‘Sherlock’ season 4 teaser: Game over for Benedict Cumberbatch, Martin Freeman

To date, one of the more interesting conventions surrounding “Sherlock” to date is the concept of crime-solving as a game to our favorite Sherlock Holmes. While it’s meant to be taken seriously, his approach is often methodical, clinical, and one bent out of fascination so much as it is a desire to justice. he wants and longs for understanding, to deduce the where and the why and the how.

As we approach the start of the fourth season come the new year, the question you are clearly meant to wonder now is this: Has the game changed? The title for the new teaser below is “It’s Not a Game Anymore,” and it features Benedict Cumberbatch and Martin Freeman’s characters sitting together, both occupied either in notes or their thoughts in front of bookshelves aplenty to go along with the typical decorations of the time and place for these two.

We do have to say that if one hasn’t been made just yet, someone’s probably going to try and turn this into a Mannequin Challenge spoof video. We really wouldn’t blame them given we can picture it in our head already.

Within this preview there are no overt clues as to precisely what is coming on the fourth season, but perhaps those who study close enough can draw some of their own assumptions. What we want to do here is mostly remind you that there are three episodes coming early in the new year, and you’ll get a chance to see in there the arrival of Watson’s child (check out the photo here), an appearance of Toby Jones as a particularly nefarious character, and of course more Mycroft … just because he’s awesome and you need no further explanation as to why he’s there.

Given that we’ve still got more than a month to go until “Sherlock” is back, we imagine that there will be many more stories where this one comes from. Stay tuned, and hit up the link here to get some further news that we’ve touched on over the past few weeks. (Photo: BBC One.)