8 Utterly Ridiculous TV Castings That Totally Rocked Anyway

8. Lucy Liu As Joan Watson €“ Elementary

Whether in books, feature films or television shows, Dr. Watson €“ the sharpshooting, ex-military side-kick to Sherlock Holmes has existed for well over a hundred years and generally speaking, most adaptations have stuck pretty faithfully to the character blueprints laid down in novels like 'A Study In Scarlet' penned in the late 19th century. So when CBS announced they were casting Lucy Liu to fill the doctor's shoes for their brand new sleuth show Elementary, one can only imagine how that revelation played with Holmes traditionalists the world over. Naturally, the process of transforming a character from a white British male to an Asian American female demanded significant changes in their back story to accommodate the new circumstances. From where we left the honourable, upstanding soldier, in steps Joan Watson, the disgraced surgeon turned live-in sober companion to the irascible Sherlock while he solves crime and recovers from drug addiction in their Manhattan Brownstone apartment. I didn't know what to make of the decision to cast Lucy Liu as Watson at first. Historically I had always been against the idea of adaptations deviating from their predecessors in terms of characterisation or thematic content, but watching Elementary for a season and a half has completely changed my opinion on the matter. In this case the differences in style, tone and setting help distinguish it from the other versions, including its BBC counterpart and despite the physical differences between John and Joan, they are both competent, extremely patient and exhibit the warm personality traits essential to Watson's character, which is way more important than say, the colour of their skin. When two similar TV shows come out within a relatively short space of time it's only natural to compare them, and in this instance it's fair to say that 'Sherlock' has probably been the more successful venture so far. When all's said and done however, Lucy Liu's Watson added a dimension to the relationship between doctor and detective audiences have rarely seen before and breathed new life into an age old character.