Watson (TV series)

Watson
Star Morris Chestnut in a promotional poster for the series
Genre	Medical drama Mystery Crime drama
Created by	Craig Sweeny
Based on	The works of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
Starring	Morris Chestnut Eve Harlow Peter Mark Kendall Inga Schlingmann Ritchie Coster Rochelle Aytes
Music by	Paul Leonard-Morgan
Country of origin	United States
Original language	English
No. of seasons	1
No. of episodes	2
Production
Executive producers	Shäron Moalem Morris Chestnut Brian Morewitz Sallie Patrick Aaron Kaplan Larry Teng Craig Sweeny
Producers	Geoffrey Hemwall Scott Graham
Production location	Vancouver, Canada
Cinematography	Brook Willard Shamus Whiting-Hewlett
Editors	Jesse Ellis Sondra Watanabe
Production companies	Action This Day! Kapital Entertainment CBS Studios
Original release
Network	CBS
Release	January 26, 2025 (2025-01-26) – present (present)

Watson is an American television series created by Craig Sweeny which premiered on CBS on January 26, 2025. The series, described as a "medical drama with detective elements", is centered around the character of Dr. John Watson from Arthur Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes stories, with Morris Chestnut portraying the character. It is the second CBS series to adapt the Holmes stories, after Elementary. While the two programs are otherwise unrelated, their creative teams overlap.

One year after Sherlock Holmes's apparent death at the hands of his archenemy Moriarty in Reichenbach Falls, Dr. John Watson resumes his medical practice by opening the "Holmes Clinic" in Pittsburgh to treat patients with strange and unidentifiable issues. Soon however, Watson must face his past when evidence surfaces indicating that Moriarty is still alive.^[1]

• Morris Chestnut as John Watson, a clinical geneticist and former London-based consulting detective who heads the Holmes Clinic in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. To aid his patients' cases, he applies a specific and incisive type of deductive reasoning that he learned from his years working with Sherlock Holmes.
• Eve Harlow as Ingrid Derian, an aloof but highly skilled neurologist with an enigmatic past. She has a shaky relationship with her colleagues owing to her stony manner and questionable methods.
• Peter Mark Kendall as Stephens Croft and Adam Croft, identical twin brothers, acting as infectious disease and functional medicine specialists at the clinic. Stephens, a Johns Hopkins graduate, is an emotionally withdrawn workaholic, while Adam, who attended Boston University, talks too much.
• Inga Schlingmann as Sasha Lubbock, a specialist in rheumatology and immunology. She is torn between her birth parents from China and her adoptive family from Dallas.
• Ritchie Coster as Shinwell Johnson, a former criminal from London and an acquaintance of Holmes and Watson who works as the clinic's administrative aide, his connections often proving very useful to the team.
• Rochelle Aytes as Mary Morstan, a noted East Coast surgeon and Watson's estranged wife who serves as the clinic's medical director. Despite their impending divorce, she maintains a productive working relationship with Watson, acting as his voice of sanity and attempting to rein in his more irregular techniques.

• Randall Park as Moriarty, a criminal mastermind and Sherlock Holmes' archenemy who reemerges from his presumed "death" with a nefarious agenda^[2]
• Matt Berry as the voice of Sherlock Holmes, a brilliant British consulting detective and Watson's best friend who was seemingly killed alongside Moriarty. Berry voices the character in hallucination scenes.^[3] He will appear in the seventh episode.^[4]
• Kacey Rohl as a subordinate of Moriarty who forces Shinwell to carry out her employer's bidding^[5]

The characters Inspector Lestrade and Irene Adler will also appear.^[2]

Watson was announced in October 2022, to be created, written and produced by Craig Sweeny who had previously worked on Elementary.^[10] The show was given a straight to series order, bypassing the pilot stage.^[11]

By January 2024, Morris Chestnut was attached to executive produce and star as the title character.^[12] Executive producer Larry Teng will direct the first two episodes.^[13][14] In May, Peter Mark Kendall and Ritchie Coster were announced as the first core cast additions.^[15] In June, Rochelle Aytes was cast as Mary Morstan,^[16] followed by Eve Harlow and Inga Schlingmann.^[17]

Watson began shooting in Vancouver in June 2024,^[18] with filming locations including The Bridge Studios and the University of British Columbia campus.^[19] The shoot concluded on November 22, 2024.^[20] The show is set in Pittsburgh, where some exterior scenes were shot.^{[21][22][14][23]}

The series is scored by Paul Leonard-Morgan.^[24]

The first episode had its worldwide premiere at MIPCOM Cannes on October 20, 2024.^[25] The series premiered on January 26, 2025, on CBS, after the AFC Championship football game,^[26] and will stream on Paramount+.^[27] In Canada, the series will air on Global and will stream on StackTV.^[28]

The review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes reported a 56% approval rating with an average rating of 5.9/10, based on 16 critic reviews. The website's critics consensus reads, "Transplanting Sherlock Holmes lore into a medical procedural, Watson's conceit proves an awkward fit but gets a boost from the ever-watchable Morris Chestnut."^[29] Metacritic, which uses a weighted average, assigned a score of 55 out of 100 based on 14 critics, indicating "mixed or average" reviews.^[30]

• Watson at IMDb