The Perfect BBC Sherlock Replacement With Rare 100% RT Score Returns In 2 Months
There's no better time to get caught up on the perfect BBC Sherlock replacement, as it returns for a second season in two months. Sherlock has long been one of TV's most popular detective dramas. Mark Gatiss and Steven Moffat's vision pushed a classic literary icon into the 21st century for the first time, proving that there was so much left to be done with Arthur Conan Doyle's legacy. Soon after, it was followed by another modern-day Holmes adaptation, CBS's Elementary, though that didn't scratch quite the same itch as Sherlock (despite its well-deserved success).
Elementary's vibe, the stories, and the structure were all wildly different from what made Sherlock so popular; it was a fun, if somewhat straightforward procedural. The same is true of Prime Video's recent Young Sherlock show, which works better as an unofficial prequel to Guy Ritchie's and Robert Downey Jr.'s fan-favorite Victorian-era Sherlock Holmes movies. The BBC's Sherlock, however, is, aside from being a Sherlock Holmes adaptation, also a quintessentially British detective drama. It's a different pace and style of storytelling, and only one other show has really come close since.
Recently, another world-famous fictional detective has been reimagined for the 21st century. Among Sherlock Holmes' peers is Georges Simenon's Inspector Jules Maigret, one of the most well-known and iconic French literary characters of all time. Jules Maigret has been seen on the big and small screen plenty of times, with major A-list names including comic legend Rowan Atkinson, Harry Potter icon Michael Gambon, and French star Bruno Cremer all interpreting the character for a new generation. Now, Benjamin Wainwright stars in PBS Masterpiece's Maigret, which will return for season 2 very soon.
Maigret Is The Perfect 21st-Century Detective Adaptation
In October 2025, PBS Masterpiece debuted Maigret, the very first modern adaptation of Simenon's Inspector Maigret stories. Rather than walking around in early and mid-20th-century, between-the-wars garb, Wainwright's version is a little scruffier; he uses over-ear headphones, wears a coat that's slightly too big for him, and doesn't smoke the character's trademark pipe. Instead, it's his father's, and he's holding on to it as a keepsake. Crucially, though, much like Benedict Cumberbatch's version of Sherlock Holmes in Sherlock, Wainwright's portrayal still showcases the most important aspects of Simenon's character, even as he walks around present-day Paris.
Between 1930 and 1972, Georges Simenon wrote over 100 stories featuring Inspector Jules Maigret, which have been translated into over 50 languages.
He's patient and compassionate, cool and collected, but still relentless in his pursuit of the truth. He doesn't let disagreements with his colleagues hold him back. If anything, that drives him to work harder, if only so that he can get home to his wife, Louise (Stefanie Martini). The stories in Maigret's first season are all compelling in their own right, especially when they dig deeper into Maigret's personal history, as he reunites with schoolmates and returns to his family home. Maigret fully deserves its second season and its current 100% critics' rating on Rotten Tomatoes. It knows what it wants to be, and it does it well.
PBS's Maigret may not have the same stylistic flair as Sherlock (season 1 doesn't include a villain as theatrical and memorable as Andrew Scott's Moriarty), but it accomplishes the same thing: modernizing a brilliant, compelling fictional detective for the 21st century, showcasing a different side of their personality and the kinds of crimes and investigations they can be involved in. It has all the hallmarks of a British detective drama while offering something new for Jules Maigret fans and genre fans alike.
Jules Maigret And Sherlock Holmes Are Different Detectives, But Equally Compelling
Wainwright's Maigret and Cumberbatch's Sherlock probably wouldn't get along. They might respect each other for their brilliance, but they're wholly different detectives. For one, Sherlock works independently, while Maigret is a high-ranking detective with the Parisian constabulary. Patience is not one of Sherlock Holmes' virtues, while it's one of Jules Maigret's greatest strengths (even if he is occasionally willing to bend the rules when a case calls for it). Cumberbatch's Sherlock is often rude and brash, unapologetically reminding everyone around him of his superiority, while Wainwright's Maigret doesn't brag or take credit, even when he deserves it more.
From Baker Street to the Reichenbach · Eight Questions How Well Do You Know Sherlock Holmes? “When you have eliminated the impossible…”
🔎The MagnifierObserve, don’t see
👼Pipe & TobaccoThree-pipe problem
🏯Baker Street221B
🕷️MoriartyNapoleon of Crime
📱Modern SherlockHigh-functioning sociopath
01
Sherlock Holmes first appeared in print in 1887 and went on to feature in four novels and 56 short stories — a body of work fans call “the Canon.” The Edinburgh-born author who created him was a practising physician before fiction made him famous, and was knighted in 1902 for unrelated journalistic work on the Boer War. Name him.
