I’ve been a medical drama girl since before I realized I was a medical drama girl.
This realization didn’t come until roughly two years ago, which is likely amusing to many of you who followed my work, but I digress.
When CBS greenlit its own medical drama that also served as a detective procedural, inspired by the iconic Arthur Conan Doyle character and starring forever crush Morris Chestnut, they got my attention.
Fast-forward to us getting three episodes into Watson Season 1, and well, to put it mildly, it does not have my attention.
Lest anyone is inclined to box a girl in when she hates the confinements of them, genre-bending is more appealing than anything when watching a series.
There’s nothing better than a show that knows how to play around with traditional formatting and categories to deliver the best of many or all worlds.
Genre-bending and blending is an art form, and so many series succeed in that venture.
Sadly, Watson isn’t one of them.
The irony of a series that aims to delve into hard-to-diagnose cases utilizing a team of doctors who all battle a wide array of psychological issues is that the series itself suffers from the same.
I’m 100% certain that’s not the intention of the series itself.
What does one even think Watson is as a series? It changes depending on the person you ask.
Some people tuned into the show expecting some iteration of a detective-style procedural because the series dares to evoke the names of Sherlock Holmes, John Watson, and Moriarty.
Other people anticipated a non-traditional medical drama — something akin to House.
The Moriarty of it all presents the series with more Holmesian folklore but also a level of villainy that teeters on the fantastical. It’s almost as if Watson aims to pull from comic-book-style storytelling, like Arrow or Gotham.
We also see this with the establishment of Watson’s team of doctors, who genuinely feel like Knockoff versions of The Suicide Squad. Every time one of them appears onscreen, my brain conjures up Twenty One Pilots’ “Heathens. “
It’s like Watson tries to pull elements from many different genres under the guise of this elaborate interpretation of a cultist classic, but it overexerts itself in the process.
Watson attempts to be clever, cool, and cheeky at once but essentially fails at all three.
It’s not that one has to conform to genre expectations. Abnormality can be an asset rather than a curse. Somewhere, that concept even aligns with the series’ theme.
It doesn’t actually feel as if Watson knows how to define what it wants to be.
The series must understand its identity before it can sell viewers on it. Fake it until you make it and all of that good stuff.
Thus far, Watson has too much going on, and little of it is actually compelling. We have this mystery surrounding Holmes’ death, Moriarity’s involvement, and Watson’s brain issues.
Somewhere in there, Shinwell is begrudgingly working with a cartoonish Moriarty whose disfigurement results in him having a hand that’s literally shaped in an “M,” plotting some attack on the city or something.
Admittedly, Randall Park’s cameo was delightful, but that’s all there is to say about that development.
Amid this, Watson solves medical mysteries, some of which don’t feel particularly mysterious under the domain of his ex-wife, whom he chronically harasses, and with the help of this collection of bizarre colleagues.
The series alludes to each of the other doctors battling something or another, ranging from Antisocial Personality Disorder to pathological lying and whatever else in between.
It’s evident that the show aims to have a supporting cast with such unique personalities that Watson is intrigued by them—characters who are mysteries of their own.
Aside from being great doctors, their unusual traits are supposed to add to their charm (and prove that they’re still valuable, capable doctors despite their quirks).
However, Brilliant Minds manages to pull this tactic off much better.
We quickly felt as if we knew the characters and fell in love with them. Their neurodivergence is effortlessly introduced into the series and explored, including in a positive light as “superpowers” during cases.
As it stands, Watson is the only compelling character in the series, with Ingrid a close second. The supporting cast struggles to make their characters or the bizarre, convoluted writing work.
Morris Chestnut is talented, charismatic, and capable of just about anything. You need only look at his work to reach this conclusion.
He’s pouring his all into the role; you can see that he sometimes has fun with it. But more often than not, it feels like he doesn’t know how he should be playing Watson.
The rest of the cast struggles in this regard, too. And sadly, Watson cannot rely on Chestnut’s charisma and that alone.
Over to you, Watson Fanatics (or Antis).
How do you feel about the series thus far?
Is the genre confusion hurting the series?
Should they have stuck to more classic Holmesian storytelling or abandoned it altogether and leaned into medical procedural?
Let’s hear it below.
Watch Watson Online
