Elementary, episode one, Sky Living, review It wasn't long ago that Benedict Cumberbatch and Jonny Lee Miller were at the National Theatre together in Danny Boyle's magisterial staging of Frankenstein, swapping nightly between the lead parts of the physicist and his creation. But not only, it turns out, did that particular Dr F make a monster, he also spawned something arguably far more terrifying: a pair of Sherlock Holmeses. For, just as we were recovering our collective composure after the departure of Cumberbatch's charismatically deranged sleuth from our screens, here, on Sky Living, came Miller's own rendering in the first instalment of Elementary, a starry new 13-parter, shot and set in New York City, with Watson now a woman (played by Lucy Liu). It is, however, less to Cumberbatch's Holmes than to another home-grown oddball that Miller's detective seems to owe the most. Doctor Who is, I'm told, mightily popular in the States, which you might well have guessed from Miller's markedly Matt Smithian speech patterns. The air of distraction, those rapid-fire, rather pronoun-light little phrases - all seem to echo the present incarnation of the world's favourite Time Lord. (Don't understand? You will. Happens often.) Anyway, Holmes is now a recovering drug addict and former "consultant" to Scotland Yard, living in one of his filthy-rich father's many Manhattan apartments. In episode one, we - and Joan Watson - first encountered Holmes, bare-chested, implausibly muscular and slathered in tattoos, doing a kind of Man Who Fell to Earth routine in front of a wall of TV screens. A disgraced surgeon, Watson is his appointed rehab "companion." Holmes told her he wants to keep himself on the straight-and-narrow by doing what he does best. The crime that Aidan Quinn's amiable NYPD captain asked him to help solve was a brutal murder. Shot with an artful, first-person-camera relish, this proved a gripping opening, and set the scene for an hour of entertainment that was nothing if not pacy. Even if you half expect him to start battling Daleks with his new-found "assistant," Miller's Holmes isn't bad: handsomer than Cumberbatch's, slightly less mad and more charming. Besides, Conan Doyle's Holmes always had a weakness for class As. Nor is basing him in New York such a silly idea: it makes more sense that a Brit over there would get away with such an indulgently eccentric and anachronistic English manner, like a sort of hyperactive thatched cottage with a pulse. Over here, he'd be laughed out of town. For the rest, Liu was as watchable as ever, the hint of sexual tension between her Watson and Holmes a nice bit of spice. The writing and plotting weren't bad either. Not destination television, then, but definitely worth stumbling upon.