‘Sherlock’ season 4: The great irony in Benedict Cumberbatch’s Comic-Con appearance

Comic-Con is such an interesting beast sometimes. Panels for the annual San Diego convention officially start today following preview night, and there is always a part of us that is insanely curious to find out just how much people at a panel are bombarded with questions about an entirely different topic.

With that, we turn to the case of Benedict Cumberbatch. While there was a “Sherlock” panel at the show last year, he was unable to attend it thanks to other commitments. This year, he will be turning up … but for DreamWorks Animation’s “Penguins of Madagascar” movie.

How long do you think it will be before a million “Sherlock” questions start to come in for him? The thing about these panels is that they try to monitor them to keep them on-topic, at least in the event that they are focused on a specific property. The problem here is that you can bring a Comic-Con attendee to water, but you can’t necessarily make them drink.

The truth here, though, is that even though Cumberbatch may be at the convention, he’s really not going to have a whole lot of “Sherlock” information to really pass on to anyone. After all, the show has no firm premiere date for season 4 in either America or Great Britian, and the start of production on the Christmas special is at least around six months away, if not more. One of the reasons for all the waiting is so Steven Moffat can go tackle some of his showrunning duties for “Doctor Who,” and so Cumberbatch and Martin Freeman can take on everything else that is on their schedule.

What do you want to see from Cumberbatch at Comic-Con? We’re going to have highlights of the convention all weekend, and you can see some over at the link here. Also, sign up now to get some further TV news and clues via our newsletter.

Photo: BBC One