In all pop culture portrayals, John Watson, the yin to Sherlock Holmes’ yang, has been a man. Then in 2012, Robert Doherty changed all that. In Elementary , Doherty’s interpretation of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s prolific detective series, John became Joan. He cast Lucy Liu to translate his vision on-screen.
Gender bender
The move received a fair amount of criticism on social media, which only riled things up further when Doherty got Natalie Dormer ( Game of Thrones ) to play Jamie Moriarty. Elementary was one of the first to jump on the gender-reversal bandwagon. The trend later picked up films and television shows such as all-girl Ghostbusters (2016), The Ancient One (Tilda Swinton) in Doctor Strange (2016), the upcoming women-led Ocean’s Eight and the most recent announcement of Dr Who’s Time Lord, which will be played by Jodi Whittaker (last seen in Broadchurch). We have a chat with Liu in light of the show’s fifth season and her upcoming projects.
Contemporary characters
“[Doherty] had always envisioned Watson as a woman who could have a relationship with Holmes that was based on respect and support,” says the 48-year-old actor. “He wanted them to have a platonic relationship that (though they were living together) had no romantic undertones and was not headed in a sexual direction.” It’s heartening to see a meaningful platonic bond on-screen, especially one where a female character is not summed up by the value of her romantic relationships. In fact, Elementary has never really focussed on love angles in particular. “Sherlock and Watson have been done countless times,” says Liu, about her show’s modern interpretation of the classic. “Their characters are defined by playing off of each other and it has been so much fun over the last several years. New York City has its own character in our show, and getting to explore the city through Watson’s eyes has been an adventure.” Additionally, by casting a woman, Doherty wanted to use Sherlock’s famed discomfort around women to add another layer to the protagonists’ relationship. “The more Rob spoke about it, the more intrigued I became with how this relationship could develop,” says Liu. “Allowing their friendship to stem from Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s short stories and branch into something unique in Elementary and Rob’s take on the characters was exciting to me from the very beginning.”
Coming full circle
Four seasons later, Liu’s Watson has seen a tremendous arc, going from a former surgeon to become Sherlock’s sober companion and currently his partner in solving crime. “The character of Joan was a huge pull for me — she’s complex and sensitive,” says the actor, who admits that the gender reversal never drove any of her character’s choices. In the fifth season, we see Watson feel unmoored, unsatisfied with the direction her life is taking. With an itch to get back to helping people, as opposed to getting the bad guys, she encounters someone from the past. The audience is introduced to Conan Doyle’s canon character, Shinwell Johnson (the late Nelsan Ellis who played Lafayette Reynolds on True Blood ), Watson’s former patient with a morally ambiguous past.
What’s next?
The latest season, which completes 120 Elementary episodes, will also see Liu get behind the camera to direct the show’s 22nd instalment, Moving Targets . The actor, will next be seen in films such as James Franco’s post-apocalyptic thriller Future World and the Netflix original, Set It Up , besides directing the first episode of the superhero show Luke Cage ’s second season .
Set It Up is slated for a 2018 Netflix release
