After Guy Ritchie's Young Sherlock, Another World-Famous Detective Is Getting A Prequel

Daniel Smith / ©Amazon/MGM Studios / Courtesy Everett Collection Published Aug 6, 2026, 10:00 AM EDT El is a Junior TV Features Editor for ScreenRant, with previous experience as The Mary Sue's UK and Weekend Editor. She holds a Bachelor's in International Media and Entertainment Management, as well as an MA and Ph.D. in Creative Writing. There is little she loves more than discussing her favorite TV shows with fellow fans. One day, she hopes to publish an original fantasy novel. Sign in to your ScreenRant account Another world-famous detective is about to get the prequel treatment, following in the footsteps of Guy Ritchie's Young Sherlock. Premiering on Prime Video earlier this year, Young Sherlock shows audiences a different side of Arthur Conan Doyle's iconic sleuth. This version of Sherlock, played with posh gusto by Hero Fiennes Tiffin, is not as independent or as brash. He's still finding his footing as a detective, helped not only by his brother but also by his destined-to-be-enemy-and-current-best-friend, James Moriarty (Dónal Finn). It's a fun, Victorian-era take on the Sherlock Holmes mythos, filled with Ritchie's traditional action-packed flair and witty banter. There have been so many portrayals of Sherlock and Co. in recent years, including the Ritchie-directed Robert Downey Jr. version, Benedict Cumberbatch's modern-day interpretation in Sherlock, Jonny Lee Miller's NYC-based Sherlock in Elementary, Ian McKellen's older sleuth in Mr. Holmes, and, of course, Jeremy Brett's iconic portrayal in ITV's The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes. Any new adaptations need to bring something fresh and exciting to the table. Thankfully, Young Sherlock delivers, becoming a massive hit for Prime Video and scoring an easy season 2 renewal. Now, it's time to meet another classic and undeniably iconic detective in his early days on the job. The BBC and BritBox are gearing up to produce a new six-episode Agatha Christie mystery series, as the one and only Hercule Poirot meets "future friends and allies and one particular nemesis..." Young Sherlock & Hercule Introduce A New Wave Of Detective Prequel Shows Credit: Simon Ridgway/Netflix Christie's most beloved detective, the mustachioed Belgian Hercule Poirot, will be getting the prequel treatment in Hercule. Played by My Lady Jane's Edward Bluemel — no stranger to Christie's stories, as he recently also had a role in Seven Dials on Netflix — Hercule will feature the young Poirot during his first three cases in London before he becomes the world's most famous detective. A period piece set between the two World Wars, audiences will see the beginnings of Poirot's friendship with Captain Arthur Hastings and his earliest meetings with Scotland Yard's Inspector James Japp. Unlike Young Sherlock, which was initially inspired by Andrew Lane's Young Sherlock Holmes novels before showrunner Matthew Parkhill reworked that premise into a unique concept (and a brand-new investigation), Hercule's mysteries will be based on three stories penned by the Queen of Crime, offering a novel perspective on some of the author's most renowned cases. Similar to Hero Fiennes Tiffin, Bluemel will have massive shoes to fill, following iconic performances by Peter Ustinov, David Suchet in ITV's Poirot, and, more recently, Kenneth Branagh's big-screen interpretation. 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 THE GAME IS AFOOT → 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. AWilkie Collins BSir Arthur Conan Doyle CEdgar Allan Poe DG.K. Chesterton ✓ 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. NEXT → 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? A21 Baker Street B221B Baker Street C10 Downing Street D187 Baker Street ✓ 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. NEXT → 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. AThe Sign of the Four BA Study in Scarlet CThe Hound of the Baskervilles DThe Valley of Fear ✓ 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. NEXT → 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? ASolicitor (lawyer) BJournalist CArmy surgeon (medical doctor) DPolice inspector ✓ 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. NEXT → 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. ANiagara Falls BReichenbach Falls CThe Trummelbach Falls DThe Rhine 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. NEXT → 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. AProfessor James Moriarty BColonel Sebastian Moran CCharles Augustus Milverton DIrene Adler ✓ 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. NEXT → 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? A2008 B2010 C2012 D2014 ✓ 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. NEXT → 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. A“The game is afoot” B“You know my methods” C“Elementary, my dear Watson” D“A three-pipe problem” ✓ 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. REVEAL MY RATING → The Case File · Final Verdict Your Detective Standing 🔎 / 8 Master of Baker Street — or just a confused Lestrade? ⤴ INVESTIGATE AGAIN The timing of Young Sherlock and Hercule is certainly interesting. Of course, shows of this magnitude are often in development for months, even years, before they're officially announced to the public. Still, there seems to be a renewed push to engage a wider audience through detective fiction, giving loyal fans and new, younger viewers a reason to tune into fresh adaptations of classic characters. This isn't unheard of, obviously, with shows like Young Wallander, Endeavour, and Prime Suspect: Tennison all revisiting beloved detectives at the start of their storied careers. Still, if Hercule does well — BritBox has recently enjoyed an influx of subscribers thanks to The Other Bennet Sister, and crime dramas always perform well on the BBC — there's no reason Young Sherlock and Hercule couldn't mark the start of a new wave of detective prequel series. Which Other Classic Detectives Could Get A Prequel Show? There are plenty of other classic detectives who could benefit from a prequel series. Agatha Christie's Miss Marple could shine in a 21st-century reimagining; there's a market for teenage and new adult, female-centric detective fiction, as proven by Netflix and the BBC's recent adaptation of Holly Jackson's A Good Girl's Guide to Murder, the Enola Holmes movies, and the CW's unfairly canceled Nancy Drew series. George Simenon's Parisian Inspector Jules Maigret, whose stories have been adapted almost as many times as those of his peers, Sherlock and Poirot, could certainly be introduced as a younger, lower-ranking police officer in Paris, climbing his way to the top, as Maigret not only hones his skills but meets and falls in love with his destined wife, Louise. It might be fun to set a show like that in the early 20th century, as PBS has recently produced a modern-day version, the second season of which is set to premiere this year on October 18. What about G.K. Chesterton's Father Brown, or Ann Cleeves' DCI Vera Stanhope? Even Idris Elba's DCI John Luther might make for an interesting prequel lead, with the BBC crime drama still churning out hits on Netflix seven years after the original show ended. Universal Pictures has set a 2027 release date for a Murder, She Wrote movie starring Jamie Lee Curtis as Angela Lansbury's iconic character, Jessica Fletcher, but how fun would it be to learn more about Fletcher at the start of her writing (and amateur sleuthing) career? Young Sherlock and Hercule might benefit from a bit of competition. Release Date March 4, 2026 Network Prime Video Showrunner Matthew Parkhill Cast Hero Fiennes Tiffin Sherlock Holmes Zine Tseng Princess Gulun Shou’an