New Sherlock Holmes series in the works – but it won’t feature Sherlock Holmes

RIP to the world’s greatest detective...

A new series based on Sherlock Holmes is in development... but there’s a catch.

Titled Watson, the new TV show will reportedly not feature the deerstalker-wearing detective as a character at all.

Instead, the programme will focus solely on the exploits of Holmes’ dutiful assistant, Dr John H Watson.

According to TV Line, Watson, which will air on the US network CBS, follows Watson in the aftermath of Sherlock Holmes’ death.

In the series, Holmes has been killed by his criminal nemesis, Professor James Moriarty.

The show will be written by Craig Sweeny, who has some history with the subject matter, having previously written on the the CBS series Elementary.

Running from 2012 to 2019, Elementary starred Johnny Lee Miller as Holmes and Lucy Liu as a gender-flipped Dr Watson. However, the new series will reportedly be entirely unrelated to this.

Deadline previously described the premise of the series as follows: “A medical show with a strong investigative spine, featuring a modern version of one of history’s greatest detectives as he turns his attention from solving crimes to addressing the greatest mystery of all: illness, and the ways it disrupts our lives.”

Watson comes shortly after the rights to Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s literary creation fell into the public domain.

Now the books are in the public domain, they can legally be shared, performed, reused, repurposed or sampled without permission or cost.