Watson has gone through a surprising number of changes over summer hiatus ahead of Season 2, most notably being moved from a midseason premiere on CBS next year to being paired with FBI for fall of the 2025 TV schedule. Recently, news broke that Watson is bringing in a character who I never expected to be cast for more than a flashback role, and I have big questions about how this version of Sherlock Holmes will fit into a John Watson-led series.
At least one thing is certain – showrunner Craig Sweeny guaranteed that another character from Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s works is definitely dead after Season 1!
(Image credit: ABC)
Robert Carlyle Is Recast As Watson’s Sherlock Holmes
Once Upon a Time’s Robert Carlyle to recur in Season 2 as Sherlock Holmes, who was presumed dead throughout all of the first season. According to Variety, Sherlock will resurface and force Morris Chestnut’s character to face a secret from his own past that’s actually hidden in his own body.
What We Do in the Shadows’ Matt Berry voiced Sherlock after the Watson team “dug around in the couch cushions” to get him for Episode 7, according to showrunner Craig Sweeny, but never appeared in the flesh. (That episode is available streaming now with a Paramount+ subscription.)
So, unless a second big twist is on the way with Robert Carlyle taking over the role, Sherlock Holmes is alive despite his death as one of the fundamentals of Watson from the start. I’m therefore pretty glad that Sweeny confirmed in no uncertain terms that Moriarty, playing by Randall Park, is definitely dead. Some characters really just need to stay dead!
(Image credit: Sergei Bachlakov /CBS)
Don’t Worry – Moriarty Is (Probably) Still Dead
While the showrunner only had good things to say about the lovable Randall Park as the despicable James Moriarty, he also firmly said “Yes” when I asked if that was really the death of Sherlock’s and Watson’s nemesis in the Season 1 finale. I noted that it would probably be hard for even somebody as sneaky as Moriarty to fake his death in a hospital, and Sweeny said:
With the world’s most brilliant doctor right in front of you instead of passed out! No, it’s not one where I want to be cagey. I think the character of Moriarty, the things he’s done and things he caused Watson to do will continue to hover over the show, but that is the conclusion of his time as a human on this planet.
Moriarty died in the Season 1 finale when he fatally overestimated how far he could push Watson without the doctor taking drastic action. Instead of saving Moriarty after turning the villain’s own DNA technology against him, Watson treated one symptom and then sat by his bedside to watch him stroke out and die. The doctor who normally would do no harm was pushed past his point of no return, and let his enemy die.
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And according to Craig Sweeny, Moriarty truly is dead. The showrunner went on to tell me that the writers had to find a way to push Watson to the point “where he could see this as nothing but the right choice” to let Moriarty die. Of course, I also thought that Watson would keep Sherlock Holmes dead so that John could unambiguously be the star of his own show, so it’ll be interesting to see how Season 2 incorporates the world’s greatest detective.
Watson Season 2 arrives on CBS on Monday, October 13 at 10 p.m. ET. In the meantime, you can always revisit episodes you might have missed from Season 1 (or just feel like rewatching for fun) streaming with Paramount+.
The Legend of Vox Machina wrapped its third season on Prime Video back in October 2024, delivering emotional moments to the end as well as the minor miracle of changing my mind about how a TV show kills off characters. The show, inspired from the tabletop game originally played by Critical Role’s founders, was renewed for a fourth season last year, but it wasn’t until San Diego Comic-Con 2025 that some big details and a first look were released.
And while Critical Role’s The Mighty Nein will be the only one of their two shows to arrive before the end of the 2025 TV schedule, fans of Vox Machina’s (mis)adventures now have some specifics to look forward to. Plus, even though the first look is brief and lacking context to explain what on Exandria is going on, there are some small details that I’m definitely into. Read on for what we know about the future of TLOVM as well as what I’m predicting based on the first look.
(Image credit: Prime Video)
Legend Of Vox Machina Renewed For Season 4
The Mighty Nein arrives in November 2025 as Critical Role’s second animated series that will be available with a Prime Video subscription.
So, with what I’m taking as good news with the 2026 release window and fifth season, let’s get into the footage we have so far!
The Legend of Vox Machina – S4 Sneak Peek | Prime Video – YouTube
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First Look At Vox Machina Going Full Ocean’s 11
As somebody who has not watched the Vox Machina tabletop campaign and got most of her information about the story from the excellent Vox Machina – Stories Untold book of short stories, I don’t have any insider details about what appears to be a heist involving something called “The Cobalt Soul.”
