Two years separated the second and third seasons of the BBC's Sherlock, and it looks as if the same amount of time will have elapsed before we get the resolution to His Last Vow's tantalising cliffhanger. Speaking to The Telegraph as he prepares to take the stage as Richard III, Martin Freeman revealed that filming is pencilled in early next year for a one-off special at Christmas, 2015.
"It looks pretty likely," Freeman explains, breaking the silence of the tight-lipped BBC. "I’m speaking off-message here - if this was New Labour I’d get fired - [but] a Christmas special is what I understand.” His own and Benedict Cumberbatch's busy schedules mean a full series (which in Sherlock terms has hitherto meant three movie-length episodes) is unlikely.
Freeman also confirms that his real-life other half, Amanda Abbington, will be returning "for the forseeable future" as Mary Morstan, the new Mrs Watson. To avoid spoilers we'll omit exactly what he mused her ongoing story *might *entail. "We play fast and loose with the original stories," is the vaguer version, "but we generally follow the trajectory of what Conan Doyle did..."
For various reasons (to do with the Season Three cliffhanger, not Mary), we might take a guess that the new episode will be some sort of version of the novel The Valley Of Fear. Or since it's Christmas maybe it'll be The Blue Carbuncle.
Given that pretty much anything goes in Sherlock, via the fiendish brains of writers and showrunners Steven Moffat and Mark Gatiss, all bets are off. We've suggested some house-style punning titles below, so vote for what you'd most like to see, or suggest your own in the comments. We'll bring you more on Sherlock once there's something official. In the meantime, if you haven't already, give Empire's spoiler special podcast a listen.
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