Craig Sweeny, the creator and executive producer of CBS’s daring Sherlock Holmes spin-off Watson, has shared the season three storylines he had been dreaming up before the show was unexpectedly canceled.
The network pulled the plug on the short-lived series just after production on season two wrapped in March. The show starred Morris Chestnut as the titular Dr. Watson, who resumes his medical career six months after the presumed death of his dear friend Sherlock at the hands of arch nemesis James Moriarty, played by Randall Park.
In the recently aired season two finale, which also served as the series finale, Watson prepares to undergo surgery for the glioblastoma that has been causing his Sherlock hallucinations all season. It’s soon revealed that Sherlock is indeed alive and has been hospitalized at Watson’s Holmes Clinic in Pittsburgh. After hearing the good news, Watson abandons his operation to treat Sherlock at the expense of his own health.
Speaking to Deadline about the cancellation, Sweeny detailed his original plans for a third season had the series been renewed.
“In Season 3, Watson would also have been Sherlock’s doctor treating ongoing complications from the ailment that plagued Holmes at the end of Season 2,” he said.
“We originally conceived the Watson/Holmes storyline to have Holmes exist only as a delusion in Watson’s head as a means for Watson to learn about his glioblastoma, but quickly revised those plans after we saw what Robert Carlyle brought to the role of Sherlock Holmes,” Sweeny added. “Watson’s Holmes and Watson were fun to write and watch, and so we devised a way for Sherlock to be present in the real world.”
He said that while season two left storylines open-ended, season three would have wrapped the arcs of the medical fellows working at the Holmes Clinic.
“The heart of Watson was the cases, so if we had come back we would have continued to hunt the strange and amazing scientific outliers that made up our strongest episodes,” Sweeny said. “Of course, medical fellowships last three years, so a major theme of season three would have been exploring what would have happened to Ingrid, Stephens, Adam, and Sasha at the end of their Fellowships and how many new doctors would be worked into the mix.”
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Watson debuted on CBS in early 2025 to mixed reviews. Besides Chestnut, it also starred Eve Harlow, Peter Mark Kendall, Inga Schlingmann and Randall Park. Its second season premiered in the fall of 2025, before concluding Sunday.
