Elementary (CBS, 2012–2019)
Holmes in present-day New York, in recovery, with Lucy Liu’s Joan Watson.
Holmes’s worst habit is in the canon from the start; build a show around his recovery and the friendship becomes the plot.
You want a long procedural with characters who change, and you are happy for the cases to be new.
What it keeps and what it changes
Keeps: the characters and the method — and, unusually, the drug use, treated as the centre of the man.
Changes: nearly every plot. Cases are new, the city is New York, and Watson is a former surgeon hired as his sober companion who becomes his partner.
Whose story is it?
Joan Watson’s as much as Holmes’s, and over seven seasons she becomes a detective in her own right.
How much time does it ask?
Seven seasons; trade reporting at the end of its run counted 154 episodes.
Jonny Lee Miller is Holmes; Lucy Liu is Dr. Joan Watson.
Where to find it
Other ways to get it: Find where it’s streaming — JustWatch
More versions: Sherlock Holmes, Granada Television (1984–1994) · Sherlock (BBC, 2010–2017) · Sherlock Holmes (2009) and A Game of Shadows (2011)