If the big news about the fourth-season premiere of Elementary is that it introduces Sherlock Holmes’s father, the reason I watched the two episodes made available for critics is for who’s playing Daddy: John Noble, from my (and your?) beloved Fox show Fringe (2008-2013). As the brilliant, troubled Walter Bishop, Noble gave a wonderful performance — two of them, in fact, since he was Walter in parallel worlds on Fringe. Many of us feel Noble deserved an Emmy for the role, and I can only hope that moving to a bigger hit on a network more likely to attract Emmy voters will help Noble’s chances as he moves into Elementary on Thursday night in an episode titled “The Past Is Parent.” Putting aside my Noble-mania for a moment, the season premiere finds Sherlock (Jonny Lee Miller) coming to terms with his drug relapse from last season. This hasn’t helped his relationship with the law, and Aiden Quinn’s Gregson has some bad news for Holmes and Lucy Liu’s Watson about their continued employment with him.