✓ Correct! Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (1859–1930). He trained at Edinburgh under Dr Joseph Bell — whose almost theatrical diagnostic deductions were the direct model for Holmes’ method — before failing to make a living from medicine and turning to fiction. Doyle wrote four Holmes novels and 56 short stories between 1887 and 1927, plus a parallel career in historical novels and spiritualism advocacy. He was knighted in 1902 for his pamphlet defending Britain’s conduct in the Boer War, not for the Holmes stories.
✗ Wrong. The answer is Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. Wilkie Collins (The Moonstone, The Woman in White) is the great Victorian sensation novelist and an influence on the genre, but didn’t create Holmes. Edgar Allan Poe’s Auguste Dupin (in Murders in the Rue Morgue, 1841) is the prototype for the rational-detective genre and an open influence on Doyle. Chesterton wrote Father Brown. Holmes is Conan Doyle’s.
02
Holmes and Watson share rooms above Mrs Hudson’s lodgings at the most famous fictional address in literature — so famous that for decades the Abbey National Building Society employed a full-time secretary to answer letters sent to it. What is the address?
✓ Correct! 221B Baker Street — an address that didn’t exist when Doyle invented it (Baker Street numbering originally only ran into the lower hundreds). When the road was renumbered in the 20th century, the address fell within the Abbey National Building Society’s building — and so the bank employed a permanent “secretary to Sherlock Holmes” to answer the thousands of letters that arrived from fans every year. The Sherlock Holmes Museum now occupies the next-door property and uses the 221B address with City of Westminster permission.
✗ Wrong. The answer is 221B Baker Street. The “B” matters — it indicates the upper-floor flat above Mrs Hudson’s ground-floor rooms. Doyle picked the number when no real 221 existed; today, the Sherlock Holmes Museum at 239 Baker Street is officially permitted to use the 221B address.
03
Doyle’s first Holmes novel was published as the centrepiece of the 1887 issue of Beeton’s Christmas Annual, where Doyle was paid £25 for the full copyright. It introduces Watson, narrates the meeting with Holmes at St Bart’s laboratory and pivots into a long Mormon-Utah backstory. Name the novel.
✓ Correct! A Study in Scarlet (1887). Doyle wrote it in three weeks while waiting for medical patients who never arrived at his Southsea practice. The first half is the now-iconic introduction (Watson’s wound from the Battle of Maiwand, the chemistry lab, “You have been in Afghanistan, I perceive”); the second half pivots without warning to a Western-set Mormon revenge backstory in Utah. Beeton’s Christmas Annual sold out, and only 11 surviving copies of the magazine are known to exist today — making them among the most valuable items in modern book collecting.
✗ Wrong. The answer is A Study in Scarlet. The Sign of the Four (1890) is the second novel. The Hound of the Baskervilles (1901–02) is the third and most-famous — serialised in the Strand and frequently topped Holmes-novel polls. The Valley of Fear (1914–15) is the fourth and last. The very first Holmes work is A Study in Scarlet, in Beeton’s Christmas Annual 1887.
04
John H. Watson narrates almost the entire Holmes Canon and is Holmes’ flatmate, biographer and friend. When the two meet in A Study in Scarlet, Watson is recovering at a London hotel from a wound received at the Battle of Maiwand — a clue to his profession in the British Army. What was Watson’s profession?
✓ Correct! Army surgeon — specifically Assistant Surgeon, attached to the 5th Northumberland Fusiliers and then the Berkshires during the Second Anglo-Afghan War. Watson took a Jezail bullet at Maiwand (July 27, 1880), was rescued by his orderly Murray and shipped home on a wound pension of 11 shillings and sixpence a day. The war wound is variously located in his shoulder or his leg across the Canon — Doyle famously didn’t keep his own continuity straight. Watson is a working medical doctor throughout the series.
✗ Wrong. The answer is army surgeon — Watson is a medical doctor (the “Dr” in “Dr Watson” is hard-earned). He served with the 5th Northumberland Fusiliers in Afghanistan, took a Jezail bullet at Maiwand and shipped home on a small wound pension. He runs a private medical practice during much of the Canon, often near Paddington.
05
In December 1893’s Strand Magazine, an exhausted Doyle attempted to kill off Holmes by sending him over a Swiss waterfall locked in mortal struggle with Professor Moriarty. Public reaction was apocalyptic; mourners reportedly wore black armbands in the City. After ten years of pressure, Doyle resurrected him in “The Empty House” (1903). Name the falls.
✓ Correct! Reichenbach Falls, near Meiringen in the Bernese Oberland of Switzerland — which Doyle had visited the year before and chose specifically as a setting dramatic enough to retire Holmes. The story “The Final Problem” ends with Watson finding only Holmes’ cigarette case, alpenstock and a farewell note. Doyle was so determined to be done that he wrote “Killed Holmes” in his diary. Public mourning was so intense (over 20,000 Strand readers cancelled subscriptions) that he caved a decade later. “The Empty House” (1903) reveals Holmes survived by tossing Moriarty alone over the edge.
