Elementary Reviewed: Uncanny Valley of the Dolls (S6E16)

...in keeping with the strict tradition of this blog, this episode doesn't deserve to get quoted.

What is it? 44-minute single-cam crime/procedural drama
Where did it air? CBS
Who stars in it? Lucy Liu (yes that one, the one and only) and Jaime Lee Miller, ex-husband of Angelina Jolie (no the one before Billy Bob Thornton) as Watson and Holmes.
Why are we reviewing this?:

...because I'm pretty sure this episode is just about the cringiest thing the FCC and Ajit Pai would currently allow on broadcast TV.

...and keep in mind, Ajit Pai's favorite hobby is to dress up like Santa Claus off-season.

Just a reminder, it was Barack Obama who put this man into office. For some reason.

This episode revolves around a sex doll solving the case (hence the name). Yes, it's just as cringey as you think it is, hence why I opened up with that.

...there really isn't anything worth left saying for this individual episode so I'm going to talk about the series as a whole.

I've been watching this show more or less from the beginning, sporadically, with my parents and especially dad who are (more or less) really into it. Going back to my ratings scale it's a pretty consistent C-, and the very definition of a C- show according to that scale. Actually I guess strictly speaking its average would be lower since a C- is I think the highest score this show would ever hope to achieve, and while I don't feel like this show's ever delved into F-territory, it's had some episodes that I feel justify D-range.

This would be one of them.

Many of the problems of this show - yes including the cringe factor, but some pretty glaring factual errors that while not shocking are pretty, well, glaring and give me the impression that the writing and fact-checking staff can't even be bothered to cross-reference freakin' Wikipedia when they write these episodes. Indeed at times it feels like most of their knowledge base and information is coming either from Alex Freakin' Jones or Gizmodo Media, depending on the political leanings of whoever happens to be writing the episode (and yeah it does vary that widely, and yes that is very much a huge dig at Gizmodo Media). It doesn't matter if it's medical science, astrophysics (even relatively simple astrophysics), far-out future science or even the science of criminology - not to mention just the basic legal system itself, knowledge reduced to tropes that anybody watching exactly this kind of show would've learned by now from, again, exactly this kind of show - but some of the logical leaps and conclusions get...pretty far-out there. 

This show's been bounced around a bit - originally having some pretty sweet primetime slots on CBS, it's since been moved to Monday, and then all the way to Sunday which is the absolute kiss of death even compared to Friday - this is where you dump shows you make only because of contractual obligations at this point - but then back again to Monday.

...as a summer burn-off. Which, again, is what you do when you're stuck with a show pretty much due strictly to contractual obligations.

...which are pretty much in full-force here because apparently at this point this show's half-funded by Czech television interests? Apparently this show is like hotcakes over there, who knew?

But thanks to that foreign intervention this is pretty much the show that will not die. Oh believe me, CBS gave it plenty of opportunity - it's been in decent time slots for at least the first three seasons - but ratings have eroded to the point where last year it was the lowest rated series on the entire network.

So, um, yeah.

Episode Grade: D-. This was...cringe, while not really offering anything above that other than some pretty paint-by-numbers procedural stuff.
Episode MVP: The female grad student who ended up doing the murder at the end (oh sorry spoiler alert) just because I thought she was the hottest. So there.

This episode doesn't deserve having Episode MVP awarded for legitimate reasons.

Series Grade: D-, keeping in mind that this is an across-the-board average but also keeping in mind that the highest this show's ever achieved is a C-, maybe a flat-C. According to my own grading scale...this is something I should've gave up on years ago.

...and all those years ago it would've been a C-, something worth watching when I catch it but not something really deserving of going out of the way to watch (and indeed I missed huge chunks of various seasons). 

But I think the move to Burn-Off Land pretty much says all there needs to be said about it.

Extra Thoughts

 - actually I just about had given up on the show permanently except...right around that time (2013, which if you know me at all is a pretty critical year for me), they introduced a subplot where Liu's Watson was temporarily replaced by a pretty redhead who was trying to overcome trauma from being raped and trying to seek revenge for it.

...yeah that subplot has absolutely no ability for me to be able to relate to it at all.

 - yeah this is my first "post-coming-out-as-at-least-questioning [hypersexual lesbian] trans" review. Deal with it.

 - yes the "hypersexual lesbian" part is important too. Deal with it.

 - Even though I myself am the proud owner of a Rampage, I can so totally take on Ajit with my (TWIN!) Rotofuries and especially muh freakin' HyperFire.

Hell I can probably take him on with my Buzz Bee Double Shot which is more than even mildly a POS: