Elementary!

Say it louder for the people in the back.

Removing watson and thus the whole watson-holmes dynamic in an adaptation literally makes no sense to me. Watson is the NARRATOR. One of the most interesting things about the books is that we are experiencing Holmes from Watson's first person pov, and therefore we get the same enchantment and surprise Watson does from watching him work. We are simply a bystander in holmes' investigation. Why do we think stories such as the blanched soldier and the lions mane weren't a hit when they first came out? Watson wasn't there and we therefore we got the story from holmes' pov instead, by nature removing the mistique, as that just isn't the way Holmes retells/experiences events.

Whatever happened to "I am lost without my Boswell". Why am I even watching a Sherlock Holmes adaptation without the secondary main character, whose relationship with the main character is a staple of the series? Because people want 'toxic yaoi'? Maybe I'm just biased, but watson/holmes is miles more compelling to me and has so much more subtext compared to holmes/moriarty, which has basically zero — and I feel like it undermines their relationship in the books, boiling it down to "oh they were both smart and had a rivalry", when the ACTUAL person who managed to match Holmes' wit is Irene Adler, and I have a lot to say about her being sidelined for moriarty as far as 'smart antagonists' go, but that's for another post. (I agree that this is most likely a product of BBC Sherlock and how they set up his relationship with Moriarty in there).

Just realized I didn't draw anything cute with puppetspam this whole time

It may be that you are not yourself luminous, but that you are a conductor of light. Some people without possessing genius have a remarkable power of stimulating it.

[ID: Digital painting, a recreation of one of Leyendecker's Interwoven Socks ads, of a gentleman sitting in a wooden chair before a wooden desk, clutching some envelopes in hand. Instead, it's Dr Watson as played by David Burke, and there's an assortment of chemistry vials on the desk as well as a microscope.

Watson's in a light suit and has a yellow flower pinned to his lapel. The chair he sits in is a swivel one. He sits before a solid coral background. /end ID]

(details and some rambling under the cut!)