✗ Wrong. The answer is Reichenbach Falls. Niagara is American/Canadian. The Trummelbach Falls (also in Switzerland, in fact) and the Rhine Falls are real but not the Holmes setting. Doyle set the “death” specifically at the Reichenbach Falls near Meiringen — today a Sherlock Holmes pilgrimage destination with its own museum and statue.
06
Holmes calls his arch-nemesis “the Napoleon of Crime” — a former mathematics professor with a treatise on the binomial theorem to his name, now operating an invisible criminal syndicate that runs through London like a spider’s web. He appears in just two stories of the Canon but looms over the entire mythos. Name him.
✓ Correct! Professor James Moriarty. He explicitly appears in just two Canon stories — “The Final Problem” (1893) and the prequel novel The Valley of Fear (1914–15) — and is mentioned in five others, but his cultural footprint is enormous. Doyle modelled the “Napoleon of Crime” phrase on Scotland Yard’s real-life nickname for Adam Worth, a 19th-century international thief who funded London’s underworld from a fashionable mews flat.
✗ Wrong. The answer is Professor James Moriarty. Colonel Sebastian Moran is Moriarty’s lieutenant — Holmes calls him “the second most dangerous man in London” — and is the trigger man in “The Empty House.” Charles Augustus Milverton is the blackmailer of his own self-titled story. Irene Adler is Holmes’ intellectual rival from “A Scandal in Bohemia” (memorably called “the woman” by Holmes). Moriarty is the explicit arch-nemesis.
07
The BBC’s contemporary-set Sherlock — created by Mark Gatiss and Steven Moffat, with Benedict Cumberbatch as Holmes and Martin Freeman as Watson — debuted with the episode “A Study in Pink,” updating Doyle’s first novel for a London of mobile phones and military Afghanistan. The show won 7 Emmys across its run. In which year did it premiere?
✓ Correct! 2010 — July 25, BBC One, “A Study in Pink.” The series was famously short-format-by-design (just three 90-minute episodes per season, four seasons, 2010–17, plus the one-off “Abominable Bride” special) and was the project that propelled Cumberbatch from supporting roles into Doctor Strange and Hollywood A-list status. The show’s “A Study in Pink” pilot was actually shot a year earlier in 2009 but was substantially reworked and reshot for broadcast.
✗ Wrong. The answer is 2010. 2008 is when Mark Gatiss and Steven Moffat first pitched the show. 2012 is when CBS’s competing American adaptation Elementary (with Jonny Lee Miller and Lucy Liu) launched. 2014 is when BBC’s Sherlock Season 3 aired. The show’s first broadcast was July 25, 2010.
08
One of the four phrases below is the world’s most-quoted Holmes line — and yet it never appears anywhere in the 60 stories of the Canon. Holmes does say each of its components separately, but the famous combined version was popularised by adaptations decades after Doyle’s last story. Name the phantom phrase.
✓ Correct! “Elementary, my dear Watson” never appears in the Canon. Holmes does say “Elementary” on its own (in “The Crooked Man”) and “my dear Watson” many times, but the combined phrase was popularised first by P.G. Wodehouse’s 1909 novel Psmith, Journalist and then cemented as a Holmes catchphrase by the 1929 Clive Brook film The Return of Sherlock Holmes — Hollywood’s first sound-era Holmes adaptation. Basil Rathbone’s 14-film cycle (1939–46) made it standard. The other three lines are real Canon quotes.
✗ Wrong. The answer is “Elementary, my dear Watson.” Holmes says “The game is afoot” (it’s a Henry V quote, used in “The Adventure of the Abbey Grange”), “You know my methods” (in The Sign of the Four and elsewhere) and refers to “a three-pipe problem” (in “The Red-Headed League”). The combined “Elementary, my dear Watson” was popularised by adaptations — Wodehouse used it in 1909, the 1929 Clive Brook film cemented it — but Doyle himself never wrote it.
The Case File · Final Verdict Your Detective Standing
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Master of Baker Street — or just a confused Lestrade?
Still, there's a reason both these detectives have withstood the test of time, inspiring countless remakes and adaptations. They solve the mysteries no one else can, determined to find the truth no matter who or what stands in their way. Whatever era their stories are set in, whether it's the Victorian period, post-war France, or present-day London and Paris, Sherlock Holmes and Jules Maigret remain a constant source of comfort and excitement, guiding viewers through devious, twisted, and complex murder mysteries as only they can. Maigret's season 2 return couldn't have been timed better. This detective deserves his time in the spotlight, too.
Maigret season 2 premieres Sunday, October 18, with new episodes arriving weekly on PBS Masterpiece.