(Image credit: Prime Video)
Even without context, we can tell at least one thing that I wouldn’t qualify as a minor detail: a new character hanging out with Vox Machina and the long-suffering Gilmore. I did do a little bit of mostly digging on the campaign after Percy names the new character as “Taryon” in the clip, so – light spoiler alert – the character is a human artificer who joins Vox Machina with his construct Doty, voiced by Sam Riegel as a replacement for Scanlan.
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If Taryon sticks around for a while before Scanlan returns, then I would say his inclusion in the first look at Season 4 is a big deal? So, on that note, let’s shift over to some smaller details that are pretty fun to dig into and speculate about.
(Image credit: Prime Video)
Percy Seems Fully Recovered From His Death
Percy was still freshly resurrected at the end of The Legend of Vox Machina Season 3, to the point that he was largely relying on Vex, Trinket, and a cane to walk. There was some question by the final moments of the finale if using the cane would be permanent for Percy. I can’t spot a cane in any of the front or back shots of Percy in the clip, which I’m going to take as a sign that he fully recovered from his death just like Vex did.
Of course, it’s possible that he still uses the cane, but between those shots in the clip and the “Cobalt Soul Affair” card at the very end, I think we should take from the first look that he’s no longer using it.
(Image credit: Prime Video)
New Outfits For Keyleth And Vex
Characters don’t get new outfits every day on animated TV shows, but Vex and Keyleth apparently got to freshen up their wardrobes for Season 4. It looks like Keyleth has a new green and gold cape as well as a blue and green top, which makes me wonder if she completed another trial off-screen between Seasons 3 and 4 after she and Vax branched off from the rest of the group.
As for Vex, she appears to have new armor and fur, which took me by surprise at first until I remembered two things: 1) she went back to Whitestone with Percy with no indication that she’d be leaving, and 2) Percy took interest in dragon scales after Vox Machina killed the ice dragon Vorugal.
I’d wondered at the time why the episode bothered with him noticing those white dragon scales if nothing was going to be done with them; perhaps I’ll have my answer in Season 4. Plus, looking at her silhouette in that title card at the end of the first look (at around the 1:57 mark), it looks like she either added a cape or possibly wearing a dress.
(Image credit: Prime Video)
Gilmore Seemingly Has A New Shop
It looks like Gilmore has been able to set up a new shop, even if the goods aren’t quite as glorious as his pre-dragon shop in Emon. As far as I can tell, there’s no obvious clue as to where this shop is located, but my money would be on Whitestone if I was a betting woman. Other options include Emon if the time jump was long enough for the city to be rebuilt enough for him to get a storefront, or Marquet after their adventure there in Season 3.
Considering the mess they made in Marquet and the hellscape that was Emon at the end of Season 3, however, Whitestone seems like the most obvious choice. That city had admittedly also been recently burned, but not to destruction like Emon.
(Image credit: Prime Video)
Is The Cobalt Soul A Main Arc For Percy?
Percy seems to be the only one of the team enthusiastic about this Cobalt Soul plan, and even that might be because it gives him an excuse to plan an Ocean’s Eleven-esque hype rather than because it’s actually a good idea in the grand scheme of things. He’s the most prominent character in the first look, and that “The Legend of Vox Machina: The Cobalt Soul Affair” card at the end has him centrally located.
That could just be because he was nerding out in the first look and that’s how he imagines the team looking in their heist, but I can’t help but wonder if this arc will be Percy-centric. He did already have a big arc in Season 3 with Whitestone and Ripley, although he was technically already dead for the back half of the Ripley saga.
(Image credit: Prime Video)
My Takeaways From The First Look
Well, I may have made a mountain out of some very small moleholes, but I do have some takeaways from the quick clip. The first is that I think we’re in for a pretty sizable time jump, if I’m right about Percy being fully recovered, Gilmore having a new shop, and/or Keyleth having completed another trial. Plus, Prime Video’s description for Season 4 definitely suggests that there weren’t all just hanging out in Whitestone when the Cobalt Soul and Whispered One situation arise:
Season Four finds our heroes scattered across the globe on separate journeys, but when a cataclysmic threat befalls Exandria – they must reunite to face a foe darker than they could imagine.
Depending on when this heist storyline takes place in Season 4, the next batch of episodes might not bring Scanlan back any time soon. The Season 3 finale didn’t strike me as the end of his tale in TLOVM, but with a Season 5 renewal, perhaps he won’t be around for much of Season 4.
