Three Shows I Have a Lot of Feelings About

I'm working on another post at the moment, but I've gotten completely stuck on it, so in the meantime, I present for your consumption:

three shows I have a lot of feelings about

Arthur Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes series has seen a revival this last few years, each with its own reinterpretation of the original canon. Guy Ritchie sought to bring life to the Holmes' Victorian era setting with his 2009 and 2011 films that showed off Holmes and Watson as men of action and drew on Doyle's interest in the occult. Gatiss and Moffat began Sherlock at around the same time, a modern take set in present day London (which, in fact, harks back to older adaptations--prior to 1950, most Holmes and Watsons were placed in the creator's contemporary world).

Elementary, though, which came just a few years later (it was originally intended to be an American remake of Sherlock), is my favourite adaptation of recent times. There's an endless array of arguments about the superiority of one adaptation over another, and I don't want to get into that (though honestly if you think any of the new Holmeses are more accurate than Jeremy Brett's, you're wrong; end of discussion). The reason I love Elementary is not that I think it's the most faithful; I love it because they've extrapolated realistically from the person Holmes is in Doyle's canon, and done something new with him. Elementary's Holmes is a recently rehabilitated drug addict. He has hit rock bottom, and his journey is one of recovery and self-improvement. Joan Watson is his perfect accompaniment (and this isn't the first. Her story has changed too; instead of an ex-army doctor, Watson is an ex-surgeon who now works as a sober companion, hired by Holmes' disinterested father. She has her own trauma--cerebral, rather than those physical wounds Doyle could never make a decision about (thigh? shoulder?? both???)--but she's steady, intelligent, and she knows to pick her battles. Watson is one of the biggest reasons that Holmes improves. I don't mean in his rehab; I mean as a person. Holmes' "lessons" in Elementary revolve around him understanding that he is not worth more than other people, that he should respect them, and that he can learn something even from people whose intellect he outstrips.

It might not be the most faithful adaptation in storyline or characterisation, but Elementary makes enjoyably subtle references to canon, its Holmes and Watson are recognisable even as they are individual, and it doesn't hurt that they've taken a male-heavy series and recast include more women and PoC.

(Elementary has been renewed for a third season.)

Haven is a sci-fi series loosely based on Stephen King's The Colorado Kid. Audrey Parker, an orphaned FBI agent, follows the trail of an escaped felon to Haven, Maine, a town with fiercely guarded secrets. She discovers that a woman photographed at the scene of the death of the Colorado Kid who might be the mother she never met, and she decides to stay in Haven to investigate the mystery.

Audrey meets Nathan Wuornos (not a lobster fan, really likes pancakes), a detective at Haven PD and son of its Chief, when a crack appears in the road on her way into Haven and she drives her rental car almost off the cliff to avoid it. Nathan has what he says is idiopathic neuropathy (he can't feel anything), but it emerges that his condition is related to the Troubles: an emergence of usually unpleasant supernatural powers that occurs in Haven's townspeople every few decades. Nathan also has a frenemies situation with Duke Crocker, resident smuggler, who lives on a boat out in the harbour. Duke is introduced as a possible suspect, primarily because Nathan really enjoys arresting him for anything and everything he can, but he quickly becomes friends with and a helper to Audrey and Nathan, however reluctant he and Nathan are about that.

Haven is a lot of fun, but it will probably also break your heart. It has wonderful characters, a gorgeous cast with natural chemistry (they adore each other), and a plot fascinating, unexpected twists and turns.

(Haven's fifth season will begin airing in September.)

Hands down, Brooklyn Nine-Nine is my favourite show on TV right now. Maybe ever. I love police procedural series, but policing is such a perfect field for a sitcom that I'm genuinely surprised I haven't seen it before. People are absurd, and Brooklyn Nine-Nine captures that so well in the array of citizens their characters have to deal with, from old women who keep shopping during a police chase through a grocery store to stoners trying to claim that a burglar was the one who smoked pot in their apartment.

Brooklyn Nine-Nine's cast is just fab too. Rosa Diaz and Gina Linetti are probably my favourites, with Amy Santiago as a close third. Which is something else I adore about this show: the female characters are perfectly rendered. They're actually individuals with their own traits, they have depth, they have flaws, they speak to each other. Frequently! About all kinds of things! There are multiple episodes with a subplot that revolves around the interactions of the female characters! 

Brooklyn Nine-Nine isn't perfect (I'm still waiting for Boyle to actually be held accountable for how uncomfortable his unrelenting flirting has made Rosa, pls don't let me dooown), but it does some really progressive, awesome things. Not least because it has minorities characters who count as so much more than tokenism. They aren't just there to fill a quota, they're full, important characters who are given their due. 

(Season two is set to air in September.)

*As always, we can't recommend to you any less-than-legal methods of accessing these shows. I can however, say that last I saw, all three of these shows were available on Netflix. If you're not in the right region for Netflix and don't want to wait until you are, Chrome has an addon called Hola and you could download that and change your region to USA. Just sayin'.