I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: “it’s not easy playing second fiddle.” For most of the twentieth and twenty-first century Dr. Watson has been one of the most sidelined, written-off, turned-into-a-joke characters in all of Western literature.
There are exceptions that prove the rule (some more subtly respectful, like James Mason’s Watson to Christopher Plummer’s Holmes in Murder by Decree, and some more outlandish, such as Ben Kingsley’s Watson to Michael Caine’s Holmes in Without a Clue, a movie that suggests Watson was the mastermind all along). But mostly, it’s taken a host of new adaptations for the character to receive a second appraisal. We have experienced such smarter, more-impressive Watsons as Martin Freeman’s John Watson in the BBC Sherlock series, Shihori Kanjiya’s Wato in Miss Sherlock, Jude Law’s Watson in Guy Ritchie’s Sherlock Holmes films, and Lucy Lu’s Joan Watson in CBS’s Elementary. And of course, before all these guys, there were David Burke and Edward Hardwicke as the same Watson in the Jeremy Brett series! And they were great!
In other words, there hasn’t exactly been a drought of good Watsons, as of late. Or maybe really ever. But the bad ones really still sting!
So much so that I’m still surprised every time there’s a Watson character in a Holmes adaptation that presents him as smart and/or capable.
And there’s a new one!
Am I talking about the upcoming animated children’s series that portrays Watson as a cat? No!
I’m talking about Watson, a new show on CBS that concentrates on the life Dr. Watson. Watson is played by Morris Chestnut and he lives in Pittsburgh! Who would do such a thing!?
The conceit of the show is that Holmes seems to die in his showdown with Moriarty at the Reichenbach Falls. Watson is sad about the loss of his friend so he moves to Pittsburgh (that’s how you know he’s depressed) and opens a clinic there, the Holmes clinic, that specializes in strange cases and disorders. Solving weird medical mysteries is the episode-by-episode plot. What’s the season arc? Well, it seems like Moriarty might actually still be alive, and so Watson has to confront his past and step up to stop him.
Also, and I feel this hasn’t gotten enough attention but, uh… Matt Berry plays Holmes in voiceover and flashbacks! Hello? Did you hear me?? MATT BERRY PLAYS SHERLOCK HOLMES?
(I have no idea what the chemistry between Matt Berry and Morris Chestnut would be like… no idea!)
And actually I just looked and Randall Park plays Professor Moriarty… and now I really have no idea what the chemistry of this whole show is like. This show really just seems to be a grab bag of working actors at this point. But I digress…
I wonder, though, if this move to give Watson his own show is reflective of an overwhelming cultural tide of Watson trutherism, sympathetic and knowledgeable readings of a character written as a cool, pretty smart guy with enough Main Character Energy to be the protagonist and narrator of the stories about him.
We will see. It’s hardly elementary, but we will see.