For now, you can always revisit the first three seasons of The Legend of Vox Machina streaming on Prime Video and look forward to Critical Role’s The Mighty Nein joining the streamer on November 19. It’s not clear from the footage of either show’s upcoming season if they will overlap at all, so it remains to be seen if there are any nods to Vox Machina in the Mighty Nein’s series. You could also always read the Tusk Love romance novel, which is a fun venture set in Critical Role’s world.
There are a lot of ways that filmmakers and storytellers have reworked real history with an alternate version of that history over the years. Often it’s a re-imagining of major events like wars, but sometimes it’s a smaller bit of history, like Quentin Tarantino did with Once Upon A Time In Hollywood.
I love these kinds of movies and TV shows because it’s always interesting to wonder “what if?” things went differently in key moments in time. This list is a celebration of any kind of alternate history, from shows about Kings ruling America to the Soviets winning the race to the moon and everything in between.
(Image credit: Apple TV+)
For All Mankind
streamer Apple TV+, the Soviets win the race, but the US keeps pushing to get ahead somehow.
Inglourious Basterds isn’t my favorite Tarantino movie. Some people argue that his re-imagining of the death of that terrible man with the little mustache was killed by an elite group of US soldiers, instead of what actually happened, is his best movie. I don’t even think it’s his best alternate history movie. Christoph Waltz is amazing, though.
adapted from a book by Stephen King, stars James Franco as a man who finds himself traveling back in time to Dallas on November 22nd, 1963, the day John F. Kennedy was assassinated. Of course, he tries to figure out a way to change the future, but is thwarted by fate each time. Technically, this is more of an example of history not changing, but it feels very much like the rest of these movies.
Watchmen envisions a future when a superhero named Doctor Manhattan (Billy Crudup) has ended the Vietnam War in the United States’ favor. That propels Richard Nixon to multiple terms as President (he’s in his 5th term in 1985, when the movie is set), and the Cold War escalated even more than it did in real life. Watchmen is a superhero movie, sure, but it fits perfectly on this list.
John Travolta and Harry Belafonte, reverses the races in America, making African-Americans the dominant race. Yeah, it’s tricky, and it could have been a disaster. It’s not a total mess, but it’s far from perfect.
best movies about the Navy is The Final Countdown. It stars Kirk Douglas as the captain of an aircraft carrier that accidentally travels through a time portal and finds itself in 1941. The crew quickly realizes that they have the opportunity to stop the attack on Pearl Harbor, but doesn’t the future still changes two passengers on the ship are marooned in 1941, but use that to their advantage in the future.
Ian McShane as the king of a country that was basically the United States (called Gilboa on the show) and Sebastian Stan as his heir-apparent. There was a ton of palace intrigue, and the show could have gone in so many interesting directions had it found a bigger audience.
ranking of MCU movies), it’s also a different version of history, with World War II essentially being won for the Allies by Captain America. That’s not what really happened, so that’s why I’m counting it. I don’t want to hear any arguments!
fans were in an uproar. That’s always a good sign, and it’s easy to see why its audience loved it so much. It’s really more of a fantasy series, but the history in it, following Lady Jane Grey in the 1500s, is purposefully set in an alternative timeline.
Alex Garland’s Civil War from 2024 is set more or less in the present day. It is, however, a very different reality, with the United States at war with itself over politics. For a lot of people, it was among the best movies released in ’24, and it certainly lays out a scary look at how bad things could get if politics continues to get uglier and uglier.
Ben Affleck’s character in the Battle of Britain, on Oahu during the attack on Pearl Harbor, and as part of the Doolittle raid is complete fantasy, so for me, this is definitely alternative history.
Andrew Garfield, and Keira Knightley. It’s a lot less bombastic than most of the movies on this list, and the plot, which is partly centered around humans having discovered the cure for death, is really a romance in a love triangle.
(Image credit: BBC)
SS-GB
The BBC show SS-GB is another example of a show based on the Germans coming out victorious over the Allies in World War II. This time, it’s set in London in 1941, and the U.K. has already lost the war. Like others on this list, the show is really a murder mystery-turned-political thriller that is well worth your time, if you love British television shows as I do.
(Image credit: ABC)
Amerika
Surprisingly, there aren’t a lot of examples in this genre of the U.S. losing the Cold War to the USSR, but at the height of that cold conflict in 1987, ABC produced Amerika, starring Kris Kristofferson as a politician living in a conquered America, having been overrun by the Soviets. I won’t give away the ending, but it’s easy to guess who wins in the end, given the timing of the miniseries.
