Sherlock Holmes’ Assistant Takes the Spotlight in CBS Medical Drama ‘Watson’
Morris Chestnut plays Dr. John Watson in a medical procedural that offers a modern take on Sherlock Holmes’ often overlooked companion, with a mix of medicine and mystery.
Even though famous detective Sherlock Holmes never said it in any of author Arthur Conan Doyle’s original stories, “Elementary, my dear Watson” has become one of his famous catch phrases in part because it perfectly encapsulates his relationship with his friend and assistant Dr. John Watson. The condescending phrase affirms both Holmes’ genius and his arrogance, always placing Watson one step below him in importance and several steps behind him in intelligence.
Various Holmes adaptations have attempted to give Watson more agency, and the new CBS series Watson (premiering January 26) takes an even further step, placing Watson at the center of the story in a modern version that leaves Holmes offscreen altogether. Creator Craig Sweeny even switches up the genre, delivering a medical procedural with mystery thriller elements in the background, focusing on Watson’s skills as a doctor.
On that front, Watson isn’t entirely successful, although it shines whenever it delves into Sweeny’s new interpretation of the Holmes mythology. As the charismatic Watson, Morris Chestnut mixes some of the imperiousness of both Holmes and the clearly Holmes-influenced Dr. Gregory House with a more compassionate, open-minded demeanor. The result is a show that seems caught between two approaches, and the five episodes available for review capture Sweeny and his creative team struggling to work out what kind of story they want to tell.
The first episode opens with a flashback to Holmes’ death, as he plunges over Switzerland’s Reichenbach Falls in a battle with his arch-nemesis Dr. James Moriarty, just as he did in Conan Doyle’s story “The Final Problem.” Here, Watson plunges over the falls, too, in an effort to save Holmes, and he’s the only one rescued, although he’s left with a traumatic brain injury.
Anyone familiar with Holmes’ history knows that he survived the fall and eventually re-emerged, but for now everyone accepts that Holmes is gone. In his will, he’s left Watson a financial endowment to start a medical clinic to treat patients with rare diseases. So Watson heads back to his hometown of Pittsburgh, where he leads the Holmes Clinic attached to a hospital run by his soon-to-be-ex-wife, Dr. Mary Morstan (Rochelle Aytes).
Like House, Watson focuses on a case-of-the-week format in which Watson and his team of young specialists treat a patient with an initially confounding set of symptoms, running through various tests and treatments to determine which disease or combination of diseases and other factors is causing their condition. The individual cases are often preposterous, and while Sweeny keeps the tone relatively light, it can be tough to take some of Watson’s medical crises seriously.
Sweeny fares better with the ongoing mysteries, including the status of both Holmes and Moriarty. Minor Holmes supporting character Shinwell Johnson (Ritchie Coster) is reinvented as Watson’s right-hand man, a somewhat crude but well-meaning enforcer with connections to both law enforcement and the criminal underworld who also keeps an eye on Watson’s health following his injury. Shinwell is hiding his own dark secrets, as are Watson’s four eager assistants, especially the possibly devious neurologist Dr. Ingrid Derian (Eve Harlow).
The first episode features a tantalizing villain reveal that has yet to be fully explored within the initial five episodes, but there’s enough intrigue for Holmes fans to sit through the sillier medical episodes to see what happens next. Sweeny was a longtime writer and producer on another modern Holmes adaptation from CBS, Elementary, that eventually developed its own unique Holmes-inspired mythology, and over time Watson might get there, too. Given how long he’s existed in the renowned detective’s shadow, Watson is overdue for the attention.
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Josh Bell is a freelance writer and movie/TV critic based in Las Vegas. He has written about movies, TV, and pop culture for Vulture, IndieWire, Tom’s Guide, Inverse, Crooked Marquee, and more. With comedian Jason Harris, he co-hosts the podcast Awesome Movie Year.