What’s up, Docs? Two new mystery medical dramas, ‘Doc’ and ‘Watson’

Hollywood is forever looking for variations on Sherlock Holmes stories, although the “Sherlock” series starring Benedict Cumberbatch and Martin Freeman (a Brit production overseen by Mark Gatiss) is very hard to top. “Elementary” did a good job of modernizing the Arthur Conan Doyle detective and “House” focused the mystery to medical conditions diagnosed by a Sherlockian-level grump doctor.

Now there’s two series, one more directly tied to the Sherlock mythos, that cast Holmesian logic as medical diagnosis.

The more directly Conan Doyle-connected is “Watson,” starring Morris Chestnut in a very appealing turn as John Watson, who is running an elite clinic in the wake of the Reichenbach Falls confrontation between Holmes and his nemesis James Moriarty. Watson suffered a head injury as he tumbled into the water trying to save Holmes. Now he’s trying to recover, make a new life for himself and, as of the second episode, doesn’t realize that Moriarty isn’t dead and means to bring Watson down.

As we know from the Sherlock canon, the Falls were not the end of Holmes, so I’m wondering how long before the detective shows up to assist his best friend?

The cast is good but the show has some of the faults of network shows in that everything is explained too explicitly to ensure audiences who are barely watching the show while scrolling on their phones catch what’s going on.

Even if it is less Holmes-related, “Doc” is the better series for me right now. Molly Parker, from “Deadwood” and “Lost in Space,” plays a doctor who lost her memory of the past eight years after a head injury. (Lot of that going around.)

Now she must navigate a return to a personal life that, for her, is where she left it eight years ago. (Spoilers.) She doesn’t remember that one of her children died, she and her husband divorced, she began a new relationship and her former friend is now an enemy.

Parker is, like Chestnut, just incredibly appealing. I’d watch another couple of seasons of “Lost in Space” featuring her as Maureen Robinson if I could. And what wouldn’t we all give for several more seasons of “Deadwood?” “Doc” might be the best Molly Parker fans will get, and that’s pretty good in its own right.

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