CBS announces the decision to cancel the show after it has wrapped production for the now final season of the series.
- Dec 18, 2018
AceShowbiz - Jonny Lee Miller and Lucy Liu will soon graduate from "Elementary". CBS has announced that the procedural drama series, which stars Miller as a modern Sherlock Holmes and Liu as Dr. Joan Watson, will end after its upcoming seventh season.
The cancellation is announced after the show wrapped production on the 13-episode final season on Friday, December 14. However, it's reported that CBS has long made the decision to end the show in May, when it renewed "Elementary" for season 7. The last season is scheduled to air in 2019, bringing a conclusion to the long-running series.
"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 tells Deadline.
Executive producer Carl Beverly adds, "Rob 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."
The decision to end "Elementary" reportedly has something to do with Miller and Liu's contracts which are coming up. The show's creator/exec producer Robert Doherty and exec producer Beverly previously envisioned season 6 as the final season of the show. That's why the season 6 finale ended with Holmes and Watson moving from New York to Holmes' iconic Baker Street address in London, where they began to investigate cases and work with Scotland Yard.
The upcoming season 7, however, will find them back in New York at some point. "We really wanted to go back to New York and Gregson (Aidan Quinn) and Bell (Jon Michael Hill), and we found what we felt was a satisfying way to bring them back," says Doherty.
He also reveals there will be a time jump. "Something that I knew I wanted to do was move forward in time a bit with the characters by the very end," Doherty teases. "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 7 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?"
The upcoming final season will see Holmes facing one of his nemeses, Odin Reichenbach. Played by James Frain, the character will first appear in episode 5 of season 7.
