I am so perplexed by this announcement. Trying to figure out the logic behind it just ties up my brain in knots. Did the studio execs go:
You know what I hate? Bromance! Friendship should only be between a man and a woman.
Or did they go:
You know what that Sherlock thing needs? MORE ROMANCE. AND SEX. But none of the gay stuff, ew.
As much as I like seeing studios cast lady main characters and non-white main characters, I just don’t see this sudden gender swap going anywhere good. It would have been interesting if they’d gender-swapped Sherlock to go with this, so you’d still have the ‘bromance’ in a different form. Or if they keep Lucy Lui as a trained and battle-hardened army medic, I’ll probably watch it — women in the military are fascinating and brilliant. But going by this article, I’m not going to have any such luck:
Set in New York, it stars Jonny Lee Miller as the great detective – a former consultant to Scotland Yard whose addiction problems have resulted in a spell in rehab in the States – while Liu will play “Joan” Watson, a former doctor who has lost her license.