Sherlock is a BBC series that taught audiences how to wait their turn.
After airing their first season in 2010, critics and regular folk alike couldn’t wait until the newest incarnation of Sherlock Holmes graced their televisions. The series has been nominated for BAFTAs, Emmys, Golden Globes, with a handsome supply of wins as well. This has been attributed to the painstaking care of its creators Steven Moffat and Mark Gatiss (who are also tied with the British supernova of Doctor Who) and its popular stars Martin Freeman and Benedict Cumberbatch. While the show is technically gearing up to air its fourth season, there have been several lengthy breaks between production and premiere, making audiences both pine to see more and consider walking away from the series completely.
Cumberbatch, who has been playing the hard-edged genius for six years, recently spoke at the prospective end to the acclaimed series. In an article from Variety, Cumberbatch is quoted as saying:
“It might be the end of an era. It feels like the end of an era, to be honest. It goes to a place where it will be pretty hard to follow on immediately. We never say never on the show. I’d love to revisit it, I’d love to keep revisiting it, I stand by that, but in the immediate future we all have things that we want to crack on with and we’ve made something very complete as it is, so I think we’ll just wait and see.”
The idea of waiting a long time after this upcoming season for another installation of Sherlock is not news to the audience. The gap between the amazing cliffhanger in season two (which aired in January of 2012) and the beginning of season three (which premiered in January of 2014) was only interrupted by a small seven-minute mini-episode of Sherlock that only served to tease the audience for the upcoming season, and that too aired as a Christmas episode in 2013 with very little information.
Fans of Sherlock can almost expect a lengthy break between seasons, but they can be assured that Cumberbatch is not intent on giving up his calculating character forever; he added that the idea of never playing Sherlock again was “galling.”
Season four of Sherlock wrapped in August and is predicted to air sometime in early 2017.