Watson

We were really looking forward to Watson. We were also extremely underwhelmed. My biggest issue, which may or may not have contributed to low rating is the way Morris Chestnut talks. Because his voice is so low along with how fast he talks I could barely understand him. His lines were a mumbled jumble of words which I could not understand. Along with subject matter of the Pilot, I didn't get it. I also thought that the writers could have dumbed it down a little for we the audience to understand. I finally put it all together and understood what was going on. I also thought the Pilot was flat, nothing that drew me in to pay attention.

I will give it another chance or two and see if it gets better.

Having just watched writer Craig Sweeny's flop "Section 31" I was prepared for another debacle. "Watson", for which he is the series creator, is deadly dull and plays like one of those failed pilots that in the good old days (1970s) would have popped up as summer filler, not as a launch of a new CBS tv show.

Sweeny hit the jackpot years back with another Sherlock Holmes reimagining starring Jonny Lee Miller as Holmes and Lucy Liu as a memorable female Watson. That gambit had been done in the '70s as a fine but forgotten movie "They Might Be Giants" with no less than two all-time greats in the roles: George C. Scott and Joanne Woodward.

So now Sweeny is back with a different wrinkle: Morris Chestnut as Dr. Watson, after a prologue in which The Death of Sherlock Holmes, as in the original Conan Doyle serialized stories, occurs in Switzerland under mysterious circumstances, with Watson inheriting a fancy clinic to head up a team dealing with difficult to diagnose rare maladies.

Other than a very hokey introduction of another transformed type of Moriarty character at the pilot segment's end, the story is dull and the "quirky" cast of regulars dull too. Some failed pilots seem to have had potential and one wonders: "What if..." regarding whether they should have been given a chance. In this case one wonders if "Watson" will last, having been allowed out of the gate.

I really wanted to like this show, now that a few others I watch have concluded their episodes for the season, but it really didn't impress me. I love medical shows, shows about mysterious diseases, but this didn't draw me in. I've watched Morris Chestnut in a few other shows, which is why I gave this one a chance.

I didn't need this association with Sherlock Holmes - it would have been fine just being a medical show with a character named Dr Watson.

One odd point: why did they feel the need to cast one actor to play Stephens and Adams? We're there no acting twins, brothers, or lookalikes available?

Like the other reviewer, I'll give this another chance, but if you're looking for "House," "Brilliant Minds" is better.

Seeing ads for a Watson, I wondered if they meant the Sherlock Holmes character or being cheap. At least it IS the obvious character. I've enjoyed Sherlock things, particular modern day like Elementary (making Watson female initially felt like a gimmick but I found it worked, particularly since it was Lucy Liu, she pulled it off well). In the ads I definitely recognize the lead guy, I know I've enjoyed his work before but I can't place him, finding him well qualified for portraying a suave likeable guy with the smooth resonant voice that girls can like, encouraging there to be girls _I_ can like. :)

Okay, concept is interesting, Sherlock is gone (bit of a shame, but clearly necessary to build a show around Watson), so shows Watson post-Sherlock, with all that investigative experience. Cool idea, sounds like a great recipe for another House - another show I loved - except this actor has the vibe of a personable guy, what was fun about House is his acidity, his sarcasm, his severe lack of a bedside manner and not caring about it. Being brutally blunt in a way that was very effective.

Loving seeing the gorgeous girl from So Help Me Todd, took a bit to recognize her, she looks more exotic here. But then there's the Croft twins. I see Stephens listed (I agree with Watson, that name is moronic, weird names bug me, and it just seems to be to make fun of), but no second Croft. I was trying to look up his name. Hmmm. I spot Croft Twin, so I pay attention to catch the OTHER name, was all ready to edit IMDb to change Croft Twin to the right name. THEN I notice the SAME GUY plays both! What a stupid unnecessary gimmick! And there's two Croft Twins, clearly those two are to play the OTHER twin when focus is on the main actor playing one or the other. Look, the two people playing one gimmick was a fascinating cool innovative crowd pleaser in 1961 with Parent Trap. IT'S JUST STUPID AND UNNECESSARY NOW! This will intrigue nobody now, you need a reason now (like a cloning storyline, or Mike Myers spreading his comedy abilities around in Austin Powers by playing vastly different characters). They're fussing around and making it harder on themselves for NOTHING! Hire actual identical twins, don't get unnecessarily complicated! Aren't the Sprouse twins still acting? Boom, done. Don't want to spend the money? It should be REALLY easy to get no-name identical twins. And are these three really cheaper than two? AND the extra effort/tricks?

And DAMN does Randall Park feel horribly miscast! They shouldn't even have the character, he's shoehorned in here, he doesn't fit in a medical drama. And Randall just has the VIBE for a lovable friendly schlub. He seems to naturally smile all the time, that's what his character was like when I "met" him in his show Fresh Off The Boat. He played "himself" pretty similarly as an interviewer in Young Rock. He guested as a clinic case in House where he was a similar wimpy try-to-please-people kind of guy, a clip that ends up in many House compilation videos. Congrats for not being typecast, but it's just damn jarring here.

My biggest complaint is the twin thing, and they're pretty stuck with it. If they fire one character to simplify the acting, seems like it would be the more enjoyable easy-going one because fussbucket Stephens seems to be the worker, the more effective and useful doctor, so they need to keep both to make a well rounded team and not ruin the unnecessary Team Experiment they declared right off the bat instead of letting it percolate for a few episodes before revealing the surprise.

It has little to do with Holmes and Watson, the characters. It is so much a rip-off of House MD that frankly, it gets embarrassing to watch. Even the music is exactly as in House. Oh, and Morris Chestnut is not the right guy to play any kind of smart doctor.

It's not all bad, though. The writing and acting are not awful, the story moves along as it should... there is some potential, despite the bad decisions they made at conception.

So, what are the producers going to do to avoid getting cancelled at the end of the first season? It's an interesting challenge. Probably, they're going to have to choose whether they want to move away completely from the Conan Doyle characters, or not. I wish they would actually tap into it more - Moriarty should be a recurring villain in this series. At least that way, we would be thinking less about House while watching this series...