.  

Specialists officially distinguish eight classes of mistakes, including ridiculous audio problems and crew visibility.  However, themost frequent ones are continuity errors (the yellow Porsche's side was smashed in the previous scene and then in the next one it's absolutely fine) and "revealing" mistakes that remind you it's not for real (Edward is seating under the bright sun during his honeymoon but his skin doesn't sparkle like "the skin of a killer" should).    

I have to say, this type of bullshit is completely lost on me.  I mean, how many times (and how intently) do you need to watch Commando to notice that thing about the car?  And realism of Twilight?  Pahlease!  Unless I am watching Bergman, Fellini, Kubrick, Tarkovsky, Lee, or Noe, whose every shot is the result of conscious artistic effort,  I swear, it's unlikely I will notice visual errors even if I absolutely love (or hate) the movie. 

Plus, these mistakes are the consequences of poor production quality and low work standards, and my readers know very well that I expect that and discuss it all the time.  Who the hell thinks that this prevailing trend of our lives doesn't apply to the entertainment industry?  People are people everywhere.  I don't even get surprised by plot holes anymore, even though it's impossible to ignore those.  I'm like, "Oh, it doesn't tie well?  Surprise, surprise!"  You know how it is: the screenplays get nipped and tucked by everyone to such an extent that the story originators cannot even recognize their own creations anymore.          

However, I feel differently about factual errors (an official class as well).  I notice them all the time.  You see, those don't come from producers, editors, the crew,  and it's unlikely that actors ad lib them.  No, they are products of sloppy writing.  I guess I have different standards for writers than I do for everyone else: I get upset with idiotic mistakes made by screenwriters, journalists, novelists, as well as their research helpers and fact checkers.  A writer's job is very hard – to construct a flawless plot is incredibly difficult.  But to verify the correctness of some piece of information?  That's a matter of care and respect for your audience.  I take my time to watch or read your thing and you disrespect me?  Fuck you!

Of course, different blunders create different levels of annoyance.  I don't  curse out loud (or at least, not anymore) about the eternal confusion of Chapter 11 and Chapter 7 bankruptcies.  I got used to it.  Someone always says how "the company has filed Chapter 11 and will be gone, like, tomorrow."  Well, no: Chapter 11 means that the company plans to stay in business, already found funding, and is reorganizing itself.  This is what Bloomingdale's (or rather the company that owns them – ah, never mind… ) successfully did back in 1991 and it is still operating, thank you very much.  But if it were a Chapter 7 filing, then the company would probably be gone already.  Of course, no David E. Kelley's show would allow an error like that, since he holds a J.D. degree from BU, but it is very prominent in many a police procedural.    

Also pretty low on my scale of discontent are silly foreign-culture mistakes: Like giving a last name Petrovna, which is actually a patronymic and cannot possibly be a family name, to a Russian cyber-genius girl; or attributing a French chanson to the wrong chanteur who never sang it; or redrawing world borders by claiming a German town for Austria.  Okay, I am an irritable person, so these things get me annoyed, especially because there are way too many of them.  On the other hand, what else can I possibly expect from people who listen to Taylor Swift and Lorde?  So, I grumble under my breath, as if I can telepathically correct these factual glitches, but that's about it.  I wouldn't turn such bullshit into a blog post.  

However, some facts are such a commonplace, they are so prominently a part of the collective consciousness that it is hard to imagine anybody having informational lapses about them. 

Case in point:  The episode 3.13 of CBS's contemporized take on the adventures of Sherlock Holmes, Elementary, revolves around a murder of a "debt collector."  I probably can spend at least 10,000 words listing all factual errors that assaulted me during 40+ minutes of the episode, but this post is already running too long, so I will restrain myself and point out just a couple of things.

You know, how Conan Doyle famously attributed Holmes's success as a detective to his perfecting of the deductive reasoning (aka logical deduction)?  Simply speaking, Sherlock starts with a broad premise and elaborately eliminates all possibilities until only one right conclusion remains. 

The writers of the series tried to employ pretty much the same method:  As soon as it is established that the victim was an attorney who lost his job at a big law firm and turned to debt collections as a source of his daily bread, the plot's deductive challenge is revealed: there are millions of suspects.  According to the writers, every debtor in the victim's collection portfolio is a potential murderer and it's up to Holmes to find the proverbial needle.  

