Although “Sherlock” won’t be back for a full season this year, we are getting the return of Benedict Cumberbatch and Martin Freeman’s Holmes and Watson with a Sherlock Christmas special. The BBC event was teased with a still showing off the series’ stars in mysteriously anachronistic garb, and now we’re getting the first official promo image, which you can check out below!
“Sherlock” will also have a presence at Comic-Con this week, with a panel featuring executive producers Steven Moffatt and Sue Vertue along with Rupert Graves (who plays DI Lestrade) at 3:45 p.m. today. Moffatt spoke to the UK’s Express ahead of the panel and teased what’s in store for the famous resident of 221B Baker Street in the Christmas special.
“The first few days we were just so excited because we saw our show with Benedict and Martin in the proper gear and his extraordinary sideburns and you think ‘why didn’t we always do this? Why did we make that silly mistake of updating it?’” Moffatt said. “But by the end we slightly missed the modern iteration. Maybe we’ll just alternate them all. Mark [Gatiss] and I think we should do the 1940’s propaganda German version.”
A fourth series of the hit show is also expected to go into production two years from now for airing in 2017, although specific plans have not yet been revealed.
“We’ve got a clear idea of what we’re going to do and it’s going to be a clear shift in tone,” Moffatt added of Season 4. “Yes, there’s going to be some dark stuff coming but there always is. There always fun and jokes and detection and all that nonsense. It’s dark in some ways – obviously it’s great fun and a Sherlock Holmes romp and all that – but there’s a sense of things coming back to bite you.”
“Sherlock” began airing in 2010, establishing a pattern of three 90-minute episodes per series. The most recent episode, “His Last Vow,” concluded series three with a bit of a cliffhanger, teasing the return of Andrew Scott’s Jim Moriarty.
Currently known only as “Sherlock Special,” the upcoming episode is written by series creators Mark Gatiss and Steven Moffat and is expected to air this December.
