The villain comes out of the shadows: Moriarty gets his own TV series
In 1893, Arthur Conan Doyle created Professor James Moriarty with the sole purpose of killing Holmes. The villain coped: he pushed the detective off the Reichenbach Falls, disappeared from the pages and never returned. Although Holmes, under pressure from outraged readers, resurrected three years later. For more than 130 years, Moriarty existed solely as the antithesis: mentioned in two short stories, described as a spider at the center of a web, but never given a voice of his own. Now that's changing — Fremantle and Archery Pictures are developing the series "Moriarty," where the villain professor takes the place of the main character for the first time. Everything that is known about the most unexpected spin-off of recent years is in the Izvestia article.
Moriarty leads a double life: what to expect from the series
Screenwriters Chris Cornwell ("Discovery of the Witches", "Strike Back") and Oliver Lansley ("Where did Wanda Go?", "The PR Girl") take the action to modern Britain. Their Moriarty is a professor of criminal psychology at Durham University: a respected scientist with an impeccable reputation, author of monographs on criminal motivation and a frequent guest at academic conferences. At the same time, it is the brain center of every sophisticated crime in the north of England.
The logic of a double life is impeccable: someone who understands the architecture of crime better than someone who publicly explains its mechanisms to students. Moriarty isn't just hiding—he's hiding in plain sight, using academic respectability as the best possible mask.
The plot of the series is not a meeting with Holmes, but a threat from within. A rival crime boss launches an offensive against the professor's underground empire, and Moriarty is forced to take an unprecedented step: become a police consultant, use the law as a weapon — and at the same time convince investigators of his innocence. His partner is Detective Imogen Burrows, a Yorkshire investigator with a reputation for not being fooled. The main threat, according to the synopsis, does not come from a criminal opponent at all, but from the growing suspicions of a partner.
How did Moriarty's character come about?
The paradox of Moriarty is that one of the most recognizable villains of world literature actually appears in the original canon only twice. The first time was in the short story "The Last Holmes Case" (1893), where Conan Doyle describes him as "the organizer of half of all evil and almost all unsolved crimes" in London. The second is in the novel Valley of Fear (1914), where Holmes reveals the professor's connections with a secret criminal organization. Further references are just refrains: the detective laments the boredom of a city without a worthy opponent, as if Moriarty was not a real person, but the air he breathed.
The character was modeled after the real criminal genius of the 19th century, Adam Worth, an international thief and organizer of thefts, whom Scotland Yard called the Napoleon of the criminal world. Conan Doyle put this police description into Holmes' mouth, giving the villain a nickname that outlived both of them. A number of researchers also see in the professor the features of mathematician Simon Newcomb, an academic with a reputation for genius and a power—hungry character, quite worthy of a literary villain.
The small number of pages only increased the attraction of the image. Moriarty became not a character, but an archetype — a villain professor, an intellectual double of the hero, a moral mirror that reflects all the ambiguity of a brilliant mind.
Who can be invited for the role
Andrew Scott's name is the first to pop up in every discussion of a new project. The very first comment under the announcement on Deadline is "It has to be Andrew Scott!". It's not difficult to understand the fans: his Moriarty has long lived a separate life from the series itself, has spread into memes and quotes, and has become a cultural phenomenon. But since 2017, Scott has occupied a different place in the professional hierarchy: the priest in "Trash," Tom Ripley in the Netflix series of the same name, and the theatrical Hamlet in London. The actor stopped being just Moriarty a long time ago.
Whether he will return to the role he abandoned in favor of more complex, less genre-oriented works is a big question. The answer will most likely depend on how convincingly the authors explain to him how their version differs from the one he has already played. The casting has not been announced.
The Holmes universe does not tire of itself
Moriarty appeared at a time when the Holmes universe is experiencing one of the most intense periods of screen activity in its entire history. Several projects compete for the audience at once, rethinking the same material from different points of view.
In March 2026, "Young Sherlock," an eight—episode series directed by Guy Ritchie and starring Hiro Fiennes-Tiffin as 19-year-old Holmes, based on Andy Lane's best-selling book series, was released on Prime Video. By the premiere date, the series had received 100% on Rotten Tomatoes, which in itself is a rarity for genre productions. Richie, who had previously made two feature films about Holmes with Robert Downey Jr., works more confidently in the serial format.
The second season of Watson has been released on CBS: the medical drama starring Morris Chestnut has received an unexpected reinforcement — a resurrected Holmes appears in new episodes, played by Robert Carlyle. On The CW, Sherlock & Daughter starring David Thewlis and Blue Hunt is preparing a second season after debuting in April 2025.
The Guinness Book of World Records records Holmes as the most filmed literary character in history, with more than 250 adaptations. Each new wave does not reduce interest, but reformats it to meet the current demand. The series about Moriarty offers the only thing in this series that has not yet happened: a view of the world through the eyes of the enemy.
Why is a villain the best main character?
The authors' bet on Moriarty as the protagonist accurately reads the main narrative request of the last decade. "Better call Saul", "Hannibal", "Dexter", "Ozark" — all based on the same formula: a genius villain, whom it is impossible not to sympathize with, because the authors gave us his point of view and his logic. Each of these series became a hit.
Moriarty is the perfect version of this archetype, and with an extra layer. He's not just a criminal: he's a man with a dual identity, whose life is set up as a constant intellectual game against everyone—fellow scientists, police officers, competitors, and ultimately his own partner. Detective procedural as a genre basis gives the series a clear structure and a wide audience; the psychological dimension of villainy opens up space for depth, rare in the genre. At the same time, Imogen Burrows performs the role that Holmes himself usually plays: she looks at Moriarty and slowly realizes that he is not who he claims to be.
Moriarty embodies the dark side of intelligence — everything that Holmes could have become if he had turned his genius not to justice, but to crime. This question — what happens when a brilliant mind chooses the other side — is not outdated. Conan Doyle set it in 1893, killing the detective for the villain. The authors of the new series are asking it again, only now the villain will finally have time to answer.
On May 29, Medialogia presented the top 30 Russian series ratings for April 2026. The series "Molodezhka" became the leader (2057 points). For the first time since January, the rating was topped by a Russian project. The top five also included the TV series "Boys" (The Boys, 2013 points), "Magic Battle" (1839 points), "Daddy's Daughters" (1788 points) and "Univer" (1682 points).
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