Sherlock & Daughter

The second Holmes of 2025 is here!

After CBS Watson’s myriad of ups and downs, I was cautious going into the CW’s Sherlock & Daughter.

The Network

Previously the network that brought us fandom vehicles like The Arrowverse, Supernatural and Riverdale, along with classics like Gilmore Girls, Gossip Girl and One Tree Hill, the CW of today looks nothing like it did a decade ago.

After Supernatural’s end in 2020, the network’s acquisition by Nexstar Media Group in 2022, Riverdale’s finale in 2023, the CW was losing the things that made it so iconic for millennials and early Gen Z’ers. Even shows like Walker, with one of the network’s longest lasting stars, Jared Padalecki were cancelled after only a few seasons.

More recently, I can’t name any shows currently running on the CW, other than All American, which is heavily featured on the network’s website.

Based on the tiny bit of research I did for this review, it seems that in the years following its 2022 sale only now is the CW starting to see some profit. Which leads us to new programming…

Lately, the new fictional programming for the CW has been acquisitions from foreign studios, usually in Canada. There has been very little original programming. So when Sherlock & Daughter was announced, one, I was happy for some new programming that wasn’t another Canadian dramedy, and two, I was interested in another Sherlock Holmes adaptation.

As the time grew closer to this premiere and I viewed another new Sherlock adaptation, CBS’s Watson, my excitement started to wain.

The Source Material

While Watson is beginning to find its own voice like I hoped it would, it has fallen into some of the pitfalls of Sherlock adaptations in more recent years. Especially involving female characters from the canon. Irene Adler, is a great litmus test for this. Watson has yet again done the Irene-Adler-was-Sherlock’s-secret-lover thing which demonstrates a mis-reading of the text. Even interesting takes on Adler can still so a bungling of the original Scandal in Bohemia story. A mis-reading that is typically done by male adaptors.

I’ve expressed on this Substack a few times my frustration with modern adaptations of Holmes and they seem to commit one or all of three cardinal sins.

1. Sherlock Holmes is an unfeeling machine who is smarter than everyone else and can behave badly because he is just so smart and us un-evolved emotional folks could never hope to understand him.

FALSE. Holmes is a caring man, with strong relationships. While he may experience alienation due to his intellect, he is never intentionally unkind or cruel in the Doyle canon. He may be flippant or annoyed, or have a bad day, but he is never mean.

2. Irene Adler is known as “The Woman” because she is the only woman Holmes ever loved.

FALSE. Irene Adler is “The Woman” because she outsmarts the great detective and earns his respect. There is also a mis-interpretation that Holmes hates women. He doesn’t, there are other less adapted female characters in the stories that are treated with respect that get conveniently forgotten. Also, Iren Adler was getting married! She enlists Holmes to help in that process. Then she MARRIES the man she is engaged to.

3. And the most important, ESTRANGING HOLMES AND WATSON

I won’t linger on this one because I already wrote a whole substack on this. In short, stop estranging them. The relationship is the heart and core of the stories, if you separate them there should be good reason and it should be addressed. Watson does okay with this because him mourning Holmes is a big part of it, however, those of us who know the stories are still waiting for his other half to reappear. You can’t keep them apart forever.

Now that I’ve laid this out let me get into Sherlock & Daughter Episode 1: The Challenge

Sherlock & Daughter

We find Sherlock Holmes attempting to begin work on a new crime scene, while interrogating a child that was involved in an attempted abduction he discovers a red-thread on the child’s wrist. Holmes snatches the thread off the boy, who yelps in pain. Holme’s apologizes but is visibly upset by this thread. He tells Inspector Whitlock that he cannot take on this case and promptly leaves.

We meet Amelia Rojas, our alleged daughter, en route to London from California by way of New York. She ends up paying for passage on a ship by trading a watch with a photo of her mother inside. Her mother, who was a talented inventor has been murdered and claimed in a letter that Amelia should seek out Sherlock Holmes, her real father.

On the boat to London, Amelia meets Clara, the daughter of the new American Ambassador. They have a quick chat about the marriage mart and how it feels more like a livestock sale. Typical 1800’s feminist lip service.

Back to Holmes and… Mrs. Helligan? Where is Mrs. Hudson?

Turns out one of Holmes’s maids and Dr. Watson have been kidnapped by whoever has been leaving these Red Threads. Holmes is being blackmailed to prevent him from investigating. If he were to look into their disappearance they will be killed.

It is unclear if Mrs. Hudson is included in these victims. Mrs. Helligan is helping out while this is all going down.

Amelia and Holmes meet under false pretenses that brings them together to solve the kidnapping of Clara, the ambassador’s daughter who is now tied to… the red thread.

The episode leaves us with a few questions to make us watch next week,

-Who is The Red Thread? Moriarty? Or a different villain?

-Is Holmes really Amelia’s father?

-Will Holmes be able to retrieve Watson?

My Thoughts

Overall, I was expecting worse. If I had to compare this to another Holmes adaptation it would be The Irregulars on Netflix. In tone and in the way it’s shot.

I did really like the cinematography. It doesn’t feel cheap, the way CW shows can sometimes feel.

The deduction sequences fell flat for me because while they list Holmes’s observations onscreen, they are in the lower left hand corner and don’t use very interesting graphics. And as someone who watches with subtitles, they would just get blocked. After BBC’s Sherlock and even Guy Ritchie’s Sherlock being the gold standard of deduction sequences for over a decade, this was disappointing.

Some of the acting from the supporting characters who had one scene or two was pretty wooden but improved as the episode continued.

The fact that Holmes is portrayed as a man who cares about the people in his life, enough that kidnapping and blackmail would be effective is a welcome surprise. It gives the show stakes that I actually care about. Plus, the Watson separation doesn’t feel as bad as other versions because the story revolves around Holmes trying to get him back. The bond is still the center of the story, as it should be.

As for the relationship between Amelia and Holmes, it has potential. Amelia is aware of Holmes’s methods because her mother would read the Strand stories to her. So when the two begin investigating together she already has some developed skills, but, there is still room for Sherlock to step in as a mentor figure. A role I love for him.

By the end of the episode despite trying to hide it, Holmes knows he does better in a partnership. Without Watson there, he sees value in Amelia and decides to take a chance. I do commend the writers for this.

Will I watch next week? Sure. There’s enough I want to know to make me keep watching. I anticipate falling off at some point if I don’t find myself becoming more emotionally invested week to week.