Either Gatiss or Moffat said that the reason they chose Rupert Graves for Lestrade was because you could imagine his Lestrade starring in his own television series if Sherlock weren’t in the picture.
I kind of want to see that show. It’d be Scotland Yard CID from Lestrade’s perspective, where he and his team BAMF it up around London and solve cases on their very own. Sally Donovan is the badass second-in-command, Anderson’s the guy who works miracles in the lab, and Dimmock and his guys come in whenever they need additional police support. Gregson is the jackass rival in the department who keeps trying to undercut Lestrade and make him look bad to their superiors, but when push comes to shove, he’s a damn good cop.
Every so many episodes, Sherlock wanders through on a guest appearance where he’s That Guy who periodically turns up on the crime show as a character foil to make everybody’s lives a living hell while they try to get their jobs done despite him. John could turn up in the second season to shunt him from quasi-villain/complication to more of a recurring supporting cast role.
And then the third season ends with the blockbuster two-parter where they’re all in over their heads on the Moriarty case. Sherlock guest stars, regressing to his previous quasi-villain status, but at the denouement he has his moment of ultimate redemption and jumps off a building to save Lestrade’s life. They’re all very sad but it’s also touching because he turned out to be one of the Good Guys in the end.And the producers can save money from writing that guy off the show, because he was starting to star in everything and they really couldn’t afford to keep him on the budget constantly.
It’s like it’s straight out of NCIS.
Oh my God yes! Except… what would happen to John’s character once they write off the Sherlock character in a redemptive suicide scene? Would he disappear from the show too or would he step up and become the recurrent character bought in every so often to move the story arch along with his unique perspective coming from the combination of BAMF army and BAMF medical experience. He could also help with the regular’s character developments, because however crap a regular’s day is in any given episode this guy has lost more (or a lot, anyway) and is still carrying on being BAMF (and a bit of a ladies man as well), so take that whining character-of-the-week.
I’m torn now between really wanting this and having just given myself Reichenbach feelings…
Ohhh, good point. I think John would be on less often, but he’d show up now and again when Lestrade was on the ropes and really needed somebody to talk to, or a really different perspective. Talking to John would, somehow, always have a way of blowing a difficult case wide open. It’s almost like he’s made to inspire ideas in other people…
Maybe one time they could get kidnapped by a serial killer together, or something, and BAMF it up together while the team races against time to save them.