Featured TV on DVD Review: Elementary: Season Seven
September 23, 2019
Elementary: Season Seven - Buy from Amazon: DVD or The Complete Series
Elementary started out in the top 20 in the ratings, but it wasn’t able to stay there more than a couple of seasons. By season six, it was moved to the summer and even the showwriter thought that season would be the last and it was written to be the finale. Then the show got a seventh season. Was this one season too many? Does the show end on a low note?
First the basics, Elementary is a Sherlock Holmes adaptation set in modern New York City. Jonny Lee Miller stars as Sherlock Holmes with Lucy Liu playing Joan Watson. They work as consulting detectives for the NYPD, more specifically under Captain Thomas Gregson and Detective Marcus Bell. For the most part, the show is your typical police procedural, with a recurring storyline from the Sherlock Holmes mythos. For example, Jamie Moriarty is in the series, but she is not only a criminal mastermind, but also a romantic interest for Sherlock.
Season six ended with Sherlock Holmes confessing to a murder he didn’t commit to protect Joan Watson. She also didn’t commit the murder, but she was the FBI’s lead suspect and the real killer was someone both of them were willing to risk jail to protect. (No spoilers here, just in case you haven’t seen the last season.) As a result, Sherlock Holmes has to leave the United States and returns to London. Joan Watson follows and the pair continue their work. This was to be the end of the series, but when it got a short seventh season, they had to get the pair back to New York, so the writers had Captain Gregson shot, which was Holmes and Watson’s motivation to return. They solve the case rather quickly, but something is amiss, as they are convinced there’s more to it than it seems at first. This gets the attention of tech billionaire Odin Reichenbach. At first he hires them to look into a threat he thinks is coming from within his company, but it is actually a test. The man who shot Captain Gregson was working for Odin Reichenbach. Reichenbach uses his social media empire to keep an eye on, well, everyone who uses his tech to try and spot murderers before they kill ... and then kill them. Reichenbach wants Sherlock and Watson to join him in his mission, but they refuse, making a powerful enemy in the process.
I’m burned out on police procedurals. I tried to watch The Rookie this year, but while liking the cast, I couldn’t do it and stopped after a handful of episodes. I mention this, because I watched the entire seventh season of Elementary in just two days. Granted, it was a short season at just 13 episodes, but I was worried it would take me a week to slog through them all for the review. The speed at which I watched the season is all the evidence I need that it was a great season, but what made it so good.
Firstly, everyone involved really knows these characters. That means the writers and the actors could work together and deliver the best performances, while the actors have incredible chemistry at this point. The crew also knew this was going to be the last season, so they were able to create a compelling story that lasted the entire season. It was also a shorter season, so they didn’t have to stretch things out with a lot of padding. The show also ended in a way that was satisfying, while still allowing for more stories to be told. This is especially true since it was confirmed Jamie Moriarty is still alive. I bet there’s already an idea or two for a two-hour TV movie involving the return of that character and I’m really looking forward to seeing it, if it gets made.
There are deleted scenes on a few episodes, as well as a 24-minute long look at the final season. There’s another seven-minute featurette with the writing crew gushing about their experience writing on the show. Finally, there are three minutes of outtakes. This isn’t a ton of extras, but it is more than a lot of similar releases get.
Elementary maintained its high quality throughout Season Seven and ended in a way that was both satisfying while leaving more stories possible. The extras on the DVD are enough that it is worth picking up, while the The Complete Series is a good deal, if you have half of the previous seasons.
The Show
Review
The Extras
The Verdict
Filed under: Video Review, Aidan Quinn, James Frain, Lucy Alexis Liu, Jonny Lee Miller, Natalie Dormer, Jon Michael Hill