Watson just premiered on CBS, but is it worth checking out this new medical mystery drama?
There have been so many shows based on Sherlock Holmes that it’s hard to count. That includes CBS’s own hit Elementary series. Yet one focusing on Dr. Watson is an intriguing new spin.
The show opens with John Watson (Morris Chestnut) racing to a waterfall in the woods where his friend Sherlock Holmes is fighting criminal James Moriarty. The two go over a waterfall, with Watson trying to follow but is knocked out.
Waking up in a hospital, Watson meets Shinwell Johnson (Ritchie Coster), a friend who tells him Holmes is dead. It turns out Sherlock was richer than Watson knew and left it all to his friend, with Watson figuring out his next move.
Meet the staff and the case in Watson
Six months later, Watson has set up a clinic in Pittsburgh where he’s already clashing with its medical director, Dr. Mary Morstan(Rochelle Aytes), who happens to be his ex-wife. We quickly meet the rest of his staff: Stephens and Adam Croft (both played by Peter Mark Kendall), identical twins who had a falling out because they dated the same woman; immunologist Sasha Lubbock (Inga Schlingmann), whose main character trait is being born in China but raised in Texas so speaks with a drawl; and Watson’s personal neurologist Ingrid Derian (Eve Harlow).
The case involves a pregnant woman who hasn’t been able to sleep for a week and Watson applies Holmes’s lessons on investigation to cracking the case. It gets more complicated when the woman’s cousin comes down with the same conditions of temporary blindness and the team tries to figure things out.
We get a bit of character insight from Watson, who shares that he enjoyed working with Holmes, but it cost him his marriage. There’s also a bit near the end revealing the reason Watson wants Ingrid on the team is that they both worry she’s a sociopath and needs to learn empathy.
The pilot ends with the return of Moriarty, played, in an unusual casting choice, by Randall Park, who hints he has a sinister motive for his return. So is it worth watching?
Is Watson worth watching?
It’s tricky to judge a show by the pilot, but going off the first episode, this feels like a cookie-cutter CBS medical show. Oddly, the network just hasn’t had much success with medical shows as crime dramas and it’s unlikely this will break the trend.
Chestnut is usually a compelling actor but tones down the charisma too much for this role. It’s supposed to show how haunted Watson is by Sherlock’s death, but it also seems too disengaged. There are bits like Mary telling him he’s a better doctor, but they’re never getting back together (she’s already dating another woman), and Chestnut does his best selling the medical jargon. He just doesn’t seem passionate in the role and that makes it harder to get behind him.
The rest of the cast also seems rough. Kendall falls into the cliche of playing the twins as opposites, one as a somber guy and the other as more free-living, and the effect of them sharing the screen together is distracting. So far, all Sasha has to stand out is that odd accent and wry humor. The idea of Ingrid as a sociopath is a bit more original, yet it has not yet been developed. As for Aytes, it’s hard to see the role develop beyond the one-note of the still bitter ex.
The key problem is that the show is far too close to House. We’ve got the brilliant doctor and his staff baffled by medical emergencies, going through clues and then some odd remark causing them to stumble onto the solution. It’s ironic, given House was clearly inspired by Holmes, yet a show using a direct connection doesn’t work nearly as well. It doesn’t tread any new ground as a medical or personal drama.
Maybe future episodes can show improvement yet a worry that the Morairty stuff may dominate (off that, Park just doesn’t seem the right actor for a villainous role). The show isn’t terrible by any means and Chestnut does his best to carry it. Yet it’s just far too familiar to other series and a bigger mystery is why CBS thought this show would be an original hit.
Watson returns on Sunday, Feb. 16, at 9/8c on CBS.