That is what is so gratifying about the way that Sherlock and Joan seem to have been reconceptualised from the ground up for Elementary with reference to their canon originals rather than merely transported from the Victorian era complete with Victorian attitudes and biases. Because Elementary is explicitly about their relationship it also feels like a much deeper show than Sherlock, in which the poorly-reformulated mysteries form the inarguable focus of the show and no tangible emotional or intellectual connection has ever been made between Sherlock and John. The fact is that a modern adaptation of Sherlock Holmes needs to have a modern sensibility — to sex, to class, to race, and to storytelling; that’s why I feel comfortable saying at this point that Elementary is the true modern adaptation of Holmes and Watson from the way it is structured (and it is important that a woman of colour is given such a prominent and essential narrative role, particularly in the context of Sherlock‘s Orientalist racism) to the way it is executed. This is a show where Sherlock can be destroyed by a woman, and reconstructed by a woman.