He is a genius geneticist and internist, an amateur detective on a series of adventures with Sherlock Holmes, and now he is in pursuit of the villain who defeated Holmes, the evil Moriarty.
And to top it all off, he lives in Pittsburgh. The Steel City is his Gotham, and Moriarty is his Penguin.
He is, in a word, Watson -- one-time sidekick to the detective Holmes in old books and movies, and now the central character of “Watson,” premiering Sunday night on CBS.
The name, Watson, sounds like “What’s on?,” but the TV Blog believes this is unintentional.
Nor does the one-name title have anything to do with the famed summons made by Alexander Graham Bell to his colleague Thomas A. Watson at the dawn of telephony: “Mr. Watson, come here. I want to see you.” That was a different Watson.
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In 2011, an IBM computer named Watson played “Jeopardy!” against champions Ken Jennings and Brad Rutter and beat them both. The Watson computer was named for Thomas J. Watson, one-time CEO of IBM.
Now that these other Watsons are out of the way, meet Dr. John Watson of Pittsburgh, played by Morris Chestnut (photo above).
The new “Watson” sets its story in the present day, or near-present day. Just a few years ago, CBS had another Holmes series set in the present day in New York.
The show, “Elementary,” ran from 2012 to 2019. Jonnie Lee Miller played Holmes and Lucy Liu played Watson. Natalie Dormer played Moriarty. Up until then, Watson and Moriarty were always men.
In “Watson,” Dr. Watson is back in Pittsburgh after several years of global adventuring with Holmes.
His absence disrupted his life, most notably his marriage. Now, Dr. Watson is the head of a small private medical practice of some kind that treats rare disorders whose diagnoses and treatments have their roots in genetic science.
As in virtually all such ensemble dramas on CBS, Dr. Watson is the best genetics scientist the world -- or at least Pittsburgh -- has ever seen.
And like all the other CBS shows about small units of crime investigators and the like, Dr. Watson has surrounded himself with a group of younger geniuses that he handpicked for their evident brilliance.
Together, they have rapid-fire conversations about rare diseases and the family histories from which they originate. Then, before the hour is over, they have saved lives.
Like so many other TV medical dramas, the recitation of scientific facts, figures and solutions pouring out of these young science nerds and their mentor comes fast and furious.
The problem is, I didn’t understand a word of it, and I happen to be reasonably intelligent.
I tuned out so completely that these young smartypants-es may as well have been the off-screen parents in a Peanuts special whose “voices” were a muted “wah-wah” from a trombone.
With “Watson,” you have an investigation show, a medical show and a Sherlock Holmes show all rolled into one.
As Holmes himself would say, the game is afoot.
“Watson” premieres Sunday, January 26, at approximately 10 p.m. Eastern following the AFC Championship Game on CBS. “Watson” returns on Sunday, February 16, to take up its regularly scheduled time period, 9 p.m. Eastern on CBS.