Next series of Sherlock could be last, BBC show’s creator warns
The next series of Sherlock, the hit BBC drama, could be the last, the programme’s creator has warned, as he suggested that Benedict Cumberbatch is now such an internationally-renowned actor that he only does the show out of loyalty to its fans.
Steven Moffat, the executive producer of the BBC One show, said that he was “amazed” that the corporation had managed to secure “film stars” such as Cumberbatch, who plays the eponymous detective, and Martin Freeman, his sidekick Doctor Watson, for a fourth series, which is expected to air in early 2017.
He added: “I don’t know how long we can keep it going. I’m personally willing but I’m hardly the main draw. I would be moderately surprised if this was the last time we ever made this show. But it absolutely could be.”
Sherlock, which runs as a three-part miniseries, has become one of the BBC’s most popular programmes, amassing a cult following, and was nominated for six Emmy Awards yesterday.
A Victorian-themed special episode, which aired in the New Year, was seen by more than 12 million viewers on BBC One.
BBC Worldwide, the corporation’s commercial arm, revealed this week that the ninety-minute festive special, The Abominable Bride, was the corporation’s biggest overseas export in the past year.
The Abominable Bride has been sold to broadcasters in 216 international territories over the past twelve months. It was also released in cinemas across the world, selling over 190,000 tickets in America and Canada, and topping box offices in Russia, South Korea, Hong Kong, and China.
The corporation will not reveal any details about the fourth series,but has announced that Toby Jones will play the role of the villain.
Moffat, who is also in charge of Doctor Who, said the shows would not be based on any of Conan Doyle’s best known detective stories. He said: “There are stories that we are making use of in different ways. We’re using stories that people don’t know so much. Now we are getting into equally good, but far less well known, Conan Doyle stories.
The producer said that both Freeman, who starred in the Hobbit films, and Cumberbatch, who was nominated for an Oscar for playing Alan Turing in The Imitation Game, did not do the show for the money.
He added: “We do have two film stars in the programme. They haven’t needed to do these jobs for a very long time. They’re coming back because they want to.
“I’m amazed that we’ve got this far. I thought that once they had become extremely successful, we would only get to do one more series.
“There’s never going to come a time when we do a longer run, because this is what the series has become. It’s an occasional treat where you get three movies. It’s how it works.”
Moffat said that if the pair’s schedule became too hectic to commit to future series, the corporation could return to the show years down the line.
He added: “That’s why I think it’s unlikely that we’ve completely finished it. There would be nothing strange in stopping for a while. It could go on forever, coming back now and again.”
The BBC has made a habit out of keeping Sherlock fans guessing about which of Arthur Conan Doyle’s stories it will adapt for the screen.
The corporation yesterday released this photograph of Benedict Cumberbatch, clad in a scarf, posing with a bloodhound, but it would not provide any insight into the dog’s role in the show.
There is a fleeting reference to the breed in one of Conan Doyle’s short stories about the detective, The Adventure of the Creeping Man, in which Holmes is engaged to discover the cause of the strange behaviour of a university professor.
Newspapers and their headlines…
What this essentially means, is that series 5 might not be on in 2019 as you might have expected.
Personally I wanted the entire series together with series 5 wrapped up by the end of 2020. But it looks like that’s not going to be the case.
First of all, I think I’ve read somewhere literally years ago that Benedict had already signed up for series 5. Meaning that the 5th series are definitely on. But apparently, Benedict is just one of those actors who have a hard time saying ‘no’, because he’s signed up for a great amount of other projects, now having new work lined up for the next three or so years.
It’s pretty much the same with Martin. He’s not having such an enourmous flow of projects as Benedict, because he somehow still has that everyman reputation, but still he’s finally starting to get recognised for what he is, i.e. a fucking fantastic actor, and no doubt he’s got his schedule already filled with work other than Sherlock for the next few years as well.
But as Steven Moffat himself confirmed, both Benedict and Martin have had no reason to do Sherlock for years. They just could’ve found dozens of far more well-paid projects in Hollywood and rejected such a preposterous notion of doing more Sherlock entirely years ago. But they haven’t, have they?
They have repeatedly stated that they were really enjoying themselves doing Sherlock and that they weren’t going to stop doing Sherlock for as long as it was going to be good. Given that Mark Gatiss and Steven Moffat are such fantastic writers, and the whole cast and crew are just a joy to work with, this can be interpreted as Benedict and Martin being happy with doing the series indefinitely (Benedict’s ‘I’d like to age with [Sherlock]’ as the case in point).
So while it’s not necessarily good news for people who still expect Sherlock to have new series every year, it’s still fantastic. We’re essentially getting a better deal than we’ve ever expected to get. Yes, after series 4 of Sherlock air, we might not see new series on our screens again for another 3 or even 5 years. But we’re getting them. And probably the next as well. Maybe in 5 years as well, but we’ll be getting them. And then probably some more. Because, as was previously stated, Benedict and Martin are very busy, but they are still hyped for doing more Sherlock and want to age with their characters. And Steven Moffat is actually saying that chances are, it’s actually going to happen.
