It’s elementary. All things must end sometime and now, the end is in sight for the Elementary TV show. It’s been announced that there won’t be an eighth season but, on the positive side, a seventh season of 13 episodes will wrap up the crime drama. The final year will bring the show’s tally to 154 episodes.
Airing on the CBS television network, Elementary follows detective Sherlock Holmes (Jonny Lee Miller) and Doctor Joan Watson (Lucy Liu). This modern-day adaptation of the Sir Arthur Conan Doyle detective stories features some new spins on the classic crime-solving duo. Instead of assisting Scotland Yard, they crack New York City’s toughest cases. A former surgeon who lost a patient, as well as her license to practice, Watson began as Sherlock’s sober companion. Eventually, their relationship evolved into an investigative partnership. The crime drama also stars Aidan Quinn as Captain Thomas Gregson and Jon Michael Hill as Detective Marcus Bell.
According to Deadline, when Elementary was renewed for a seventh season, it was decided that those episodes would also end the show. Why? It’s surely no coincidence that Liu and Miller’s contracts would have had to be renegotiated. The show’s network ratings have also continued to dwindle but the series is a lucrative money-maker in syndication and in international markets.
“A lot of parties came together and talked about their positions on the show — both in terms of business and in terms of creative — and we all decided that this was an opportune time to say goodbye to a show that has been very, very good to us,” CBS Entertainment President Kelly Kahl said.
Added executive producer Carl Beverly, “[Series creator Rob Doherty] set out to tell a story, and it feels like he has accomplished what he had set out to do. The actors, the crew and the cast feel that way, and we feel that. So are grateful and celebrating what we had and looking forward to the future.”
SPOILER ALERT The cast and crew had been unsure if they would get a seventh-year renewal so they’d already shot the sixth season finale as an appropriate end for the series. While the sixth season finale left our heroes in London, they will be returning to New York early in season seven. Holmes nemesis Odin Reichenbach, to be played by James Frein, will show up in episode five.
There will also be a time jump in the seventh season. Doherty said, “Something that I knew I wanted to do was move forward in time a bit with the characters by the very end… (In the books,) there was a period when Sherlock and Watson were not together, they went down very different paths, and their lives were very different from having been apart. We felt that would be appropriate for our show. A lot was season seven working towards that, how can we tell a larger story that would allow us to devise a finale that sets in not so distant future.”
CBS has not announced a premiere date for season seven but it will surely air sometime in 2019. Season six aired over the summer of 2018, ending in early September.
What do you think? Are you a fan of the Elementary TV show? Are you sorry that there won’t be an eighth season or, is season seven the right time to end the show?
I am so disappointed that another show where I have to think and use my brain to follow and solve a mystery is gone. These reality shows coming up and assorted game shows will have me in the library more. I dont like the direction things are going. Miss you Joan and Sherlock.
My wife & I will miss it
We are very sad and disappointed! Miller and Liu have become complicated friends.
I’ve watched the show from the beginning and always enjoyed the development of the characters. It is quality work and look forward to new roles for all these players.
A great pity that it will not continue after Series 7. Really enjoyed this program
I Loved this show!! Never willl there be anyother like this! I’m 65, so like all shows, “All Good Series, Must Come To An End”! All the Best to ALL !!
I’d love to see the show continue and continue but I want Sherlock and Joan to work together.
There should be a season 8, but unfortunately this show requires viewers with higher IQ’s than most of CBS’s viewers. Too bad.
Arrgghh!! Just one of the best shows on network! I’m so sad to see them go. I guess I can hope against hope that they will change their minds or another station will pick them up. The characters were finally settling in to a relationship that views could appreciate and understand!
I’m so disappointed.
It’s so great to read other people don’t like reality shows. I won’t watch them, don’t know how they keep getting renewed. But I hate that Elementary is done, I enjoyed watching. I also really like Midnight, Texas. I would love them both to be renewed.
Again, CBS has cancelled another great show. The powers that be are not using a good amount of sense with these decisions. I am getting tired of watching favorite shows go by the wayside, enough so that I won’t continue to watch shows on CBS so I don’t have to watch them leave. Get rid of the reality shows and bad sitcoms, bring back Elementary, Code Black, Scorpion, to name a few. Goodbye 2018, goodbye CBS!
CBS cancelled all my favorite shows. Those dumb “reality” shows are taking over!! Time to lose local channels and go to HBO, etc.
very disappointed to learn Elementary will end
I’m disappointed that Elementary is ending!
This is one of my favorite shows. I have resorted to watching re-reruns. Why is it that all of the good shows are cancelled and the moronic reality shows renewed. People just don’t appreciate a good mystery with great characters and story line. What a shame that this show is being cancelled.
I totally agree. I honestly don’t understand the fascination with “reality” shows. especially the ones that have people constantly bashing each other and acting out in despicable ways. I guess people are simply too ignorant to appreciate quality TV shows any more.