Who are some of the more recent pairings/duos that draw on H/W?
They're not much more recent, but definitely Raffles and Bunny, whose creator was not merely a Holmes fan but was ACD's brother-in-law. Bunny is a bit too hapless for the genius-wrangler part of the Watson role, and Raffles is much more socially capable than Holmes, but there are still similarities.
More recently I'd cite due South (Benton Fraser is clearly a Holmes figure; Ray Vecchio is more Watson-esque than his eventual replacement Ray Kowalski) and the Middleman (where the sidekick/audience stand-in is actually named Wendy Watson). And Jeeves and Wooster parodies the archetype, I think.
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They're not much more recent, but definitely Raffles and Bunny, whose creator was not merely a Holmes fan but was ACD's brother-in-law. Bunny is a bit too hapless for the genius-wrangler part of the Watson role, and Raffles is much more socially capable than Holmes, but there are still similarities.
More recently I'd cite due South (Benton Fraser is clearly a Holmes figure; Ray Vecchio is more Watson-esque than his eventual replacement Ray Kowalski) and the Middleman (where the sidekick/audience stand-in is actually named Wendy Watson). And Jeeves and Wooster parodies the archetype, I think.