‘Watson’s Morris Chestnut on Who the Doctor Detective is Without Sherlock Holmes Find help us

[Editor’s note: The following contains some spoilers for Watson.]

The CBS series Watson follows Dr. John Watson (Morris Chestnut), six months after the apparent death of Sherlock Holmes (I’m sorry but has anyone actually seen a body?!) at the hands of James Moriarty. Focused on his medical career and driven to treat rare disorders, Watson has put together a team – made up of Dr. Sasha Lubbock (Inga Schlingmann), Dr. Stephens Croft and Dr. Adam Croft (twins played by Peter Mark Kendall) and Dr. Ingrid Derian (Eve Harlow) – to help solve the cases. But the deeper mystery of the strings being pulled behind the scenes of Watson’s own life could prove to be the season’s most challenging case of all.

During this one-on-one interview with Collider, Chestnut talked about taking on the Sherlock Holmes mythology from Watson’s perspective, why he jumped at the chance to play the iconic character, how Watson is different from his last medical series The Resident, how much he tries to understand the cases they’re solving, what Shinwell (Ritchie Coster) is really up to, finding the team dynamic, and just how important Moriarty will be this season.

Morris Chestnut Loves the Idea of Exploring the Sherlock Holmes Mythology from Dr. Watson’s Perspective

Collider: I am a sucker for a good Sherlock Holmes project. With the focus of this on Watson, I was particularly curious about what this show could and would be.

MORRIS CHESTNUT: Thank you. Yeah, that’s one of the things that excited me about it. Of course, as you know, being a fan of the mythology, everything in the past has been told from Sherlock’s perspective. Now, we get an opportunity to tell the story from Watson’s perspective, post Sherlock’s death, so we have some freedom.

We haven’t seen a body.

CHESTNUT: Okay, good point. That’s a very good point. I’m nervous because I can’t get anything past you.

I just watch enough TV to know that if you don’t see the body, you have to wonder what’s going on.

CHESTNUT: And sometimes, even if you see a body, is it the right body?

I love that you are also not what we’re typically used to seeing when we get stories about Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson.

CHESTNUT: Yeah.

When this came your way, what was your reaction to that? Was this ever a character you had thought you’d find yourself even having the opportunity to play?

CHESTNUT: No, I never thought that, in a million years. It’s not something that I thought about, but honestly, I was excited when they reached out, and they wanted to send me the script, and they said that they were interested. I read it, and I was like, “Wow, this is really, really cool.” Being a part of the mythology, and the script that Craig [Sweeny] wrote and the world that he was creating, I jumped at the chance. They actually had me when they told me the mythology of it all, but once I read the script, I was really in.

‘Watson’ Is Part Medical Drama and Part Detective Series, Making the Team “Doctectives”

Especially with a TV series when you don’t know what the ending of the story will be, there has to be something that you find interesting enough to know that you could be doing it for a while without knowing exactly where it’s going to go.

CHESTNUT: And actually, one of those things, to your point, was the fact that we are not just a straight-line medical drama and we are not a straight-line detective series. We’re doctectives. We’re doctors and detectives. For me, I was on The Resident, and The Resident was great. I loved The Resident, but everything was in a hospital. Here, we go outside. We’re gathering clues, we’re getting information, and we’re visiting the scene of the crime to solve the mystery. That’s really what excited me about this, to where I was like, “Yes, this is something I definitely would love to be doing for years.”

It sometimes feels like you’ve developed your own language for this series, with the medical and the investigative blended together. What’s it been like to figure out the dialogue?

CHESTNUT: Craig Sweeny, our creator and showrunner, has to be one of the most intelligent people that I’ve ever met. You’re combining two jobs, with doctors and detectives, which is challenging. The medical jargon, in and of itself, is tough because I want to understand what I’m saying and why. And then, when you combine it with detective speak, it’s very challenging.

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And on top of all that, it’s bizarre, unusual, rare cases, and Dr. Watson is a brilliant thinker.

