AceShowbiz -

The casting of Lucy Liu as a female version of Watson in CBS' Sherlock Holmes pilot, "Elementary", has sparked a protest on Twitter. Reacting to the news first reported on Monday, February 27, some fans called the decision "horrible."

"This is horrible leave Sherlock alone," so a tweep wrote in capital letters. Some other tweets read, "What garbage is this?!?!!?," "I was going to give it a chance and at least watch it...now I won't," and "Don't mess with the Doyle!!!! You can interpret, but dont mess!!"

Set in present day, "Elementary" will feature Liu as a former NYPD consultant and an ex-surgeon who lost her license after a patient died. She is a "sober companion" to Holmes, a former Scotland Yard consultant who has just come out of a rehab for his addiction. The eccentric Brit will be played by Jonny Lee Miller.

According to reports, the switch in Watson's gender is made possibly because CBS tries to avoid getting slapped with plagiarism lawsuit by the creators of the BBC's "Sherlock". The Eye had previously talked to the British channel to buy the remake rights to the popular show, but then decided to go it alone.

Michael Cuesta has been tapped to direct the pilot, which script is written by Robert Doherty. Doherty additionally teams up with Sarah Timberman and Carl Beverly to serve as executive producers.