Among the works based on Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes stories and characters is CBS’ Sherlock. The cases of the Great Detective and the many characters who have accompanied him through the years are still a big source of inspiration for many artists. Thanks to the state of the rights to Sherlock Holmes, many artists have taken creative liberties when borrowing Conan Doyle’s characters, expanding their stories and even bringing them to other time settings and places.

Modern adaptations of Sherlock Holmes and company have found great success on TV, as happened with CBS’ Elementary and the BBC’s Sherlock, and this will continue with Watson. Created by Craig Sweeny, Watson is described as a medical drama with detective elements, and it stars Morris Chestnut as John Watson. Watson will be set in modern-day Pittsburgh, and will follow the title character a year after Sherlock Holmes’ death at the hands of Moriarty – and this character, while important to the story and characters, risks becoming Watson’s biggest mistake.

Watson Shouldn’t Rely Too Much On Moriarty’s Presence

Moriarty Is Important, But Not Much Than Watson

Now without his best friend and detective partner, Watson begins working at a clinic for the treatment of rare and unusual diseases. However, it won’t take long for Moriarty himself to reemerge, forcing Watson to face his past and maybe even confront his best friend’s murderer. At the time of writing, no actor has been cast as Moriarty in Watson, but the professor’s involvement in the show has already been teased. Speaking to Deadline, Chestnut, without revealing too much, teased Moriarty’s role in the series, calling him a “very challenging nemesis to dispose of.”

Chestnut added that, when you have a character with the type of villainous intent that Moriarty has, it’s hard to get rid of him, confirming that he will show up simply by saying that he “pops up.” However, it’s unknown if Moriarty will feature prominently in Watson or if he will just be a lurking presence. Either way, and despite his involvement in Holmes’ death and whatever brings him back a year later, Watson should avoid relying too much on Moriarty, as that could kill the show just like it did with the BBC’s Sherlock, even though Andrew Scott’s Moriarty was excellent.

How Sherlock’s Perfect Moriarty Ruined The BBC Show

Andrew Scott’s Moriarty Was Too Good

The BBC’s Sherlock is one of the most successful but also controversial modern adaptations of the Great Detective, his cases, and the characters who accompanied him through the years. Starring Benedict Cumberbatch as Holmes and Martin Freeman as Watson, Sherlock took the characters to modern-day London, mixing and adapting some of the detective’s most notable cases to modern technology and social issues. Sherlock teased Moriarty’s arrival since the first episode, where he was mentioned for the first time near the end.

Jim Moriarty made his first official appearance in Sherlock season 1’s finale, and became the main villain throughout season 2, despite Holmes and Watson attending other cases. Scott’s performance as Moriarty was praised by critics and viewers, becoming one of the show’s biggest strengths, and though that benefited season 2, it also ended up ruining the show because of how good he was. Moriarty killed himself at the end of season 2, in the episode “The Reichenbach Fall”, in which he pushed Sherlock into killing himself too – but the detective only faked his death.

Sherlock never revealed exactly how Holmes faked his death, but Moriarty’s was real.

However, neither Sherlock nor the fans let Moriarty go, and he was brought back in flashbacks and hallucinations in seasons 3, 4, and the special episode “The Abominable Bride”. Sherlock kept teasing Moriarty’s involvement in other crimes and even teased his return at the end of “His Last Vow”, but the latter never paid off. Instead of fully focusing on new stories, Sherlock held on to Moriarty for too long, which only made other stories unnecessarily tangled and even nonsensical.

Watson’s Moriarty Will Have To Be Different From Previous Versions

The Next Moriarty Needs To Be A New Version

One of the biggest challenges Watson will face with its Moriarty is modernizing him in a new way. Both Elementary and Sherlock did modern-day versions of Moriarty in different ways: Elementary went for a gender-bent version played by Natalie Dormer, while Sherlock turned Moriarty into a modern-day criminal. The latter had a bigger impact on the audience, so it would be easy for Watson to fall into the trap of writing its version of Moriarty based on Scott’s due to how great and well-received he was. Of course, this risks becoming a copy of Sherlock’s Moriarty, which would negatively impact Watson.

Watson has some challenges to overcome that are a consequence of recent modern adaptations of the stories and characters of Sherlock Holmes, but Moriarty might be the riskiest one. Watson shouldn’t rely much on Moriarty and it has to create a new, fresh version of Holmes’ archenemy, while also being aware of when to let go of the character.