This article is more than 5 years old

This article is more than 5 years old

Sherlock fans have grown familiar with the waiting game between seasons, but they may be encouraged that showrunner Steven Moffat says he could see the project “going on for a long while”.

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Speaking to TV critics on Saturday at a bi-annual panel, Moffat also commented on the government potentially cutting public funding from the BBC.

“It staggers me that we got a government that got elected and decided the main problem with Britain is our national broadcaster,” he said. “There must be something more important to do.”

On Sherlock, Moffat said he and co-executive producer Mark Gatiss were game to keep going.

“I don’t think it will be us that switch it off,” he said. “I imagine it’ll be down to Benedict [Cumberbatch] and Martin [Freeman]. Obviously we can’t do the show without them, and they’ve always said they’re happy to carry on so long as it’s good.”

In fact, Moffat said he would embrace a more mature Sherlock and Watson.



“I’d like to see them age, not because I’m a sadist,” he said. “Just because it would be interesting to see them become the more traditional age of those characters, which is in their fifties. They’re much younger than the normal version.”

Production on new episodes is expected to begin in the spring of 2016, but Cumberbatch and Freeman filmed a one-off episode set in the Victorian era which, rumor has it, could air this Christmas in the UK.

“We’ve never said it’s a Christmas special,” said Sherlock producer Sue Vertue, who is married to Moffat.

Moffat said it was “probably Christmas-ish ... We don’t actually know. We’re not making this up.”

Rebecca Eaton, of PBS, added: “I think we are working very hard on it to not frustrate the fans who know it’s on BBC and want to see it.”

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Rebecca Eaton, Steven Moffat and Sue Vertue

speak onstage. Photograph: Richard Shotwell/Invision/AP

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What Moffat could say was that his leads enjoyed doing a period Sherlock, but one actor seemed to like it more than the others.

“By the end, Martin was ready to go back to the more acerbic version, but I think Benedict really enjoyed being Victorian Holmes. He was saying halfway through: ‘Let’s always do this. I quite like it,’” said Moffat.

They decided to jump back in time for an episode because “we checked the books and discovered we got it wrong”, joked Moffat. “We should have read them first. No, just because we can, really.”

Viewers should not expect an explanation for the time jump. “We never bothered explaining what they were doing in modern London, so why bother explaining what they’re doing in Victorian London, when that’s where they’re supposed to be?”