‘Sherlock & Daughter’ Needs To Solve the Mystery of Who Its Audience Is

Sherlock & Daughter feels entirely out of place on the CW Network. It’s not high gloss or youth-oriented enough to fit in with the programs the network is known for, like The Vampire Diaries, Riverdale, and iZombie. But it’s also not serious enough to be on a network like BBC or PBS, where I’ve come to expect quality Sherlock Holmes shows to come from.

I feel bad for David Thewlis. He’s an excellent actor (Seven Years In Tibet, An Inspector Calls, War Horse) and Holmes is a plum role. Under different circumstances, I think he’d make an excellent Sherlock. But this show ain’t it. It’s borrowing too much from previous interpretations, employing gimmicks half-heartedly, and it doesn’t know what audience it’s courting. If the show is trying to introduce Holmes to a new generation, fridging Watson and Mrs. Hudson from the beginning is not the best way to do it. Scotland Yard’s Inspector Lestrade is also conspicuously absent, replaced with some other authority figure who also dislikes Holmes. These characters exist to act as foils to Holmes’ prickly personae and stand in for the audience. Without them, he’s just a grumpy old guy in a messy apartment. And that’s exactly how we find him as the show begins.

The show’s premise is that Amelia Rojas (The New Mutants Blu Hunt) has been raised in America by a mother who venerated Holmes and told her Sherlock is her father. Amelia has come to London to convince Holmes to help her solve her mother’s murder. She’s already familiar with his methods and is a capable investigator in her own right, but is desperate for his expertise. Holmes wants nothing to do with her. His entire personality is about being a curmudgeon. But he’s in a predicament. Watson, Mrs. Hudson, and some notable members of London society have been kidnapped by an unknown group. Their calling card is a red string tied around their victims’ wrists, and their message to Holmes is, “If we catch you investigating us, we’ll kill your friends.”

So, Holmes is forced to employ Amelia in an internship of sorts. In exchange for helping him investigate this red-string gang, he’ll help her solve her mother’s murder. But she must do everything he says, exactly as he says it, and not deviate from his plan ever, at all. Of course, if you’re familiar with the trope about young Victorian women out and about on their own, you know this will never work.

Like Enola Holmes (Sherlock’s sister that doesn’t exist in the source material), Amelia (the daughter that does not exist in the source material) is not interested in being constrained by society’s rules, or Holmes’. She’s smart, curious, and has independently navigated herself from California to London, so she’s not entirely inclined to follow anyone’s rules. But Amelia is more dour than plucky, and the script doesn’t give her half as many fun things to do.

The series premiere is a two-parter. I was hoping for a mystery-of-the-week show, but it seems like they’ll be spending a significant amount of time trying to figure out who abducted Watson and Mrs. Hudson. IMBD.COM lists Watson (Lee’s Seán Duggan) and Professor Moriarty (Dougray Scott who was in The CW’s Batwoman series) as appearing in later episodes. So, I guess they eventually figure it out. And I’ll assume Moriarty is behind it until proven otherwise. No word on Mrs. Hudson or Lestrade, though.

Sherlock & Daughter has six more episodes of this first season to figure out what tone and audience they’re going for. I don’t feel hopeful. But a few years ago, I decided to read all of Sir Conan Doyle’s Sherlock stories and have been watching as many film and television versions of the stories as I can find because … I have a lot of free time? So, I’ll probably see this through to the end of the season. Whether or not it gets a second season seems unlikely.

The first two episodes of Sherlock & Daughter are available to stream for free on cwtv.com and new episodes air on The CW Network on Thursdays.