God help me, I'm actually enjoying Elementary...

Despite my best efforts to stay above the fray, I must now admit that I'm actually becoming a fan of CBS's new 'Sherlock Holmes in New York' crime drama Elementary.  I know I'm supposed to take pot-shots at the show and blab about how it's a shameless attempt to cash in on the success of BBC's Sherlock.  But the show has, if anything, gone out of its way to differentiate itself from the brooding series that turned Benedict Cumberbatch into a mega-star/sex-symbol.  I remarked back when the first extended trailer appeared that the show felt less like a riff on Sherlock and more like a rip-off of Tony Shalhoub's Monk.  That's still the case, but it's quickly become an arguably superior version of the briefly great but mostly terrible USA comedy.  Loyal viewers will recall that the show's first two seasons were delightful until the writers/producers amped up the farce and started treating Monk like a man-child who was completely unfamiliar with how the outside world actually functions.  The key to the show's appeal is two things it shares with the title character: a genuine intelligence and a general lack of unnecessary sentiment.