History Main / TheWatson

* Clark Kent from ''Series/{{Smallville}}'' fits this in that he's usually the one giving Chloe an opportunity to rattle off a short explanation of whatever clever trick she came up with. He usually wears his [[FanNickname Big Dumb Alien]][[TradeSnark ™]] expression to complete the cliche of Watson being a bit slow.

* In ''WesternAnimation/{{Encanto}}'', the trio of children who follow Mirabel around are young enough that they don't yet know who all the Madrigals are and what their "gifts" are (in this movie's universe, a "gift" is a magical ability granted to each Madrigal family member after they pass a ceremony), so Mirabel sings the "La Familia Madrigal" song to explain things to them, and thus to we the audience. The trio of children are also how we the audience discover that Mirabel's the only audience member ''without'' a gift, as Mirabel conspicuously leaves herself out of the song, causing the children to become curious and keeping asking her about her gift until finally Dolores has to explain to them that Mirabel didn't get one.

* In ''WesternAnimation/Encanto'', the trio of children who follow Mirabel around are young enough that they don't yet know who all the Madrigals are and what their "gifts" are (in this movie's universe, a "gift" is a magical ability granted to each Madrigal family member after they pass a ceremony), so Mirabel sings the "La Familia Madrigal" song to explain things to them, and thus to we the audience. The trio of children are also how we the audience discover that Mirabel's the only audience member ''without'' a gift, as Mirabel conspicuously leaves herself out of the song, causing the children to become curious and keeping asking her about her gift until finally Dolores has to explain to them that Mirabel didn't get one.

* On ''Series/{{House}}'' the role of House's Watson is played by ''every single character''. One memorable example had House saying his staff's diagnosis was wrong, because they weren't wearing the right shoes -- if the diagnosis was right, they'd all already be at a bowling alley.
** Since Gregory House is heavily based on Franchise/SherlockHolmes, James Wilson is the main analogue to John Watson.
** Once when House was separated from his regular Watsons, he drafted three random travelers and a janitor to serve as Watsons in a pinch. The janitor suggested [[MemeticMutation Lupus]] as a possible diagnosis.

* ''Manga/DetectiveConan'': Depending on the case, and which characters are present at the time, any number of characters will play Watson to Conan's Holmes... Ai, the Detective Boys, Ran, the cops, Eri, Jodie, etc. Conan pretends to be The Watson to Kogoro (the only ''professional'' detective in the series), even though he is invariably the one solving his cases for him.

*** Winne, I don't understand.
*** Of course you don't, that's your function.
*** What do you mean?
*** This allows me to explicitly explain things.
* Similar to the ''Series/{{Frasier}}'' example above, Robin was this in the first two or three seasons of ''Series/HowIMetYourMother'', asking questions about situations or conversations that relied on backstory from Ted, Marshall, and Lily's long, closely-shared history together so that the characters (or Future Ted) had an excuse to explain it to the viewer. It's implied Barney has had most of these things explained to him before 2005. By season 3-4, Robin (and the audience) had already gotten a huge amount of pre-series backstory and isn't much of a Watson anymore, and so the writers started to rely more on in-show established continuity to form the basis of these kinds of stories, usually heralded by Future Ted remarking "Kids, remember how I told you about that time..."

** In fact, many presenter-led documentaries use this technique.

Science fiction fans may know this character as The Sarah Jane, after (arguably) the most popular of the many companions who had things explained to them on ''Series/DoctorWho.'' In fact, actress Louise Jameson, who played another of the Doctor's companions, explained her decision to leave after a relatively short tenure as being motivated by the fact that "There are only so many ways you can say 'What is it, Doctor?'"

* ''Fanfic/TheMountainAndTheWolf'': Multiple characters function as this for the Wolf, mostly Tyrion and Akkarulf ([[spoiler:formerly known as Theon Greyjoy]]) who explain various aspects of Westerosi history to him, and in turn allows the Wolf to explain what's going on to Akkarulf once they return to the Warhammer 'verse. Akkarulf in particular doesn't speak the Norsca language, so he can be used to get the Wolf to make it clear to the reader.

* Rick Wheeler/Ryu Suzaku in ''Anime/FZeroLegendOfFalcon''. (You know this show as the one that [[AscendedMeme Ascended]] '''[[MemeticMutation "FALCON PUUUUUUUNCH!!!"]]''')

* Normally intelligent Chachamaru in ''Manga/MahouSenseiNegima'' was always and entirely uninformed of any fighting style during the Mahora Tournament. Giving us [[MrExposition Explainer]] Goutokuji for this portion of the series. Normally Asuna, Nodoka, Konoka, and Chisame serve this purpose. Yue bounces between this and MrExposition depending on where in the series you are. When it comes to fighting Negi takes this role, giving the big Exposition talk to Kaede (Ninja), Ku Fei (Kung Fu Master), Kotaro (Dog Demon Brawler Ninja), or Evangaline (Really Old Vampire).

* In ''Comicbook/DoctorStrange: The Oath'', Night Nurse is along for the adventure at her own insistence (Strange has been wounded and she is a physician). Strange's assistant Wong is also present as a sort of minor Holmes/experienced Watson, answering some questions and asking others.

** Approaches AsYouKnow territory in the mage origin in ''Videogame/DragonAgeOrigins'' where the player character has lived their entire life in the mage tower and can ask some very basic stuff about how things work there.

[[folder:Web Comics]]

* Anna and Susan both act as this in ''WebComic/{{Sire}}''.

* In ''ComicBook/AllStarWestern'', Dr. Arkham serves this role for ComicBook/JonahHex, being the naive outsider to whome Hex explains the realities of the Old West.

* Mahiro Yasaka from ''LightNovel/HaiyoreNyarkoSan'' gets to play an odd combination of Watson and MrExposition thanks to his unique position in the story. As an OrdinaryHighSchoolStudent, he needs explanations about the aliens he and Nyarko encounter; however, as a fan of the Franchise/CthulhuMythos, he can exposit a little about what said alien is within the context of Lovecraft's works once Nyarko has given him a name to work with.

* ''VisualNovel/AoNoKanataFourRhythm'': Kurashina, who has dreamt for years of flying, enrolled at a school where everyone has [[ArtificialGravity flying shoes]], yet has never heard of them before. This is graduate-level cluelessness, so everything gets explained to the audience through her.

Often in fantasy settings, The Watson is the character with more [[OnlySaneMan "real world" sensibilities]] (sometimes because he's been transplanted ''from'' the real world: John Crichton (''Series/{{Farscape}}'') often got to act as The Watson in early episodes, for example; other times they're an [[TheEveryman everyman]] among a group of specialised professionals), prompting MrExposition to explain the "rules" of the fantasy world.

* WordOfGod says that [[CanonForeigner Wybie]] was added to the ''WesternAnimation/{{Coraline}}'' [[FilmOfTheBook film adaptation]] because, unlike [[{{Literature/Coraline}} the book]], a movie can only exposit through spoken words; they just didn't want [[PluckyGirl Coraline]] to be wandering around talking to herself. It works both ways, since Wybie provides her with exposition about the house and the disappeared children. Also, the fans love him because he's {{Adorkable}} and the two kids have moments of ShipTease.