You may think that this is a farce (hey, our life nowadays is a farce!), but no, this is a "serious" show!  Then what about the materiality threshold?  I mean, I know there are people who kill for less, but, seriously, what is the likelihood of someone in Nebraska coming to NYC to kill a collector for $10K?  The size of the debts alone should've narrowed down the pool of suspects to a size of a soup bowl in a shorter time than it took Holmes to pin up all those endless lists of names on the wall.  

Further on materiality: It is implicit that the debtor must've been severely threatened to go for a kill, right? But what's the big scare here?  While larger debt recovery organizations employ or contract multiple lawyers pretty much in every state and therefore can litigate even small balances, it is impossible to imagine that one attorney can stretch himself over more than 20-30 cases at the same time.          

All that is just common sense.  Unfortunately, it is an unattainable commodity now.  So, how about the technical side of the business that could've been easily researched?  The reality is that no one can survive in the highly regulated asset-recovery industry without a decent collection software, expensive access to personal records database (such as Lexis Nexis), and on-demand automated call distribution solution (like LiveVox).  You see, violations of collection rules and standards, including the timing and the language of calls, can be sufficient grounds for law suits.  In fact, there are lawyers who specialize in suing collection agencies on behalf of debtors.  Therefore, there is a necessity to digitally record all collection efforts for evidential reasons.  Checking those records would've instantly limited the list of suspects even further - to only those potential murderers who's been actually contacted by the victim's firm.  

My spirits were lifted a bit when Holmes correctly re-labeled the victim as a debt merchant, i.e. someone who buys, at a 95% discount, portfolios of consumer debts written off by financial institutions and makes money successfully collecting a small portion of them.  My elation lasted exactly 2 seconds.  You see, respectful writers who gave their viewing audience a modicum of intellectual credit would've left it at that: one has to be from Mars to be completely unaware of the concept.  

But noooo!  These hoodlums sent Holmes on a ranting explanation of the debt-trading plague's basics to… Watson.  Most ridiculously, her scripted response to Holmes's briefing is that of bewilderment: "Really?" 

Wait a minute! Wait a minute!  Are you kidding me?  Are you telling me that a sophisticated New Yorker, a former successful surgeon, and, at this point, a full-scope PI who lives and breathes research has never heard of sub-prime mortgages, multibillion-dollar bank write-offs, and consumer-debt securitization that led to 2009 global financial crisis and bailouts?  Was she actually on an interstellar journey?  Or were you, the writers, out to lunch?

Now, to connect the victim to the final suspect the writers had to create an unfathomable possibility of somebody  being able to pluck out a specific bad debt portfolio containing a specific stale mortgage. Well, that would be like looking for a needle in a haystack for real!  The delinquent debt industry is vast and sophisticated, with leaders such as SquareTwo Financial (owned by Collect America Holding) buying billion-dollar packages of charged-off receivables directly from financial institutions and distributing them for collections through their national franchises.  After a time, uncollected accounts are further repackaged and resold with deeper discounts.  To trace a single debt in this dark labyrinth would be absolutely impossible for the perp in question.

The part of this ignorant bullshit that turned out to be far more disturbing than the factual errors was the resolution of the case.  At the end, Holmes deduces that the debt collector/debt merchant was killed because he realized what a "disgusting business" the collection of financial delinquencies was and tried to erase debtors' liabilities. 

Note what the liberally confused writers found appalling: not the packaging of unrecoverable receivables as marketable instruments by opportunistic financial brokers; not the investment of people's savings and pensions into this imaginary "securities" by brainless money managers, but the straightforward effort of making consumers pay for goods, services, homes, etc. they bought and used.  Hmm… Taking something out of a store and not paying for it – isn't it, like, shoplifting?  Ordering something online and not paying for it – isn't it, like, mail fraud?  Residing somewhere without paying for the space – isn't it, like, squatting?     

I don't expect laymen to be fluent in the mayhem of American economics as it has been for the last 20 years.  All I'm asking is a little awareness.  Are all these people really this ignorant and stupid?  It's too bad they don't read my blog.  Four years ago (oh, my God!) in my post The Infinite Wisdom of Trey Parker and Matt Stone I was already referring the confused masses to South Park's episode Margaritaville (2009!!!) -  the most genius breakdown of the financial crisis in popular culture. They are your colleagues, people! And they made it ELEMENTARY for you!

