Benedict Cumberbatch: 'Jonny Lee Miller is great as Sherlock'

Benedict Cumberbatch has praised Jonny Lee Miller's performance as Sherlock Holmes in CBS show Elementary.

Like the BBC's Sherlock, the US show sets Arthur Conan Doyle's character in the modern day. It cast Cumberbatch's friend and Frankenstein co-star in its lead role.

"I watched it... it's great. It's watching an actor I really like playing a part I really like and enjoy playing," Cumberbatch told Digital Spy and other journalists.

"And to see him relishing it in similar ways is fantastic. I think he's doing a wonderful job."

Quizzed how he would out-Sherlock his friend, Cumberbatch replied: "There are 78 of us all vying for the position, out-Sherlocking one another. So we're in good company."

After initially admitting to feeling "cynical" about Elementary when it was first announced, Cumberbatch later called the show "fantastic" and urged people to watch.

However, Cumberbatch's Sherlock co-star Martin Freeman admitted that he had not seen Elementary, which stars Lucy Liu as Joan Watson.

"I haven't and that's not a snubbing, it's just because I haven't seen most shows from anywhere," Freeman said.

"I wish them the best of luck, I think she's great, I think Jonny Lee Miller is really good."

Show co-creator Steven Moffat added: "The truth is we haven't seen it... the only thing we can do is maintain absolute separation.

"It's not just one other version of Sherlock Holmes, it's every other version of Sherlock Holmes. There's the Robert Downey Jr films.

"Basil Rathbone and Jeremy Brett live on television most days if you look hard enough! You're never the only version of Sherlock Holmes. "

Of whether he and Mark Gatiss would do episodes that did not spring off a Conan Doyle story, Moffat said: "We sort of have already. There are episodes that are brand-new stories really, with ingredients and elements from the original.

"We don't feel any sort of obligation to start from an original. There are just so many unused, untouched ideas in the original that you want to go for them. The majority of our stories are new."

Gatiss agreed: "They are really. There's obviously enshrined moments and things like that. I put the harpoon from '[The Adventure of] Black Peter into 'Baskerville' because it's a cool moment.

"That story never gets done - there's nothing much to it apart from a man getting speared through a wall. But it's a cool idea. I think there's so much brilliant stuff in Doyle."

Sherlock will return for a third series on January 1, 2014 at 9pm on BBC One.

Source: Digital Spy