News that Lucy Liu is joining the cast of CBS’s Elementary as Watson has prompted a number of reports marvelling at this ‘first time’ casting of a female Watson.
As a weeny bit of research would have revealed, CBS cast a female Watson in their 1987 pilot/TVM The Return of Sherlock Holmes which saw Holmes climb out of a suspended animation chamber and into modern day America.
In the film Margaret Colin played Jane Watson. She was, as the names imply, a lady. And not in the Little Britain sense of the word.
There was also a Watson-like character in the 1994 CBS drama Sherlock Holmes Returns which featured a near-identical plot to The Return of Sherlock Holmes.
Maybe CBS are hoping their revival of the female Watson idea will protect them from accusations that they’re ripping off BBC One’s Sherlock?
