He may have made his debut well over a century ago, but Sherlock Holmes remains an icon. First appearing in Arthur Conan Doyle’s A Study in Scarlet in 1887, the Baker Street detective has proved almost impossible to leave in the past. Guinness World Records recognizes Holmes as the most portrayed human literary character in movie and television history, and the ages of streaming has only provided more opportunities to reinvent him.
2026 has already delivered one major Sherlock Holmes series through Prime Video’s Young Sherlock, starring Hero Fiennes Tiffin as a younger, rough-around-the-edges version of Holmes. Now, Netflix has entered the arena with a surprise international hit. At the time of writing, Spanish-language mystery thriller The Final Problem ranks sixth on Netflix’s international charts (via Flixpatrol). However, it’s not an adaptation of the Sherlock Holmes story of the same name, but is instead one of the strangest and most intriguing interpretations of his legacy yet.
The Final Problem focuses not on Sherlock Holmes, but retired actor Benjamin Basil (José Coronado), once famous for playing Sherlock Holmes. Adapted from the novel by Arturo Pérez-Reverte, the story sees a storm trap 13 people at an isolated Mallorca hotel in 1959. When English tourist Elisa Mander is found dead, Basil starts applying his character’s methods to a very real murder. For Holmes fans among Netflix’s subscribers, that combination of classic whodunit and Sherlock meta-fiction makes The Final Problem essential viewing.
The Final Problem Is The Perfect Netflix Show For Sherlock Holmes Fans
The Final Problem doesn’t technically bring Arthur Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes himself back to TV screens. Instead, it does something much more unusual. Central character Benjamin Basil is a retired actor who built his career playing Holmes, and the skills he developed portraying the legendary detective become surprisingly useful when he encounters a murder that feels as though it has escaped directly from a detective novel.
The connections run much deeper than that central premise. Even the title immediately recalls Doyle’s 1893 story The Final Problem, famous for Holmes’ confrontation with Professor Moriarty. Basil effectively becomes a Holmes surrogate in the Netflix show, taking the methods and mindset associated with the character he spent years playing and applying them to suspects who have no reason to believe an aging actor can uncover their secrets.
It helps that the mystery Basil becomes wrapped up in feels like it could easily be a Sherlock Holmes case. A violent storm cuts off a remote island, an apparent suicide begins looking like murder, and virtually everyone inside the hotel becomes a suspect. It is a classical closed-circle mystery built around observation, suspicion, and deduction. In other words, exactly the kind of case Arthur Conan Doyle wrote about Holmes’ cracking way back in the 19th century.
Ultimately, The Final Problem isn’t relying solely on references to attract Sherlock Holmes devotees. Its four-episode story uses his enormous cultural legacy as the foundation for a genuinely thrilling whodunit murder mystery. Basil may not actually be Sherlock Holmes, but watching him gradually become the detective he spent years pretending to be makes for incredibly gripping viewing in its own right.
The Final Problem Continues Sherlock’s Legacy
The Final Problem had particularly large shoes to fill because modern Sherlock adaptations increasingly need more than Doyle’s original mysteries to distinguish themselves. The BBC’s Sherlock arguably established the template in 2010, transplanting Sherlock Holmes (Benedict Cumberbatch) and John Watson (Martin Freeman) into contemporary London rather than simply recreating Victorian Baker Street.
That approach has since become the norm. Elementary relocated Jonny Lee Miller’s Holmes to modern-day New York and reinvented Watson as Joan Watson (Lucy Liu), his sober companion and eventual investigative partner. Guy Ritchie’s Sherlock Holmes movies put Robert Downey Jr. in the lead with a more physical, action-heavy edge, while 2026’s Young Sherlock explores Holmes decades before he becomes Doyle’s legendary detective.
Elsewhere, Netflix’s Enola Holmes movies shifted attention to Sherlock’s younger sister, while Watson made Dr. John Watson (Morris Chestnut) the central character. The connecting thread is clear: simply retelling the same Holmes adventures is no longer enough. A successful modern Sherlock Holmes movie or TV show needs to be a reinvention.
Almost every conceivable twist on the Holmes mythos has been attempted, but The Final Problem manages to find one that still feels fresh. Rather than reinvent Sherlock himself, it asks what happens when an actor becomes so associated with Holmes that, faced with an actual murder, he starts embodying literature’s greatest detective. That makes Basil another distinctive branch of the modern Holmes family tree, one that stretches back through Young Sherlock, Watson, Enola Holmes, Elementary and, most significantly, the BBC’s Sherlock.
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