This is probably going to be the worst TV-series to watch. They’ll probably be doing new sets of episodes once every 5 or so years (not even the 2-year hiatuses that everyone hates). But it’s also going to be the best TV show in the history of television. Historically-wise, there’s no better way to adapt Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s canon than over the course of decades. Remember, the creator of the original Holmes and Watson kept coming back to writing them every now and again for 40 years. And he managed to do it so masterfully, that despite (or because of) the fact that there’s no specific ending to the adventures of Sherlock Holmes and Dr Watson, we still feel like the characters continue to live on. And chances are, that’s exactly what’s going to happen to BBC Sherlock. Years into the future, the show will finally be complete. But in a way, also incomplete enough, that you’d know it doesn’t end when it actually ends. Benedict and Martin are going to grow old. Hell, we are going to grow old. Yet there’ll be not a single person who’s going to be disappointed in the ending. Because the ending is going to be better than good; there’s not going to be an ending at all. And it’s going to be both the worst and the best thing to ever happen to us. Because that’s how BBC Sherlock essentially is: both the worst and the best, or in other words, just absolutely perfect.
@the-7-percent-solution @may-shepard @thejohnlocktrash @inevitably-johnlocked @annyskod @captain-liddy
There was also the previous statement about s4 containing a climax of the story they’ve been telling so far. I know there have been metas about how that could still mean a 5-series arc, but I don’t think so. TAB already showed us the major shift in Sherlock’s character that’s necessary to resolve things with John. Generally speaking denouement doesn’t last for 20% of the total story length, which is what it would be if the story climaxed in s4 but didn’t end until s5.
What the Brits excel at is using the television series format to tell a story and then stop when it’s done, so this could indeed be it. BUT these are beloved characters, like you say, and particularly successful versions of them, and the source material is mostly serial in nature. If your future timeline prediction is right, @heimish1881, I’m thinking we’ll get canon johnlock by the end of s4, and maybe future Chistmas specials or one-offs, consulting husbands style? Which would be fucking amazing.
Whatever happens they’ve gotta turn the good ship John Watson around in a hurry. Let bijohns be bijohns 2017!
tbh when tab just came out i was dead set on having johnlock only in s5. i thought they’d take the whole of s4 to be done with mary, with a series cliffhanger being the much talked about three garridebs moment where john gets seriously injured. then a special where john figures out his feelings for sherlock while being unconscious (not mind palace, but sort of a dream sequence) because sherlock figured out his feelings for john in tab; it would only be fitting to have john figure out his feelings for sherlock in another special. and then 2020 series 5 where john wakes up, each of them confessing their feelings to each other, and we get the whole series of john and sherlock being together, solving crimes, domesticity and so on so forth. but
apparently it’s a whole new story. if those ‘sherlock’s going to climax in series 4′ weren’t blatant enough, now we’ve got steven saying that they have no fucking idea when series 5 is going to come out, meaning it could be years in the making, meaning they are not able to postpone johnlock much longer. it’s going to happen sometime in the next few years. so seeing as series 4 is probably the only sherlock thing that’s going to come out in the next few years, johnlock is definitely on for series 4.
but then there’s the question of what’s next. judging by steven’s comments, they are legitimately planning retirement!lock. given the age of the leads, it’s not going to happen for at least 15-20 years. so there should be at least two or three series of sherlock in-between. what are they going to do, i have no idea. but it’s definitely going to be something exciting. after all, it’s bbc sherlock that we are talking about. it’s probably be solving cases and domesticity. and yeah, i’m pretty sure they are going to be doing series, not just specials.
i would’ve liked for the series to go the way i thought they would go. like end it in a few years with johnlock as its climax and still ‘fresh’. so you could rewatch the finished 5 seasons indefinitely from time to time, and be at peace with the fact of it finally having ended.
but then in a way actually doing it indefinitely makes more sense. you know, like they are fans of dr who, the thing that basically has no end. so rather than pull off ‘the office’ they are going to pull off a ‘dr who’ and it makes sense. another, even more valid reason for doing something like that, is being the closest to the original canon. like acd never ended it. it just went on and on, and now, a hundred years later, you just reread it just as a complete thing, but at the same time, with a practically open ending, you feel like holmes and watson still live somewhere among us, solving cases, smoking, having this friendly sort of victorian banter. just enjoying their lives. you know, after all ‘the hound of the baskervilles’ is considered to be the best acd story but he wrote it in like 1902 and still was making hella great stories for the next 20+ years.
so like. johnlock in s4 for bbc sherlock is not going to be the end. it’s going to be the beginning of another, absolutely new chapter. they are going to normalise this experience of seeing an explicitly gay couple on tv. they are literally going to make history. like right now the show is mostly for our enjoyment and it’s also going to introduce that first major canonically explicitly gay relationship into the history of tv. but i think it will become even more important over the years. the impact it’s going to have on our generation will literally echo in eternity. papers will be written, head canons created and accepted. it’s literally going to be talked about in decades or even centuries from now. they are not just doing it for some millions of people to be content watching it nowadays. they are making it to make fucking textbooks, to be the show that everyone knows as ‘the one that made a breakthrough, having introduced and normalised lgbt relationships on one of the most mainstream shows in the history of television, film and art’. because as of yet, it has not properly been done. not as something as major as this. but they will do it. and it’s going to be as massive as you think it is.
I was with you on your original timeline, and wouldn’t be too surprised if these statements by Moffat are lies.
Agreed that whatever happens, this is the moment for this show to make history. Lately I’ve been wondering if the next Ritchie film isn’t going to make them a couple, and moftiss are on a deadline now. Who will let them be gay first?