Why are you all fighting? Oh I see, "Elementary" series two has begun has it?

Okay I admit that it’s starting to get frustrating.

As I have said several times before, I have essentially avoided commenting on Elementary, beyond the pilot episode, for the pure and simple reason that I have not seen any other episodes. I don’t pay for Sky (and won’t ever given our mutual history which is out of scope here) and this is currently the only way to see it (UK people – please don’t mention Virgin Media. They don’t serve my neck of the woods). Now, unless I’m very much mistaken, no free-to-air channel in the UK has picked it up and until that happens I will not be seeing it.

Mr Miller, for a moment I thought you were in Mr Cumberbatch's flat.

Others, of course, are falling over themselves to pass comment – be it positive or negative – and with the debut of its second season this seems to have gone into a new and higher (or lower depending on your point of view) gear.

The opinion I expressed based on the pilot was that it was a fun show but that its canonical credentials were strained at best. However that was, I say again, based on the pilot and things may have improved or deteriorated since then (third-party opinion appears sharply divided on the subject). I note that Amazon UK are stating that the DVDs of series one will be released in December but I’d rather, as I did with Sherlock, see them for free before deciding whether or not I want to add them to a fairly extensive collection.

One thing that I find really depressing, sitting on the side-lines watching, as I clearly am, is the almost total absence of civility between the camps. Time and again I’ve seen two people (or teams in some cases) start out quite civil and then deteriorate into not much more than name calling. Only slightly less depressing than the arguments between those who wish to speak is the clear delight expressed by those, also sitting, to some extent, on the side-lines, who cannot wait for the fights to begin (regardless of whether or not they will personally take part). Sometimes I get the distinct feeling of a Romans watching gladiators metaphor coming into view.

Is it really worth it? In my, perhaps limited but getting increasingly less so, experience, 99% of arguments are totally pointless. Both parties go into the argument utterly convinced of the soundness of their argument and 100% convinced that they’ll demonstrate that to their opponent. Sometime later both parties emerge from the “debate” with exactly the same argument, are equally convinced it is the right one and both have more anger towards their opponent than they started with. What has been achieved? Easy, in the northern vernacular – nowt!

So, hurry up UK free TV and get hold of this show so I can stand some chance of seeing where both sides are coming from.

Written by Alistair Duncan

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