I'm just grateful that my knowledge of cryogenics, genetic re-breeding of extinct animals, cloning of rare plants, drone operations, and some other topics that feed (or are fed to) entertainment writers are only rudimentary.  I am suspicious, but at least I can pretend that they may be represented correctly.  But financial stuff?  Culture stuff?  I can't help myself there.  I hear that doctors usually have conniptions when they are exposed to shows like ER, House M.D., etc.  I totally understand: the idiotic errors – they are unbearable. 

Quote of the Week: It’s “Elementary,” My Dear Readers!


Elementary_the_woman_heroine_a_lHolmes to Watson:

"Televisions are idiot boxes.  DVRs are idiots' helpers.  We are the idiots.  We're quite willingly giving them a part of ourselves: we teach them our tastes, our preferences, just so that they would know which program to record; never once stopping to consider the fact that our selections can be used to profile us."

                    Elementary, episode 2.8, "Blood is Thicker"

                    Created by Robert Doherty

To Intuit Is Human, to Deduce Is… Sherlock-Holmesian?



Sherlock HolmesScientists studying the processes of human decision-making (the likes of psychologist Gerd Gigerenzer and physicist Leonard Mlodinow) build research institutes, conduct experiments, write books, and give lectures to support their argument that our subconsciousness, our "gut feelings," our intuition – whatever you prefer to call it, has a fundamental impact on the way we come to vital conclusions, resolve personal and professional problems, make split-second choices in high-pressure situations, and generally conduct ourselves on a daily basis.  But do we really need this much theoretically-substantiated convincing?

Life provides us with tons of evidence everywhere we look.  99% of business decisions are based on some internal impulse (CFOs know it better than anyone).   A private equity investor can read every word and weigh every digit of a 100-page incredibly rosy due diligence report and still say No to the prospective buy, because "something tells him" it's a bad lemon.  The reason college dropouts like Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, and Michael Dell became uber-successful businessmen is because they disregard the rules and follow their commercial instincts.  The whole of the CIA analyzes volumes of intelligence data for years; then comes Carrie Mathison with the unequivocal trust in her own guts and points her finger out: "I love this ginger dude, but he is a fucking terrorist.  I just know it."               

Even after experiencing this phenomenon for decades myself, I am still surprised by the brain's ability to quickly come up with solutions to multi-faceted problems.  Sometimes it seems that no mind's work goes into the formulation of a strategic move or an intricate design of a complex reporting system.  How does it work inside my head?  Is it intuition supported by vast professional expertise?  Or does my brain sift very fast through the "evidence" in front of me, and if I took time to analyze the process I would be able to isolate each step of the neurological algorithm?  And how is it that my hunches on whether an endeavor will be a success or a failure are most of the time spot-on?  Hell, if I know!

The point is that most people experience the phenomenon of "unexplainable" knowledge and unsubstantiated trust into one's own intuition on a daily basis.  How many times do you find yourself on either side of this exchange: "How did you know?"/ "I don't know, I just did."  Or this one: "How did you figure this out?"  "I don't know, it just came to me."  Thousands?  And we leave it at that: it's so common and acceptable, no further explanation is required. 

In fact, we are so intimately familiar with the "gut feeling" that we unconditionally accept the concept of coming to conclusions through some obscure maze of subconscious clues as pure realism.  Moreover, storytellers aspiring to create the ambiance of authenticity cannot ignore the intuitive nature of mental processes.

On the other hand, an impeccable logician with an ability of consciously processing numerous facts in a matter of seconds is usually seen as a phenom – in real life someone definitely "on the Spectrum," as they call it nowadays; or, in the creative realm, a stuff of legends, a mythological creature, a literary concoction, such as my beloved Sherlock Holmes.  The unique abilities of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's creation are so fascinating, so magic-like that the detective extraordinaire has joined the ranks of undying archetypal characters (like Cyrano, or Peter Pan, or Romeo & Juliet) that get to be incarnated and reincarnated in different forms, substances, and environments.

