‘Sherlock’ season 4 spoilers: Mark Gatiss on staying close to source material

How faithful should adaptations be on television these days? This is a question that many have had over the past few years, and largely due to the fact that so many of the biggest shows on television right now, whether we are talking about “Game of Thrones” and “The Walking Dead.”

In a way, both of those do eventually come back to the source material, even if they take some pretty significant detours along the way. (One of them ultimately ventures a little bit further away than the other.)

So when it comes to “Sherlock,” is it possible that the show could stray far from Arthur Conan Doyle during the fourth season? Given what happens to Mary in the stories, there are many of these sort of questions floating around.

With that being said, we don’t have a whole lot in the way of concise answers for you right now … at least other than the following comment that executive producer Mark Gatiss gave in a chat with the Radio Times:

“Just because it’s in the stories doesn’t mean it’ll happen in the series because there’s an awful lot of changes and an awful lot of places to go and things to do.

“It should be clear by now that while, of course, Doyle is our absolute god, we have gone quite a long way away as well – we’ve introduced Sherlock and Mycroft’s parents [for instance], I don’t think they’ve ever been seen in any adaptation – so there are lots of surprises to come.”

Sadly, we’re going to be waiting a long time to figure out what happens next, mostly likely a full year.

Is there anything in particular that you want to see on the fourth season of “Sherlock,” and anything in particular that you are worried about? Share right now with a comment. (Photo: BBC One.)