(Image credit: Apple TV+)
Hello Tomorrow!
Hello Tomorrow! draws inspiration from shows like The Jetsons and other retrofuturistic shows, and tells the story of a man (played by Billy Crudup) selling property on the Moon. It’s a decent show, though not as good as some other offerings from Apple TV+, like For All Mankind.
(Image credit: YouTube)
LOLA
LOLA, from director Andrew Legge, is a “found footage” movie about two girls in German-occupied England who invent a device that can pick up radio waves in the future. It’s a low-budget indie that can be tough to find, but is really well done, even if you’re not into the found footage genre.
(Image credit: BBC)
An Englishman’s Castle
Way back in 1978, a British TV show called An Englishman’s Castle explored what life would be like if Germany had won World War II and the country was ruled by a collaborationist government in 1940. That is the backdrop for the show as the main character discovers more and more about the truth of what is really going on.
(Image credit: Warner Bros. Pictures)
Wild Wild West
Wild Wild West is often derided for how bad it is, and…it’s not great. However, it definitely belongs on this list. As much as I love the idea of a steampunk version of history, this movie could have been so much cooler if it had been done right. Will Smith and Kevin Kline are good, and the production design is awesome. There’s just something lacking from the story. It feels way too forced to fit the design of the movie.
(Image credit: Freeform)
Motherland: Fort Salem
This one is unique because the diverging timeline begins after the Salem witch trials in the 17th Century. Motherland: Fort Salem is a TV show set in the present day, but with a very different history, making witches powerful members of society.
Law & Order: SVU is less than two months away from returning to NBC in the 2025 TV schedule for Season 27, and attentive fans have known for a while that cast changes are coming. Kelli Giddish is returning to play Amanda Rollins as a series regular again, but two regulars were also cut: Octavio Pisano as Velasco and Juliana Martinez as Silva. Now, a behind-the-scenes video of Season 27 reveals that one of those cut stars will be back after all, but I expected somebody different.
The video features most of the returning cast members, including Peter Scanavino, Kevin Kane, Aimé Donna Kelly, and of course Mariska Hargitay to the tune of Sir Mix-a-Lot’s “Lockjaw.” (Ice-T is missing from the video, but he confirmed his “Fd up” return for Season 27 on X.) Take a look at the surprise addition to the returning regulars:
E! News confirms that he’s just coming back to wrap up Velasco’s arc in the Season 27 premiere. Ultimately, it seems that SVU is giving Velasco the same treatment as Kat (Jamie Gray Hyder) and Garland (Demore Barnes) when they were cut between Seasons 22 and 23. Both actors returned for the Season 23 premiere. Somewhat ironically, Octavio Pisano’s Velasco was brought in as Kat’s replacement.
While NBC has not yet released any teases for what exactly the Season 27 premiere will be about with Velasco in the mix, the network did recently reveal the premiere date: Thursday, September 25 at 9 p.m. ET. The first episode of the season follows the milestone Season 25 premiere of Law & Order, which will air without Mehcad Brooks after his departure at 8 p.m. ET, and Law & Order: Organized Crime in its return to NBC at 10 p.m. ET.
This isn’t a case of Organized Crime being renewed for Season 6 and brought back to its old slot with new episodes after SVU, but rather NBC airing episodes that already released on Peacock. Perhaps it’s a good sign that OC is still in the running for a Season 6 renewal. In the remaining weeks before Law & Order Thursdays return, you can revisit earlier episodes streaming with a Peacock subscription.
Chances are that if you fell in love with a dance sequence in a major movie over the past four decades, it was because of Kenny Ortega. The choreographer/director has worked on some of the best ’80s classics, like Dirty Dancing and, of course, Ferris Bueller’s Day Off. John Hughes’ classic high school hooky comedy was actually Ortega’s first “directing assignment” in his early career.
Part of those duties included calming a nervous Matthew Broderick before filming the big Chicago parade sequence. So clearly the pressure was coming from a pretty relatable place. When Kenny Ortega sat down with ET to discuss some of the his most notable achievements, he described those concerns, and how they were eventually settled, as follows:
Matthew, the first day I laid eyes on him was in a rehearsal. He was in a pair of sweats and a T-shirt, and he was a nervous wreck. He was like, ‘I’ve never danced before,’ and I was like, ‘Don’t worry about it. We’re gonna figure this out together.’ And he was the most charming, wonderful, sweet man to work with.
