It’s been a long time since I’ve watched it (I need to re-visit!) but I think Inspector Lynley Mysteries fits the bill. He’s quirky in that he’s a fancy Oxford guy and she’s just a regular ol’ working class detective. They both contribute to the solving of crimes.
The Inspector Lynley Mysteries are fun for the class differences between the two.
The first pair that came to mind for me are Mulder and Scully from The X-Files. Dana Scully sometimes showed that she was smarter than Mulder at times.
Yeah, he was not the brilliant deductive savant that Holmes was; but he was very capable in his own right, and as such was a great complement to Holmes’ work. I was just pointing out that book Watson was not the bumbling, comic relief character that he has often been depicted as in later adaptations.
Yes, but the OP is about detectives’ partners who contribute to the solving of crimes through their own observation and deduction. Which Watson does not do in the books nor in Sherlock, although she does in Elementary.
Psych was my thought here too. Lassie is shown to actually be a really great detective, just unwilling to think as outside the box as Shawn. There’s a couple episodes where Lassie is struggling with a case to show how unusual it is.
that’s why I appreciated the Jeremy Brett version, where both David Burke and Edward Hardwicke portrayed a capable, physical capable character per the books
Yeah, I suppose I let my own personal prejudice or pet peeve about the past treatment of the Watson character cause me to misjudge the actual intent of the OP question. I guess I pulled a real ‘Watson’, there (Nigel Bruce version 
).
As long as you have your trusty service revolver and a dogged commitment to justice, you’re doing fine!
In the recent series of Ludwig Carl Pilkington’s character kind of lampshades this. He is the old partner of the brother of the main character. He says his partner couldn’t solve a crime without his help then he demonstrates his worth a short time later. He helps Ludwig make a connection he didn’t see before. Of course Ludwig is unable to see how much he was helped.
There is yet another show along these lines coming out. Einstein has the illegitimate great grandson of Albert Einstein solving crimes with a police detective. I have the impression that the detective is going to be shown to be more than competent. Good cast so hopefully it will be good even if it’s not original.
Yeah, and I think the show implies that there are plenty of crimes (well, murders, far more annually than sleepy Santa Barbara could possibly have, but that’s a different matter) that Lassie and Jules solve on their own without needing Shawn. He’s just good at solving the very weird crimes.
This is what I was looking for, thanks for reiterating it.
I LOVED this scene. Ludwig ruminating on this wallboards and yarn and pins and [Karl] Pilkington is like “uh…”.
The British series Grantchester has a vicar who is the main genius problem-solver, but his “sidekick”, the village police constable, is no slouch. The PC just doesn’t have access to the whole village’s personal lives the way the vicar does.
You may also enjoy the Belgian version, starring Koen De Bouw. Frankly, I thought it was so much better than the British version!
Similarly, there is a French show called Astrid et Raphaëlle that fulfills the OP’s criteria. Raphaëlle is the police detective and she is very able, but she becomes excellent at her job with Astrid. Astrid is autistic and works as a police archivist. She has an encyclopedic memory and although she is the sidekick in the series, she is really the star at solving the crimes. There is a British version of this series called Patience. I prefer the French version – wonderfully done!
My mother and I accidentally stumbled on the original Belgian version a few weeks ago, when I was trying to find the British version on her PBS Passport app. We watched partway through an episode, but my mom had a hard time following it: she has poor vision, and while she uses closed-captions, she struggles with foreign-language shows. I may try to watch it solo.
I love both shows. The French Astrid is more outwardly autistic in her mannerisms than the British Patience, which is a little ironic, given that the actress who plays Patience is, in fact, autistic (while the French actress is not).
Much like with Professor T., my mother enjoys Patience, but not Astrid, because of the foreign language dialogue.
I had exactly the same take. I was astonished at how well the Astrid part was played by Sara Mortenson! Her autistic mannerisms are spot on, without being overdone or in any way hammy. To have done it without being autistic herself is an accomplishment. I really loved that show!
ETA: I can see how your mother would have difficulty with subtitles. I do hope you get to enjoy the Belgian Professor T, though. 
Watson isn’t witless. He’s a skilled doctor, and in fact Holmes deferred to his medical expertise on occasion. He’s just not a very good detective, specifically.
And I don’t know if Lucifer counts as a mystery show, but both the title character and Detective Decker are reasonably intelligent. Decker is better at actual detective skills, but Lucifer makes up for it with his supernatural mojo. Their teamwork mostly takes the form of Decker’s detective work pointing Lucifer at the right person to mojo.
One of the things I liked most about Elementary is that version of Sherlock was delighted to meet other people with an interest in deduction and delighted to teach them what he knew. Sherlock’s Sherlock did not have that characteristic (and often dismissed questions about how he figured things out). Since Doyle’s Holmes wrote monographs to educate other people about how to recognize particular types of tobacco ash and invented techniques that other people could use to identify a stain as being human blood, I think he was much more in line with Elementary than with Sherlock.
That’s because Cumberbatch’s Holmes was a “high-functioning sociopath” (his own words). The Jason Lee Miller Holmes was much more empathic, with the show instead focusing on his addictive personality and possible neurodivergence.
The Downy Jr. Holmes, in turn, focused on his bipolar disorder. It’s actually pretty interesting how three versions of Sherlock Holmes from basically the same period each chose to focus on completely different aspects of the character’s personality. I’m trying to figure out how Hugh Laurie’s House fits in. Holmes as asshole?
I think Lassie and Jules would possibly solve some of those as well, if it wasn’t for the chief. I got the impression that she was of the mindset that “we have to solve this crime fast, even if we get the wrong person” in order to avoid inconveniencing some wealthy person who just wants things to go away. That meant Lassie and Jules were usually not given the time to conduct a proper investigation.