Dr. Watson - in Popular Culture

In Popular Culture

• Although "Elementary, my dear Watson" is perhaps Holmes's best-known catch phrase, he never uses exactly those words in any of the books written by A. Conan Doyle.
• Microsoft named the debugger in Microsoft Windows "Doctor Watson".
• In the television series House, the character of Dr. James Wilson is meant to be a direct reference to Watson (with House himself being a direct reference to Holmes). In addition to the similarity of their names, Wilson serves in the show as House's only real friend and confidant, and occasionally assists him in solving particularly difficult cases.
• In the TV series Sanctuary, Watson is a member of "The Five" and the actual detective in the Conan Doyle stories. The character of Holmes is created and Watson is made his sidekick at Watson's request to Conan Doyle.
• In the TV series Star Trek: The Next Generation, the character Geordi La Forge takes on the role of Dr. Watson in holodeck simulations with his shipmate and friend, Data.
• In the first season of The Muppet Show there is a skit starring Rowlf the Dog as Sherlock Holmes and Baskersville the hound as Dr. Watson that is titled "The Case of the Disappearing Clues."
• American author Michael Mallory began a series of stories in the mid-1990s featuring Watson's mysterious second wife, whom he called Amelia Watson. In Sherlock Holmes's War of the Worlds, Watson's second wife is Violet Hunter, from "The Adventure of the Copper Beeches".
• Watson appears as a supporting character in several of American author Laurie R. King's Mary Russell detective novels. The novels are told from Russell's point of view. The series begins with The Beekeeper's Apprentice (published in 1994) with the latest being Garment of Shadows (published in September of 2012). Over the course of the novels, Mary Russell meets, and eventually marries the aging Holmes, who has (semi)retired from his London practice. Watson, who is now in private practice, does not appear until later in the series and is treated as a rather paternalistic old duffer with typical Victorian attitudes toward women, but who still retains his nerve and his taste for adventure. The novels cover the time period between 1915 and the 1920's.