Paramount+ subscription) were fairly early in this still burgeoning career. Keep in mind, by that point his major claims to fame were the films WarGames and Ladyhawke.
movie moment to feature The Beatles’ cover of “Twist and Shout” not only needed Matthew Broderick to lip-sync and dance, he had to do it on an actual parade float in a sequence that needed to be nailed in one take.
Kenny Ortega, who was directing the second unit on Ferris Bueller’s Day Off with 12 cameras in an actual Chicago parade, certainly had his work cut out for him on his end too. The results speak for themselves, as you’ll see in the clip below, featuring what’s now regarded as one of the best ‘80s movie music moments:
Ferris Bueller’s Day Off | Twist and Shout (Parade Scene) | Paramount Movies – YouTube
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Ferris Bueller may not be one of the “real heroes in ‘80s movies,” but he sure knew how to cut a rug. Landing the moment that saw Matthew Broderick helping to prove that 1986 was the best year for movies, Mr. Ortega’s skills would go on to land even more dancing feats, with Hocus Pocus and High School Musical awaiting him down the line. For those achievements and more, I think we all have to admit once again that Kenny Ortega is a righteous dude,
James Gunn, the co-head of DC Studios, has assured fans on more than one occasion that Robert Pattinson’s Batman will never appear in the DC Universe. This means that there is no chance of him ever crossing paths with David Corenswet’s Superman, who will have his own Batman to fight alongside (or against) at some point.
Because I do love the idea of Matt Reeves’ take on the Dark Knight existing in its own continuity, and for Gunn to have the freedom to create Elseworlds stories outside of the DCU, I have fully accepted that these two new iterations of DC Comics’ most iconic characters will never share the screen. However, that does not change the fact that I absolutely want to see them together in an upcoming DC movie. Allow me to explain…
(Image credit: DC / Warner Bros.)
Their Mismatched Dichotomy Would Make For A Fun Buddy Movie
common complaint about Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice is that the film makes the characters too tonally similar.
new 2025 movie, Superman, has been praised for depicting the title hero as far more hopeful and optimistic than more recent cinematic incarnations, while 2022’s The Batman was noted for presenting just about the darkest, moodiest Dark Knight yet. If I am not mistaken, throwing together two people with dramatically differing personalities is the formula for the best buddy cop movies ever, and this could likely be no exception.
(Image credit: DC / Warner Bros.)
Pattinson’s Batman Could Learn From Corenswet’s Optimism
An important point to keep in mind is that Robert Pattinson’s Batman and David Corenswet’s Superman share the same goal of making the world a better place, just with drastically different ways of going about it (and not just because one of them is not human). Bruce Wayne even realizes in The Batman’s ending that he would better serve Gotham as a symbol of hope instead of vengeance.
You know who could give Bats some great pointers on being more hopeful? You guessed it! Clark Kent, who even goes through a similar stage of disappointment as Batman in Superman when he discovers his parents may not have been who he thought they were, but comes out of it stronger than ever. As someone curious to see a “Battinson” who holds his head a little higher, I’d say a run-in with Supes might be in order.
(Image credit: DC / Warner Bros.)
I’m Curious To See Pattinson’s Batman Fight Something Otherwordly With Superman
One reason why The Batman is actually my all-time favorite live-action Batman movie is that unlike most of the Caped Crusader’s cinematic adventures, it is an old-fashioned detective story set in a gritty and astonishingly realistic world. That being said, because I love Robert Pattinson’s portrayal so much, I think it would also be really fun to see him take on some of the stranger foes in his rogues gallery, like Killer Croc or Poison Ivy, or even something from beyond Earth.
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As I see it, the best way to make sense of seeing this Batman in a fight of unusual circumstances is to have it start off as Superman’s problem. Then, through a series of incidents that involve Lex Luthor’s interdimensional portal, he would accidentally bring the action to Matt Reeves’ Gotham, where Supes and Bats would join forces and rely on each other’s best assets (the Dark Knight’s strategist skills and the Man of Steel’s… well, everything) and stop it once and for all. Honestly, that could be the plot of a great World’s Finest movie.
Then again, I’m sure I’ll have fun with whatever James Gunn and Peter Safran actually do end up coming up with for a World’s Finest adventure in the main DCU continuity. I also have faith in them to select a great choice for their official Batman (though it better be Alan Ritchson). Maybe, if not an upcoming superhero movie, Pattinson’s Batman and Corenswet’s Superman could cross paths in a decent fan film or one-shot comic book, which might be close enough for me.
