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Sherlock Holmes and Tom Sawyer come to TV

A modern update of Sherlock Holmes will air this fall, while a show following Tom Sawyer and Huck Finn is being developed.

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Jordan Strauss/Invision/AP
Actor Jonny Lee Miller (l.) and Lucy Liu (r.) star in the new Sherlock Holmes TV show 'Elementary,' which, like the BBC adaptation, updates Sherlock for the modern era.
  • By Molly Driscoll Staff Writer

Two classic works of literature are headed to TV with slight twists.

One of CBS’s new shows for the fall is “Elementary,” a present-day update of the Sherlock Holmes stories starring Jonny Lee Miller and Lucy Liu, while ABC is currently developing a show titled “Finn & Sawyer” in which the heroes create an investigative business in a steampunk New Orleans as adults. It is described as a take on Mark Twain’s “The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn.

“Elementary” stars Miller as famous sleuth Sherlock Holmes and Liu as a female Watson. In the CBS show, Sherlock has come to New York from London after spending time in rehab. He works as a consultant to New York’s police.

Executive producer Rob Doherty said Holmes’ drug habit and his legendary nemesis, Professor Moriarty, will both be part of the show. While concerns have arisen over whether the CBS show and the BBC series “Sherlock,” which also features a modernized Holmes and Watson, can coexist, Doherty pointed out that a contemporary update of Sherlock Holmes is not a new idea and that he has seen the first season of “Sherlock” and enjoyed it.

“I've seen many, many different takes and interpretations on the character and the franchise,” Doherty said of Sherlock Holmes adaptations in general. “They're all great. I don't think any of them hurt any of the others.”

CBS’s Sherlock show begins this September, while “Finn & Sawyer” was given a script order by ABC, so its air date (if it gets one) will be determined in the future.

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