12 Years Later, Sherlock's Moriarty Replacement Has Aged Like Milk

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Jim Moriarty (Andrew Scott) sitting on a chair in Sherlock

Published Jun 13, 2026, 9:00 PM EDT

Memory Ngulube joined Screen Rant in April 2024 as part of the Movies and TV team. Since then, she has written for the Perennials and Streaming team, covering a wide range of topics from new releases to old movies and TV shows. Memory is currently a Classic TV writer.

Before joining Screen Rant, Memory was a freelance copywriter who specialized in email marketing and social media management. While she enjoyed her job, her true passion was always movies and TV.

When she isn’t writing for Screen Rant, Memory can be found reading, baking (which is one of her passions), or watching her favorite K-drama.

Very few TV rivals were as legendary as Andrew Scott's James Moriarty in Sherlock, and his replacement hasn’t aged well. As the BBC series tried to increase its success and push beyond Moriarty’s shadow, it introduced a new villain meant to carry that same spark, the perfect opponent for Sherlock Holmes' (Benedict Cumberbatch) brilliant mind. Unfortunately, 12 years later, the attempt feels even more hollow.

First introduced in Sherlock season 1, Moriarty was Sherlock's theatrical antithesis and constantly challenged the arrogant sleuth. After his abrupt death in Sherlock's season 2 finale, the series scrambled to fill the hole left behind by Scott's impressive performance by introducing Lars Mikkelsen's Charles Magnussen.

At first, Magnussen seemed like a worthy adversary. After all, he was brilliant in his own right, and his quirky habits made him an intriguing, if somewhat outlandish, character. Magnussen had a lot of potential; there are very few villains quite like the influential media tycoon in Sherlock's history, especially since his mind palace, filled with people’s secrets, rivaled Sherlock's own abilities. Tragically, the series didn’t know what to do with him.

Magnussen was Sherlock’s attempt at a modern, intellectual kind of villain. Not like Moriarty, who thrived on chaos. When Magnussen first appeared at the end of Sherlock season 3, episode 1, "The Empty Hearse," it seemed like he was there to stay, but he was instead quickly dispatched two episodes later in "The Last Vow." This didn't make any narrative sense. The series clearly needed someone just as compelling as Moriarty, but it decided to discard his best replacement instead.

Sherlock Completely Wasted Charles Magnussen, The Villain Who Could've Replaced Moriarty

Sherlock season 3 Charles Augustus Magnussen

When audiences first met Moriarty, it was clear that a battle of wits would soon follow, one that would define the series and its later seasons. In fact, some of Sherlock's best episodes heavily featured Moriarty. The same thing could have been true for Magnussen, but he didn’t last long enough for anyone to understand his character or his motivations. Sherlock treated Magnussen as a gimmick as opposed to the terrifying villain he was supposed to be.

At times, Sherlock’s season 3 antagonist felt cartoonish, especially because of his strange habits, like invading people's personal space in deeply uncomfortable ways. These quirks were clearly meant to be unsettling, but they ended up overshadowing his intellect. It became less about fearing him and more about analyzing his actions. Compared to Moriarty, whose eccentricities enhanced his menace, Magnussen’s quirks diluted his credibility.

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

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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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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One of the most controversial aspects of Magnussen's character was his vault of secrets, which the series revealed existed entirely in his mind. Granted, that was a brilliant theory on paper, but it wasn’t well executed. If his power had been tied to something tangible, maybe his trick could have actually been worth something. Magnussen could have been Sherlock’s biggest threat, especially because all his knowledge existed in his own head.

The villain's quick death also fumbled what could have been a great rivalry, especially by having Sherlock shoot him. While this move was effectively shocking in the moment, it now feels like a shortcut because the title character and the show's new villain never really had the chance to outwit each other as they should have.

Sherlock Was Never The Same After Magnussen's Defeat

The death of Magnussen was the beginning of the end for Sherlock, which, unsurprisingly, only lasted for one more season following the shocking twist. The final season, which should have been its best, was lacking. The problems that the series began experiencing in season 3, such as Sherlock’s deductions becoming nearly magical, were even more amplified in its final run.

The introduction of Eurus Holmes (Siân Brooke), who was portrayed as being even more intelligent than her brother, was the straw that broke the camel’s back. Though a secret, long-lost sister was an intriguing concept (quite a few modern Sherlock Holmes adaptations have given Sherlock and Mycroft a cunning sister, including Prime Video's recent Young Sherlock), Eurus being part of the series felt like a last-ditch attempt by the show’s writers to reclaim the magic of the first two seasons, especially with the way her story connected back to Moriarty's.

Maybe if the show had another season, there would have been time to find the perfect final villain for Cumberbatch's Sherlock Holmes, but it's impossible to know for certain. In the end, Sherlock killing off its greatest antagonist changed the show for the worse, and it never recovered.