‘Watson’ Casts Matt Berry as Voice of Sherlock Holmes

Is Sherlock Holmes really dead? Well, if you take Shinwell Johnson (Ritchie Coster) at his word to the titular doctor (Morris Chestnut) in the Watson pilot, yes. But not only is there more than one reason to question if that’s actually the case, we also can tell you that you will hear the voice of the iconic detective: What We Do in the Shadows‘ Matt Berry!

We’ll hear him in hallucinations in Episode 7 of the modern take on Arthur Conan Doyle’s characters, executive producer Craig Sweeny tells TV Insider as part of our latest digital cover story. There is a question of what’s causing those hallucinations, and since “Watson is not a reliable narrator in that moment and he’s experiencing something highly, highly subjective,” it’s very open to interpretation how much what we’ll hear is like the real Sherlock.

Does this mean that should the sleuth ever appear onscreen in any capacity, Berry would play him? “I couldn’t say that. I feel it might be violating the deal-making gods, if I said that,” admits Sweeny with a laugh. “Certainly, he would be an amazing Sherlock. I don’t believe that we can guarantee that, but that would be our hope.”

How will these hallucinations affect Watson as he’s grieving his friend? “He sort of resents it,” admits Sweeny. “He sees him [while] he is trying to move on. And in these moments of crisis, Sherlock jumps into his head and I believe he says in that episode, ‘I miss you terribly, but I wish you would shut the hell up.’ He is sort of conscious that it’s a hallucination for one thing and that he might not be able to trust what he’s saying. I think those voices only make him miss his friend more because it’s not the real thing, and that impedes his grieving process, which ultimately impedes him from being the best version of himself.”

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Still, Sherlock’s influence will continue to be felt, promises Chestnut. “Sherlock is very prevalent in the show, just in terms of the influence of us being doctors [who] solve cases inside the hospital and also detectives because we go get information and gather information outside of the hospital.  We’re doc-tectives. Sherlock is a huge influence on that,” he says. “This is why we do have the clinic for medical mysteries. But Watson makes the point that he has not forgotten that Sherlock had made such an impact on his life, that he’s constantly driving the point home and a lot of things that he says has come from Sherlock’s influence.”

Now, Shinwell is the one who tells Watson that Sherlock didn’t make it out of the water at Reichenbach Falls after he and villain Moriarty (Randall Park) fell in during their struggle in the premiere. However, that same episode also ended with Shinwell meeting with a very alive Moriarty.

“Viewers should believe [Sherlock is] dead because Shinwell, when Watson woke up from his traumatic brain injury, said that Watson was dead. Why shouldn’t the audience believe that Sherlock is dead? Because Shinwell, who we saw in the first episode has a tendency to possibly not be trusted, said that he was dead and we haven’t seen a body,” points out Chestnut.

Adds Sweeny, Watson “is taking it as received that Holmes is dead throughout most of Season 1. There are some questions that come in towards the end.”

Well, we know our Sherlock Holmes canon, so…

Watson, Time Period Premiere, Sunday, February 16, 9/8c, CBS