The 'Watson' Trailer Has Sherlock Holmes's Right Hand Turn to Medical Mysteries

Sherlock Homes fans stay winning. With multiple properties related to the world of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle in the pipeline for next year (Young Sherlock, Sherlock & Daughter) and omnipresent rumors of returns to several others (the BBC Sherlock, Enola Holmes, and Guy Ritchie's Sherlock Holmes films), you basically can't move without tripping over some form of deerstalker-related content. Even American television isn't immune to this trend, particularly now that the Holmes stories have made their way into the public domain.

CBS already found considerable success in this fictional universe with the unorthodox Elementary (a.k.a So What If We Made John Watson a Woman?), so it's not terribly surprising the network is already going back to the Holmes well for its latest mystery drama. Just...not in the way you might think. The upcoming procedural Watson is not only a story in which the great detective himself is entirely absent, but one that's focused on medical cases rather than traditional crimes.

Picking up just months after Holmes' death at Reichenbach Falls, the series follows Dr. John Watson (The Resident's Morris Chestnut) as he returns to his previous career as a medical doctor. With no consulting detective to bounce around after, he'll use his newfound understanding of investigative techniques to find treatments for rare disorders and diseases. It's a canny premise, particularly since the specific moment in which it's set during the Conan Doyle canon more than leaves the door open for Holmes to show up at some point down the road whenever the show needs a ratings bump.