I just discovered the new series Watson, which is from Craig Sweeny, who was one of the core producers on CBS's Elementary. This is CBS's second Sherlock Holmes-based procedural, but it goes in a different direction from Elementary. In this version, Watson (Morris Chestnut) is a clinical geneticist who returns to medical practice after Holmes apparently dies at Reichenbach Falls, leaving Watson a fortune that he uses to found the Holmes Clinic in Pittsburgh, where Watson and his team solve House-style medical mysteries (and House was itself a Sherlock Holmes knockoff of sorts), with a touch of detective drama thrown in as well, since Watson applies Holmes's detective training to his medical mysteries, or occasionally (as in last night's episode 3) stumbles across a criminal case he can solve using his team's medical knowledge.
The show has its share of formulaic elements -- for instance, both of the first two episodes had the exact same beat, a patient resigned to dying from a hereditary terminal condition turning out to have something curable after all -- but it has some points of interest. This version of Watson is a student of genetics and human nature and has assembled a team of young doctors with interesting quirks, including a pair of identical twins with very different personalities (both played by Peter Mark Kendall), a Texan doctor adopted from China as an infant (Inga Schlingmann), and a neurologist (Eve Harlow) who might be a psychopath. His wife Mary Morstan (Rochelle Aytes) is his boss and is divorcing him. (Harlow's character is also Watson's personal neurologist as well as his employee. Conflict of interest? What's that?)
Watson needs a neurologist because he's suffering from traumatic brain injury after Reichenbach and dealing with health problems, and he's assisted by Shinwell Johnson (Richie Coster), an ex-con character from "The Adventure of the Illustrious Client" who was previously adapted as a recurring player in Elementary's 5th season. This version of Shinwell is basically Watson's Watson, or maybe his Mrs. Hudson, but he's being blackmailed by Moriarty's agent (Kacey Rohl) to spy on Watson and do the occasional sinister thing. In the pilot, Watson didn't remember Shinwell at first after his concussion, so I suspected Shinwell would turn out to be Moriarty, but they went in a different direction, perhaps because they didn't want to repeat a twist from Elementary. Moriarty appears in the pilot, played by Randall Park, the MCU's Agent Jimmy Woo, who's not at all who I would've expected in the role of a sinister mastermind.
I was unsure what to expect from this, since the reviews were mixed, and though Craig Sweeny did some good work on Elementary, he also scripted and executive-produced the terrible Star Trek: Section 31 movie. (He may have brought in Kacey Rohl here after working with her on that.) So far, though, I find it reasonably interesting. Elementary gave us a Watson who'd given up medicine and embraced a new career as a detective, so it's an interesting alternate take to see a Watson who's left detective work to resume his medical career. Watson was always second banana to Holmes in detective work, but in the medical arena, he can come into his own, which is an idea worth exploring. The geneticist angle seems to come out of nowhere, but I guess they wanted a touch of modernity in the character. Or maybe Sweeny wanted to do a show about a geneticist and CBS asked him to do it as another Holmes pastiche? Anyway, the Holmes-mythos elements and the partial blending of medical and detective dramas add some interesting flavor to it. And it's probably only a matter of time before Holmes turns up alive.
I was surprised when the pilot established that Watson's full name was John Hamish Watson, because I'd thought that the BBC's Sherlock coined that middle name. But it turns out it was actually proposed in a 1943 essay by Dorothy L. Sayers, as a way of reconciling why Mary addressed Watson as "James" (the English equivalent of the Scottish Hamish) in one story. (I recommend the essay -- it's quite cleverly reasoned.) The show does crib one thing from Sherlock, the depiction of text messages hovering in the air -- that's a pretty standard device now, but I'm pretty sure Sherlock started it.
Hmm -- so CBS has now done two Holmes-based series, Elementary and Watson. Logically, their third one will have to be titled My Dear.
The show has its share of formulaic elements -- for instance, both of the first two episodes had the exact same beat, a patient resigned to dying from a hereditary terminal condition turning out to have something curable after all -- but it has some points of interest. This version of Watson is a student of genetics and human nature and has assembled a team of young doctors with interesting quirks, including a pair of identical twins with very different personalities (both played by Peter Mark Kendall), a Texan doctor adopted from China as an infant (Inga Schlingmann), and a neurologist (Eve Harlow) who might be a psychopath. His wife Mary Morstan (Rochelle Aytes) is his boss and is divorcing him. (Harlow's character is also Watson's personal neurologist as well as his employee. Conflict of interest? What's that?)
Watson needs a neurologist because he's suffering from traumatic brain injury after Reichenbach and dealing with health problems, and he's assisted by Shinwell Johnson (Richie Coster), an ex-con character from "The Adventure of the Illustrious Client" who was previously adapted as a recurring player in Elementary's 5th season. This version of Shinwell is basically Watson's Watson, or maybe his Mrs. Hudson, but he's being blackmailed by Moriarty's agent (Kacey Rohl) to spy on Watson and do the occasional sinister thing. In the pilot, Watson didn't remember Shinwell at first after his concussion, so I suspected Shinwell would turn out to be Moriarty, but they went in a different direction, perhaps because they didn't want to repeat a twist from Elementary. Moriarty appears in the pilot, played by Randall Park, the MCU's Agent Jimmy Woo, who's not at all who I would've expected in the role of a sinister mastermind.
I was unsure what to expect from this, since the reviews were mixed, and though Craig Sweeny did some good work on Elementary, he also scripted and executive-produced the terrible Star Trek: Section 31 movie. (He may have brought in Kacey Rohl here after working with her on that.) So far, though, I find it reasonably interesting. Elementary gave us a Watson who'd given up medicine and embraced a new career as a detective, so it's an interesting alternate take to see a Watson who's left detective work to resume his medical career. Watson was always second banana to Holmes in detective work, but in the medical arena, he can come into his own, which is an idea worth exploring. The geneticist angle seems to come out of nowhere, but I guess they wanted a touch of modernity in the character. Or maybe Sweeny wanted to do a show about a geneticist and CBS asked him to do it as another Holmes pastiche? Anyway, the Holmes-mythos elements and the partial blending of medical and detective dramas add some interesting flavor to it. And it's probably only a matter of time before Holmes turns up alive.
I was surprised when the pilot established that Watson's full name was John Hamish Watson, because I'd thought that the BBC's Sherlock coined that middle name. But it turns out it was actually proposed in a 1943 essay by Dorothy L. Sayers, as a way of reconciling why Mary addressed Watson as "James" (the English equivalent of the Scottish Hamish) in one story. (I recommend the essay -- it's quite cleverly reasoned.) The show does crib one thing from Sherlock, the depiction of text messages hovering in the air -- that's a pretty standard device now, but I'm pretty sure Sherlock started it.
Hmm -- so CBS has now done two Holmes-based series, Elementary and Watson. Logically, their third one will have to be titled My Dear.