Besides the numerous literary pastiches of Sherlock Holmes's "latter days" adventures, we are presently have no less than five (!) screen variations of the famed deducing genius:

1. Guy Ritchie's lavishly budgeted and heavily CGI-ed big-screen adaptations featuring the full spectrum of Conan Doyle characters, with Robert Downey, Jr. and Jude Law topping the bill as Sherlock Holmes and his sidekick Dr. Watson.   The movies are set in the meticulously recreated places and times taken straight from the author's pages.

2. The BBC's fabulous teaser Sherlock with painfully short seasons consisting of 3 feature-length episodes each.  While still sticking to the original names, characterizations, and even the titles of individual stories, the series transplants Sherlock Homes, Dr. Watson (still an Afghan War veteran – some things never change), the criminal mastermind Moriarty, the seductress Irene Adler, the faithful Mrs. Hudson, et al. to technology-saturated 21st century London.

3.  The CBS's freshly-minted (2012) network-sized (24 episodes per season) series Elementary, which not only puts the former Dr. Watson through a sex change, converting John into Joan (as depicted by Lucy Liu), but also gives the brilliant detective a much bigger playground by sending him to New York.

4.  Also on CBS (would you believe it?!) is The Mentalist, already renewed for the sixth season.  Most viewers don't even realize that they are watching a Sherlock-Holmes re-interpretation, because the main character's name is Patrick Jane and the series is set in present-day California, but I assure you that's what it is.  Mr. Jane possesses all the required attributes, solving murders and bringing criminals to justice in every episode by sheer use of his mental power, noticing the most nuanced details in human behavior and logically reconstructing chains of events.  While his sidekick, CBI special agent Lisbon, is also a female and has nothing to do with medicine, the creators did give Patrick an archenemy of the Moriarty caliber – the omnipresent and all-corrupting Red John.

5.  And finally, The Mentalist's comedic counterpart – USA Networks' Psych, also set in the modern time, also in California (yet further South), also featuring a police consultant, and also hidden behind different names.  Yet, the main character Shawn Spenser's power to see clues are so heightened that it's demonstrated to the audience in a laser-vision fashion. There is a new twist on the sidekick here as well – he is a childhood friend and an African-American, but professionally he is much closer to the modern ways of healthcare than doctors are – he sells pharmaceuticals.           

Regardless of the time backdrop, the scenery, or the given names, all these characters stem from the same original stock cooked up by his lordship in his study – the ultra-brainy and obsessively detailed observers, who use their abilities to solve heinous crimes. 

And that's why for a Sherlock Holmes aficionado like I, Guy Ritchie's Victorian escapades, in a way, seem like a betrayal of the myth, historical accuracy notwithstanding.  Yes, Holmes was excellent in the boxing ring, proficient in Bartitsu, and good with the revolver, but it's the knife of his mind that dissected all those crimes – a weapon so unbelievably sharp that Conan Doyle felt it necessary to explain some of its potency with addictions to various drugs.             

Interestingly enough, both the contemporary science of "gut feelings" and the Victorian creator of a mental-power archetype, in spite of the polarity of their foci, have at least one notion in common: Weighing too many learned facts pertaining to diverse branches of knowledge frequently slows down the process of arriving to a right conclusion.  According to Conan Doyle, Sherlock Holmes deliberately discarded from his memory the childhood lessons of Earth's rotation around the Sun. He explains that for someone who relies on the Art of Detection, it's far more reasonable to accept the self-centered naked eye observation that our source of light rises on the East and goes down on the West, thus giving an appearance of moving. 

In his books, Gigerenzer provides numerous examples showing that, statistically, people who know more about a subject matter come up with wrong solutions more frequently than those who rely on limited knowledge and intuition.  Sometimes I wonder whether Einstein would be able to have his Relativity epiphanies if he was very good at integral and differential math. 

And I have to say that the only thing that prevents me from drowning in the sea of the bookish knowledge I've absorbed over the years of advanced studying, is my persistent skepticism and an incurable disregard of "academic" authority.  It is quite possible that this mental arrogance (hey, it is what it is) is the reason I'm still able to come up with some good ideas.  After all, capable CFOs are not phantasmagorical characters with computers instead of brains in their heads.  We are humans and, therefore, we should be able, from time to time, to let go of the educational dogma and  allow the subliminal impulses, the gut feelings to take over.