Old School. Biblically Independent.
By Jen Maravegias | TV | June 19, 2025
I finished watching the CW Network’s Sherlock & Daughter. The good news is that the show improved over the season. The bad news is, it’s still not great. David Thewlis makes a good, older, more introspective Holmes. When the focus shifted more toward him and involved him more in the story, we got some interesting episodes and solid performances. But Amelia Rojas (Blu Hunt) wasn’t interesting enough to be the main character, and they tried to do too much in eight episodes. The show suffered from an overly complicated story that introduced too many characters and too many mysteries to solve.
If the season’s arc had been about Holmes needing an accomplice to help him solve the mystery behind who abducted Watson and Mrs. Hudson, that would have been enough. If the story had been about Amelia Rojas coming to London to seek out her potential father and ask for his help in solving her mother’s murder, that would have been enough. Or if it had been about Holmes foiling another Moriarty plot to overthrow the government, that also would have been enough. But they mashed all of those things, plus a gold heist and an uncountable number of red herrings, into one overarching story. It was just too much.
According to TVLine, Sherlock & Daughter was the CW’s most watched drama this season. We’re pretty far out from The CW’s heyday, so I’m not sure how high a bar that is, considering the company it’s keeping. But it proves that Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s famous detective still has a place in pop culture.
In the show, David Thewlis joins the ever-growing ranks of actors to play Holmes. But there’s an even smaller class of actors he belongs to, who are revisiting classic characters outside the general timeframe of their familiar stories. Ian McKellen played an elder Holmes in 2015’s Mr. Holmes. More recently, Clive Owen played a retired Sam Spade in AMC’s Monsieur Spade. Neither made many waves. Thewlis is a great choice for Holmes, elderly or otherwise (and they do spend some time on flashbacks in the series), and I’d hate to see him shortchanged by a one-and-done show.
If Sherlock & Daughter gets a second season, I hope it will scale back on plot points and focus more on the characters, because they introduced some good ones. Fiona Glascott (Julia) was excellent as the peevish and villainous Lady Violet. The introduction of Daniel Moriarty (Joe Klocek), son of Holmes’ perennial nemesis, was a bit cliché but bridged the gap between classic Holmes’ foes and a new generation of antagonists his daughter will help him face. Plus, we barely got to meet Dr. Watson (Seán Duggan) this season. I would like to see how the addition of a heretofore unknown daughter affects the relationship between Holmes and Watson. And how Watson translates Holmes’ behavior for Amelia, which is generally half the fun of the Holmes/Watson dynamic.
If you’re a diehard Sherlock Holmes fan, you’ll find something to enjoy watching this first season of the show. And you may find yourself hoping they get a shot at a second season by the time you’re done.
All episodes of Sherlock & Daughter are available to stream on cwtv.com or Hulu.
