Who Should Play Sherlock in CBS’ ‘Watson’? 10 Actors We’d Nominate

The new CBS medical drama Watson opens six months after the death of Sherlock Holmes at the hands of James Moriarty, as Morris Chestnut’s Dr. John Watson, Holmes’ partner in crime-solving, resumes his medical career as the head of a clinic treating rare disorders. The logline adds, however, that Watson’s old life “isn’t done with him,” since he and Moriarty are “set to write their own chapter of a story that has fascinated audiences for more than a century.”

Speaking of Watson’s old life, how much you wanna bet Sherlock Holmes isn’t actually dead in this new adaptation of Arthur Conan Doyle’s detective stories? We’re so certain that twist is coming that we’re already dream-casting the role of the consulting detective.

In a Watson sneak peek shared by TVLine, Watson wakes up in a hospital and meets Shinwell Johnson (Ritchie Coster) — another character from Conan Doyle’s stories — who reveals Watson suffered a traumatic brain injury as he leapt over a waterfall in pursuit of James Moriarty and “Mr. Holmes.”

So we know Holmes is male in this story, but we don’t know much else. We only see the detective from a distance in the Watson trailer and thus can’t be sure he’s the tall, pale, black-haired, gray-eyed man from the books. And so we’re casting a wide net in the dream-casting below!