I can’t believe it took this long, but Professor James Moriarty, arch-nemesis of Sherlock Holmes, is getting his own TV series.
I suppose it was inevitable, after CBS gave Dr. Watson his own show. But now… yes, the greatest villain in detective novel history, the Napoleon of Crime, the mastermind of mayhem Moriarty will be the star of his own series. I’d say it took 133 years, but TV (or at least a TV that could sustain a series) wasn’t invented until much later, around 1930.
The show is a British series, and will be a detective procedural in its own right. According to Deadline, in the show,
“Moriarty is a Professor of Criminal Psychology at Durham University but leads a secret double life as the mastermind behind every crime of sophistication in the North of England. When a rival criminal begins an assault on his underground empire, Moriarty will have only one choice: to join the police as a consultant, using the law as a weapon to dismantle his foe while keeping his true identity hidden from the police. Paired with Detective Imogen Burrows, a stoic Yorkshire detective, they’ll form a fearsome team, but Moriarty will soon realize that the real threat isn’t the rival criminal faction he’s dismantling.”
So, Moriarty’s a detective now, I guess. Interesting.
Moriarty’s representation and significance in the Holmes adaptation canon has far surpassed his presence in Arthur Conan Doyle’s original stories. Moriarty only appears in one Sherlock Holmes story—The Adventure of the Final Problem in 1893—though the implications of his villainy run through a few of the stories. (He is mentioned in “The Adventure of the Empty House”, “The Adventure of the Norwood Builder”, “The Adventure of the Missing Three-Quarter”, “The Adventure of the Illustrious Client”, “His Last Bow,” and the final Holmes novel The Valley of Fear.) Still, that’s nothing compared to how most Sherlock Holmes adaptations feature him as the main villain despite the fact that there are plenty to choose from.
This forthcoming series won’t be the first time Moriarty has popped up in a non Holmes-centric story, though. He is the villain in the 2003 film The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, and there is a 2016 manga called Moriarty the Patriot (which is about three brothers who all play “James Moriarty), and there is a 2022 podcast called Moriarty in which Dominic Monahagn plays the villain… who turns out to be an innocent man.
The new series will be written by Chris Cornwell and Oliver Lansey. There’s no word about casting yet, but we’re happy to lie in wait until the next announcement.
