Watson’s role is nothing but an empowerment of a “regular” woman: she’s not attractive, not smart, always “taking time in thinking about it” over the trivial matters just to show how serious her decisions are and to make others respect them too. However, she’s not an regular woman at all, everyone respects her and believes in her, especially Holmes, she came from a wealthy family and was fortunate enough to went through medical school and became a surgeon. She is too lucky for an actual ordinary woman, while under qualified as a partner to Holmes. Her existence is just an insult for an antagonist like M.

Watson was chose by Holmes because of his subsidiary in the original book; in other words, Watson was the “woman” in the relationship. Making a woman to play a symbolic woman role, throwing away some subsidiary and adding some repeatedly stressed independence, has absolutely nothing to do with the empowerment of women.

If the casting of a woman as a leading role should be somehow empowering, then this woman should be Holmes.