CHESTNUT: It’s the extra heightened version of all those things. In addition to that, all the science is real. When I read some of these cases, I’d be like, “Is this really real?” We have an episode where a patient comes in with sickle cell and Watson may attempt an unorthodox way of curing her sickle cell. There’s a case where a person has a hand that moves on its own and does things involuntarily. We have a case where a patient feels like she literally has a monster inside of her stomach, and it’s not a monster, but when you hear the details, which are true and the medicine is real, you can say, “Okay, that’s why she thinks she had a monster.”

Do you try to at least understand the cases that you’re exploring on the show, or are there times when that’s just not possible?

CHESTNUT: That’s a great question. We’re doing eight-day episodes and the demand is really, really challenging, just in terms of getting all the dialogue down. However, I do understand most of the cases because I have to. I’m explaining to the audience in one way, shape or form, or another, so I do have to understand. We did 13 episodes, and I could literally have five pages of dialogue that day, the first half of the day, before lunch, and after lunch, it would already be gone because I was already onto the next. It’s hard to get it to stick. Sometimes it’s like cramming for a test. I can understand it while I’m taking the test, but ask me four weeks after that, and I’ll be like, “What equation are you talking about?” It was similar to that.

As the audience, we know that Moriarty is not dead and we know that Shinwell (Ritchie Coster) is tied up with it all. What was your reaction, as the actor learning about how that would be woven into the story? And why do you think it is that Watson can’t see that happening, even though he seems to be so able to pick things up with everybody else?

CHESTNUT: It’s great that you say that. If you go back and look, just from the start of the show, he wakes up with a traumatic brain injury that’s already gonna affect his sensibilities to a certain degree. And then, in addition to that, he’s lost his wife and he’s lost his best friend. Watson is pretty much trying to find out who he is and what he, himself, is about, throughout the course of the season. He left his wife to go to England to solve mysteries with another guy. Who does that? And he did that. And when he did that, his world blew apart. He lost his best friend and he has a traumatic brain injury, and on top of that, he comes back and his wife has left him. So, there’s a lot of doubt and there are a lot of things going on in Watson’s head. In addition to that, now he has to deal with his medication. Is his medication accurate? If it’s not, why not? What’s going on? So, you have a traumatic brain injury, trauma, and varying degrees of medication. It’s really hard for him to get ahold of everything.

And when you already trust somebody, it’s much harder to see things in them to make you not trust them than it is to see that in strangers that come into your life.

CHESTNUT: That’s very true.

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What’s it been like to find the dynamic with his team? You’re the lead of the show, but you’re also the lead of this team, as the character. What’s it been like to find that rhythm?

CHESTNUT: I was really excited with the group that we had because they’ve really developed a bond, not just on screen, but off-screen. Peter [Mark Kendall] is playing twins, which I don’t think has been done on a one-hour network series before. It’s been done in movies, but not week to week on a network show. They all work so hard. Craig knows a little bit about all of us, so he puts some triggers in there. All the emotion you see, from joy to pain to laughter to crying, all of these actors really put it out there for the world to see. I’m just so proud of everyone for the job that they’ve done.

What’s it like to do the scenes with the twins? I love how different they are from each other.

CHESTNUT: Peter is doing an incredible job. The challenge with that, when you’re in a scene with twins, is that you can’t be talking to both of them at the same time, so you’re communicating with someone who isn’t that person. It’s a challenge for everyone, but it’s mainly a challenge for Peter. It makes the days long, but it’s very rewarding, seeing the work that he’s done and seeing just the overall production benefit by pulling it off, to where you really feel that there are two different people there.

Morris Chestnut Is Excited About the Possibility of Dr. Watson Going Head-to-Head with Moriarty

I loved the fun reveal with Randall Park as Moriarty. How much will Moriarty be looming large over the season? What do you think of that dynamic?

CHESTNUT: We haven’t gotten to see Moriarty and Watson go head-to-head. First of all, I was really glad that we were able to get Randall. He’s an incredible actor and he did a great job with the role. Throughout the season, he’s going to be very prevalent, physically and in a number of ways. He’s gonna affect myself, the team, and many people. I’m excited for the audience to see that.

Watson

Release Date

January 26, 2025

Network

CBS

Showrunner

Craig Sweeny

Directors

Larry Teng

Writers

Craig Sweeny

Watson airs on CBS and is available to stream on Paramount+. Check out the trailer:

Watch on Paramount+