‘Sherlock’ season 4: Steven Moffat, Mark Gatiss already plotting out ideas

Tonight on the BBC, “Sherlock” is going to get an opportunity to wrap up season 3 in fine fashion. You’ve got the arrival of Charles Augustus Mangussen, and you also have an epic battle-of-sorts for Sherlock Holmes and John Watson to take on.

But do we already know what sort of epic course the series is going to travel following this? It certainly seems like it. While the upcoming fourth season of the show has not been technically confirmed just yet, series stars Benedict Cumberbatch and Martin Freeman have each already said that they have every intention in the world in coming back for some more episodes. Therefore, with the ratings to also think about here, it has to be a lock that the show is going to be back. Steven Moffat’s recent comments (per the Radio Times) while at a BAFTA event should be even further proof of that:

“Rather excitingly, Mark and I, for no particular reason, we just got out of the rain and sat at the top of the [Sherlock] production bus…and we just started plotting out what we could do in the future. And we plotted out the whole of series four and five.”

In reality, the good thing about this show is that thanks to the way in which it is set up, and the freedom that its creative team has to do some other things, there is no reason to believe that this show would stop as the parties involved want to keep going. Nobody on here seems to have some sort of enormous ego that is going to make them thumb their nose at the franchise; plus, critics and viewers alike love it. That’s a great incentive to keep doing more for a while.

If there is a “Sherlock” season 4, it wouldn’t be for at least another year … if not longer. Remember that season 3 arrived two full years after the second season, and it’s already just about over.

Photo: BBC One