by Ricky Church
Professor James Moriarty, one of literature’s most infamous villains and Sherlock Holmes’ archnemesis, will be the star of his own crime drama seriesMoriarty in a modern day setting.
Created by Chris Cornwall (A Discovery of Witches) and Oliver Lansley (Where’s Wanda?), Moriarty is a “modern reinvention of the crime procedural, based on the most famous villain in all of detective fiction. Moriarty is a Professor of Criminal Psychology at Durham University but leads a secret double life as the mastermind behind every crime of sophistication in the North of England. When a rival criminal begins an assault on his underground empire, Moriarty will have only one choice: to join the police as a consultant, using the law as a weapon to dismantle his foe while keeping his true identity hidden from the police. Paired with Detective Imogen Burrows, a stoic Yorkshire detective, they’ll form a fearsome team, but Moriarty will soon realize that the real threat isn’t the rival criminal faction he’s dismantling.”
Professor Moriarty is one of the most intriguing and iconic characters in Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’sSherlock Holmes adventures despite only physically appearing in ‘The Final Problem’, what was originally the last story featuring Sherlock Holmes as the famous detective came face-to-face with the ‘Napoleon of Crime’. Moriarty was Sherlock’s opposite, a man with an equally high intelligence and deductive reasoning but none of Sherlock’s morals or sense of justice as he ran a wide network of criminal enterprises.
In Moriarty’s first and last appearance, he and Sherlock tumbled off the Reichenbach Falls to their presumed deaths before Doyle resurrected Sherlock a few years later. Moriarty and his legacy were later alluded to in further stories, though unlike Sherlock he met his end in ‘The Final Problem’.
That appearance created a lasting impact as Moriarty has often been a central figure in many pieces of Sherlock Holmesmedia. Recent adaptations have seen him portrayed by Andrew Scott in the BBC’sSherlock,Jared Harris inSherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows, Ralph Fiennes in the parodyHolmes & Watson, and Dónal Finn in Guy Ritchie’s Amazon seriesYoung Sherlockwhich depicts James Moriarty and Sherlock Holmes as school friends at Oxford University. Other recent portrayals have genderbent the role with Natalie Dormer as Jamie Moriarty inElementaryand Sharon Duncan-Brewster inEnola Holmes 2.
Moriartyis but one of severalSherlock Holmescurrently in development or production. Young Sherlock has been renewed for a second seasonandEnola Holmes 3 will arrive on Netflix this summer (watch the trailer here). Last year also saw the premiere of Sherlock & Daughteron The CW, which has also been given a second season renewal, while The Death of Sherlock Holmes is also filming for a premiere next year.
